Cenotaph of Bones: Chapter 18 (Patreon)

Chapter 18: Empty Tomb

After wrestling my piece of bread from Chu, the others settled down to get some sleep.  I volunteered for first watch, and decided to explore the ruins for any clues to the origins of the builders.  If I could gather some clues to who they were, it might help me figure out some way to plan for the fight against the necromancer hiding in the larger city.

The first thing I did was look over how the walls were constructed.  They looked as if the stone blocks were first quarried, and then fused with the blocks around it.  The tool marks were barely noticeable, meaning they were extremely skilled at their job.  Since the blocks were fused together, it also meant they had fine control over earth qi.

Next, I went to inspect the buildings.  They were almost all the same, with only minor variations in each.  One had a much larger door opening, with half-walls lining one side.  It appeared to be some kind of stable, but for what type of animal I could only guess.

Another building had the remains of a counter inside, meaning it had most likely been either a store or bar.  That was a good clue, because it meant this place was more than just an outpost.  It might have been a village.

My next stop was the well, to see if I could tell where the dark qi went.  When I looked down it, all I could see was darkness.  I pulled out a glow stone, and dropped it over the rim.  As it fell, I could see the remnants of a ladder along one side.  The glow stone quickly disappeared into the darkness, but not because of any dark qi.  It was just really, really deep.  Maybe it wasn’t even a well.  The opening in the floor could have been a means of escape to a lower level, or a way to transport excavated ore.  If this was part of a mine, it must have gone empty long ago.  There were no signs of precious metals or gems in any of the side tunnels we had inspected.

The last building I checked was lined on the interior with rows of stone benches.  It reminded me of a temple, but without the normal alcoves to venerate each of the gods.  The building was also missing the second story, leaving the space to be more open and airy than the other buildings had been.

As I inspected the area where an altar or statue would have normally resided, I noticed a place where the floor was uneven.  A closer inspection revealed a rectangle of flooring that wasn’t seated properly.  I spun out a thread of earth qi to inspect it, and discovered a short stairwell leading down.  Great.  A basement inside a temple.  I’ve never been through that before.

I used the thread to lift the lid, and pulled a short spear out of my belt.  Just in case.  The staircase was a steep spiral that led down into another chamber.  I used the meridians in my knees to spin out some fire threads.  They provided light, and gave me another weapon if I needed it.

The bottom step was carved and inlaid with silver.  It looked like a pattern reminiscent of the constellations, but more stylized into spiral patterns.  It was familiar to me, but I couldn’t quite place where I had seen it before.

Each wall was covered with shelves, cut into them like some sort of deep bookshelves.  A closer inspection revealed a small bronze plaque on each shelf, with pre-Imperial writing.  They were lists of names.  I was in a burial chamber.  An empty one.

The back wall had an obelisk covered with name plates.  A monument to the dead.  A cenotaph, surrounded by empty graves.  Looking around at the floor, I could see footprints in the dust.  They originated from the room.  The only footsteps leading into the hidden burial chamber were my own.  The dead had gotten up and walked out of here on their own.  A quick count of the shelves gave me an even two hundred missing bodies, and that’s only if each shelf held only one person.  There was certainly room on the deep shelves to hold several corpses.  I felt a chill run down my spine.  If there were more places like this, there was no telling how many bodies the death cultivator had animated.  They could have an army by now.

I sealed the chamber behind me as I left, and used some earth qi to seal it in place this time.  It might be too little, too late, but the names on the cenotaph deserved to remain undisturbed from now on.

After finishing my search of the area, I was now positive that this had been some kind of mining village.  What they had been mining, and why they had left, were still a mystery to me.

Knowing that there were at least two hundred desiccated corpses running around down here, I thought it would be prudent to light up the area better.  I moved along the top of the wall, placing a glow stone every ten steps for the entire circumference of the village.  It was just enough to banish all but the deepest of shadows.  Now, one person keeping watch on top of any building would be able to see an approaching zombie horde.  It also cut into the number of glow stones I had left, but I felt it was worth the cost.

I still had an hour left on my watch, so I decided to finally look inside the ring I had found on the skeleton in the old shipwreck.  It was filled with the normal goods you might expect from someone wearing the clothes and jewelry they had been wearing.  Several changes of fine clothing, a few bags of coins, and more than one bottle of fine wine paired with rich food.  The unexpected find was all the ingots of precious metals.  Not to mention an extremely nice set of blacksmithing tools.

The last item in the ring was a bit unexpected.  It was a thick notebook, filled with the scrawling notes of its former owner.  Part journal and part blacksmithing manual, it gave details on the life of the family we had laid to rest.

I flipped to the end of the book, looking for some clue as to what had ended their voyage so violently.

Today Hadad said he saw the great monster under the ship again.  Mari and I are convinced he is just nervous about his apprenticeship with the main branch of the Burning Forge Sect.  Such an auspicious beginning for a young man is certainly not what we expected, but his connection to the metal element is so strong that even their Elder Smith seemed jealous after the testing.  My own father was shocked at their extravagant offer, considering how miserly they normally were during the selection process.  The gods must know how badly we could use the gold, and Hadad will certainly bring fame and fortune to our clan name.  With the dark stars falling from the midday sky on the day we left port, I knew this was going to be a journey to remember.  Taqa is jealous of her brother leaving home, but she is sure to follow in her mother’s footsteps.  I have no doubt her sharp temper will serve as a fine foundation for a spearmaster.  I will have her begin practice for the trials as soon as we return home.  There is a storm moving in, and I am needed on deck again.

That was the end of the entry.  If they were attacked only a short time after the nox entered the world, it was a fair bet that it was a dark mana demon who sunk their ship.  The boy, Hadad, might have attracted a nox searching for a powerful host.  I now had a sneaking suspicion I now knew the identity of the necromancer.  If it was just some kid, he might not even realize what he was doing when he agreed to join with the demon.

I tried skimming for more information throughout the journal, but I didn’t see anything else I could use.  At least I would be able to return some of the items to the surviving family members.

For a moment, I thought about my own children.  There was still a few hundred years before they were supposed to be born, which meant I had time to figure out how to handle what to do.  I had a strong suspicion that the gods tinkering with my brain during the reincarnation process to remove the madness of floating in a thousand years of nothingness might also be a reason as to why I wasn’t more worried about them.  I was aware of them, and the possibility of them not being born again if I didn’t play my cards just right, but the intense worry I should have been feeling wasn’t there.  It was concerning, to say the least.  What else had the gods done to me?

“Jim?  Why are you crying?”  Donny had sat down next to me without me even noticing.  Some guard I was being.

“It’s nothing, don’t worry.”  I scrubbed my eyes with a sleeve.  “I’m going to get some rest.  Wake me when it’s time to go.”

He watched me leave, my quiet footsteps the only sound in the underground cave.  It wasn’t just the chamber under the temple.  This whole place was an empty tomb.