Chapter 6: The Grave-Keeper's Toll
Dawn in the Sepulcher Chapel was not a breaking of light, but a gradual softening of the permanent twilight. The grey, predawn glow seeped through the broken stained glass, failing to warm the stone or dispel the deep quiet. Lena had spent the night curled in a corner of the nave, fitfully dozing against a wall, startling awake at every imagined sound—which was only the soft, rhythmic clicking of bone on stone as the Skeletal Acolytes patrolled the fence line.
Rocky had not slept. He had sat upon the Seat of Silence, his eyes closed, his consciousness extended through the demesne. He felt the roots of the yew tree gripping the old graves. He felt the slow seep of groundwater. He felt the quiet pulse of residual death-energy, a placid lake he could draw from. He practiced. With minimal gestures and focused will, he caused a single bone—a fallen rib from some long-dead creature in the yard—to levitate, spin, and reshape itself into a crude needle, then a small clasp, then dust. It was an exercise in control, in understanding the material. God of All Professions understood craftsmanship. The Sovereign understood the medium. Here, they were one.
As the first true ray of sun pierced the window, painting a dagger of gold on the dusty floor, Rocky's eyes opened. He stood. The motion was silent. Lena, watching him from her corner, flinched.
He walked to the chapel door and opened it. The morning air outside was chill and fresh, a stark contrast to the sepulchral stillness within. The three Acolytes stood at their posts by the gate, unmoving. Kline lay across the threshold, a bony guardian.
"Your debt is paid," Rocky said, without looking at Lena. "Leave. Speak as instructed."
Lena scrambled to her feet, her legs stiff. She hesitated, clutching her torn robe. "They… they'll ask where I was. What I saw."
"Tell them the truth you were given," he replied, his tone leaving no room for negotiation. "A warded place. Bones that walk. Nothing more."
She nodded, a quick, bird-like motion, and scurried past him, giving Kline a wide berth. She paused at the edge of the dais, looking back. "Thank you," she whispered, the words seeming absurd in the face of his transactional coldness.
He didn't acknowledge them. She was already a memory, a spent resource. She turned and fled through the cemetery gate, disappearing down the overgrown road toward the stirring Safe Zone.
Alone again. The demesne settled back into its perfect, watchful silence.
He had a foundation. He had soldiers. He needed a general. Kline was loyal and effective, but limited. The Acolytes were mere automata. To project power beyond the fence, to hunt the Disasters he knew were coalescing, he needed a stronger, more intelligent vessel. A commander for his silent legion.
The Shadow Fang was spent, anchoring the demesne. He needed a new core. A focus for a greater creation. His memory supplied an answer, a piece of early-game lore often overlooked: The Heartwood of the Mourning Yew.
The giant yew tree in the center of the cemetery was not just a tree. In Genesis, it was a minor landmark. If a player with sufficient Herbalism and a respectful offering (usually a purified spirit or a song of parting) interacted with it at dawn, it would sometimes shed a piece of its inner heartwood—a material with strong life-and death-attuned properties, perfect for bridging the gap between animating force and stable form.
He had no Herbalism skill. He had no purified spirit. But he had something else: Authority. And a direct connection to the land.
He walked to the great yew. Its trunk was massive, gnarled, its bark deep and furrowed like stone. He placed a hand upon it. He did not ask. He communed.
He pushed a thread of his awareness into the tree, not to dominate it, but to show it a reflection. He showed it the stillness of his chapel, the order of his patrolling dead, the peace of his claimed silence. He showed it the alternative—the chaos of the Plague, the screeching of demons, the defilement of graves. He offered a simple trade: Give me a piece of your strength, your ancient stability, and I will make this place a bastion of quiet endings. A sanctuary from the screaming world.
The tree did not respond with words. But the air around it grew even stiller. A deep, resonant hum, felt in the bones rather than heard, vibrated through the ground. A single branch, high above, trembled. A knot in the wood near his hand pulsed, then cracked open with a sound like a sigh. From within, a smooth, foot-long shaft of wood slid out. It was deep, rich brown, veined with streaks of black and the faintest silver. It was warm to the touch, yet carried the scent of loam and old stone.
Item Acquired: [Heartwood of the Mourning Yew].
