A Parable
There was once a king who ruled over a vast, beautiful kingdom. The kingdom was full of rolling, verdant countryside, pristine hamlets, and a harmonious social order.
Then the plague came, carried by merchants and their animals from distant lands to the South.
The king and many of the nobles hid inside the castle at the heart of the capitol, and ordered some of his loyal and fearless soldiers to enforce a strict quarantine. Thus the plague mostly affected the serfs of this kingdom, and especially affected the old, the weak, the children among the serfs. Because of this, the serfs also started a quarantine within their own communities.
The king sent healers with supplies to the serfs to live among them, as a reprieve for their suffering.
Thus did the king preserve the strength and vitality of the ruling class.
After many generations passed, the nobles had forgotten the severity of the plague, after not having seen anyone affected by it in person. The current king's teenage sons were very arrogant and boisterous and liked to race their horses, only inside the castle grounds, as was permitted. One night they became restless and decided scale the castle walls and see the outside world.
When they had gotten outside the castle grounds, they walked and walked until they came upon the serf towns in the lowlands of the kingdom. They had never seen a serf, and had never seen sickness, and viewing the pallid, crippled serfs at a distance, they burst out laughing. They did not know enough to be horrified, but just thought that the serfs' bodies seemed so strange and weak and ridiculous, especially compared to their own, which were strong and untouched by injury or illness.
They started to taunt the serfs, and walked closer to the edge of the quarantined towns. Soon the serfs could see and hear them. At first they wore expressions of incredulity, which turned quickly to anger upon realizing that the boys were nobles taunting them.
The serf towns all started to awaken, like the earth itself was groaning. Every serf that could stand and walk lurched toward the locked gates of their towns, and their crowd pushed down these gates. This grey crowd had a cloud of stench following it. It was a montage of quick-moving faces, all different shades of ash.
The crowd trampled the boys, who had never encountered a hostile animal or person and thus only stood transfixed as they were crushed. The crowd grew and converged as sick serfs poured out of every quarantined village.
They rushed the castle. The outside gates held for a short while only. The grey crowd filled the castle to the brim. The nobles that managed to hide soon breathed the bad air and became sick and died.
The earth itself opened its maw and released the prisoners of Hell Charred bodies marched, screeching in pain, onto the Earth, to a crippled tune. The world was populated by conceivable poison and sickness, every hungry and vengeful spirit... until the ends of the Earth were free of life.
The sick are more vengeful than you can imagine. If you make pacts with them, be sure to keep your end.
Then the plague came, carried by merchants and their animals from distant lands to the South.
The king and many of the nobles hid inside the castle at the heart of the capitol, and ordered some of his loyal and fearless soldiers to enforce a strict quarantine. Thus the plague mostly affected the serfs of this kingdom, and especially affected the old, the weak, the children among the serfs. Because of this, the serfs also started a quarantine within their own communities.
The king sent healers with supplies to the serfs to live among them, as a reprieve for their suffering.
Thus did the king preserve the strength and vitality of the ruling class.
After many generations passed, the nobles had forgotten the severity of the plague, after not having seen anyone affected by it in person. The current king's teenage sons were very arrogant and boisterous and liked to race their horses, only inside the castle grounds, as was permitted. One night they became restless and decided scale the castle walls and see the outside world.
When they had gotten outside the castle grounds, they walked and walked until they came upon the serf towns in the lowlands of the kingdom. They had never seen a serf, and had never seen sickness, and viewing the pallid, crippled serfs at a distance, they burst out laughing. They did not know enough to be horrified, but just thought that the serfs' bodies seemed so strange and weak and ridiculous, especially compared to their own, which were strong and untouched by injury or illness.
They started to taunt the serfs, and walked closer to the edge of the quarantined towns. Soon the serfs could see and hear them. At first they wore expressions of incredulity, which turned quickly to anger upon realizing that the boys were nobles taunting them.
The serf towns all started to awaken, like the earth itself was groaning. Every serf that could stand and walk lurched toward the locked gates of their towns, and their crowd pushed down these gates. This grey crowd had a cloud of stench following it. It was a montage of quick-moving faces, all different shades of ash.
The crowd trampled the boys, who had never encountered a hostile animal or person and thus only stood transfixed as they were crushed. The crowd grew and converged as sick serfs poured out of every quarantined village.
They rushed the castle. The outside gates held for a short while only. The grey crowd filled the castle to the brim. The nobles that managed to hide soon breathed the bad air and became sick and died.
The earth itself opened its maw and released the prisoners of Hell Charred bodies marched, screeching in pain, onto the Earth, to a crippled tune. The world was populated by conceivable poison and sickness, every hungry and vengeful spirit... until the ends of the Earth were free of life.
The sick are more vengeful than you can imagine. If you make pacts with them, be sure to keep your end.
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