Chapter 10: Chapter 10: Skeleton Swordsman

I float.

I am in that place again, the place where I always go when I die.

I don’t know where it is, or what it is. I don’t know why I always return here, why I don’t move on to what comes next like everyone else. I don’t know why I return back to the dungeon in a new body each time, seemingly back in time to roughly the same moment or at least the same day, give or take. Is it a curse of the holy gods? Is it some twisted blessing by the dark-lord? Or am I just a victim to some cosmic happenstance? A crossed wire of a layline where I was standing at the right place at the right time?

I wish I could say. If I knew, if I knew… I could…

What could I do? If I knew why this was happening to me over and over again, then what would I do with that information? Would I really find a way to break the system? To die a true death? Do I want to die, really, truly eternally die? No.

No, I don’t want to die ever, really. I suppose I have become accustomed to death because I assume that I will return. But if I knew that I wouldn’t the next time… Isn’t that how everyone else lives? How the adventurers live? How the hero lives? With the sword of finality, dangling over their heads at any moment, ready to drop?

Ah, I’m so jealous.

I am shapeless, drifting. I float in that place, eternal. I have never truly seen it. I have never had eyes or senses here. I like to think that it is bright and white and warm. But in truth, I know that it is none of those things. There can be no light here, no warmth, no color. It is simply nothing. Empty. Void. I am the only thing filling this ethereal place. Me and the thing from before. I can still feel it, it is holding onto me tightly. Holding me in its grip like a long, thin black arm with jagged witchy fingers, reaching out from the bottom of darkness itself. A demon’s claw, wrapped around my non-body, holding onto me as if for dear life. I am not afraid, I feel no fear of it. Should I? It seems pretty suspicious, tell you what. Spiritual gangly demon fingers? No sir’ee, not for little old me.

This has all been pretty poetic and dramatic these last few moments, I realize. My thoughts that is, but you need to understand that it’s this thing, okay? It’s making me… philosophical. If I could shudder at the thought, I would. What is it? It is old. Tired. It is turned wild and mindless from its extended isolation. It wanted to come with me and I figured, hey, why not let the horrible demonic entity tag along for a soul-ride? What’s the worst that could happen? Well, let me tell you friend, so far nothing has happened. Nothing at all and that’s not just a summary of this little mind-diary of mine. We’re both just kind of just floating here together. Waiting for something to happen.

It clings to me, it seems to know that it's just along for the ride. I hesitate to say it is alive or sentient, but it reacted to me as a slime, it felt me and called for me. It knew I could get it out of there and heck, what else do I really have to do? You owe me one demon-ghost. It squeezes me once. I think it has acknowledged my statement. Cool beans. Now you might be wondering, guy, why are you so calm about this? This is pretty weird stuff. And you know what? You’re right. But you also have to understand that I have been living this trash-mob life for a long time, okay?

I’ve been around the block. I’ve seen things. Done things. Well, I haven’t done many things. But some, okay? I took somebody's fingers off once. Three of them at least. I think I told you about that already though. There was also the slime-girl thing. But I will take that story to my eternal grave.

So, eternal cycle of death and rebirth? Sure. Changing bodies on a nearly daily basis? My bread and butter. Squiggly, wiggly ghostly-demonigly hand? Why not? Now, you might have noticed me using the term ‘demon’ here a few times. Let me be clear that I don’t actually think that this is a demon. Demons are pretty much just standard mooks here, well, we don’t have any that I know of in our particular dungeon. But they’re nothing special, really. So I’m just using the word for emphasis because if I had real eyes, man, I bet this thing would look spooky as all hell, tell you what.

Anyways, I wonder what my next life is going to be? Death is taking a little while this time. I suppose my slime body is resisting a little. I hope sister will be fine, but I’m sure she will be. Not that she exists anymore, at least not like before. I’ll go back to the dungeon in a little and it will be like none of this ever happened. Sort of going back in time but not really. See, I had a theory about this whole thing once. The idea was that I simply zapped back in time each rebirth, but that’s not exactly right. I think I go back in time, because the counter till the adventurers reach me or the bottom is roughly consistent each time. But their actions are never the same. The actions of my fellow trash-mobs are never the same.

Today, sister caught a rat and shared it with me. Next time she might not catch anything, or catch a roach and eat it alone. My body, the one I inhabited? It won’t be there next time. Brother won’t exist at all. I tested this when I was a goblin a while ago, don’t ask me what my name was, I can’t remember. So I’ll just make one up. Uh. Lin-gob, yeah. I was Lin-gob the goblin and I lived a pretty average goblin life you know? Lots of snarling and stabbing and stuff. Good times. Well, next time I was a goblin I looked around and asked around the outpost. There was never a Lin-gob that anyone had ever heard of. What that means to me at least is that I don’t possess an already existing trash-mob when I respawn. No, I am an extra spawn. An individual thrown into the mix. Why? Well that’s the great cosmic question, isn’t it, friend?

