NOVEL NEXT Chapter 11: The Shaking Bones
Within the hallowed ruins of a once strong, proud temple, its crumbling onyx pillars standing like the skeletal remains of an ancient leviathan deep below the wastes, a group of hooded cultists gathers to perform a ritual, shrouded in darkness. Flickering torchlight casts sinister shadows upon their obscured faces, their features lost beneath concealing fabric. The air within the abandoned chamber of the old haunting grounds is thick with an oppressive atmosphere, heavy enough to choke those uninitiated to the twisted rites being enacted here and heavy enough to crush souls. Every breath draws into lungs a tangible sense of dread, infused with the weight of countless secrets buried within these ancient stones.
This is an old place, a buried place. It is a place that was forgotten on purpose by the world.
In the center of the room yawns a gaping chasm whose depths are swallowed by an impenetrable blackness, as though it bore into the very heart of nothingness itself, as if it led to the core of the world. The great pit looms like an insatiable maw, eager to consume any substance or light unfortunate enough to venture too close. The lights held by the cultists as they perform their duties are swallowed, the glows almost seeming to be pulled down low by the unusual weight of gravity here. The abyss seems to whisper tantalizing promises on unseen currents that tease at its edges, promises that speak only to those receptive souls attuned to its siren call — a call crafted from nightmares and despair woven into song.
“Hey, Piotr?” asks a hooded voice.
“Shh!” shushes the man next to him, the two of them standing near the edge of the abyss. “Don’t use real names here, fool!”
“Sorry,” replies the first man, lifting a hand. He looks around the dark temple, which was destroyed a long, long time ago. Grim gargoyles and broken angels line the walls, their faces crumbling and looking not so much as if they were missing as as if their mouths had ripped open up to their brows in unnatural screams that never end. “Do you think this is good idea?”
The voices around them rise in unison as they chant incantations older than memory or language itself — words that coil through the air laden with an unseen presence that defies comprehension or explanation. The very syllables seem to breathe life into shadows that waver and flicker on walls adorned by arcane sigils etched deep within stone, marred by time's relentless passage. They make sounds that no human should be able to make naturally. Many of them have had their tongues and throats flayed for this purpose alone, to allow the creation of the most unusual sounds.
“What?” asks the second man. “This is great idea. Idiota.” He nods back to the bottomless pit down below, in which old, sleeping powers rest.
The first man shrugs. “I am just saying, is all,” he explains, looking down into the hole. “It seems unwise, no?” he asks, looking down at a half-crushed baby skull next to his boot. He kicks it off and down into the pit. “I have, as they say, ‘a bad feeling’, yes?”
“Don’t be a baby,” replies the second man, lifting his hands as he channels his energy into the ritual. “All that is bad here is your work ethic,” he snaps, turning his head to look at the relenting cultist. “The Demon-Queen does not forgive laziness,” he remarks, the other man looking down at the pit, which marks the grave of the monstrous, ancient beast that was slain generations ago by a great hero.
“You think she is not so nice?” asks the first man.
His friend sighs. “No, Miika,” replies the cultist. “I do not think that the Demon-Queen is friendly.”
“I thought no names?” asks Miika.
“Shut up, Miika,” replies the first cultist, Piotr.
As the cultists chanting reaches a fevered crescendo, the air around them seems to distort. Tendrils of a strange, twisted darkness emerge from the abyss like serpents seeking prey, writhing and twining around one another as if guided by a sinister intelligence that hungers for release. These tendrils coil around the cultists' outstretched hands, drawing power from their fingertips in an exchange.
“It always tickles, Piotr,” remarks Miika, as the dark shadow wraps itself around his fingers. The other man sighs and shakes his head.
“It will not tickle anymore when she returns,” remarks Piotr.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly at first, something begins to shift within the room — an unseen force bending reality to its will in a manner that is palpable but impossible to define. The very air shudders beneath this insidious influence, yielding to a presence that threatens to consume everything it touches.
The lines between shadow and substance blur as shadows extend sinuous tendrils toward those who called them forth — a union forged amidst forgotten ruins echoing with echoes of ancient prayers long abandoned by gods grown weary or uncaring.
“So, Piotr?” asks Miika, horrific energies flowing in and out of his body as they channel the power of the grave of the Demon-Queen. “How is your wife?”
“Fine, Miika,” replies Piotr. “Focus on your work.”
It’s quiet for a time as the two of them continue the ritual, the ground glowing beneath them and shadows lumbering around inside the great, gaping chasm. “You know what I think about this place?” asks the cultist.
“I don’t care,” remarks Piotr, dryly.
His friend nudges him with his elbow. “It’s the pits!” he jokes, laughing.
“Shut up, Miika,” snaps Piotr, kicking him. “Focus! Once the ritual is complete, we must take the remains of her throne to the new dungeon,” he explains. “It will resurrect her for us, for the world,” explains the cultist, his voice resonating around the underground temple, filled with chants. “The Demon-Queen will return!”
One by one, the blackened tendrils lift out old bones from the ancient grave, placing one at the feet of every cultist.
“A hero?” asks Munera uncertainly. “…I don’t know…” The dungeon-core looks down at the cart that two grubby, raggedy men have pulled down the very well trodden road to the gate of the dungeon. All around the area outside of the dungeon, developments have begun. Not even by it; rather, humans are building houses and stores. As for these two, who have now reached the front of the very long line.
Munera pokes and prods around the bones.
“You won’t regret it!” says the lead human, looking up at the cyclops that is standing there with crossed arms in front of the gate.
— There is a very, very strong magical resonance to these bones. Far, far more than it ever noticed on any other corpse. But they’re super old. These are at the point where they’re basically dust.
A ‘hero’ is something out of the annals of history. It is a unique soul born with incredible powers that other humans could never even dream about. Their power is off the charts — world endingly so. Although they usually always prefer to save it. Heroes are always summoned into the world, or born from its population, whenever a great crisis arises. They’re sort of a natural correction mechanism on the scales of life.
“For this price, it’s a steal,” explains the human, looking up at the cyclops, which is Munera’s only real point of contact with the general public. “Imagine the numbers he’ll draw in, the fights!” He taps his head. “You’ll make your money back in a day, and the rest is all profit.”
It is a very exciting find, and the energy on the bones confirms it. This body really is a hero’s.
Munera gives the cyclops the order. “Pay them,” it instructs, people whispering in excitement as its energy leaks out of the dungeon-gate, wrapping themselves around the bones and slowly pulling them off of the cart — in and down to the deep, dark underground.
…Now what is it supposed to do with these, exactly?
Cultists walk in single file procession toward a bejeweled sarcophagus, each of them carrying a single bone to gently rest down in the container.
The Demon-Queen’s remains, lost to the depths of the world and its memory, are slowly puzzled back together. Piotr walks, holding the skull, which he bends down to nest into place, the bones clicking deeply and unnaturally, as if ratcheting themselves together somehow.
“So, Piotr,” says the cultist behind him, holding a pinky-toe. “Does your wife know you’ve held another woman?”
“Shut up, Miika!” remarks Piotr, hitting him over the head. The toe falls out of his hands and is pulled over, almost magnetically, clicking into place.
The Demon-Queen’s skeleton is reconstructed and carried out toward the distant surface before being loaded onto a cart and sent off to the newest spectacle and wonder of the world — the dungeon that brings back the dead and that can bring back the great beasts and champions of the world, the dungeon that can bring back a creature of crisis — the colosseum core.