It was dark in the tomb. I could see the walls with my trusty spade, but some of the fine details were hard to make out. The air was stale, and the pieces I could gather were muted. I followed the wall, passed an empty nook, and began ascending the cramped, dark hallway.
It was a somewhat unnerving thing, passing the nooks up the oubliette. How long have I been dead? I have to wonder, right? I’m the last member of my species, so it’s got to be at least one day, but any longer, and it’s up in the air. It can’t have been that long, though; I don’t see anything that implies grave robbing. Given half a second, I would have assumed adventurers would have torn this place up. Anything worth a quick coin is worth taking.
I stopped to catch my breath. Deep breath. In… out…
I sat there for what felt like a million years in the pitch, just my breathing, the dark, and my mind coping with one another. Finally, I decided to sit down and have a long think.
“What am I going to do?” I said into the dark.
No one responded, as expected. Instead, my words were swallowed by the dark, never-ending hallways of stone.
“What am I going to do with my life? I’m a homeless, defenceless [Ditchdigger],” Even if I managed to grow food, I would be hard-pressed to keep it all through winter. Even if I keep it through winter and live in a ditch or whatever, how will I defend myself? I can’t fight off a large animal, a monster would wipe the floor with me.
Think Saphine think… Now that I think about it, my ancestors did live in burrow homes, underground does not mean a gross wet hole after all. And then all I have to do is…
I kept thinking in the dark until I had planned enough to be satisfied. It did not take long for the old adage to come to pass. Plans are always the first casualty.
There was a creak from in front of me, a distant but noticeable one, but nothing down here would make a creak of that magnitude. It was all sconces and nooks which didn't creak because they didn't move. I stopped.
“Hello? Is someone over there? Gods, it’s dark in here. Don’t you have any light?” I somewhat foolishly called down the hall. I got no answer, so I waited, and the creaking came closer. Around an unseen bend in front of me, there was some light. Relief flooded me; someone had come down with a light. Maybe they were an adventurer.
“Oh, there are people down here,” I said and began walking towards the light, “are you an adventurer? I know this lord’s house if you want…” the light came around the corner, and it wasn’t a torch or lamp, It was a skeleton.
Its eyes glowed with spectral yellow light, like little candles in its eye sockets, the creak was of old tattered garments and a burial shroud. It made a light click as it walked. It had sandals, of all things cushioning its feet. It stopped like a puppet. Parts at an unnatural angle. Its mouth opened until its jaw was perpendicular to the floor. And then it screamed, more magical than true sound.
I was startled, nine or so feet from the gods’ awful thing, a bone puppet screaming at me. Somewhat panicking, I went to back up when it charged at me, it picked up speed until it blurred towards me. In a moment of panic, whatever remained of my brain got me to interpose my shovel in front of me, and the monster rammed into it at full speed.
It was like being in a cart crash; its bone splintered as the skeleton met the blade of my shovel. The shovel, somehow, remained in my hand, and as I slid back and to the side, it pivoted on my spade to the side and rammed itself into the wall. It didn't care; however, it just kept screeching. It stung a little somewhere deep down inside me, it was doing something to me, although I have no idea what it is. I might not know what it was trying to do, but I wasn't going to just let it do whatever it is doing, I hefted the spade to the side, slamming it into the tomb’s other solid wall with [Rapid action]. It crunched twice into the wall, the second time, it fell off my shovel and onto the floor, its ribs were shattered, and its spine cleaved in two. The legs fell over and stopped moving like they were supposed to, returning to inanimate bones. The top half didn’t.
Still screaming, the horror with no ribs started flailing its arms chaotically, arms spasming, grasping. At the same time, it looked at me with its candle-flame eyes, totally devoid of emotion. It looked like some kind of beetle, stuck on its back with bits of the rib remaining along with the shoulder blades in place of a shell. The spine started to flex like a snake, hideously lifting and cracking down on the stone floor, waving like its arms had. It managed to plant its hand on the floor and then its other hand, recovering from its prone state, hefting its ossified body up to waist height. Trying to move towards me again.
I didn’t give it a chance to.
After gawking in horror at the thing, I slammed my shovel down onto its head, not caring with what orientation I held it, again and again, again, again, again, again. I kept going until its bits fell off and onto the floor, slamming my shovel into it till it was powder. Until the part of my brain that recognized the skeleton decided it no longer recognized any such thing, and I stopped. I was panting in the dark and alone again. In… Out…
I’m ok, I am safe, it’s just me and the dark, and bone dust.
I decided to sit down on the lip of a nook and catch my breath, so I just sat there for a while, breathing until something crossed my mind.
This nook is empty, there is nothing here. But the first nook I found open was in the room I curled up in. So where was the skeleton that should be here?
I looked at the skeleton, or rather what was left of the skeleton as it were, I could make out two parts of the body with all the movement I had done if I kicked my legs a little to move the air. So, I decided to sit up and check the other nooks for their skeletons.
