Records: London's Apocalypse

## **As Rome Burned, London Froze**

In early April, as Rome endured a massacre and a civil war, London experience a sudden cold snap – a late, unexpected freeze that happened practically overnight.

Similar to the January *Scream of the Spectres*, there were increased ghost sightings around London – basically anywhere where people normally lived and died. In areas that were otherwise rural and isolated, such as Rainham had been, the spectral activity was minimal – but the temperature was still brutal.

The effect was so sudden, and so significant, that ice was forming in minutes. The worst of it appeared to be centered on London itself, with uniform drops in temperature about 50 miles in radius, then tapering in severity as the distance increased from London.

### **Crown Response**

People were taking extraordinary measures to keep warm. There was no hiding from these temperatures and across the London area, people were burning anything they could to not freeze to death, including using furniture as fuel and in some cases, their houses.

The Regiment of St. George was activated to assist London, collecting people and transporting them to castles that could be warmed. Pets, livestock, anything living was collected – if it was still alive.

Within hours, patrols were finding victims frozen solid – or having burned to death trying to stay warm. The recently deceased were now haunting the area – in the same state of mind they'd been in when dying. It was terrifying for the dead, for survivors and those attempting rescue.

The Royal Order of Merlin was immediately on the case and confirmed it was supernatural – *but it was not magic*. This was a type of unholy energy – and not something that mixed well with magic, or something that they knew how combat.

Only one thing was certain: *they were under attack by something evil*.

## **The Fury of the Dead**

Three days into the freeze, the dead rose.

London (and the rest of the world) had seen plenty of ghosts, but where the cold was, corrupted bodies of the dead broke from the frozen ground as if the brittle earth shattered before human bone. From the recently deceased to the long gone, everything from frozen zombies to half-missing shambling skeletons took to the streets, searching for the living.

Some pockets of survivors, huddled around their fires, were quickly found and killed.

The dead didn't move quickly, but they were unnaturally strong and few things harmed them. The Lord's Prayer, unfortunately, was not a suitable weapon. Nor was fire, for the main attack. The only thing that temporarily disabled them was decapitation.

### **By Force of Arms**

The leadership of King and Prince Edward was heroic – but people were missing Prince Rick (who was in Bordeaux at the time). The Order of Merlin, however, discovered ties of energy to the body that could be untied by salting the bodies or bones – and then burning them.

With a salt base applied before fire, the undead was consumed in a brilliant green flame. The word was spread to the pockets of survivors, while the Royal Arms retook the streets in a spectacular battle during a storm of freezing sleet.

## **The Portal to Hell**

The ROM was occupied in battles that revealed new magical weapons in their arsenal. There were rumors of other creatures, including flying snakes, but this was never substantiated nor evidence put forth.

Between waves of dead and God only knew what else, the ROM discovered a nexus of unholy energy that was directly above Westminster Palace. That was the source of the cold and likely the source of the energy that corrupted and energized the dead.

The castle was quickly evacuated, moving people east, along river toward the Tower of London. The wizards of the ROM attempted to isolate and shield the energy – though once they started to block it, it grew unstable.

As they attempted to battle it, it gradually became visible to the naked eye – and burned with the same green seen in the dead when they were burned. Hovering there, in mid-air, it was clear to surviving London that Westminster was under attack. It was both a point of pride that the Royal Family would be targeted by evil for attack – and utterly terrifying that the Royal Family itself rated an attack in some sort of unholy war.

Of the Royal Family, both King Edward and 13-year old Prince Edward were in the streets, leading troops against the undead. King Edward tried to give Excalibur to the Prince, but the sword dimmed out of the hands of the king. At full brightness, it needed only come near the undead for them to burst into flames – but the father thought that something of a design flaw.

The young Crown Prince, a strapping boy, found himself in the absolute thickest part. Likely the dead flocked to him – and he lured them away from the living, leading them from London to a massive battle. With nothing but frozen steel in his hands, and Sergeants-at-Arms by his side, personally fought off hundreds of dead.

The Crown Prince fell wounded, but never dropped his sword and never stopped fighting.

### **The Destruction of the Devil's Teardrop**

The transmitter-amplifier, as technically described the ROM, was reinterpreted by the witnesses who saw something roughly shaped like a green, glowing teardrop, writhing and churning several hundred feet in the air, burning with a palpable feel of malevolence.

From the ground, and many atop Westminster, the wizards brought their wands and staves to bear. Beams of golden white light from the ground converged, nearly "encasing" it in golden opalescence before it exploded – mostly upward – but with enough downward force to collapse part of Westminster.

For those few who could afford glass, windows were shattered for 25 miles and half of London was deaf afterward (and the other half was half-deaf). Given the timing, it was said the blast was heard in Normandy. In an instant, the temperature was suddenly 48º again – and the risen dead collapsed mid-step.

## **Aftermath of the Apocalypse**

Fourteen wizards of the ROM died in the defense of London, eleven from the explosion of the Teardrop and collapse of the castle. Forty-one infantry of St. George's Regiment, and nine from the collected London Royal Guard perished in the combat with the dead.

There were multiple accounts of seeing weeping angels over victims. The survivors of the London clergy also saw the ghostly-beautiful, human-like creatures that seemed to have halos – and their opinion was yes, they were likely angels.

### **Darker Rumors**

The wounds of the Crown Prince were immediately and grievously infected and it was said among the SA that there was definitely something different about the dead that "pushed others aside" to reach the Crown Prince. It was also said that many SA fell in defense of the Royal Family, but those numbers were never spoken.

In the days that followed, the Crown Prince fell deathly ill and nothing seemed to work in stabilizing him. After an agonizing week, the fever broke and Prince Edward again regained his feet. It was the second time he'd side-stepped death.

### **The Demolition of Westminster**

After the recovery of the bodies, the former castle and Palace of Westminster – and most of the half-flattened surrounding town of Westminster – was consecrated and razed. The process took several weeks, and was similar as to what had taken place after the battle of Arundel, but the ROM took select pieces of the roof – those closest to the Devil's Teardrop, back to Leeds Castle. The rest of it, even the stone, was incinerated.

The ash of the incineration was reformed into concrete, shaped into a 22-foot sculpture of a dove, and magically vitrified to glassy marble. The Dove was placed just outside London, to the north, at the site of the massive battle between Prince Edward and the Undead. It became a memorial for all of the fallen, their names inscribed on the wings, as England took stock of surviving *London's Apocalypse.*