The airship was buffeted by the winds high above the desert sands, rocking the vessel in protest to the endrins. The cargo, fastened tightly, suffered little, but its crew teetered this way and that, their air legs gone in the inebriated joy of their impending payday.
“By the golden beard of Grungni!” the kharadron exclaimed as his drink spilled. “My ale! Ack, doesn’t Brocknar know how to pilot a ship, or do I have to go up there and do everything myself?” The rest of the arkanaut crew grumbled in agreement, nursing their own drinks, their all-enclosing helmets discarded within the relative safety of the ship. The arkanauts were crammed into the galley space of the skyvessel, packed in up against fellow crew members and cargo on it’s way from Barak-Mor to the markets of Sepulchra that had overflowed from the main hold. The spartan confines were lit by aetherlights embedded in the walls, casting harsh shadows. Some duardin picked at scraps of food, most held mugs themselves, and all were intently listening to the kharadron who sat before them. “Anyway, where was I?” he asked before taking a hefty gulp of the dark liquid.
“You and your crew had just landed within the dead city,” a slurring duardin chimed in from the back of the crowd.
“Aye, that’s right! So, me and my crew had just landed,” he continued, holding out his now empty cup towards the arkanaut closest to the kegs. The inebriated audience waited in enraptured silence, their attention fixed solely on the duardin before them.
“Go on then, give Grobensonn ‘is fill you dimwit,” an older kharadron snapped at the duardin manning the kegs. Shooting the elder a nasty look, the arkanaut took the proffered mug and began refilling it with the frothy, dark amber liquid.
“Right then,” Grobensonn continued, as he took back his ale, giving the keg master an accusatory glare, “So we had just landed. This was supposed to be a pretty standard trade mission ya see, in fact we had just been there a few months prior. Our holds were empty, ready to take on the artifacts that the husk lords would be willing to part with, and our spymasters’ head filled with the secrets required for the trade. The comings and goings of the rest of Shyish and the like. Well, we get to the tomb city and it’s as silent as the grave. Shut it! I hear that sniggering back there, I know it is a grave technically, but if you had ever been to the desert cities before you would know they are anything but. Normally the streets are busy with the coming and goings of the bone ‘eads, like they have somewhere to be. Like they still breathe the same air as we do. At the very least the legions of the husk lords would be on full parade. Those lordlings like to show off their military might a little too much for my liking.”
“Nothing of the like though. The city was empty as far as we could tell. Dead as the lordlings who normally call it home. Strangest thing was, we couldn’t find anything out of place. No signs of a struggle, nothing. It was like everyone just got up and left one day.” Grobensonn paused to let out a loud belch before taking another swig of his ale and continuing on. “Well, we keep pushing on, figuring eventually we had to find something or someone. Normally we’re not allowed very deep into the city, but there was no one to gainsay us. The closer we got to the center, to the husk lords’ own tombs and temples, the stranger things got. The war statuary that normally stands guard along their colonnades was gone, their plinths empty. Eventually we started hearing an odd noise, something that sounded like a howling wind. Once we got to the temples we discovered it was far stranger and far worse.”
He paused again to stifle another belch, the rest of the duardin hanging off the edge of their seats in anticipation. “Well then!” he exclaimed after a few more stifled belches. “What do you lot put in your ale?” he asked while staring down at his mug, before shrugging and taking yet another swig. “Anyway, let’s see, ah yes, the temples! Well, it turned out the husk lords themselves weren’t missing you see, in fact, we had found them. High up on the walls of their own temples and pyramids. Drawn and quartered with their tongues cut out. Poor bastards, they couldn’t even die, cursed to stare out over their city for all eternity. That odd noise was their garbled cries of rage, carrying through the streets like a funeral dirge.”
Grobensonn paused yet again, as if in sorrowful contemplation before letting out another loud belch. “Well, we were having none of that, as you would guess. We hurried up back to our frigate and hightailed it out of there. No reason to stick around and meet whatever did that, or worse yet, be at the scene of the crime when a husk lord from another city came a callin’ to see what had happened. As we lifted off, some of our lot swore they could see something off in the distance. A line of skeletons, single file, marching away from the city over the horizon, as if they had all just left in an orderly fashion. Leaving their lords and masters for who knows what” He finished the final dregs of his cup and slammed it down. “Well, I wasn’t one to let a good opportunity go to waste,” he said as he reached into his satchel pulling out a golden plaque inscribed with the strange writing of the desert and a winged scarab. The rest of the duardin leaned in, looking over the stolen artifact with greedy eyes. “They weren’t going to get any more use out of this, and it’ll fetch a hefty price in Sepulchra I reckon. Besides, the husk lords were too tied up to do anything about it.” He chuckled at his own joke before swaying slightly in his seat. Rubbing his face, Grobensonn belched again before leaning onto the table before him. “Oh, I don’t feel so great. Seriously, what do you lot put in that ale?”
He began belching continuously, the rest of the duardin backing up from him. Finally, when it seemed as though he was going to spew his ale across the room something small and black popped out of his mouth, bouncing onto the table. Squirming around, the scarab flipped itself rightside up and flittered its wings as if to dry itself off. “What in Grungni’s name?” Grobensonn slurred, holding onto the table to steady himself. “The curse,” a voice muttered from the back of the room. Suddenly the rest of the arkanauts started looking around in concern, some of them slowly making for the room’s exits. It was too late however, and Grobensonn bent double, spewing forth more scarabs between pleas for help. The skin around his face began to loosen and deform, as if his body itself were collapsing in on itself. The insects began to pour forth from his eyes and ears, tearing their way through his very skin. The aetherlights began to flicker as the scarabs swarmed above the prone thief, coalescing into a vaguely humanoid shape. As the lights flickered, a skull crowned in gold crested the swarm. A single baleful rune carved into its forehead and a viciously curved knife grasped in what passed for its hand. The glowing eye sockets surveyed the room, the rest of the kharadron standing in shocked silence. The chittering of the insects filled the galley with a consistent hum as the scarab revenant rose to its full height above the discarded skin husk of Grobensonn.
“You have something that doesn’t belong to you,” it said with a sibilant whisper before the aetherlights went off for good and the screaming began.