The Caretakers of Penegrace

Another day another convoy of pilgrims, opportunists, and fanatics encroached around the tomb walls of Penegrace, the town of the dead. Once a revered sanctuary for honored deceased to find everlasting peace for their mortal remains, now a hot tourist destination, Penegrace has seen a drastic shift in its millennia's long existence.

A town of less than a thousand dead occupants - and less than a hundred live ones - has remained the same for a very long time. That is, up until a few years ago when an adventurous halfling stumbled upon the town and stumped his head on a low-hanging tombstone. That fateful hit on the head sparked an idea that shattered the divine silence of this resting place and prompted its caretakers to once again use their mouths for words...

“Penegrace houses 979 occupants," said the female stone golem, guiding a group of tourists. "The oldest of which had died 1237 years ago, and the youngest just two months ago. These are all legendary men and women from the past, great warriors and kings, scholars and mages, heroes of all races from all over the world. Here, in this place, all those who’ve helped shape the fate of our world have found their final resting place, under the attentive care of Greyrobed Monks, Penegrace’s caretakers.tondividuals who have denounced their former lives in order to look after the remains of these deceased legends. If you look to your left, you can see Master Kragon, who was once a great leader among the orcish people, and supposedly a good bowler…”

“Bah, I can’t listen to this crap,” said Zen, a Greyrobed Monk, nodding towards the woman guide who led a group of tourists into the hollowed sanctuary. “Every time she speaks she starts with Master Kragon. Like he was the greatest of heroes buried here.”

“Ah,” Hiyu, a Greyrobed Monk besides Zen said. “You should not speak ill of our occupants, brother. Everyone who lies here, resting in this soil, has earned their place. Their souls have reunited with the One and their bodies have remained here, to be used once more in a time of need. Should the world again need these heroes, it is our duty to look after their bodies.”

“Yes, brother Hiyu, I couldn’t agree more!” Zen exclaimed. He bowed to Master Kragon’s mausoleum, shaped like a giant bowling ball. “Forgive my tongue, Master Kragon. I am not used to using it.” He turned back to Hiyu. “That is the purpose of this place - to provide a safe and peaceful resting place. But just look around, brother! Is that what it is? It’s become an amusement park, a museum! And before we know it, everyone will want to be buried here, just for the prestige!”

“Ease your spirit, brother,” Hiyu spoke in his soft, calming voice. “What the outer world brings over here is irrelevant, you know this. What matters is what we carry in our hearts. Come, let us walk.”

Zen sighed. He hadn’t moved his legs in over a century.

“Do we have to?”

The older monk nodded. “Movement of the body helps with the movement of thoughts. Your mind needs to clear.”

“Fine,” Zen grunted and moved his right foot. It didn’t want to come off the stone pedestal easily, the vines overgrowing the rock. He had to yank his stoney foot three items before the vines snapped. Blasted, it was so annoying to move!

“They call us the Greyrobed Monks not because of our grey color, brother,” Hiyu spoke as they walked. “It is not the stone we are made off that defines us. It is the indifference that we exert on the world of the living that gives us our name. The grey of our emotions and our thoughts. We are here to look after the dead, not be annoyed by the living.”

Zen stumbled awkwardly on his feet. They felt… well, like stone, clumsy, and heavy. He didn’t understand why some monks, like Hiyu, enjoyed movement so much. They were stone golems for a reason and that reason was to weather the passage of time, not to stroll around like some pedestrians.

“Well, I can’t help but feel anger, brother. I may be as cold as stone but these people that come here… they irritate the pebbles out of me! They have no respect for what we do, no respect for those who rest here. Just look! They’re taking insta-portraits on that sarcophagus!”

A group of elven girls sat on an ancient sarcophagus of what Zen knew was once a great dwarven Emperor of the Desert. Their dresses were almost revealing too much of their gender and one of them held out a stick with a gemstone at the end. They were posing for an insta-portrait, a magically captured snapshot of reality.

“This is disrespectful!”

“Ah, I think it is good for the public to come to visit, especially the young,” Hiyu smiled. “It is important they learn of their heroes, don’t you think, brother?”

“They can do that from books and tales,” Zen grunted, eyeing a human who inspected a grave with far too much touching. “The only life that should be present here is the one leaving.”

“I’m sensing a lot of hostility in you, brother,” Hiyu said, turning a concerned look. “Take care lest you want to fracture and become mortal.”

“I’m fine,” Zen said. “Or rather, I will be fine, as soon as things go back to normal and we throw out all these people. Look there! Are those necromancers?”

A group wearing black strolled nearby, their eyes and hands pulsating with sickly green color.

“It would seem they are.”

“I bet they’re here to try and raise one of the heroes. Are we just going to allow that, brother? Are we not here to provide peace and security for the deceased?”

“Yes, you are right there, brother,” Hiyu said. “That is why we are walking around today. To let our guests know what they are allowed to do and what they are not.”

