Bones slowly and despondently trudged back toward the library. Another failure.

“Why didn’t it work? It should have worked. Was it the second layer on the spine? Or perhaps the morbium synapse rune? No, it was impeccable, I am sure of it. Was it the energy transfer? Maybe I should ch-.”

“Bones!”

“What? I don’t have time to play with you or Gidin.”

“Bones, listen, the Wyndriders have attacked the school, we have to evacuate. Hurry!”

“Wait, what? Wyndriders here? But…, but the treaty! Wh-.”

“Run!”

Bones brain still tried to catch up to what he was hearing. Only now he noticed the sound of explosions, shouting, and the clang of weapons in the distance. And it was coming closer. Rapidly.

“Oh, no! My books!”

Bones shook off the hands of his friends, well, perhaps not really friends, but acquaintances, and rushed in the opposite direction of everyone else. At first, a steady stream of wizards of all ilk and level was rushing past him, each person clutching a couple of precious things, like wands, books, orbs or power, or familiars, but eventually the stream dried up almost entirely as Bones got closer to the sound of fighting.

At last, Bones managed to reach the library, which, from the sound of it, was right next to where combat was currently taking place. If Broluf was to be believed, Wyndriders on one side, and golems and academy guards on the other. Perhaps some of the more combat oriented wizards as well, not that many of them were currently residing in the academy.

Bones rushed toward the tome of necromancy and grabbed it with both hands. He quickly loaded another couple of essential books on top and then turned around to run back to where he had come from.

“Back to my quarters? No, too late. I have to hide somewhere… perhaps the old part of the castle… no, that will be blocked. I need to get Marrow as well…,” Bones muttered to himself while scurrying along the hallway.

Suddenly, the runes along the hallway started shimmering and giving off an ominous humming sound.

“Oh, oh, no good, no good at all,” Bones looked flustered for the first time. “What fool activated the runes while there are still people inside?”

A human dressed in leather armor and wearing a dagger and sword appeared at the other end of the hallway.

“There is another one!” He shouted loudly over his shoulder.

“Drat,” Bones cursed, hugging his books protectively. “What now?”

He turned around, ready to run back into the library, but another group of Wyndriders just entered from there as well.

“Killiar and Jodic, you take care of that mage there. The rest start fanning out. We have another few minutes to flush out more of those weaklings. You know what to do!”

“Listen, I have valuable information. Do you need treasure? I know where some of the valuable artifacts are hidden! Do you need information on the old dungeon? I have discovered the entrance, and I can show you… I will do anything, just spare me!” Bones started begging the two fighters that were approaching him from both sides. Unfortunately, they did not seem very impressed.

“Please?” Bones’ voice broke as he already imagined being stabbed by those wicked looking swords… this could not be happening to him. Magic, he was a necromancer… he should be able to do something! Sadly, Bones had never been interested in the offensive parts of necromancy and had focused solely on reanimation magic.

Out of options, Bones threw the heavy book on necromancy at the face of the Wyndrider just ahead of him - a move that came as a surprise to everyone involved, including Bones himself. Not that throwing a book would usually do much good against a fighter. Alas, it was a special book, and Bones had, purely by chance, thrown it so that its protective magic activated, and a ray of dark energy shot out and devoured the fighter completely. All that was left was a skeleton in pristine condition.

For a few seconds, Bones and the second fighter stared in shock at the skeleton on the ground.

“Uh…. Hah, I mean, take that, you invader!” Bones tried making the best out of the situation, pretending that this was all planned. Of course, his declaration felt slightly awkward in hindsight, but it was all he could come up with on the spot.

The other fighter was suddenly a lot more worried than just a few seconds earlier. And it showed in his cautious approach.

“Ok, so listen, you saw what happened with your fellow Wyndrider, right? Don’t come too close; otherwise, I will do the same to you!” Bones declared pompously while backing away slowly. The effect was somewhat diminished because his voice ended up squeaking, but he at least tried.

All things considered, he was, in fact, starting to get more nervous about the humming runes than about the remaining fighter.