Type: Legendary Material / Core.
An ancient piece of heartwood, saturated with centuries of peaceful death and resilient life. A peerless focus for any art touching upon vitality, spirit, or permanence.
Perfect.
Now, he needed a vessel worthy of it. A skeleton would not suffice. He needed a template of power. The memory of the Graniteback Badger surfaced. Its earth-aligned toughness. But it was a beast, lacking the necessary structure for command.
He needed a humanoid form. A warrior's frame. And he knew where to find one.
The previous day, while directing Leo the Rogue, he'd noted the boy's cheap, system-generated leather armor had a symbol: a gauntlet clutching a pale rose. The insignia of the Pale Hand guild. In his past life, the Pale Hand were mid-tier bullies, notorious in the early zones for ganking solo players and hoarding beginner resources. Their local lieutenant, a thug named Gareth, ran a "toll" operation from the old city bridge. Gareth was a [Warrior - Level 7], arrogant, brutal, and crucially, fond of wearing a set of \[Ironblood Pauldrons\]—a low-level rare item that increased Vitality and had a minor life-steal effect. The pauldrons were bound to him, but upon his death, their enchantment would linger in the metal for a short time, a latent energy signature.
Rocky didn't want the pauldrons. He wanted the frame that wore them. Gareth would make an excellent template for his first skeletal champion.
It was not a quest for justice. It was a procurement mission. The Pale Hand was a nuisance, and Gareth was a resource. Two problems, one solution.
He returned to the chapel with the Heartwood. He spent the morning in meticulous preparation. Using his dagger and the focused pressure of his will, he carved the Heartwood into a smooth, tapered cylinder, about the length of a forearm. He inscribed it not with runes of power, but with geometric patterns representing command hierarchy, stability, and kinetic transfer—the principles of a general, not a brute.
By midday, the artifact was ready. \[The Yew Command Rod\]. It hummed with potential.
Now, for the vessel. He could not create life from nothing. He needed raw materials. Bones. But not just any bones. They had to be strong, fresh enough to hold enchantment, and plentiful.
He stood and walked to the edge of his demesne, the Rod in hand. He faced the three Skeletal Acolytes standing guard. They were made from Plaguewalkers—tainted, then purified. Their bones were adequate, but they were already instruments. He needed base matter.
He raised the Yew Command Rod. He pointed it at the bare earth of a freshly turned grave—an old one, its occupant long dust. He issued a new decree, leveraging the demesne's power and the Rod's authority.
"This earth remembers the scaffold. The calcium, the phosphate, the memory of structure. I do not summon the dead. I summon the echo of form. Give me the framework of a warrior."
He channeled a massive surge of Stamina, and the demesne itself responded, the placid lake of death-energy stirring. The soil of the grave mound began to churn. Not with horror, but with a strange, geometric purpose. From the soil, particles rose—flecks of ancient bone, minerals, calcium deposits—swirling in a vortex. They clicked, fused, and assembled not randomly, but following the blueprint in Rocky's mind: a humanoid skeleton, seven feet tall, with broad shoulders, a thick ribcage, and dense, long bones.
It was not a true skeleton. It was a simulacrum of bone, crafted from the earth's memory and raw materials. It lacked a skull. It knelt in the grave, inert, a blank slate of calcified potential.
Base Vessel Created: [Earthen Bone Simulacrum].
Quality: Excellent. A vacant chassis awaiting a core and a binding will.
The final piece would be Gareth's form and the latent energy from his pauldrons. That would provide the specific martial template and the final spark of "identity."
He was ready to procure.
"Kline," he said. The Skeletal Hound padded to his side. "Remain. Guard the demesne. The Acolytes are under your command in my absence." He passed a thread of authority to the hound, and he felt the three Acolytes' focus shift subtly to acknowledge Kline as their immediate superior.
He left the cemetery, the Yew Command Rod secured in his spatial inventory. He moved with purpose, a shadow in the daylight. The journey to the old bridge took twenty minutes. He could hear the commotion long before he saw it.
