The kobold turned to the much taller lizardfolk. “What do you think? A five-era-old tomb that no one has been to in recent decades is bound to have some goodies in it.” He sounded rather excited to visit such a place.

The six-foot lizardfolk placed a hand down on the kobold. “Calm, young Stridox.”

The wood elf spoke up, “Loot or no loot, this is a tomb. Let’s not disgrace it beyond breaking and entering. I do not want to end up on Syna’s bad side.”

The sandman with them also chimed in, “Menbyhenet was a rather ruthless empire, so much so that the gods cast them into the ocean. We may very well find nothing.”

Stridox protested. “If that were the case, how did he find this place? They couldn’t have been completely erased.”

The group continued to walk through the desert, blissfully unaware that they had a shadow. For several days, they traveled and eventually came upon the rough location of where the tomb was. Not once during the trip did Simadger see another dune ant or hear them speak of seeing something that resembled one. She was hesitant to wander the desert alone. Even if she was an unwanted straggler, she could at least rely on their numbers to keep vagrants away.

The tomb was a hole in the sand that had sunken away and the door that sealed the tomb broke, revealing the passage inside. The tomb angled downward, possibly because the sand shifted beneath the structure. The group entered, and she waited above the entrance. She waited for an hour, monitoring the distant horizon. Heat rippled off the sand and obscured anything beyond a mile away. The midday sun quickly became too much to bear and into the tomb she went.

The sand formed a slope into the main entry hall of the place. Sandstone was used to construct the walls of the place, which were beautifully decorated with intricate carvings and paintings. The door was nowhere visible, and she assumed it to be buried beneath the sand. About twenty feet ahead of her was another doorless entryway flanked by two marble pillars shaped with a rounder base and a slender top. She cautiously stepped through the doorway into the next room. It was a long hallway that seemed to lose half of its floor part way through. She grabbed a lit torch from the sconce on the wall and waved it over the pit. In the pit were tens of thousands of chittering scarabs, unable to climb out. Simadger took a few steps back with haste. She sniffed the air with her antennae. The pheromone trail of the party was still strong and continued beyond the pit. It looked to be a simple jump. She muttered some quiet words of motivation beneath her breath and took a running leap.

The dune ant tucked and rolled onto the ground across the gap and rolled onto her feet. She let out a sigh of relief and continued forward. The walls of the hallway were dusty and surprisingly covered in spider webs, something she’d only just now noticed. Through the next doorway was a small room with three other tunnels splitting off from it. She’d smelt their pheromones, and body odor, going down the left hallway, so she went opposite. She took a brief walk and found herself in a room filled with cobwebs. Brushing some aside, she held her torch up and the walls glistened. Curiously, she waved the torch towards the left wall. The glistening was a hand-painted mural.

Leaning against the wall below the mural was a humanoid skeleton in fancy silks and linens, with a dusty short sword resting beside him. In the open hand of the skeleton was a worn leather-bound journal. Simadger picked it up and opened the book. Sitting in the binding was a pencil, which was open to the last journal entry in the book.

“It’s always an ever-present fear in my mind that one day I will simply just vanish. It’ll be more than simply being dead and forgotten. It’ll be as if I never was. I spent my life as an adventurer. The corpse holding this journal should be mine, assuming some crypt barons didn’t steal it. I joined up after some forest spiders ravaged my village. East of the furthest Vikan settlement is a forest where the tree trunks are actually giant spider legs. These spiders eat cattle, birds, and basically anything they can get their mandibles on.”

“They usually keep to themselves in this artificial forest of theirs, but one day they came in and sacked the place, eating anything and everything. I ran towards Rykensvik proper and left the village behind. Most would’ve entered the Vikan military, but I wanted independence. The Adventurer’s Guild gave me that opportunity.”

“Fast forward some years and I get a contract for a crypt down here in these sands. The contract is to clear a crypt of spiders, bandits, and/or other monsters that have recently taken up residence in it. I write this after being stung by a Dust Scorpion. I am actively dying from its venom and I can feel my legs going numb. No pain or tingling sensation, this kind of numbness is as if the limb just isn’t there.”

“My group, and soon to be myself as well, were all killed trying to clear this place out of monsters so that some archeologists could excavate the site. Needless to say, I advise against it. One of my members, a brown-scaled lamia, could decipher some scribblings on the walls. You’ll find her corpse not too far away from me. I tried to carry her out with me. The scribblings suggest that someone of both great importance and infamy is buried here, hinting at a curse upon the crypt. The script talks of a desert empire that dominated the continent before the green skins toppled it three or four eras ago. They buried someone named ‘Sadiki Kan-ta’ here as punishment. We never figured out why they buried them alive.”