Zen stopped, pointing at the group of necromancers. “Brother, they’ve brought shovels.”

“Perhaps they’re gardeners?”

“Gardeners?” Zen snapped. “Brother, I beg your pardon, but have you fractured a seam? They’re necromancers who brought shovels to a graveyard!”

“It is not what people bring here that is important, it’s what we carry-”

“Yes, yes,” Zen cut in. “What we carry in our hearts. Look, if their shovels so much as touch the ground, I’ll-”

One of the necromancers in the group laughed and rammed her shovel into the freshly packed soil of the most recent grave. Zen nearly fell from indignation and the awkwardness of using his legs for anything but standing.

“By the One!”

“Ah, perhaps they are just turning over the soil, letting it breathe…”

Zen didn’t listen to his fellow monk’s optimistic nonsense. He bolted down the path in a hurried fury, ready to squash the group into a meaty pulp.

“What do you think you are doing?” he demanded, fists clenched and ready to crush.

The woman, one foot on the shovel, turned her head toward Zen. The rest of the group stopped their lively chatter. 

“Shoot,” one of them said. “I told you guys there’ll be trouble.”

“You say that every time.”

“And this time I’m right.”

“Zip it you two,” the woman hissed. 

Zen looked at them, growing more and more annoyed. “I asked, what are you doing? Did you come here to desecrate this hallowed ground, disgracing the dead with your foul perversions? I can see by the look of your black robes and your green magic that you are necromancers - don’t even try to deny it! I’d recognize a true gardener a mile away!”

“We’re here to dig up a body,” the woman said, leaning on the shovel. 

Zen blinked. “I… You what?” 

“We’re from AMA, Alternative Magics Academy,” she continued. “The semester has started and we’ll need to show the students a proper demonstration for the Corpse Animation 101 class. Quite a few took it this year, surprisingly.”

“Yeah, who’d have thought it, right?”

Zen couldn’t believe his stone ears. “So you’re not even going to deny it?”

The group glanced at each other. “We kind of thought you guys were just… statues. You know, not true guardians.”

“We’re the caretakers of this place!” Zen bellowed, spitting bits of rock from his mouth.

“Yeah, well, you're usually so… still, that we mistook you for ornamentation.”

Zen could hear his temples cracking, the indignation too much for his stoic soul to take. He snatched the shovel from the woman, nearly making her fall on her face. “Go! Find a body someplace else, lest I make bodies out of you! This is a sanctuary!”

The woman frowned, but the others behind her looked interested. Not the least scared. “You’d make bodies of us?” one asked. “That’s not that bad an idea. It would spare us some time, using one of us to act as a surrogate.”

“Yeah, but I think the students would prefer working on a legendary subject, not a boring old professor.”

“Hey, who are you calling boring?”

“OUT!”

The group stumbled back, but it wasn’t until Zen smashed one of them in a pile of biomatter, that they started running. 

“And take your shovel with you!” He launched the shovel after them, but none dared to slow down to pick it up. Zen sighed, parts of him cracking under the intensity of emotions, and shuffled his awkward feet to pick up the shovel. He used it to scrape the remains of the one necromancer from the ground.

“Don’t even say it,” he growled as he heard stoney feet approaching. “If anything, this proves we need to close the town to all outsiders. Did you hear why they came here? Insufferable!”

“You lost your temper, brother,” Hiyu said. “It is inconvenient as it is, us speaking, but yelling disturbs the souls of the deceased.”

“They thought I was a bloody statue! They called me ornamentation!”

“Brother,” Hiyu gasped. “Get a hold of yourself! Your face is cracking!”

Zen felt his cheek with his hand. A good chunk of it crumbled at the touch, falling like dust to his feet. 

“Brother,” Zen gasped. “What is happening to me?”

“I fear you’re becoming mortal,” Hiyu said, the usual calmness in his voice shaken. “Emotions have found their way into your core somehow and are now working to break your shell. I… I am sorry.”

Zen dropped the shovel. His hands trembled and as he raised them, they shed more dust. Zen clenched his fists in a sudden burst of anger, causing them to crumble. “That does it! I’ve had it, brother Hiyu! I’m closing the gates to our town! No more mortals to desecrate-”

The words were taken from him as his form suddenly disintegrated in a pile of sand. It was lethal to feel emotions if one was a Greyrobed Monk.

“Shame,” Hiyu mumbled and shook his head. “Well, guess he always did look suspicious, walking around and feeling a lot. It was just a matter of time.”

He bowed in respect, then picked up the shovel and began whistling a jolly tune, as he shoveled away the pile of sand that was once brother Zen.

“Don’t worry, brother,” Hiyu said, waving to a group of tourists passing by. “You’ll make a fine gravely road for our increasing number of guests!”

If one listened very closely they could hear the sand making sounds surprisingly similar to stone golem curses.