I feel something. A lurch. Ah, it’s time. I will be reborn in a moment. I wonder what will happen to my passenger? Hitchhiking by death isn’t really a nailed down science, you see, so I can’t say for sure. It seems to sense my doubts and grips a little tighter. Be gentle with me, demon-miasma, I am a lover, not a fighter. I wonder what my new body will be? I hope it’s a skeleton. I haven’t been a skeleton in a while. I think? Yeah. Wait. Yeah. I was a mimic, then a goblin, then a dark-fairy, then I was a slime. Yeah. I can remember that from up here. My mind is always a little clearer when I am dead. There is less interference in my thoughts. Less goo. It’s just me up here. Well me and the evil darkness festering in my soul, but hey, that’s life, guy. It squeezes me again, it doesn’t like being called evil, but it does like being called ‘guy’. I tell it that it should work on its presentation in that case. First impressions and all that. Either way, good, evil, I don’t judge, man. We all have a role to play down here.

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My perception of the world begins to shift and change. It is hard to describe, but I feel the darkness of the end wash over me. The familiar cold. It comes quickly, in an instant, like the flick of a switch. A cosmic button pushed to return me to the light of life. Come on baby, skeleton. Skeleton. Skele-!

I live. I rattle. Yes. I look around the dark hallway in which I find myself. It is a short corridor, with sharp corners. Walls surround me. They are about twice as tall as I am, but they do not meet the cavern ceiling, which is even further above me. Yes! I raise my hands to my skinless face. They are old, white stained with the yellow of time and dust. They are nothing but bone. A rusty, chipped longsword is in my left hand. YES. I shriek, letting out a high-pitched squeaky wail. It echoes around the chamber that I am in. It rises and strikes the ceiling, before echoing back down. The others hear it. They shriek in return, a hundred garbled, spooky, wordless skeleton shouts. The labyrinth is filled with the noise of an army of shrieking, bony voices. My compatriots in undeath.

YEEEES!

I love being a skeleton, okay? Skeletons are just fun. And my favorite thing is to be a skeleton-swordsman. One, because I can be an undead that isn’t a caster. Two, because I am the same size as a human. Three, because I have a sword just like the hero! How cool is this?! Yes! I stand in the middle of the dark passage of the stony labyrinth and swing my blade around through the empty air. I feel cool. I look cool. I just know it. You can’t be a guy with a sword and not look absolutely amazing. That’s a dungeon rule.

This time I’m going to do it. I’ve been waiting for this chance. I hold the blade to my face and look at the worn, tired metal. I make it a promise, we are going to fight the hero. We will die together in an honorable battle. I swear this to the blade. It resonates in response, it is eager, ready, it has been waiting.

That was a lie. It didn’t actually do that, it’s just a rusty old sword. I’m being dramatic, you see? I get bored, okay, guy? I have been here for a long time.

Suddenly, I jump back in shock. A brown-orange aura emanates from the sword. Magic. I realize that the dungeon-master has seen my resolve, I hold the blade high. He has given me a blessing. I am stronger now. Stronger than the other skeletons. I am chosen!

Okay. Wait. Let me explain the situation. This ideal, perfect, optimal situation. Okay, so one, I’m a skeleton with a sword, which is pretty great. Two, I am in the final-labyrinth, which is the lowest floor of the dungeon, as you might have guessed from the name; it’s a labyrinth. The final one in fact. So I assume that means there were others higher up. This means that I have a fair amount of time until the adventurers get here. Until the hero gets here. Three, and the most dramatic of today’s events, I have been given a blessing by the dungeon-master.

If you want to use professional trash-mob lingo, you could say that I’ve been ‘buffed’. The dungeon-master is aware of everything in his dungeon, or so they say. And he apparently has identified me as a real go-getter this time around. Haha! I swing my sword around the air like a mad fencer. Excitement fills me, flowing through me like a torrent of frenzied energy.

Now you might be wondering, guy. Why is your sword glowing? What’s the deal? Blessings? Buffs? Huh? All fair questions too! You have a lot of those today, friend. The deal is that I am stronger than your average skeleton now. It means that I am chosen to lead the pack. I am the alpha-skeleton, this time. The champion. The elite. The others will do as I command. It’s a pretty sweet gig, really. I continue swinging my sword around and watch as the orange light trails behind it, as if the blade were glowing with a rusted flame. I feel like I am forgetting something important however.

Something very important.

Something that literally just happened. Huh? I stop and look around the dark hallway. Raising my empty right hand I scratch my head, if only just for the sake of the display of doing so.

What could it be? I try to think about what it is that’s bothering me. Usually my subconscious is on point about these kinds of things, so I try to listen to it when I can. Was it something in my last life? Something I wanted to remember? I was a slime, yeah. I had a sister and I remember rats and starving. I guess I wasn’t a very good slime that time, if I starved. I usually don’t starve. Why did I starve? Hmm. But other than that, nothing seems out of the ordinary. Was it the life before that? I was a dark-fairy, uh… yeah. There was something there. That was it. What was it? What was it? I tap my head. The noise of my bony fingers striking my skull is loud and it echoes around the labyrinth.

Traps! The thought comes to me easily as if being presented to my conscious self on a platter. I wanted to set traps! Yeah. I remember now. Nice! Happy that I figured out what it is that was bothering me, I continue to swing my sword around in glee like a raving lunatic during the night of a full moon. Not that I know what that looks like, it’s just an expression.

Either way, this is the best! Yes! Skeleton!

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