The Keeper of the Dead

Written by Transcendence Project

The air was hot, his enclosure damp. Through his panicked gasping, he could hear the laughter growing louder, as if the voice which produced it was coming closer. He had gone into this crypt a brave and confident adventurer - it mattered little to him now if he left with his pride, so long as he could leave. The Guardian had warned him. He said magic and Old Gods were not to be trifled with, but still he persisted, as others before him, to enter the hallowed grounds of the Keeper of the Dead.
Stories and poems of this place had gone on for generations, some considering it a holy monument, and some proclaiming it as a place of great evil. Firsthand experience now put his opinion onto the latter. The laughter stopped. The stillness brought a rush of relief, and then a wave of panic. He wanted to open the door to the empty tomb he'd climbed into to hide from the wispy voices and heavy footsteps following him. But his body froze at the realization the laughter never faded, never died down. Just...stopped. Perhaps what was chasing him had found him. Or perhaps it was discovered by an even more fearsome aberration.
Finding his nerve again, he drew his sword, ready to strike and fight for his life. He began to push the door, but it creaked. Loudly. Much too loudly. He closed it, and heard a collective "clunk". Confused, he pushed again, and again, the door creaked too loudly. His eyes became saucers as he realized his door wasn't the only one to open. Decaying corpses, some but bones, lay still in their swaddles, the stench muddling with the humid air. He let out a sigh, and began to take a careful step out of the tomb when he heard knocking behind him. And quickly, the knocking was accompanied by groaning and rattling - the noise surrounded him as the room filled with the Dead, crawling out of their holdings and casting off their death cloths to stumble towards the horrified adventurer.
An inscription born inside the door began to glow, and read as such: "For the love of power and glory, braggarts shall garner this sight to behold. Entombed to become that which you fear and desecrate, and so shall the cycle be evermore, less a person of true strength set all free."
The banging behind him resumed, and finding he could no longer open door he had closed, he stood helplessly and terrified as he watched the backing to the tomb broke open, and from the rubble, a man seemingly made of stone, stood before him. The adventurer recognized him from the stories. The Keeper of the Dead.
Dropping to his knees, he prayed and begged for the Keeper to save him, promising him everything he could. The Keeper...laughed.* The adventurer shook; it was the same laugh from the start. The laugh, the heavy footsteps, the one who'd chased him here was the Keeper himself. Silent tears streamed down his face as the Keeper opened the tomb door to the mob of the undead masses, and the adventurer cried no more.