Every nook was empty, every single nook. The pit of my stomach yawned open, and I started making my way up and out of the oubliette as fast as I could. Up and up the oubliette, past the empty nooks where the bodies that were once [Monks] were supposed to be, the thousands of bodies that were supposed to lay here. I started hearing creaking back behind me in the dark, and I started moving faster, clambering over the cold stone floor. Faster until the slapping of my old footwear dry from age and biting into my feet was loud enough to wake the dead. The creaking was multitudinous, reaching my ears like a single wall of noises.
As I made a turn, I looked back down the hallway. Twin candle flames lit it, each a slightly different set of flames. A parade of shambling skeletons in similar grab made their way up the hall, their flames making them visible as they turned their corners towards me. I kept running. I kept running until I saw pale light around a corner and peeked to see what was there.
The ladder.
The ladder I had climbed down was lit by the open ceiling hatch. Flung wide, it let pale light into the otherwise dark crypt. I let out a breath, turned the corner and entered the ladder room, and barely avoided the skeleton hiding there. Like last time, I used [Rapid action] to swing my spade, [Tool handling] guided my hands, and turned the shovel so the flat aimed at the skeleton’s head.
Just as the skeleton started screaming, it went silent and collapsed into the corner, bits of skull falling on its old dry robes. I was silent, it was silent, the hall was silent, creaking not reaching my ears. Finally, I let out my breath.
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The screaming started again, a gods-awful racket in the cramped tunnels. The sound of rapid creaking approached me. I bolted for the ladder hefting the shovel, then stopped. I went over the idea of ladders for about half a second and realized I would have to ditch the shovel. I laid the old tool against the wall and scrambled up the ladder. Wailing screeches hot on my heels, I scrambled over the top and closed the hatch.
The screeching did not lower in intensity. Holding the lid down, I sat there while a group of skeletons screeched into the room. I realized it then, the screams were not audible, but I was feeling them, not hearing them, and feeling it I did. As the fiesta of skeletons screeched beneath me, it was like a million prickles in my heart. Not painful, but like the opposite of when a leg falls asleep and gets all pins and needles, it felt like plucking. Immensely uncomforted, I sat holding the hatch closed. Not stopping until the wailing stopped, and even then, I waited, paralyzed with fear. I got up after a while and looked around, but only after, I was sure. The ground was stony, but the church was in the corner of the small cave, facing into a wall. It was dark and sooty but still standing.
I looked around and found a little vertical shaft with a ladder. It was the source of the light. The shaft itself could have been more interesting, however. The walls were, however. The walls were formed from a uniform ash-grey rock with slight ridges or striations where the ash had pressed down.
A few stalactites and stalagmites spotted the cave; some even grew on the church roof, where moisture had wicked down from the ceiling. The stone had lichens, their strange growth spotting areas and growing more towards the dilute light.
I looked towards the church; the building may have been weather-worn but still stood, presumably by the gods' graces. In fact, it looked like the church was acting as the support for the cave. It was almost egg-shaped; arches lead to the top point of the bell tower. The cave was the most curious thing I had ever seen, like a fairytale meadow underground. A little still pool lay in the divot next to the church, I made my way over and looked into the still, reflective pool on the floor.
I looked terrible, my mane, normally maroon, had gone grey with the hard ash in it; it was speckled like a bird's egg. I was sooty all over, and my face was no exception. My nose and lips were dry and cracked, I needed a bath. But that mattered little; what had the most attention was my eyes. I stared into a pair of unfamiliar black eyes; tiny candle flames danced in them. Like a thin lamp light flickering behind my pupil. There was something else I couldn’t make out; but my once normal brown eyes had become something horrific and unfamiliar.
The black rim on the black pupil, even the whites, were black, but in the middle was the shocking part, my pupils blazed with the candlelight, like the undead. I pulled away from the pool like it had burnt me. Clutching my hands to my chest, the me in the pool followed my actions.
Backing away from it, I made my way towards the side entrance. I pulled the handle and entered the church through the back door behind the still-unbarred tool shed. I went past the priest’s rooms and the tiny classroom where they had taught the kids, where I had been taught. I passed, making my way to the storage room next to the library. The door had no lock, just a bar to hold the door roughly in place, I removed the slip of wood and opened it, the creaking wood warped from the passing of seasons was swollen, which made it hard, it scraped the floor. I didn’t care, though. I entered and started going through the items.
When I became an adult and got my coming-of-age ceremony, I was shown my initial status and initial bonuses, how my stats would grow and what my base stats would be. They gave me the basics everyone should know about how the system seems to work. And they did it using a statue of the god of the Arcane enchanted with [Appraisal].
I found it; it looked ancient. But, while relatively dust-free, it had a quality, something unrelated to its condition or wear, that marked it as something beyond simply ‘old.’ A circle in its base where you placed a finger rested upon a line of scripture.
