The journey to Marrowdell was anything but silent.
The land east of the Hollow Plains was twisted. Once-thriving hills now sagged into gulches, where carrion birds feasted on skeletal remains too stubborn to rot. Trees grew sideways.
Shadows lingered unnaturally long. Even the wind carried a brittle whisper, as if the bones buried beneath were trying to speak. Abraham felt it through his boots with every step: the weight of ancient unrest.
He trudged forward at the head of his mismatched caravan. Behind him, Tess rode a shambling undead stag with antlers carved from raw ivory.
Whisper, Grub, and Cacophony marched in formation, flanked by two freshly resurrected horrors: a serpentine beast stitched from wyrmling bones and a skeletal hound with ten glowing eyes that never blinked.
Chop walked beside Abraham, silent as always. The ant's chitin had darkened over time, tinged now with faint green veins pulsing to the beat of Abraham's necromantic power.
They had no map. The one Maelin gave them unusable due to its lack of "unmapped" places. Only rumors, visions, and the ever-growing pull of necromantic resonance Abraham could feel thrumming in his marrow.
The closer they drew to Marrowdell, the louder the hum. It wasn't just a hum now—it was a call. A summoning.
Tess adjusted her hood as the sun dipped behind a crooked ridge. "You sure this village is existed? We've passed three villages that looked like ghost stories wrote themselves there."
"I saw it in my visions," Abraham answered, scanning the horizon. "Same vision where I saw Veyla laughing. There was a tower of bone and a gate sealed with screaming skulls."
Tess raised an eyebrow. "Charming. No one addressed their 'vacation destination' as screaming skulls."
He managed a dry chuckle. "Fair. But it means we're close."
They crested a hill, and there it was: Marrowdell.
The village was ringed in bone—literal walls crafted from femurs and vertebrae, towering like the ribcage of a buried gigantic dragon. Inside, buildings slumped in disrepair, roofs collapsed or devoured by parasitic moss.
But the village center pulsed with necrotic energy, thick and vibrant. A spire of skeletal remains twisted skyward, crowned by a lattice of ribcages like some terrible throne.
Between the spire and the walls, cloaked figures moved like beetles: the cult of the Bone Saint.
Tess squinted. "They've fortified the whole perimeter. We won't be able to just walk in."
"We don't need to."
Abraham turned to Whisper and murmured instructions. The fox-like beastling nodded once and vanished into the undergrowth, becoming a blur of darkness and leaves.
***
By nightfall, Abraham's forces had encircled Marrowdell from the north and west. They had camped beneath the cover of dead trees, their firelight kept low, casting twitching shadows on the gnarled bark.
Tess and Chop remained at the ridge while Abraham descended into the trench near the village's rear wall.
He knelt, placed his hand against the earth, and whispered an invocation. The ground trembled.
From beneath the surface, skeletal arms erupted—dozens, then hundreds. Old villagers, ancient warriors, beasts long forgotten. Abraham's connection to them was tenuous, only fragments of memory remained, but his will pressed into them like a signature.
One by one, they rose.
Tess watched from above, her mouth agape. "You raised an entire graveyard."
"No," Abraham said quietly. "I woke it."
More than that, he felt their emotions, faint echoes in the necrotic ether. Fear. Vengeance. Hunger.
***
Midnight struck.
Marrowdell's sentries patrolled lazily along the bone ramparts. Then, from the west, a single fox undead darted into view—carrying something in its jaws.
An explosive bone totem.
Boom.
The wall buckled. Alarms rang.
And the dead surged.
The resurrected horde Abraham had awakened stormed the breach, clawing, biting, battering through cultists who screamed oaths to their Bone Saint. The cult responded with conjured bone blades, skeletal wyverns, and sentient ribcage constructs. The air turned acrid with magic and ash.
Abraham walked calmly into the chaos, flanked by Grub and Cacophony. The raven-beastling let out a shriek, disrupting a volley of bone darts midair. Grub barreled through three cultists in one charge, tearing into the flank of a summoned golem with his tusks.
Tess arrived shortly after, blades drawn, slicing through undead abominations with precision. Chop leapt over her, flattening a massive construct of fused ribs and rusted steel.
In the heart of the village, the bone spire pulsed brighter, reacting to Abraham's presence like a heartbeat rising in terror.
Then he emerged.
The cult leader.
Tall and gaunt, draped in robes stitched from flayed skin and crowned with a helm of fused skulls, he radiated menace. His voice echoed across the square like grinding tombstones.
"You dare defile a sacred ground?"
Abraham didn't flinch. "It's not sacred. It's stolen."
The cult leader raised a hand and the ground split. A towering humanoid skeletal colossus burst forth, forged from thousands of bones, its eyes two burning green flames.
Chop roared, mandibles gnashing.
Tess blinked. "Uh. What's the plan?"
"Improvise!"
Abraham raised both hands, channeling power. He felt the drain immediately. His vision blurred, his breath shortened, and a sharp ache pulsed at the base of his skull, but he pushed through.
A swirling maelstrom of bone formed around him, devouring loose debris and coalescing into jagged tendrils.
The colossus struck.
Abraham met it head-on.
The impact shattered nearby buildings. Dust engulfed the square. A blast wave rippled outward, knocking undead and cultist alike to the ground.
When it cleared, Abraham stood atop the colossus's broken shoulder, panting, blood dripping from his nose.
He raised one hand—and the sigil on his chest ignited.
A pulse of necrotic light spread outward, unraveling the colossus in seconds. The cult leader screamed, but his voice was lost as Cacophony descended, talons rending flesh from his bone.
Silence fell.
Only the sound of Chop's mandibles clicking remained.
***
Morning.
The spire of Marrowdell cracked, toppled, and collapsed into rubble.
Abraham sat near the wreckage, slumped against Chop's massive thorax. His skin was pale. Every breath rattled in his lungs.
Tess approached, a waterskin in hand. "You didn't just push your limits this time. You shattered them."
He took a sip, nodding. "I saw... things. When I unleashed that light. Faces. Places. A city beneath the desert. A door made of obsidian teeth."
"Visions?"
"Memories. Maybe from the dead. Maybe from something older. I'm not sure myself."
She sat beside him. "Whatever they are, I hope they're worth it. You passed out for a good ten minutes."
"Did I drool?"
"Yes. A lot."
He groaned.
Tess chuckled, but her eyes were serious. "We need to be careful, Abraham. Your power's growing faster than your body can keep up."
He nodded. "I know. That's why we follow the map."
Tess raised an eyebrow. "Map?"
Abraham gestured to the massive vertebrae laid out like monoliths near the fallen spire. Carved across them were glyphs—a path.
Tess blinked. "You made a map out of the colossus's spine."
"Recycling. I'm environmentally conscious."
She laughed.
The journey was far from over.
And deeper forces were beginning to stir.
***