These Hallowed Bones - [Monster Evolution, Dark Fantasy, Heroic Undead]

I stand among violated crypts.

The noble dead are missing, their resting places torn open.

No random act of robbery, something sought these specific remains.

Commander Ikert's mission to find dwarven gates pulls at these bones. Yet something else fights the compulsion, a deeper wrongness in the foundations of Haven.

These tunnels hold secrets beyond access to underground roads.

I touch clawmarks on a broken crypt lid. Whatever took these remains possessed strength enough to tear bronze and marble.

Intelligence enough to select specific tombs.

Purpose enough to leave others untouched.

These bones know duty. Haven's walls above need protection. These empty crypts house a threat that will one day threaten those walls.

These demand attention.

The tunnels await. Secrets lie in the deep.

I move through passages that stretch beyond logic, moving down paths that should not reach so far as bones go ever downward.

These fragments remember other halls, but nothing like this labyrinth beneath Haven's street where they buried their dead.

I move through passages that stretch beyond Haven's foundations. Noble vaults line these corridors, bronze doors hang twisted from massive hinges. Each vault tells the same story empty caskets, violated remains.

My hand touches the edge of a broken seal. Whatever force moved through here showed intent. Gold and jewels remain untouched in their settings. Ceremonial weapons rust on their plaques.

Only the bones are missing.

A golden ring circles empty air where noble fingers once rested, surrounded by centuries of settled dust. The magic in rings worn on those hands did not interest whatever stalked these halls.

The current that drives these fragments pulses weaker here.

No matter. Purpose needs no warmth to persist.

These bones recognize a presence in these halls. Not the simple dead, they follow known patterns, rising and falling by rules this frame remembers. This is something else.

Something that hungers specifically for bone.

I pause at another violated vault. The bronze door lies crumpled like paper, its wards shattered.

Inside, more empty caskets.

More untouched wealth.

More missing bones.

The arch before me towers twice my height, carved with letters these memories cannot read. The letters carved across the stone, a message of rest for those entombed in stone.

The magic in those words still holds power.

I feel it touch against what animates these bones.

A warning, perhaps. Or a plea.

I enter a side chamber where heavy stone slabs cover floor niches. Some remain undisturbed, thick with undisturbed dust. Others lie split clean through, contents missing. The breaks show jagged edges, as if torn rather than cut.

The patterns of violation grow clearer. Newer tombs remain untouched. The oldest vaults, those bearing the most ancient family crests, lie empty.

The creature hunts age. It wants bones seasoned by time.

Each passage leads deeper, where older graves wait.

Here, more destruction. More empty coffins. What drives this collection? What needs so many bones?

My hand brushes dust from a plaque beside an empty crypt. The names have worn away, but symbols remain crossed swords, a crown, marks of rank and privilege. The noble dead earned their rest through service.

Now they serve something else.

I push deeper, following twisting passages that descend in spirals. The air grows thicker, charged with wrongness. Dragon bones sense ancient power stirring. Wolf bones recognize predator scent.

Knight fragments remember duty. Protection above all else.

The corridors widen, ceilings rising higher. Stone bears claw marks here, deep gouges where something tested resistance. The walls show strange discoloration, as if acid etched patterns into rock.

More ruined crypts flank these passages, their contents scattered. Unlike the violated tombs above, these remains were not taken whole. The creature fed here, leaving fragments too small to use.

I kneel beside splintered bone shards. Ivory fragments stick to the stone, as if melted there by terrible heat or corrosive fluid. Not clean breaks, but jagged bites mark each piece.

Torches line walls with scorch mark scars along the stone. Their metal loops are warped and bent, as though something pried them loose for no reason but destruction.

There is malice here.

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Then new chambers sprawl before me.

Ornate reliefs line the walls, warriors and guardians carved in vigil. Most stand headless now, their stone faces torn away.

Deep gouges mark their surfaces, as if massive teeth tested their substance.

The coffins tell similar tales.

Bronze and marble lids wrenched aside with brutal force. Contents missing. No scattered bones remain, no fragments left behind.

Whatever violated these tombs left no fragments, no splinters.

My demon shield crafted from Duke's skull recognizes a kindred darkness here, responding to power that should not exist until deeper depths.

These pieces know something lurks here.

Something that breaks wards, violates tombs, and takes only bones. My purpose remains clear protect Haven.

Whatever stalks these halls threatens that purpose.

I pass through a grand archway where angelic figures once stood guard. Now they lie in pieces, stone wings shattered, faces gone. Only robed bodies remain, faceless sentinels watching violation they could not prevent.

Beyond, the dead were buried by rank, nobility closest to the entry, servants and soldiers deeper within. The creature bypassed many to reach specific remains. It knows what it seeks.

I follow a trail of destruction that grows worse with each chamber. Walls bear claw marks, floors show scorched patches where acidic fluids burned stone. The air carries a stench of rot and decay that even these hollow bones recognize as wrong.

The further I descend, the older the tombs. Some crypts show markings from before Haven's founding, when the fortress was merely a command post in endless war. These ancients brought their dead here, believing this place sacred.

Now something feasts on their remains.

A stone stairway leads down to earlier burials, those who died in the first years of settlement. The steps show wear from centuries of mourners' feet, but newer marks gouge the edges something heavy dragged itself down, leaving trails in stone.

I descend to a wider chamber where lesser nobility were interred. Row upon row of stone coffins, most now empty. The destruction here shows less restraint, as if the creature grew impatient. Stone lids lie not merely removed but shattered, fragments scattered across the floor.

