Meeting a skeleton

I began making my way towards a doorway that I believe was where I needed to go. Mainly because of a single guard standing at the side of it.

I halted my steps and furrowed my brows. Slowly turning my gaze to my left, I saw an elf. Yet I could tell he definitely wasn't an elf.

In my time training under Scathach, I was surrounded by undead beings daily. I don't exactly remember how long I trained under her, though. Probably a few years. The point is, I eventually developed a sort of sixth sense for undead. I'm not like Cu, who could probably smell an undead from a distance. But I can feel the presence of undead within a 10 foot vicinity around me.

This Elf in front of me is definitely undead. Which means, he's one of the origin characters by default. If I remember correctly, the name was Fane. He had a face-ripping mask that he could use to disguise as other races. The only reason I remembered him easier than the others is due to the fact that I picked him when I played the game. He had a useful source skill.

I relaxed my body a bit, I nearly attacked him out of instinct. Letting out a breath, I decided to observe him a little. He had what I assumed was an encyclopedia in his hands. He looked up, I felt his eyes scanning my body as if taking in every detail. It reminded me of back when I first got into research of phantasmal corpses.

He reached out and took my hand, turning it one way and the other, examining it from every angle. Finally he pinched my skin, gently tugging it.

"Fascinating." I heard him whisper before going back to his book. Completely ignoring my presence again. I reached out and flicked his forehead, using a quick structural grasp on the mask before he noticed.

"Hmm? What purpose did that serve? Was it a greeting? Was it - Oh! Oh dear, I seem to have crossed some cultural taboo. How... difficult. You have my apologies human." He apologized with a nod of his head.

"It is less of a cultural taboo, than it is common decency. You wouldn't like it if another were to lay their hand onto you out of nowhere, right?" I responded, not at all concerned.

"Perhaps, I should have demanded the same from those red-cloaked humans. They laid their hands on me more than once..." He seemed to grumble a little. I believe he realized his error.

"Well at least you understand now."

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. Understanding is all relative." He held up his book. "Take this book, for example. I understand all of it, and yet none of it makes sense. It is simultaneously too detailed and insufficient. I know the beginning of this tale and the end, but am rather missing the middle."

"Tell me, what do you know of your - our world's history?" he asked

"Not much considering I'm not from this world." I blandly responded. Whether someone thought of me insane or not didn't matter much to me.

"Oh? And where are you from then?"

"From a completely separate multiverse." I answered honestly. Taking in his looks of intrigue.

"Multi...verse?" he voiced out, as if trying the word out.

"It doesn't matter much and would take too long to explain if you didn't have knowledge in regards to the basics of multiverse theory. Besides, you are asking for something else right?" I shook my head before getting the conversation back on track.

"Yes... I want to know about the celestials. I want to know about the gods." He held up another book. "This text tells me that they created all creatures. But nothing of what came before. Where are these gods from? Who are their people? Where are others of their kind?"

"Besides some exceptions like forgotten journals, the answers to such a thing will not lay within the texts of regular books." I answered. "And even if they did, the passage of time will eventually bury such knowledge beneath the sands of time."

"Then where would I find my answers?" He seemed like he was grasping at straws, it looked like he found truth within my words.

I gestured out with a hand. "From the world of course, with your own two feet. You have the beginning and the end, you just need to find the middle. People explore and go on adventures for a reason, and one of them is to search for answers. Whether it be from ruins, lost text or even living fossils. The answer is out there, somewhere." I finished grandly.

He held his head down in thought, processing my words. "It sounds far more easier said than done." He sighed.

"Things worth doing often aren't easy." I agreed. "Well then, I need to go register. Nice mask by the way." I waved, leaving without looking at his reaction towards my comment.

∞

I entered the door to where Magister Williams was supposed to be. The guard was actually nicer than I expected him to be, and sincere in his kindness. Which was surprising.

"Keep those bolts trained on her and if she tries to run, shoot to kill!" A gruff male voice sounded out.

"You seem on edge, Officer. What on earth is the matter?" I looked at the scene before me. Standing at the center of the room, I spotted an old lady haughtily eyeing a pair of nervous looking magisters. They kept their crossbows trained upon her as she was being interrogated by an Officer.

That old hag looks intimidating, despite being in rags and a collar. My instincts are telling me she's got the power to back up the attitude.

"Murder most foul! And I strongly suspect you know all about it!"

"Do you? Well perhaps you're absolutely right."

"So you admit it then? You murdered that poor fellow?"

"Yes, I did. But of course that was only the beginning..." She turned her head, looking at me straight in the eyes. My blood began pumping despite her not doing anything. "There are others whose lives must end."

"Good gods, the woman's mad!" The officer exclaimed before turning to look at me as well. "You there, Sourcerer! Go and fetch Magister Siwan! We need to do more than collar this maniac; we need to shackle her, hands and feet!"