The bridge was a choke point between the main Safe Zone and the resource-rich northern parklands. A crude barricade of debris and a rusty car had been dragged across one lane. Four men and women wearing the Pale Hand insignia stood guard, their expressions bored and arrogant. Before them, a makeshift "toll" was being enforced: a pair of [Apprentice Rangers] were being forced to hand over half the rabbit pelts they'd gathered.
And there, leaning against the car, was Gareth. He matched the memory: big, muscle-bound, with a sneer permanently etched on his face. The \[Ironblood Pauldrons\] sat on his shoulders, dark iron scored with glowing crimson veins. He was Level 7, his health bar visible and full. A crude greatsword was slung across his back.
Rocky observed from the tree line. Direct assault was possible but messy. The four guards were Levels 3-5. He could likely use the environment and hit-and-run tactics to whittle them down, but it would be time-consuming and attract attention. He preferred precision.
He noticed the pattern. Every half hour or so, Gareth would grow bored, cuff one of his subordinates on the head, and stalk off the bridge to relieve himself in the bushes downstream, out of sight of the toll operation. A creature of habit. A predictable vulnerability.
Rocky melted back into the woods and circled downstream. He found the spot—a dense thicket near the muddy bank. He prepared the ground. Not a trap, but a stage. He cleared a small circle, using the Yew Command Rod to gently encourage the roots of a willow to rise slightly, creating a natural, hidden hollow. He then waited, still as the trees themselves.
Right on schedule, Gareth's heavy footsteps and grumbling voice approached. "Stupid rabbits. Should just take it all. Lazy…"
The man pushed through the final line of brush into the small clearing by the bank. He froze.
Standing in the center of the cleared circle was Rocky. He held no weapon. He simply stood there, looking at Gareth with an expression of detached assessment, like a butcher sizing up a side of beef.
Gareth's surprise turned to a contemptuous grin. "Well, well. Look what the cat dragged in. You're that freak who picked 'No Class.' Heard about you. Come to pay the toll? What you got? Some weird sticks?" He laughed, unstrapping his greatsword. "Or maybe I just take that fancy stick you're holding as a souvenir."
"You are a template," Rocky said, his voice flat. "Your pauldrons hold a useful energy signature. Your skeletal structure is adequate. I am here for procurement."
Gareth blinked, the words not computing. Then his face darkened with rage. "You talking nonsense, you little shit." He raised his greatsword, the blade gleaming dully. "I'll split you in half and see what you're really made of."
He charged, a classic, overcommitted [Power Cleave] aimed to bisect Rocky from shoulder to hip.
Rocky didn't dodge into the trees. He didn't try to block. He took one precise step forward, inside the arc of the massive swing. His hand shot up, not to strike Gareth, but to slap the flat of the incoming blade with perfect, deflecting timing.
CLANG!
The sound was shockingly loud. The greatsword, deflected just enough, slammed into the mud an inch from Rocky's foot, the force driving the blade deep. Gareth, overbalanced, stumbled forward.
Rocky was already a blur of efficient motion. He'd drawn his own rusty dagger. He didn't aim for the heart or throat. He drove the blade upward, through a tiny gap in Gareth's cheap leather armor, into the nerve cluster just below the man's right shoulder—the \[Axillary Nerve\]. A master physician's knowledge, applied with a rogue's precision.
Gareth screamed, a high-pitched sound of shock and agony. His right arm went completely limp, the greatsword falling from numb fingers.
Before the scream could fully escape, Rocky's other hand clamped over Gareth's mouth from behind. He drove a knee into the back of the man's leg, dropping him to his knees in the mud.
"The template must be intact," Rocky murmured into his ear, as if explaining a complex recipe. "Minimal structural damage is preferred."
Gareth's eyes bulged with terror and confusion. He tried to struggle, but Rocky's grip was implacable, his movements leveraging pain and biomechanical locks. The God of All Professions knew a hundred ways to disable a man without killing him. This was one.
Rocky reached into his inventory with his free hand. He pulled out not the Yew Command Rod, but a heavy rock. "The energy signature must be liberated first."
He slammed the rock down on Gareth's left pauldron. Once. Twice. The metal, magically reinforced, didn't break, but the enchantment within, disrupted by the violent shock and its wearer's terror and proximity to death, flared crimson and then snapped.