“All we knew is that there was a second variation of beastfolk with human bodies and animal heads that were forcibly made extinct. The cave drawings here are a mix of this ancient culture and green skin. The green skins killed every single one of them and something tells me it was deliberate. I coughed up a disgusting amount of blood. That scorpion, I think its venom, is not just an immobilizer, it’s a digestive enzyme. I can feel my stomach doing things it shouldn’t and warm pains underneath my skin. I’ve always been afraid of dying, afraid of being forgotten. I know when I’m dead, I won’t care anymore. There’s an old phrase I heard, ‘It only takes three generations to be forgotten.’ Even in my last moments, I imagined a future where I worked a normal job in the city instead of adventuring, the things that I would’ve done instead of saving towns and people’s livelihoods. It would be a boring life, an unremarkable life, but a life with kids and a family.”

“I have my regrets. I have my moments of pride. If I could do it again, I would change only one detail: this bloody job…”

The last word echoes not just a sound of regret but also of frustration. She closed the journal and nestled it away in her pack. “Rest, fallen traveler. Your family awaits your return.” She placed her claw upon the skull. “I would give you a proper burial, but if this is indeed a tomb, then you are already buried. Find peace in knowing you gave it your best.” She spoke to the skeletal corpse as if praying both to it and on its behalf. After a few minutes of silence, she redirected her attention to the mural in the room.

Someone used rough paint strokes to create the mural. It showed humans with animal heads in a land with a river and lush riverbanks. It was unnerving to observe the people’s smiling faces. Unlike modern pictures, these showed only half of the person or their face. Turning around, she walked towards the other wall and, just like before, discovered that it, too, had been painted with a side view of every person. The right wall, however, showed a solid white jar being placed in a stone coffin and buried underground. Then something clicked, and she realized what she was seeing.

During her time on the sailing ship, she’d read about something known as a “Picture story”. Someone who could draw would tell a story with ten pictures in sequence. A written short story of ten pages could fit onto a single page of a picture story. What she saw before her was a picture story on a much larger scale. In the center of the room were four similarly built marble columns with torches mounted on them. She lit up the torches, and they made the entire room bright, illuminating the entire story painted on the walls.

Minus the parts that had chipped or suffered severe weathering, she could piece together a sizable chunk of the story. “If I’m reading this right,” she mumbled to herself. “These people, the Sorbekins, Horusans, and Setals, lived on a fertile river. Then the green monsters attacked.” She examined the green-skinned creatures a little closer. She suspected that the weirdly drawn depictions referred to Orcs. “These tusks, modern orcs’ tusks, aren’t that big. Maybe these are an older version of orcs?”

The scenes showed bloodshed and violence, huge battles between these people and the orcs. The orcs looked more beastial than humanoid, closer to overly muscular wild hogs. The next painting showed a human-sized stalk with a solid round red bulb and white fuzz falling off of it. It was being waved by the Menbyhenet soldiers at the orcs. The orcs fell onto their back with similar but smaller stalks emerging from their chests.

She continued along the wall. The scenes didn’t just depict a war between civilizations; they depicted the desperation the Menbyhenet soldiers had and the lengths they went to just to win. Then the images came to the burial jar and a crypt. Simadger pulled out a leather-bound journal she had and began writing what she’d seen, giving a thorough detail and her thoughts behind each picture, each scene. Partway through jotting it down, she realized the contents of what was buried there.

She slowly lifted her head and stared hard at the depiction of a sealing jar. Her gaze jumped back to the other side of the room. The white fuzz grew more stalks from the orcs and spread with ease amongst them. They died to it. This was no tomb but a disposal site for a dangerous weapon. She slammed her book shut and stowed it in her backpack frantically. “I gotta warn them,” she said, snagging a torch from the bracket. She ran to where she knew they’d be.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Down the left hallway, she could just barely hear them muttering to themselves.

“…what is this?” said one of the male voices

Simadger recognized it as the kobold’s voice. The loot addict had found something.

Then a loud pop sound, resembling the opening of a sealed jar, occurred, followed by some coughing. “Ack, ew, what in the hells? fucking mold!”

Simadger came to a complete stop as she heard the jar crash onto the floor. It sounded like a large glass jar hitting stone tiles. Fear quickly filled her, and she stopped running. They’d found the jar and didn’t know what they just opened and chucked it, thinking it to be crap gone bad. The mental image of fungal growths bursting from their chests like some parasitic growth scared her. What if it was alive, more than the typical mold is? What if it could think, move, or even take control over the bodies?

She knew what it was, a lethal weapon of war, buried purposely to be forgotten. She slowly drew her Khopesh, cut the hood off her cloak and wrapped it around her mouth, hoping it would be enough. On her other hand, she equipped herself with the carapace shield. It took a few deep breaths to get herself moving, but with one foot in front of the other, she took off running into the room.