“Uh, so stay back, you!”

And then Bones realized that in fact he now had a dead body to work with, or, more precisely, a beautiful, clean skeleton. Bones cast his [Raise Skeleton] spell and the bones on the ground immediately started to wiggle and then move. The skeleton got up and obediently stood in front of Bones.

“Sacrilege!” the fighter shouted, but his voice was quivering slightly. Not everyone was used to facing the undead, even more so, when that undead had been your partner just a minute earlier.

“Attack that person,” Bones commanded the skeleton, making sure to stay within the four-word limit for basic skeletons.

At least, skeletons naturally grabbed weapons that were next to them when raised. Bones had never figured out why that was the case, but something inherently connected to necromancy and basic skeletons.

The skeleton raised its weapons and stalked toward its victim.

Bones did not wait to see the result of the fight and took off running as fast as he could.

But not fast enough… the noise of the runes had gone from a loud humming to a deafening shriek until all sound suddenly stopped.

The next thing Bones noticed was that he was flying down the hallway straight toward the next intersection. All along the corridor, he saw runes shimmering brightly in white and silver, and thought it was kind of pretty. And that was the last thing he ever saw.

-------------------------------------------------------

Marrow did not notice any of what was going on. He heard the humming, but since there were many things he had never heard before, it was as new as everything else. And the loud crash that followed was neither shocking nor scary – just another noise. As a skeleton he did not have eardrums that could burst, so loud noise, or quiet noise, it was all the same to him.

He did feel though when whatever bond he had to his master suddenly disappeared. It was odd. Odd in the sense that the connection was one of the first things he had felt, and it had been with him for all of his short life… and suddenly it was gone. Did that worry him? Not really. And neither did it upset him. It just was.

Marrow stared straight ahead. Not because there was anything to see. But just the act of seeing was something he had not done much of, so he just did it.

And being in the dark closet was somehow strangely comforting. There was something about a nice smallish space in which one could hide easily. Even though Marrow was not entirely sure what he would hide from or why.

After staring for a long time at the same spot, a really long time, a time long enough that spiderwebs started appearing around the skeleton, life as it was, suddenly changed.

A deep voice suddenly spoke right inside of Marrow’s brain, little as there was of an actual brain.

“Skill acquired: Penetrating Stare.”

If Marrow had any eyelids, he would have blinked. Since he did not, all he did was just keep on staring. But whereas before he could see the wood in the closet and some fabric, perhaps a coat, he now noticed more details – the texture in the wood, the tiny hole where the craftsperson had slipped with their tool, the stains of various color in the fabric, and much more.

This piqued Marrow’s curiosity, as much as anything could pique a skeleton’s interest. Did that make him move around, perhaps explore other avenues of investigation, such as touch or taste or hearing?

No… Marrow was quite content to keep on looking.

He might have just kept on looking for a very long time indeed, decades, centuries, millennia even, if it were not for a tiny spider that decided to climb into Marrow’s mouth. Not that there was much of a mouth, perhaps jaw would be the more apt term. And it was just so, that marrow felt the tiny crawling legs along its jawbones, and this triggered something, a memory. A memory of hunting for tasty morsels - mostly cheese, moldy or fresh, or food scraps.

And it was not that spider legs per se felt like cheese, but Marrow had no comparison point anyway – he just remembered that one would chew, and it would be tasty. So he did.

The little spider had no chance.

And now something new happened, something different after years of staring penetratingly… a voice, the same one as before, but with different words.

“Do you want to try to absorb [spider] brain? Chance of success: 10 percent.”

Marrow waited for something else to happen, but nothing did. So he just stared straight ahead and mechanically chewed on the tiny spider. The bits and pieces had long fallen apart, but there was still something on its teeth. So he kept on chewing. Not because it was tasty, or pleasant, or unpleasant for that matter… he just did it because it was novel.

After a while, perhaps minutes, perhaps hours, the voice spoke up again.

“Do you want to try to absorb [spider] brain? Chance of success: 10 percent.”

