Guardiain 4: The ancient technologies of the Heartstone

 When I was doing temple archeology in some of the old Dwarf ruins on the coast during my internship at Joh Nuhz and Son Archeology I found a small glowing crystal that I of course pocketed. I'm a wizard, they are archeologists, I beleive the pecking order of the universe is quite clear on this front. After working at it for centuries in my spare I was able to figure out what in the many leveled and interesting hells  this thing was; a detailed data drive of some mystical nature. For some reason it began screaming and exploded when I radiated it with about 47 Magithaums of bane magic. A shame. I could have erased whatever data was on it and used it as a spell book back up. A crying shame. For the sake of prosperity I had one of my own interns (Gar Dun? Jarzun? I have no idea. Honestly he probably wont survive the summer) record it down. I'll get around to reading it eventually.

Guardian 4 was born almost ten thousand years ago, what his heritage was before he entered the temple has been lost in the annuals of time, Guardian 4 was raised in traditional monk fashion in a far off temple where he was trained in the ways of peace, meditation, and punching people so hard that their faces came out the back of their heads. The guardian's peaceful monk commune surrounded a temple of a forgotten god, that was built over a natural rift to the shadowfell, the temple was initially designed to keep adventurers out and keep whatever dark energies that came from the shadowfell from getting out to the world, over time the rumors of the temple became more and more exaggerated and adventurers became more and more of a nuisance looking for powerful weapons or treasures that they believed to be hidden in the halls of the temple.

Generally the monks were enough of a deterrent to keep most would be pillagers out of the harmful dark energies that inhabited the temple, but every now and then a few would get through, generally these people were killed in the process of trying to escape from whatever just happened to be lurking through the sealed doors. One day a gnomish artificer Martaf managed to stagger broken and bleeding out of the dark temple doors after seeing his party decimated by what he called a moving wall of eyes and teeth. After his wounds were taken care of Martaf joined the order and lent his incredible intellect to making sure that no one suffered through what his friends had. One of Martaf's ideas was an incredibly risky but effective soul transference into a mechanization of his own design. This soul transfer would take the spirit of a trained monk and infuse it into a crystal known as a heart stone, this heartstone would be set in the breast of a man made of enchanted steel and mechanical parts, these new mechanical men would have increased strength and stamina and would never need to eat or sleep, and for all objective purposes they would become immortal guards inside the temple to stand against the darkness. The only problem with this procedure was that the monk's body was completely destroyed in the process, so the transfer was permanent.

The sect leader Hoganda asked for any volunteers to come forward, knowing full well they could never go back to what they were before. Guardian 4 was one of several men who stepped forward to be part of the process. Over time he and the other guardians fought back the darkness in the temple and managed to keep it at bay, but the years that passed the guardians by took their toll on the temple life, and eventually Martaf grew old and passed away, as all people do, but Martaf left no apprentice or notes, so the process to repair and make new guardians died with him. Over time the link between this world and the shadowfell grew weaker and weaker and the monsters that used to craw out were less and less frequency, until they one day stopped altogether, and the temple fell from legend and into history, but guardian 4 and his mechanical brothers and sisters stayed.

Years passed by and the temple fell into greater and greater disarray and the village outside began to slowly crumble apart as the last of the order passed away, centuries passed and the guardians fell slowly into a sleep mode never to restart, while others just stopped moving as the light faded from their chest and eyes. Guardian 4 preserved, guarding his duty day after day as the silence enveloped him completely. Guardian 4 has no idea how much time passed before he was awakened from his sleep mode by a rumbling deep in the mountain. Calling for the others to join him he rushed out to see the village of his childhood destroyed by the ravages of time. Turning around he saw the empty husks of the other guardians covered in dirt and cobwebs, and that is when the temple began to collapse, the rumbling under his feet opening up fissures and he fell into the abyss.

All Guardian 4 new was black, time had already lost all meaning for the mechanical man as he wandered through the subterranean maze of rock that used to be his mountain, his village, his temple and his duty. Eventually he hit a dead end and in frustration he lashed out and left a crater size hole, which started a smaller landslide that let light shine through. Pushing through the rumble Guardian 4 found himself in an unknown area surrounded by snow, his mountain paradise was gone, and even if it wasn't Guardian 4 couldn't pick his mountain out of the sky ridge that was off in the distance. So he sat down and began to wait, knowing the monk Teaching that the universe would show him the way. And he waited and waited and waited as winter left and spring came and still he sat, as flowers and weeds took hold in his joints, and the rain and the winds weathered his ancient metals, and the travelers on the roads began to think of him as a statue that had been placed there as some wayward shrine. Guardian 4 began to feel the dimness set in as he unmoving watched the world pass him by and he was sure that soon his crystal would stop its slow glow and hum and let him join the rest of his sect in whatever lay beyond, until one day while he kept his vigil a small human dressed in robes  stopped to rest his feet. The human set up camp next to Guardian 4 and began his ritual of prayer to his new god. While the cleric was deep in concentration a group of bandits began sneaking up on his location, knives drawn and clubs raised. As the guardian observed all this his crystal sprang back into life, its sing song hum of life bouncing around the valley, creaking and snapping Guardian 4 moved into action catching the first bandits club as it came mere inches from the clerics head, ripping it out of the shocked bandits hands. All the first bandit could do was open his mouth as Guardian 4's hand moved in a swift movement, with all the power and unstoppable force of a glacier. The burly highwayman didn't even have time to scream before the militaristic chop and ancient rusty steel took of his head spraying Guardian 4 with warm blood. Guardian 4's eyes glowed bright in the dark as he turned on the other untrained theives. When the cleric brought himself out of his meditation he was greeted with the site of a mechanical man covered in blood and eviscerate, and bodies surrounding his resting spot. Hurrying to gather his things he raced off, and Guardian 4 followed, not knowing what about this man had awaken him, but determined to follow the universe's signs.