Skeleton and Shelter
It felt like it was a thousand years ago when Wanderer had first spied the graveyard atop the mesa’s peak, when it was so far in the distance that they could only make out its faintest details. Now, with a refreshing breeze behind them, they were but minutes from passing the first of the colossal skeletons and as such, could truly witness the location’s beauty.
Like great spires reaching to the clouds, ribs, femurs, skulls and bones of every other kind and variety lay long stationary in the dark sand, all weathered and bleached by the sun and sand, yet beyond the marred surface stood unbreakably resolute. And while these simple bones of bird and mammal were most frequent, dull plates of chitin and petrified remnants of long stunted trees could be found in respectable excess.
It seemed this place was once the hotspot of all life for the desert, just as Ka-cktika’s history had indicated.
Yet, while skeletons that dwarfed Wanderer tenfold were by far the most demanding of attention, the graveyard was for more than just the colossal.
Like a gradient, smaller skeletons and remnants could be found in the surroundings, going from those whose size could have once struck fear into Wanderer’s soul, to those who’s bones crunched under Wanderer’s hooves without them even knowing they were there. Yet while this place was a place of death, to Wanderer, it could not be more apparent that life was its ultimate definer.
Everywhere Wanderer looked, even in the night, even with every creature hiding in its little abode, the whole of the graveyard was filled with living things. The desert in most instances lived up to its name, Wanderer having seen scarce but isolated cacti and buried twigs as its summary flora. But here, vibrant green vines with trumpet flowers of red and yellow creeped up the underside of any bone large enough to provide shade, while smaller bushels wormed their roots into the ancient marrow of hard skulls and cracked spines.
Flowers and fruits of a vibrancy not seen even in the verdant valleys sprouted from the dark sands and consumed the smaller remains of critters long unmoving. And rarely, standing in reaching solitude, massive blades of leathery grass two times the Golem’s height shot like fountains from the ground, leaves reaching for the sky but bending under the weight of gravity such that they lined each side of a central stalk like hooks.
The sight of proper greenery in amongst the lone and level sands filled the Vessel with an intrinsic hope, the resilience of life even in the obsidian waste astounding them. Emio was almost vibrating next to Wanderer, so caught up in all the new options for their body that they couldn't decide, and instead stayed gyrating on the spot in complete indecision. The Vessel was not so restricted, sprinting up to the first of the bones and inspecting all the plants, feeling their leaves and picking their flowers.
In doing so, Wanderer discovered another element of the graveyard’s beauty, the presence of living critters in all its areas. When the Golem went to pick one of the flowers of the vines, they were shocked to find a pain in their forearm as a small yellow spider had crawled out from the petals and bit them. It had a rotund body with a flat, disc-like head and two sets of fangs, all across its body were tiny hairs which had picked up the pollen of the flowers and was in the process of dusting off into the air as it moved around.
Wanderer immediately grabbed it and inspected it closer, not caring for the bites or squirms of the creature. Eventually, the spider was released back to its home, but it got the Golem thinking.
“How many more hidden insects and animals are around here.”
The answer was a lot.
Inside one of the skulls Wanderer found two families of small furry mammals, both entirely different in physical traits except for their metallic silver fur. Neither of the species looked up at Wanderer when they peered down at them, instead trying to squirrel themselves even deeper in the cranium, as if trying to hide away from the outside world. The Golem did think it odd that they would hide away in fear of the Vessel without even looking at what they were, but there were greater oddities in nature so they kept on looking.
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The breeze at Wanderer’s back grew stronger and stronger as the Vessel grew distracted by the various forms of burrowing osteophages and nesting birds, completely immersed in the world in front of them and the rare life which was so absent in the desert. Ultimately, it was the feeling of the sun on their face that drew them out of their reverie, causing them to realise just how long they had spent indulging in their love for nature such that the sun was beginning to rise in the south.
Looking back toward the rising sun, the Vessel very quickly noticed three things.
One, Emio had abandoned them to do whatever they did when Wanderer wasn't around, this was of little concern.
Two, the wind that was now blowing in their face was considerably strong, such that it was whipping shards of glassy sand around their ankles and becoming rather uncomfortable.
Three, the entire horizon was pitch black.