Marrow paused for a moment, but since nothing else happened, he just kept on chewing. After what must have been another hour or more, the voice again spoke up.

“Default option is chosen; brain absorption denied. Experience gained: .00001.”

Suddenly, the little chewy thing between his teeth was gone. Marrow stopped the grinding motion of his jaws and waited. He waited for a long time, but eventually, another spider made the foolish decision to step between Marrow’s teeth.

And Marrow clamped down his jaws and squished the little bug. The voice again spoke up.

“Do you want to try to absorb [spider] brain? Chance of success: 10 percent.”

Marrow studiously ignored the voice, but he started realizing a pattern: Chewing on spiders brought a message. And messages were… different. Different from just staring, or even from just chewing.

And even though he was a skeleton and could not really get bored, there was something inside of him that wanted to have change. Wanted to, perhaps play, or maybe hunt for tiny moving morsels. The thought of which made him, inexplicably, both thrilled and mortally afraid at the same time.

But because he did not really know what playing was, or how one would do that, he decided that perhaps hunting for spiders was something that he should be doing. Because it was part of his nature to hunt, he felt. And because chewing on spiders brought voices.

So, for the first time in many, many years, Marrow moved his arm.

It was covered in thick spiderwebs, and he could feel tiny legs scurrying along his humerus, radius, and ulna bones. Exactly what he was looking for. He brought the arm up to his jaw and started biting where he felt the spiders. Alas, without luck. He was just too slow. After snapping his jaws together in vain for what must have been more than a hundred times, Marrow felt annoyed for the first time in his life.

So be brought up his hands and tried snatching the spiders off his arm. At first, he used his fingertips, well, bone tips, to try and grab the spiders delicately, but that did not work either. He was just a bit too clumsy for that. Eventually, after an inordinate amount of time, he decided to just slap his hand on the spiders and smash them.

One after another, he then picked up the remains and put them into his jaw. Or at least whatever part of the squished remains he could feasibly grab with his finger bones. Which, in many cases, was not all that much.

Expectantly, he chewed on the remains, waiting for the voice to speak. And he was not disappointed. Many times, he heard the voice say the same thing over and over – and Marrow just listened and chewed. And Marrow felt happy. He was living a fulfilled life.

But then he ran out of spiders.

So he waited.

And it was a long wait, but eventually, after many days, perhaps weeks or months, a new spider came into the closet. Marrow spotted the movement right away. He had been looking for it.

But it was just one, and Marrow started feeling… restless.

And then Marrow focused on the noise around him. It had always been with him. At first no noises at all, after the huge crashing sound… but then slowly, over time, new noises had started to appear - at first, some tapping of tiny feet and a dripping sound, very regular; And then some hammering and yelling and the noise of things falling on things and doing thingamajigs. Marrow had no idea what all that ruckus had been about, but there had been plenty of noise. And then it had gotten quiet again. Eerily so, if Marrow had an inkling of what eerily meant.

And then, he had started hearing growling and howling, and ripping, tearing, smashing and bashing… all kinds of noises that sounded violent in one way or another. Something that part of him wanted to hide from and the other part wanted to investigate. For the last few decades or perhaps centuries, he had simply ignored it all. He had been busy watching, after all.

But now that the spiders would not come to his closet, Marrow, for the first time wondered if perhaps he should be looking for them outside of the cabinet. Or maybe not only for spiders but also for something else - images of small furry animals with long tails immediately crossed his mind.

It was not like a skeleton to wonder about its purpose in life or lament its fate, so Marrow did not overly question why he was in a closet. But his master had said “do something,” and that was not very specific. The coercion behind the command had disappeared a very long time ago, but, nonetheless, Marrow had dutifully always done something. Because that voice was the only voice that he had ever heard, and that meant that just perhaps it had been important. The only voice, that is, apart from that deep voice that talked about incomprehensible things like skills or absorbing something.

And now there was only the deep voice. And so just perhaps Marrow needed to listen to it and follow its commands. Whatever those were.