“Great hermit, reveal upon me the secrets of my life, so I may, in turn, grow wise.”
It was part of an old fable about how the god of the arcane came in the guise of an old hermit. I repeated it as I placed my finger on the circle, a prayer couldn't hurt.
“Great hermit, reveal upon me the secrets of my life, so I may, in turn, grow wise.”
My vision was filled with a blue box with an appraisal of me, a magic spell that told me about myself.
Name: Saphine
Race: Kobold
Subrace: Psychopomp
Age: 2813
Titles: Saint of Death
Level: 12
Stats and Growth
Build: 20 Balanced
Speed: 5
Senses: 19 Accuity
Durability: 46 Spirit
Mind: 12 Wis
Social: 12 Int
+1 strength & +1 Dexterity, +1 Perception & +1 Accuity, +1 Endurance & +2 Spirit,
+2 Wisdom & +1 Resilience, + 1 Charisma & +2 Intellect per level.
Classes:
[Ditchdigger] 16
[Tool handling], [Rapid action], [Toil], [Sense stones], [Displace dirt], [Sense Composition], [Durable tools], [Timeless construct]
[Green Thumb] 8
[Green Thumb], [Planters Delight], [Aid Yield], [Revitalize Land]
Innate skills:
[Natural Senses], [Saint of Death], [Marked by the Long Road] [True Immortality]
I stared at it in total incomprehension. I recognized most of it, but I had a new title, subrace, three new innate skills and my age, which caused me the most shock.
How am I that old… Kobolds can’t get that old… Am I some sort of undead like the skeletons? I have no idea what I am anymore, is a Psychopomp a kind of undead? Am I going to get attacked because of it? I certainly don’t think I’m undead, I don’t feel undead, and I’m still a Kobold, Psychopomp is just a subrace. Goodbye, deer fox, hello, Psychopomp.
I put my back against the wall, and started to slide down, until I was sitting. I put the old statue on the ground and brought my legs up, and held them against my chest as my head swam with thoughts.
Why? Why anoint me as a saint and not even tell me what I’m supposed to do? Saints are like priests… but I have no guidance on what she wants me to do. I didn’t even pray to her very much, I just died last…
I wish I had the ability to freak out. To curl up into a little ball and cry like a baby before letting death take me; it's what I wanted to do, but unfortunately for me, that’s not in the cards.
I’m stuck in the middle of nowhere, I'm alone, and I have no place to call home, I have shelter, but I can’t stay here, not with the skeletons, and I have some water, but no food down here, none of the necessities of life, assuming I even need those.
I lean up against the wall and sob—just a little, then I start to laugh. It was a horrible, desperate, ugly thing, even I could tell it sounded horrible.
I don’t know how long I do it, I just let it out—crying and laughing, into the wall and trading water and breath for enough emotional release to think. Eventually, I petered out, depleted of enough emotional stress that I no longer felt like I was on the verge of exploding from the inside. I felt hollow, utterly empty of everything but the laughter, but I didn’t have the time to mourn it properly.
What little good I had is gone, but maybe I can find some somewhere else. This hole doesn't have any goodness in it, not anymore, but the valley should be recovered from fires with how long I took to wake up from my nearly 2800 year long nap, I wonder what it’s like out there.
I left the storage room, closing the swollen wood door that had survived longer than I had.
Holy ground for multiple gods, I suppose. I need proper running water and food. I need my body’s paycheck.
“It hasn’t been paid for over two thousand years, HA!” I laughed, it felt bitter. I walked back past the rooms, hesitating at the doorway that would bring me to the main hall. I walked past it, unable to bring myself to confront it right now.
Wait a second, if I died, what happened to my body? Didn’t I decay? Wouldn’t I rot? Why are my clothes fine?
I pulled my best clothes to my nose and gave it a good sniff. Mostly ash, but there were some funky notes, sweat and whatnot, but not rot or decay. Salvageable overall, I have absolutely smelled worse.
That’s what I get for being a [Saint of Death], I suppose, all the dying with none of the rot or misfortune of being a corpse. If that was a skill I could sell it, it would be niche, but I could make some coins from it. I would be one bold Kobold to do it, though.
I stopped as the pun rolled through my mind. And a cracked part of my brain suffering from stress started going a little haywire. The laughing came back, worse than before. By the time I got to the back door, I had to hold on to keep myself from falling over. It took a while to get the tears that followed the hideous laughter to stop, but they did, and I made my way out of the church.
I crossed the cave, with its lichens and obstructions and began to make my way up the ladder. It was dry raw wood but didn’t give me a single splinter. I climbed past the ash deposit and up into the compact soil, then up to the top and over the lip and onto lush grass, and the light of day.
I went searching for people, in a world that wouldn’t have remembered mine.
And I swear to the gods, if they think I’m a goblin, I’m going to lose my shit.