Everyone knows caravans traverse great sand flats beneath the wan light of Ecetopia’s twin satellites. Day broils too viciously and new moons mask hurdles too perilous. Within the unpopulated reaches of a planet so steeped in mysticism, misadventures are commonplace and vigilance to the ploys of fae and deceits of satyrs advised. However, for Rzail’s desert, and its sprawling expanse of blight, the pale dunes bury mysteries and whisper hazards for which no preparation is effectual and every precaution necessary. 

One particular caravan realizes its destination is near when the quality of the sand sharpens from grains to fine bone-white slivers, the very air inspires retching, and the wind sings of a nameless dread with aspirations of implanting itself in and maligning heroic souls. They reach their final ascent of what seems merely of a great dune; yet, as they struggle upward in the predawn fugue amongst the ephemeral companionship of dust devils and mirages, the unnaturally titanic quality of the terrain becomes increasingly evident.

At long last, their trek plateaus. Off in the distance, they behold a monolith that rises in defiance of the first weak rays of dawn. Overhead gyres a murder of three-eyed [i]raveina obscuras[/i], the mockery of their caws a juxtaposition to the indistinct nature of their forms that seems to coalesce and disassociate with all the perspicuity of embers leaping from a coal. One breaks from the group, comes to rest atop the large stone spire, its white beak and eyes queerly lit, and sets its menacing gaze on the caravan. The silent, hateful, lidless leering is somehow worse than any sound it might conceivably produce. 

As silently it sits, they near their destination. There, availed closer inspection, an abandoned, but recent, excavation at the pillar’s base manifests. Shovels, graphite stone rubbings, and camp paraphernalia are heaped in piles next to a tent’s ominously flapping tatters. What remains of an auger—the equivalent of satellite communication—lies nearby, its codex shattered. Markings indicate this is the property of the University of Eceterum Alacis, the body responsible for illuminating to the modern world the myth of Karnorouri that towers above them as a very real token of almost forgotten history.

Ever more the day blossoms, chasing away the carrion and defining the exquisitely horrific craftsmanship of the pillar. A massive arm, stripped of flesh, pierces the sand and clutches a stone tablet on which, they are sure, is engraved the infamous stanza. Beyond, the light exposes yet more excavations spread around the central edifice as markings on a sundial. Very well the equidistant cairns may be, had all been spared the plight of burial.

In a gesture as deliberate as it is ominous, the bird glances at a particular mound of stones and lets out a blood-curdling cry. Then, in equally jarring fashion, it ascends back to its familial shadows.

Within, the cairn reveals itself as a former abode with a set of stairs descending to oblivion. On its walls is written a message fresh in blood—over and over again the same three lines, mad, violent, undeniable, and crimson: 

“[i]Burn the bodies, scatter the bones. 
Burn the bodies, scatter the bones!
BURN THE BODIES, SCATTER THE BONES.[/i]”