I touch splinters of bone on the chamber floor. Whatever took the remains dropped pieces in its haste, leaving marrow smears on stone. These were not carefully harvested but grabbed in hunger.

A golden brooch lies untouched beside an empty coffin. Gemstones worth a year's supplies for Haven's walls, ignored by the thief. Pure precious metals hold no interest. Only bones.

Deeper passages narrow again, forcing this frame to stoop beneath low arches. These tunnels predate Haven, perhaps built by those who understood what waits below. Ancient symbols line the walls, worn by time but still carrying power.

The marks pulse with faint light as I pass, recognizing death walking among them. These warnings glow brighter with each step deeper.

I pause at a circular chamber where seven passages branch outward. The floor bears a carved spiral, symbols flowing inward toward a central pit. The carvings still hold traces of old power, wards against something below.

These fragments recognize containment magic. Something was bound here, long ago.

Five passages show claw marks, their entrances widened by force. The sixth remains untouched, sealed by a stone door bearing symbols of slumber and peace. The seventh gapes open, warped metal fragments hanging from broken hinges.

I choose the violated path, following destruction's trail.

The passage beyond twists unnaturally, dimensions shifting in ways that challenge perception. Not natural stone but carved with purpose, binding those within. The walls bear ancient symbols, many now scratched away by claws.

Names of binding lie defaced. Symbols of containment hang broken. Whatever was trapped has broken its chains letter by letter, glyph by glyph.

The air grows thick with corruption. Even these dead bones recognize a border crossed, a boundary between natural world and something else.

Another chamber opens before me, walls lined with recessed alcoves. Unlike the tombs above, these niches were never meant to honor dead. They were cells, prisons for something that needed containment.

The bars lie twisted outward, as if something erupted from within.

I touch ancient chains fused into the stone. Magic still pulses in their links, though weakened by centuries. These were forged to bind more than physical forms.

What prisoner broke these bonds?

The answer lies ahead, where destruction grows worse. Entire sections of wall lie gouged away, exposing older stone beneath. Pillars stand cracked, supporting weight they were never meant to bear after their companions fell.

A grand doorway lies ahead, its massive frame carved from single stone. The doors themselves are gone, torn from hinges thick as my arm. Beyond lies darkness more complete than any natural shadow.

I step through.

Suddenly a wide, open chamber unfolds before me, half collapsed columns at the edges.

A vaulted ceiling overhead.

Broken braziers line either side, bone dust and scattered planks from coffins litter the floor. Eye sockets search the gloom. The stench of rot saturates every corner.

Then I see it.

A hulking silhouette in the chamber's heart, a mound of bone and flesh, stooped over something half devoured.

The thing hunches over remains that should rest in peace. Not a single coffin many, torn apart, reused, repurposed into a grotesque nest.

Shattered planks jut from corroded iron bands, splinters scattered across stone.

A skeleton dangles from its maw, ribcage crushed between teeth that shouldn't exist in any natural mouth. The skull lolls back, jaw hanging slack, arms swaying with each grinding crunch.

The creature turns. Memories offer no name for what towers before me. Its form defies nature, a mass of fused bone and rotting sinew twice my height. Multiple jaws line its elongated face, each filled with teeth stolen from noble skulls.

The current that drives these bones pulses stronger.

A warning. This thing devours.

But there's more, something these memories cannot grasp. Teeth sprout in impossible places, arranged in spiraling rows that descend into darkness within its maw.

A nightmare for the living. A thing of stolen parts.

Ribs curve outward through leather hide.

Arms, too many arms, end in hands crafted from countless finger bones, welded together with sinew and cartilage.

Its skin, where visible between bone protrusions, bears the blackened sheen of grave rot. Dark fluids seep from joints where incompatible pieces meet, dripping marrow thick as tar.

I watch the abomination feed.

It hunches deeper, jaws working through another coffin. Wood splinters, metal bands snap. Then bone grinds between teeth too many to count.

The creature pauses. Its head lifts, sniffing air it doesn't need to breathe.

Empty eye sockets fix upon my frame.

I shift into a defensive stance. This is what's been violating Haven's crypts.

The thing drops its meal, bones clattering across stone.

It rises.

No quick movement, no startled response. It simply unfolds, limbs extending from its bulk like a spider stretching after sleep. The body towers higher, arms unfolding from torso, legs straightening beneath massive weight.

Fully extended, it scrapes the vaulted ceiling. A crown of stolen skulls decorates its upper body, each face frozen in terror or agony. These were not empty when taken.

These bones have faced horrors before. The Harvester with its stolen face, while it hunted in tunnels beneath Joist. Its chitinous segments clicked against stone as scythe limbs sought prey.

The Demon Duke whose skull now serves. His legions fell to Aeternus before his tower crumbled.

Balverines wore human faces while hunger drove them to hunt. Their bones still speak of the forest.

The corrupted gargoyle above Haven's walls thought height would grant it victory. Stone wings shattered these bones across the field, yet each piece fought on until its stone crumbled.

A skeletal wyrm's bones now reinforce this frame, after Candlekeep. Its death granted protection against tooth and claw.

Each victory has changed this form. Each battle leaves its mark.

Yet this abomination before me represents something new. A creature of bones stolen, not borrowed.

We lock gazes, hollow sockets meeting dead eye stare. Its frame is a crawling madness of fused limbs and devoured sinew, snatched from tombs.

A grave rot creature made of stolen remains and insatiable hunger.

I draw Aeternus.

A moment's hush. Then it surges forward.