It was like a cloud of fog had rolled in and smothered everything in its path, a fog so deep and dark that even the rising sun had trouble shining over the top of it. But this fog was strange, already it had swallowed any view of the fields and road from which they had exited the valleys, and it was halfway to smothering the first mesa they ever visited.bEvery second that passed however, it climbed its way up the side of that mesa and seemed to grow, smothering more and more of the land in its deep, deep darkness.
Wanderer watched in horror as the darkness gradually began to rise enough to darken the newly risen sun, its rays slave to the encroaching black.It was only then that the Golem realised what they were looking at, for it was no fog, but a storm of deadly sand. The fact that, until this moment, they had never felt any wind within the desert’s borders now occurred to them.
However, despite the encroaching doom Wanderer did not panic, the sand, however deadly it may be, could surely not pierce through a wall of solid bone.
They would simply hide like every other animal was doing, safe behind some wall of chitin or an enclosed skull, they would be fine. Despite this, it would probably be wise to go a little deeper into the graveyard, let the storm be weakened by the bones in front of them.
Speeding to a dash the Golem proceeded alone through the maze of the dead, going deeper and deeper in until they came across something they had nearly forgotten about. There in front of them was a great pit, wide but five times as deep reaching far into the desert sands. The bottom of the hole contained a large pool of dark water, which Wanderer supposed was the goal of the project. The construct was obviously manmade and sure enough, once the Vessel moved a little past the hole they found the people who had made it.
Up against a massive plate of ancient chitin, a large wooden hall was built, double storied and large enough to fit a hundred on each floor. The people had likely holed themselves up
to wait out the storm, copying their animal counterparts, and, while Wanderer figured bone more durable then wood, they would likely be fine.
It also appeared that unlike the last group they ran into, this one utilised slavery, if the whip and bloody rope tied to a massive rib were anything to go by. It disgusted Wanderer and they would try to do something about it, but right now the storm was their top priority. They hoped that the people inside could forgive them for not intervening sooner, even though they had no idea the Golem was coming, and in all likelihood, did not wish to be freed. Nonetheless Wanderer promised themself to try and help anyway.
Moving on, the Vessel checked every skull and bone they could find that would reasonably keep them from the sand, but soon found each one was filled to the brim with animals and invisible chameleons in a similar plight. Their hasty concern slowly became moderate panic as more and more possible spots were without vacancy. They thought about diving into the pits, yet their proximity to the ground would mean that they would begin to fill with sand, and Wanderer did not wish to be buried alive.
With the storm quickly approaching, they finally thought to look up and found one spot that was most likely of all to be vacant. Toward the graveyard’s center was a massive skeleton with a proportionally large skull. This skull, however, was directly fused to a long, U-shaped spine that far more resembled a solid pole as it had no vertebrae, ribs connecting directly to the center bone. Time had sunk one end of this skeleton into the floor, causing the cycloptic skull to lift high into the air.
The many animals on the ground may have taken the shelters available to them, but Wanderer could climb and they hoped that not many creatures shared that ability. WIth their decision made, Wanderer reached the skeletons base and used the ribs and vines covering them to summit it, quickly clambering into the one eyed skull.
The jaw of the skull had long since fallen off, but to the Golem’s luck, the remains of the odd giant had been angled in such a way that the hole was facing away from the upcoming calamity, meaning that the Golem was safe. The skull was not truly abandoned, with a bird's nest hosting an angry mother with a long straight beak and seemingly no legs. The bird would have to deal with the Golem’s presence despite its objections, there was little place else to go.
As Wanderer settled on a lip inside the skull, they took one last peak out to see the storm’s approach. It had reached the mesa with the miners which they had just come from, and was rapidly moving forward toward them as the world began to go dark.
The sun’s power was limited to a few rays which pierced the way through the sand, and even that was diminishing. Wanderer managed to catch a glimpse of Emio flying through the forest of bones, subtle glow giving them away despite their fresh new form mimicking that of the flowering vines.
The Vessel wasn't worried about them, Emio was more than capable of finding a place to hide. What did worry Wanderer was the fleeting glimpse of a eyeless mask of stone they caught at the far edge of the boneyard, moments before darkness took the earth. And from that moment on, the Golem’s world was confined to a tiny space inside the skull of an imobile giant.