Belly Full of Riches

Quite curious is the case of the creatures in this mine! As some lucky adventurers have discovered, these fiends do in fact eat any gems they find. One could hypothesize that in life they worked these mines, once a rich source of precious stones on Aeternum. However, one must ask, why do they eat them? The idea I propose is based on their patterns of hoarding! They must have some semblance of the value of these stones and, in a lust to hoard wealth, they put such small stones into the safest place they can muster: their own bodies! Finding precious gems in the belly of these poor wretches is still rare. Some guess that only one in a group of ten Withered may have a gem in their belly. With that in mind, good luck! You may need it. -Dr. H. Garrison