The Badlands were not empty. They were merely dead.
For three hours, Silas and Cassidy walked across a landscape of cracked earth and bleached ribs of ancient beasts. The sun was a pale white disk, offering heat without warmth.
Silas was deteriorating.
Without the cooling smog of Blackwater or the damp earth of a grave, the dry heat was drying him out. His skin was cracking. His vision was blurring.
"I need... soil," Silas rasped, stumbling.
"We're miles from civilization, Vane," Cassidy said, scanning the horizon with a brass telescope. "Unless you want to bury yourself in sand, we keep moving."
Silas stopped. He sensed it before he saw it.
A cold draft. A scent of decay that wasn't recent.
"There," he pointed to a cluster of dead mesquite trees near a rocky outcrop.
Hidden beneath the thorns was a wrought-iron gate, half-buried in sand.
The Pioneer's Rest. An abandoned cemetery from the First Expansion.
"It will do," Silas fell to his knees.
He didn't care about the thorns. He crawled through the gate. The ground inside was consecrated—or at least, saturated with enough old death to lower the ambient temperature by ten degrees.
[The Concoction]
Silas sat on a crumbled tombstone.
He placed the lead box on his lap.
"Cassidy. Watch the perimeter. If anything gets close... kill it."
"And if you turn into a monster?" Cassidy asked, checking the cylinder of her revolver.
"Then aim for the head."
Silas opened the box. The Gravekeeper Characteristic—the stone heart—pulsed slowly.
He took out a small flask of moonshine (stolen from the train). He dropped a handful of Witch-Hazel and Grave-Moss (scavenged from his pockets) into the alcohol.
Then, he dropped the heart in.
Hiss.
The liquid bubbled, turning a thick, milky grey. The stone heart dissolved, infusing the drink with the essence of the sequence.
Silas looked at the sludge. It smelled like wet cement and formaldehyde.
"Bottoms up," he whispered.
He drank it in one gulp.
[The Internal War]
The moment the liquid hit his stomach, Silas didn't feel power. He felt weight.
It felt like swallowing a tombstone.
He collapsed onto the dirt, clutching his throat.
His veins turned black. His eyes rolled back.
Inside his mind:
He was standing in a dark corridor. The walls were made of dirt.
A figure stood at the end of the hall. It was a tall, faceless man holding a lantern and a heavy ring of keys.
THE GRAVE IS CLOSED, the figure boomed. YOU ARE NOT WELCOME.
This was the Remnant Will of the potion. The madness of the previous owner.
Silas stood his ground.
"I am not a guest," Silas said mentally. "I am the landlord."
He visualized his shovel. He visualized the weight of the earth.
He walked toward the figure.
The figure lashed out with the keys, trying to lock Silas's mind away.
Silas didn't fight. He accepted.
He accepted the silence. He accepted the duty.
He reached out and grabbed the lantern.
"My watch begins now."
[The Feast of Bones]
Outside, in reality:
Cassidy was busy.
The smell of the magic potion had attracted guests.
From the rocky cliffs, shapes descended.
Bone-Pickers.
They were flightless vultures the size of wolves. They had no feathers, just leathery red skin and beaks designed to crack femurs.
There were six of them.
They circled the graveyard, eyeing the convulsing body of Silas.
"Oh, look at you ugly bastards," Cassidy muttered.
She drew a card. Seven of Diamonds.
Fwhip.
The card sliced the air, embedding itself in the dirt in front of the alpha.
The bird screeched and hopped back.
"Back off!" Cassidy yelled. She fired her revolver.
BANG.
The bullet hit a bird in the shoulder. It squawked, but it didn't die. The Tar corruption made them tough.
They charged.
Cassidy's mechanical arm whirred. She switched modes: Rapid Deal.
She threw three cards in a second.
Slice. Slice. Slice.
One bird went down, throat cut.
But three more leaped over the fence.
One lunged at Cassidy, snapping its beak inches from her face. She kicked it away, but another bit her mechanical arm, denting the brass.
"Silas!" she screamed, pistol-whipping a bird. "Wake up or you're birdseed!"
She was backed against the tombstone where Silas lay.
She had two bullets left. Four birds remained.
She aimed.
Click.
Misfire.
"My luck sucks," she groaned.
The Alpha bird leaped at her throat.
[The Awakening]
A hand shot out.
It was pale. It was cold. And it was incredibly fast.
Silas grabbed the Alpha bird by the neck in mid-air.
He was still lying down. His eyes were open, glowing with a deep, eerie grey light.
Sequence 8: Gravekeeper.
Silas squeezed.
CRUNCH.
The bird's neck snapped like a dry twig.
Silas sat up. He tossed the dead beast aside.
The other birds froze. They sensed the shift in the food chain. The thing on the ground was no longer prey. It was a Predator of the Dead.
Silas stood up. He seemed taller. His coat hung heavier on his frame.
He stomped his foot on the ground.
Ability: Hallowed Ground.
A shockwave of grey dust rippled out from his boot.
Where the dust touched the birds, their muscles seized. They felt the weight of a coffin lid pressing down on them. They couldn't move.
Silas picked up his shovel.
He walked to the nearest paralyzed bird.
"This is a place of rest," Silas's voice was deeper, echoing as if speaking from the bottom of a well. "Show some respect."
Thud.
One swing.
Thud.
Two swings.
Within seconds, the graveyard was silent again. The scavengers were dead.
[The Aftermath]
Silas stood amidst the carnage. He took a deep breath.
He didn't feel weak anymore. The desert heat still beat down, but he carried his own internal cold now. He felt solid. Durable.
He looked at his hands. The skin was tougher, like cured leather.
Cassidy holstered her gun, rubbing her dented metal arm.
"You took your sweet time, Vane. Did you enjoy your nap?"
Silas turned to her.
"I wasn't napping. I was receiving the keys."
He looked at the dead birds.
"And I learned a new trick."
He pointed at the Alpha bird he had strangled.
Ability: Corpse Obedience.
He didn't raise it as a zombie—that was Sequence 6 magic. But he could manipulate the corpse briefly.
The dead bird twitched. Its wings spread. It stood up, clumsy and broken.
"Gross," Cassidy grimaced. "What are you doing?"
"We need a scout," Silas said.
The dead bird flapped its wings, struggling into the air. It flew up, circling the area with dead eyes.
Silas closed his own eyes. He could see what the bird saw. A blurry, grey vision from the sky.
"We have company," Silas said, looking through the bird's eyes.
"Three miles east. A cloud of dust. Horsemen."
He opened his eyes.
"The Sheriff sent a posse. And they have dogs."
Silas picked up his shovel.
"Let's move. I know a shortcut."
"You do?"
"Yes," Silas pointed at a mausoleum door that was chained shut. "Through the catacombs. The dead tell me the tunnels go under the mountains."