I cautiously descended the worn stone stairs. The air underground was cool and damp. The stairway opened into a large room, instead of the crypt tunnels I had expected.

It was a second worship space, only slightly smaller than the one above. Light streamed in from narrow windows near the ceiling; multicolored from the stained glass. The cloth coverings were mostly rotted away, but the stone pews seemed largely intact. Intricate stone reliefs lined the walls.

I nearly had a heart attack when Ajax stepped up behind me. “Beautiful,” he commented, examining the room. It was beautiful, but hauntingly so. Like an ancient garden reclaimed by nature. The accumulated dust and burned down candles giving the space an abandoned feel.

“Gives me the creeps,” I said, feeling a chill on my spine. Ajax moved over to inspect a relief and I ventured deeper into the room. While the pews were unscathed, the altar had taken considerable damage. The stone was split straight down the middle, as if it had been struck by lightning.

The chunks of smooth stone crumbled at my touch, falling to the floor in a rain of debris. A random memory from highschool theology struck me. Using both hands, I shoveled more of the flaking stone. It broke off easily, more like compressed sand than actual stone.

After a few moments I found what I was looking for. A small box, the size of a wallet, placed under the altar during its construction. The box was heavy for its size, probably lead. Inside was a medallion of glass and gold.

A primary relic if my memory served. The hair or bone of a long dead saint sealed in glass. I put the box in my pack, careful to make sure it wouldn't crush anything. I figured that if nothing else, the Archbishop would be grateful to have a relic returned.

Sarah let out a delighted gasp as she joined us in the basement. She wrote in her tome furiously, examining every part of the underground sanctuary. Figuring we would be here a while, I sat on one of the stone pews.

I wasn’t exhausted, not yet, but a morning of hacking up zombies would wear anyone out. Ajax moved up to a door in the far wall and pulled out his lockpicks. Probably a storage area and maybe a second staircase for the priest to use. I considered joining him, but having a moment to rest was nice.

I must have nodded off, because my head snapped up at the sound of boots scuffing stone. It was Ajax hurrying out of the storage room, his face pale.

“Run,” he hissed, gesturing with shaking hands. I was on my feet in a moment, heart pounding. I opened my mouth to say something, but thought better of it. I backed towards the stairs, weapons out and focused on the door.

In my peripheral vision, Ajax waved down Sarah. She looked at us, confused, but whatever she was going to say was drowned out by a cacophonic rattling from the back room. The sound was like thousands of wooden chimes in a hurricane.

“Run!” Ajax shouted and we sprinted for the stairs. Because I pushed them up the stairs ahead of me, I saw the maelstrom of bones pour out of the back room. The yellowed bones spun and whirled haphazardly, formed a claw the size of a horse, and broke apart again just as fast.

We rushed up the stairs and into the street. Wordlessly, we broke north, the direction already cleared. I glanced back, and wished I hadn’t.

The bones had twisted together into a 12 foot tall pantherine shape and was gaining on us with every loping step. I stopped and turned to face the beast. We wouldn’t outrun it like this, I would have to slow it down.

I dove away from the bone construct’s lunge, rib bones sharpened into teeth narrowly missing flesh. I came out of my roll slashing. The hindlimb was formed from hundreds of bones stretched and twisted together like a steel cable. My shamshir glowed purple as I cut cleanly through, lopping the limb off at the knee.

I felt a surge of satisfaction as the severed leg dissolved into hundreds of loose bones. The feeling lasted only a moment before the bone panther ran right past me, fixated on Ajax and Sarah. It’s tail flicked out, almost lazily, as it passed.

I brought up my shield to block, but was thrown off my feet by the impact. Pain shot up my wrist, sharp and hot. I struggled to my feet. With a sinking feeling I saw the bones I had separated from the beast rolling and spinning along the street; eager to rejoin the whole.

The bone panther was closing in on Ajax when he grabbed Sarah and dove down an alley. The monster overshot the gap and had to skid to a stop. Claws tore fresh scars into the street as it scrambled for traction.

I hurried down a parallel alley, hoping to catch up to my friends. When I exited the alley, I was surprised to see Ajax and Sarah running back in my direction.

“We’ll never outrun it,” Ajax gasped between breaths. “The roof.” He pointed back at the church.

The church was maybe four stories at the peak, but the multi-tiered roof would make the climb possible. I was skeptical that it would offer much safety, but kept my mouth shut. I couldn't come up with a better plan.

We reached the church just as the bone panther managed to pour itself out of the narrow alleyway. The hindleg I had severed was reformed with no noticeable damage done.

I sheathed my weapons and put my back to the wall. Forming a stirrup with my hands, I boosted Ajax up onto the first tier of the roof. I grunted in pain as my wrist protested the movement, but muscled through it. There was no time to treat it delicately.

I boosted Sarah up, and then the two of them hauled me up. My wrist screamed in agony from Sarah’ white-knuckled grip, but I made it up. The panther was closing the gap quickly, just taller than the roof we were standing on. We needed to get higher, much higher.