"I don't think she's gonna go down without a fight..." I said, seeing her reach for her collar. In one quick motion, she dismantled the thing. Impressive, also damn if only I could have seen how she did it for reference.

"He's absolutely right officer." She smiled with wicked satisfaction.

"Don't let her use source or the VoidWoken will be upon us!"

"Precisely!" I felt the build up of magical energy thrum from her, it was dense and abundant. I instinctively tried to reach for my weapon hidden within my soul space, but couldn't take it out.

"This shitty collar!" I cursed, I didn't try to take anything out of my small soul space until now. My scroll along with my immediate weapons were in there. I can't seem to force the items to come out.

A shockwave of heat escaped from the witch, a hastily made glyph appeared in front of me. It shattered, throwing me back into the wall.

"Okay, I felt that a little." I grumbled, getting back up. I wasn't injured, the glyph blocked some of the initial power and my body was stronger than before.

"Well they are definitely dead." I looked at the splattered blood that was from the Magisters. Besides their bones and some blood, their bodys were completely disintegrated. "She's gone." I noted that the witch seemed to be capable of teleportation.

"Ship's burning." I observed before casually moving up the stairs. "Neat." I wasn't really worried much about the people back there. They had the favor of the gods in this world. They weren't going to just let them die.

Reaching the next deck floor, I was greeted by a doorway cut off by flames. I opted to ignore it in favor of using the opened door on the right.

*Whine sfx* A dog stood between two beds pawing at his nose, it was as if it were suffering from something. Unfortunately I can't understand the language of animals so I went for the door to the side. Locked.

I unlocked it with magecraft. A handy skill to have. It clicked open, allowing me to enter the room. I glanced at the two armored men on the other side of the room. One was shivering in fear, while the other looked tired.

"Thank the Gods! By divine grace, what was-" The tired man stopped, eyeing what I assumed was my collar before reaching a hand to his blade. See this is what I meant earlier when I didn't want to deal with people who don't care if you're innocent or not.

"Another Sourcerer" He snarled as his companion didn't blink. He was frozen in fear.

"And you're a couple of guards, hiding away in a room as the ship goes to hell."

"Well none of this wouldn't happen if you bastards didn't start this mutiny nonsense! Did that witch fix your collar too?" He hotly rebuked before whispering to his companion. "Don't just cower there, Ricks. Take out your blade!"

"I didn't do any of this, but I will warn you now. It wouldn't be in your best interest to try and pick a fight in this situation." I attempted to reason with logic.

"Your lies end here!" They both unsheathed their blades.

"Well I tried to be nice." I sighed. White glyphs appeared by my sides.

The one with the temper charged at me, his fearful companion followed his lead. Their blades came at me from both sides.

*CLANG sfx* Until they were intercepted. From each glyph, ethereal white weapons came to my defense.

"What the devil!?" The soldier exclaimed as out of the glyphs came 5 headless knights.

I shook my head, deciding to go the other way. I ignored the screams of unwillingness behind me as the mausoleum soldiers dispatched of them. It was a one sided slaughter of 5 to 2 after all.

∞

"What kind of fool records knowledge on a pulped tree? It catches fire, it turns into must when wet, it cannot even resist acid! No wonder they're so bloody ignorant..." Fane grumbled before me.

I ran into him again, in a corner of this burning deck. This time however, his disguise was nowhere to be seen. I took a moment to observen his skeletal feature, there was a jewel on the top of his forehead.

"They are ignorant because they choose not to enlighten themselves, despite the fact that they have so much easily accessed knowledge available to them." I said, breaking him out of his little rant. "Also the reason for recording it from trees is that it's easy to mass produce the texts, to spread it into the general populace easier."

"Hmm. Perhaps there is some logic to that, I suppose." He nodded after a moment of digesting my words. "Shouldn't you be.... running and screaming or some such?" he asked to which I responded with a shrug.

"It will take more than sinking at sea to kill me."

"Really? I was under the impressions that you 'people' were much more susceptible to perishing, in more ways than one."

"There are many of us, is it so hard to believe that there wouldn't be a few exceptional ones out of the bunch?"

"No, I suppose it is not."

"By the way, what happened to that mask of yours?"

"Sigh, if you must know. It was stolen by that damn witch after her little 'scene'." He grumbled in annoyance. "Still, she'll drown with the rest of these fools. And I will simply pluck my mask from her cold, dead hands." Which caused me to snort in amusement.

"What? Did I say something amusing?"

"Yes, I wouldn't count on seeing her corpse anytime soon. I can tell you that she is also exceptional in her own right, at least enough to know that this is not enough to kill her." I gestured to the flaming deck.

"I'll wait and see for myself." He grunted before returning to his book.

I decided to just let him vibe there and continued on my journey to the top.