The loud banging of metal plates spooked the adventuring group into action. All four of them drew their weapons and readied themselves for battle. Simadger rushed into the room at full speed, shield-bashing the tall lizardfolk, and knocking him onto the floor. She twirled on her feet and slashed her Khopesh twice across the elf’s chest. The elf fell almost instantly, without an opportunity to even react.

The kobold revealed two wrist blades from his gauntlets and jabbed at her, but the blades failed to pierce the bronze-plated cuirass she wore and her body’s naturally hardened carapace. He took a second jab at her, but her shield blocked it.

The human swung his swords, but feinted the attacks into opposite swings, striking her both times. The scimitars, however, only left gouges in the bronze plates. He attacked with a flurry of swings unsuccessfully.

The lizardfolk hopped back onto his feet and gripped his great sword, leaning into a swing and digging the blade into the ant’s pauldron. The metals clanged loudly.

Simadger used her shield to knock the great sword off of her and then lowered herself towards the ground with a wide, sweeping swing. The human easily and dexterously dodged the Khopesh, but the lizard didn’t. The Khopesh caught the lizardfolk’s ankles and toppled him again. A second swing of the Khopesh sliced his throat open. She spun about and swiped at the human. He deflected her blade twice.

The kobold lunged forward, taking two quick jabs at her unarmored gaster, successfully piercing the thin skin between the carapace plates. Simadger wildly and furiously clacked her mandibles, responding to the piece with a wide and heavy swing which the Kobold blocked with his iron gauntlets.

The human swung with his scimitars, doing a sword dance which ungracefully caught Simadger’s makeshift mouth covering and ripped it off. The second swing clanged off of Simadger’s shield.

Simadger held her shield up and close to her chest. She clicked her mandibles aggressively and, from her mouth, spewed formic acid at the human’s head. He recoiled and tried to rub it from his eyes. Simadger had a momentary opportunity and turned to attack the kobold. She thrust her shield forward, bashing the well-defended kobold monk. Then swung the Khopesh downward onto him, catching his gauntlets. In frustration, she spat out more formic acid at him.

The kobold was getting wise to her fighting style and slid to the side, thrusting his wrist blade and gauntlet upward. It slid across her plate, armor merely scratching the surface. He followed it up with a kick to her abdomen, but the dune ant remained firm.

The human cleared his eyes with the sleeve of his outfit and pulled a vial of acid from his pocket. Thrown with force, the vial shattered on Simadger’s back, letting out a hissing noise as it ate through the bronze plates.

Simadger focused her attention on the Kobold. His kick had opened him and she swung the Khopesh, catching him in the side. It bit deep and, with a bend of the wrist, drew a gash across his chest. He toppled backward and stared up at the ant in sheer terror. She raised her foot and stomped down on the kobold’s head, sending his skull across the room in a dozen fragments.

Seeing a lost cause, the human sheathed his scimitars and took off running down the hall.

Simadger looked down towards the abandoned companions. The Lizardfolk’s body had already gone cold, even in the warm pool of blood. The elf was still alive, if only barely. Simadger walked up to her and knelt down beside her.

The elf spoke in between weak gasps of air. “Are you,” She paused to cough up blood. “This tomb’s guardian?”

Simadger shook her head. “A traveler who was too late. Rest well, Nirrilin, Oakengrove will meet you in the garden,” she said, bringing her blade to the elf’s throat. With a single quick slice, watched the life leave the wood elf’s eyes. Nirrilin was the non-common name for wood elf.

The dune ant had one target left to kill before he could spread the fungus. Simadger’s attention shifted to the shattered jar on the floor of the room. The fungus had a wet look to it, as if it stewed in murky lake water for a month. It survived thousands of years in a moisture-rich preservation jar. Simadger hoped the lack of airflow and the very dryness in the crypt would prevent it from escaping.

A stage in the center of the back wall propped up the coffin from which the jar was pulled. It leaned against the wall in a custom-made angled stand, and its lid slid and dropped off to one side. The corpse in it was wet and gooey, wrapped in bandages with its arms pinned to its chest. The skull resembled one species she’d read about; A Sekhmetan, a sibling species of the Setals, with a stubbier facial structure similar to modern large cats.

Simadger placed a clawed hand upon the skull of the mummy in the coffin and took a deep breath. “Those who’ve trespassed upon your grave are dead, the last being marked for death. You’ve been dead for twenty thousand years, only to be disturbed by those who had no right to muddle with your last resting place. Rest well, whoever—” Then a thought came across her mind.

The journal she’d found said the person buried here was responsible for the scenes painted in the murals. This was the mastermind behind the first weaponized parasitic fungus. “Buried alive,” the words darted across her memory. She then shifted the tone of her speech to the disturbed corpse. “You’ve atoned for your sins, twenty thousand years cursed by your actions. Close your spiritual eyes and rest, knowing that you haven’t lost everything. Rejoin your family and be at peace.”