Luckily, the church was studded with decorations, windows, and crenellations. I was almost finished with the 15 foot climb to the second tier when the beast crashed into the church. It scrabbled ineffectually with its forelimbs. The first roof tier was too small for the creature’s whole body and it was having trouble getting traction. Roof tiles shattered and rained down in sheets wherever the monster tried to gain purchase.

We reached the second tier and sprinted up the sloped roof. We were all out of breath, but nobody felt like stopping. The creature reformed itself to add more and more limbs, taking mass from its main body. Soon it was closer to a spider than anything feline.

It managed to perch precariously on the first roof tier, but struggled to reach the second. It wasn’t quite tall enough and whenever it tried to stretch up, the weak limbs supporting its weight collapsed. It could reach a limb onto the second tier, but was too weak to pull itself up. Unlike a real spider, it was far too heavy to climb up walls. In fact, it seemed too heavy. Either it was more than just bone, or they were more dense than standard human bone.

We reached the belltower and I was relieved to see an access ladder. My wrist was pulsing in time with my racing heart and couldn’t take much more abuse. I watched the abomination as Ajax and Sarah climbed up.

It slammed a limb up onto the second tier again, but again the limb ripped apart under the weight of the creature’s main body. The composite bones slithered off the roof and rejoined the mass. Either there was something in the creature’s regeneration that stopped it from assembling piecemeal on the second tier, or it was too simple to come up with that as a plan.

It tried a dozen different forms, growing limbs, heads, tails, reforming into a ball, then a snake. It kept struggling until the roof under it was shredded beyond repair. The tier collapsed, dumping the beast back into the church.

I climbed the bell tower ladder after my companions, favoring my wrist. At the top of the tower, Sarah and Ajax sat, backs to the support columns. I joined them, grateful to just sit for a moment. None of us talked for a few minutes, just recovering from the flight.

Eventually, I struggled to my feet and looked for the bone creature. It was there, on the street. Back in it’s cat form, it prowled around the church, tail twitching jerkily. It didn’t try to climb up to us though, for now it seemed content to wait.

The monster reshaped as I watched. It mostly mimicked animals, but occasionally added extra limbs or heads at random.

“Bone golem, has to be,” Sarah said, studying the creature. True to form, she had her tome out and was taking notes.

“Doesn't look much like a golem to me,” I said skeptically. I pictured the golems I had faced countless times in other games. Faceless bipedal monsters. Two legs and two arms, not an ever changing mass of bones.

“That’s what Sir Henry’s Undead Bestiary called them,” Sarah said with a shrug. “Apparently that’s what you get when an abomination lives long enough for the flesh to rot away. That thing is at least ten years old, probably older.”

“An abomination?” I asked.

“What happens when you animate a mass grave. Many corpses formed into one zombie.”

“Lovely,” Ajax commented. “How can that thing be ten years old? You said the Night of Jagged Teeth was four years ago.”

“Not sure,” Sarah said, chewing her lip. “Either it was already here, hidden away, or whatever caused the Night of Jagged Teeth brought it with.”

“All that aside,” I said. “What do we do now?” Below us the beast prowled, showing no signs of going back into the church.

“It can’t corner well,” Ajax said. “And the narrow alley slowed it down.”

“You think if we change direction enough, keep away from wide streets, we might be able to get away?” I said. I studied the street layout. There were plenty of narrow alleys, but there were open spaces too. Areas where the buildings had been demolished and wouldn’t impede the golem’s movement. It would be a contest to see if we could gain enough of a lead before we were forced into a straightaway.

“Risky,” Ajax said. He frowned as he examined the dilapidated city.

“We could wait it out,” Sarah suggested. I shot her a questioning look and she explained. “Bone golems are nocturnal. We woke it up from its rest, but it might go back to sleep if we wait long enough.”

“It sleeps?” I asked, incredulous.

“Not really, more like hibernates. It might be just a pile of bones, but it’s animated with the instincts of a predator. It follows a pattern. Sleeping during the day and hunting at night.”

“Hunting what?” I said.

“Anything with bones. Given the abundance, I would say zombies mostly,” she said, shrugging again.

“Waiting beats trying to outrun it,” Ajax said. We settled in and unpacked food and water.

We passed the time with quiet conversation. Sarah splinted my wrist with Ajax’s spare ramrod and strips of cut cloth. I took some of the paracetamol Scott had given me. I should really check what else the plague doctor could whip up. Bombs or acid might be useful for when we ran into enemies that couldn’t be shot or stabbed to death.

Ajax did try shooting it. No reason not to try whittling it down from long range. Bone shards sprayed off with every impact, but it made no real dent in the golem. The twisting bones repaired any damage done in moments. If we could shoot it enough to reduce the whole mass to splinters, it might be enough, but that would take far more shot and powder than Ajax carried.

The golem prowled for hours. Any hope that it would go back to sleep perished as the sun set. The temperature dropped steadily as night fell over the Old City. Finally, with one more look in our direction, the beast loped away, headed deeper into the city.

“Think it’s a trap?” I asked, voice quiet. “That it’ll double back and catch us when we try to run?”

“Could be, but what choice do we have?” Ajax asked. “It’s not like we can just stay up here.”

“Fair enough,” I said and moved over to the ladder.