Enter The Depths
The transition from the scorched dunes to the heart of the forest was jarring. As the group crossed the invisible threshold into Zone C, the searing heat of the desert was replaced by a cloying, stagnant dampness. The air grew thick with a silence that spoke of ancient, buried dangers, and the towering trees here were twisted, their bark as grey and smooth as weathered tombstone.
Survival hung heavy in their words as they navigated the narrow, root-choked paths.
They spoke in hushed tones, weaving plans for emergency retreats and desperate strategies against the unseen. Flynn led the way, his hand never straying far from the hilt of his daggers, his dark eyes darting toward every rustle in the undergrowth. They discussed battle formations to counter the grim possibilities lurking in the shadows: shambling undead monsters, lumbering wood golems that blended perfectly with the timber, skittering giant spiders, and the deceptive, funnel-shaped pitfalls of ant lions hidden beneath the leaf litter. But one creature, one name, carried a chill that silenced all other thoughts whenever it was mentioned: the Bone Golem.
"What exactly is a Bone Golem?" George asked. His voice, usually so confident and booming, held a noticeable tremor of unease. He gripped the hilt of Ascalon tightly, the silver markings on his skin humming with a faint, warning heat.
Flynn's voice was a low, grave rumble, barely louder than the crunch of dead leaves beneath their boots. "It's one of the most dangerous entities in the Forest of Golems. It isn't born from the earth or the trees like the others. It's a creature made completely of calcified remains—a shifting, clicking nightmare of skeletal architecture."
Jamil interjected, his voice hushed and tight with nerves. "The legends say it doesn't just kill. They say that when it takes a life, it absorbs the victim's skeleton to increase its own mass. Every bone it adds makes it stronger, denser."
"I heard that too," Elvina added, her usual quick-witted nature replaced by a somber mask. "They say you can hear the screams of the previous victims vibrating through its ribcage when it moves."
Siri stepped closer to George, her reddish-purple eyes wide with a mixture of academic wonder and visceral fear. "Furthermore," she whispered, "this creature possesses a terrifying level of malleability. It can wield its very bones as weapons—extending femurs into spears or sharpening ribs into jagged blades. Those bones are, it seems, more formidable and magically resonant than even the strongest tempered steel."
"That's terrifying," George breathed, the words heavy with a dread that the legend of Ascalon couldn't quite dispel. He looked at the twisted trees around them, suddenly seeing the resemblance between the grey branches and reaching fingers.
"Exactly," Flynn affirmed, coming to a halt and signaling for silence as he scanned a clearing up ahead. "That's why we need to move like ghosts. If we encounter it, we don't fight. We don't try to be heroes. We avoid it at all costs."
The group fell into a suffocating silence, the only sound the distant, rhythmic clicking of wood rubbing against wood—or perhaps, George feared, the sound of bone against bone. They pressed deeper into the gloom, the emerald light of the tele-stone flickering like a dying heartbeat against the encroaching dark of Zone C.