The lid to the coffin, made of stone, proved to be too heavy for her muscular build to move. She reluctantly left it on the ground and with it, the shattered remains of the fungal jar and the bioweapon it released. Simadger stepped out of the crypt and looked into the desert, intently searching for her quarry.

Simadger stood facing the wind. Sand stuck to her armor because she was covered with fresh blood. It seemed like it was only a few hours since the last sandstorm, but here she was, out in the open and no cover in sight, staring down a massive sandstorm. She looked down at the corpse of the human and then saw a small hole in the sand a few yards over. Hoping it to be deep enough to wait out the storm, she rushed over to it. The sand had shifted, creating a sort of small wall that, while mostly even with the surrounding sand, was actually a few feet tall from the sandstone ground itself. She jumped down into the hole.

The hole was actually an entrance into a carved-out tunnel. It was her size exactly and appeared sturdy. She could feel the vibrations from the storm through her antennae and explored the tunnel, hoping it would keep her safe. After a few minutes of walking, the tunnel opened up into a massive room where the floor was almost a hundred feet down. The chamber was being supported with pillars that had been crudely but deliberately carved around. There were dozens of these hundred-foot tall sandstone support pillars and, with them, dozens of abnormal lights. She saw no flickering torches from where she stood, but saw massive beetle-kin with glowing gasters. Among them, in the tens of thousands, all over the floor and walls of the chamber, were dune ants. They wore no armor or clothes and all looked preoccupied with doing tasks to serve the colony.

On the floor were some dune ants with an engorged gaster, filled with some sort of liquid. Their gasters were double their body size, rendering them immobile. Normal dune ants were walking up to them, pressing their mouths together, and then walking away, their gaster being only slightly more filled than before.

Simadger was so enamored by the sight, she had not realized that one worker found her. “Hey yo!” rang a high-pitched feminine voice.

Simadger tensed up, sinking her head into her shoulders. She slowly turned her head to look at the lightly dusted, rust orange carapaced dune ant. She slowly held up her hand and gave a timid wave. “Hi,” she said shortly.

“You look new. Are you new?” The worker ant crawled on the surrounding wall, looking at her from all angles. “What are you wearing? Oh, are you a soldier? But what are those materials?” She spoke quickly and her questions bounced all over the place. “I think you’re from the outside. Are you from a sister colony? I always wanted to go meet a sister colony.” She paused to clean her antennae, and then spoke in rapid succession, “Oh, I hope I look good. I haven’t met an outsider. What does the outside look like? Is the sun bright? I mean, those glow bugs are nice and bright, but I want to see true brightness-”

Simadger immediately cut off the worker’s spiraling train of thought by grabbing the worker by the waist, pulling her off the wall, and setting her down on the floor of the tunnel. Simadger eyed the worker ant, gazing over the whole body. An eager smile slowly formed.

The worker ant was standing in stunned silence. Her gaze was fixed solely on Simadger. The visiting dune ant was a specimen to behold. Her carapace was rugged, at least the parts that were visible. She had a naturally thick gaster and seemingly strong mandibles.

Simadger unclasped her cloak and slung it around the naked worker ant. “It can’t be that warm.”

The worker ant focused on the feel of the cloak. It was a rugged cotton that was neither scratchy nor soft and lightweight enough to be workable for traveling on the surface. She heard the other ant’s voice but didn’t understand the words. The cloak’s material was too new to not be scrutinized. Then the background noise suddenly got quiet and the worker ant looked up at the armored warrior with a confused look.

Simadger had regained the worker ant’s attention, although she knew all too well that she had heard nothing. “What’s your name?”

“Kesi,” the worker ant replied. “Kesi Ashtu.”

The name Ashtu rang a bell in Simadger’s head. She’d read about a place in the desert called it. She tossed a look over her shoulder into the chamber. The place below was crawling with so many colonial ants that it was hard to decipher any structure, especially with the ants climbing walls and on everything, following no roads. She turned back to face Kesi. “Where’d you get the name Ashtu?”

“Mother gave it to me.” Kesi tilted her head curiously. “Mother is the colony queen, birthed everyone you see below. Tens of thousands of eggs for the past century.”

“Is there a chance I could speak with your mother?” Simadger asked.

“Probably.” Kesi pressed an antenna to Simadger’s arm. “Where’s your colony? Your pheromones don’t match ours.”

“I don’t have one,” she responded reluctantly. “I’ve been trying to find them if they’re still around.”

Kesi’s mandibles opened wide, as if excited by the idea. “Perhaps Mother could help you. She’s been to the surface. If your colony was anywhere nearby in the past century, she’d definitely know it. Come on, she’s just down a few floors.”