A wave of latent life-steal energy, now unbounded and raw, erupted from the pauldron. Rocky, ready for it, channeled it through his own body—a conduit—and directly into the Yew Command Rod in his inventory. The Rod absorbed the violent, stolen-life energy, refining it, calming it into a pulsing, crimson gem of potential now housed within the wood.
Energy Signature Acquired: [Ironblood Theft Essence].
Gareth, feeling the last of his item's power leave him, whimpered.
"Now, the template," Rocky said.
He shifted his grip. One arm locked around Gareth's neck in a precise blood choke. The man thrashed for a moment, his one good hand clawing uselessly at Rocky's arm. Rocky counted silently in his head. Ten seconds.
The thrashing weakened.
Fifteen.
Gareth's body went slack, unconscious, his brain deprived of oxygen but not damaged.
Release.
He let the bulky man slump into the mud. Alive, but out. The process was cleaner this way.
Rocky stood. He wiped his dagger clean on a leaf. He then knelt and, with clinical detachment, began the real work. Not looting. Not killing. Harvesting. He placed his hands on Gareth's still form. He focused the power of the demesne, channeled through the Yew Command Rod he now held. He wasn't taking the man's life. He was taking the echo of his physicality, the pattern of his bone structure and martial bearing, imprinted on the world by his existence and his now-liberated gear.
A shimmering, ghostly blue outline—a photostat of Gareth's form—peeled away from the unconscious body. It hovered for a moment, then flowed into the Yew Command Rod. The Rod grew warm, the carved geometries glowing softly.
Template Acquired: [Warrior's Frame - Brute Archetype].
His work done, Rocky stood. He looked down at the unconscious, disarmed Gareth. He was now a Level 7 man with no weapon, one crippled arm, and no prized pauldrons. In the new world, that was a death sentence slower than the one Rocky would have given him. A more poetic justice, perhaps, but Rocky didn't think in poetry. He thought in completed objectives.
He turned and walked away, leaving the man to his fate. He had what he came for.
He returned to the Sepulcher Chapel as dusk began to gather. In the center of the demesne, before the Seat of Silence, the Earthen Bone Simulacrum still knelt, vacant.
Rocky approached. He raised the Yew Command Rod, now thrumming with the Ironblood Theft Essence and imprinted with the Warrior's Frame.
"A vessel of earth," he intoned, his voice resonating in the silent chapel. "A template of conflict. An essence of stolen vitality. Be bound. Be shaped. Be the will where I cannot be the hand."
He touched the Rod to the Simulacrum's chest.
The reaction was immediate and profound. The crimson energy from the Rod surged into the bone chassis, tracing through it like blazing circuitry. The ghostly blue template superimposed itself over the bones, and they shifted, thickening, aligning, the shoulders broadening, the stance becoming more aggressive. The vacant space where the skull should be filled with swirling motes of earth and crimson light, coalescing into a heavy, helmet-like skull of layered bone and dark mineral, with two slits for eyes that glowed with a steady, deep red light.
It grew. Muscles of petrified sinew and condensed earth formed over the bones. It rose from its knees to stand a full seven and a half feet tall, a juggernaut of silent, grim purpose. In its hands, formed from the excess material, appeared a massive, crude greatsword of fused stone and bone.
Skeletal Champion Created: [The Grave Warden - Level 7].
Bound directly to the Seat of Silence. Commander-tier minion.
Traits: [Ironblood Constitution] (Gains temporary HP on dealing damage), [Earthen Stability] (Resistant to knockback and control effects), [Silent Command] (Can relay your orders to lesser undead within 1 mile).
The Grave Warden turned its helmeted skull toward Rocky. It dropped to one knee, its greatsword point-down in the earth. A wave of absolute, unwavering loyalty washed through the demesne's bond.
Rocky looked upon his creation. His general. His will, made manifest in bone and stone.
He finally had a hunting dog worthy of the Disasters to come.
He sat upon his throne. The Warden rose and took position to his right, a statue of deadly patience. Kline sat to his left. The Acolytes stood guard at the doors.
The Sepulcher Chapel was no longer just a sanctuary.
It was a command post.
And from its silence, a new kind of order would spread—an order of absolute, unforgiving hunt.
[End of Chapter 6]