The Sacking of Learsport

The sacking and subsequent slaughter at Learsport in Milia during the winter of 22 A.S.

The colonial town of Learsport is attacked by soldiers of Bleakdale in the dead of winter while the residents huddle in there huts, starved and freezing. The Bleakdale soldiers launch their attack based on false rumors of stored seed and grain by the Learsporters. When they are presented with only minimal resistance, the Bleakdalean forces begin to ransack the hovels and sheds in sure of the much-needed stores. In the chaos of looting, someone knocks over a lamp and sets a large bird coop ablaze, which quickly spreads to the other buildings. The townsfolk try to fight the fires as the Bleakdaleans withdraw and watch from a distance. Nothing could be done: the village burns to the ground. The Bleakdale soldiers take the survivors of Learsport captive, thinking to ransom them to the regent of Milia.

That night, a flurry blows in, trapping the Bleakdale force in their camp just outside of the ruins of Learsport with their prisoners. The snow continues to fall steadily for days and the soldiers grow desperate as their stores wear thin. The Learsport townspeople, deprived of food and shelter by the men of Bleakdale begin to succumb to the elements and perish in the night. Their loved ones, too weak from hunger and cold, are forced to leave their dead friends and family unburied, slowly covered by falling snow.

After five days of constant snowfall, the famished soldiers give in to their basest needs and begin to cook and eat the dead townsfolk. It remains unknown how many people survived the burning of Learsport, only to die to exposure and the cannibalistic slaughter that followed. What is known is that within a weeks time every man, woman and child who called Learsport home was dead to the clumsy desperation of the Bleakdale men.

All the Bleakdale soldiers died as well, taken by the cold night and starvation, except for one young man, Fathom Rist, who ran into the woods in waist-deep snow when he witnessed his compatriots slaughter a mother and babe to consume their flesh. He managed to make it to Rigbar-on-the-River on the 21st of January, two days after he ran from his group's camp. He lost most of his fingers and toes to frostbite, as well as the tip of nose and his manhood, but his mind was shattered by the butchery he saw at Learsport. He rambled about the horror but was the only first hand source to report what happened.

It wasn't until two months later that townspeople from Rigbar-on-the-River and nearby Brekhurst were able trek through the melting snow to try and bury the fallen Bleakdaleans and Learsporters. When they arrived, the scene was so gruesome many wept and were ill at the sight. The snow was still thick under the trees where the soldiers had set camp and many of the bodies lay where they had fallen or been drug by famine-mad soldiers. The gravediggers managed to bury only a dozen or so bodies before the daylight began to wain and one of the corpses began to stir. In a panic, they ran through the woods back to Rigbar-by-the-River, swearing each step was dogged by the ghastly undead. To this day, no one dares tread in Learsport after dark, for fear of the hungry dead.