Silence in the Blackwoods did not mean peace. It meant anticipation. The slightest rustle of a leaf, unseen, overhead or around a tree, could become the signal of a wanderer’s doom. Ozzy learned firsthand just what dreadful dangers lurked for those who sought to venture to the steps of the lichyard, and why it was such a heavy task to even get there. The threats were omnipresent. He was chilled - down to his bones!

“I don’t think it’s chasing us,” Ozzy said. He tilted his whole body back to get a good look up - and neglected his outfit, which threatened to slip out of the careful tuck that gave him his figure and form. His belly looked concave, as if he were sucking it in, from the front when he put his back into his lean to look straight up.

“Yes,” Stormen said. “You handled that well.”

“Oh, yes,” Ozzy agreed. He crouched down next to Stormen, who was assessing their situation. “N-no problem.” He felt himself smile, a tucked in and puckered grin. He finally felt like he’d done something heroic.

“If I weren’t here,” Stormen said, “you’d be dead. Latched up by those detached hands and then collapsed upon by whatever stragglers the screamer called forth.”

His heroism felt a bit deflated. “I mean, maybe I didn’t have to fight that thing and spring its trap. I could have just -.”

“And then you’d be followed,” Stormen said, “by the one who laid it, and attacked without any warning, not even from a trap.”

“So better to spring obvious traps and try to live to tell about it?”

Stormen faced his amateur charge. “Better to be rid of one more trap that you can handle, what someone else can’t.”

“Ah,” Ozzy said. “Yes.”

“Regardless,” Stormen said, “solo quests into the Blackwoods aren’t the usual. Someone with a deathwish - or a lifetime worth of luck - are the types that make those journeys. Even a man like me, as prepared as I am…I’d never seen something like that. That is the true danger of these fiends. They always come up with some new innovative way to exploit the ruin of their bodies.”

“Yes,” Ozzy nodded, recalling the various different forms and functions of the skeletons deeper within. Even just Hewfarth, with his compound spring legs and skeletal bolt launcher embedded in his chest. “So…you’ve never seen limbs just move around on their own like that?”

“Not of a skeleton,” Stormen said.

Then of WHAT? Ozzy wondered.

“It’s dangerous to lay in one place for too long,” Stormen mentioned. “Let’s proceed unpathed through the trees. If you spot something that I don’t, tap me on the shoulder and point it out.”

“Aye-aye,” Ozzy affirmed in a whisper.

The duo continued onward and downward, on more daring paths than before. They had to slowly edge themselves down step hills and turn their backs to climb down sheer drops, aided by the hanging roots of stumps and bushes above. When one descended, the other held watch to ensure the first wasn’t wandering blindly into another trap.

They crossed into a small clearing where the ground was dug up into a crater of fresh dirt covered haphazardly with leaves and branches. Stormen bid Ozzy to go around it. Once they were out of range, he whispered instructions.

“Obvious, eh?”

“Yes,” Ozzy agreed. “Looked like a pit trap.”

“Skeletons are likely waiting in that dirt,” Stormen said. “For travelers to walk through or take a rest. Hands come up, snare them down, then just one need emerge with blade at the ready.”

Ozzy gulped. “The Defender’s don’t get tricked by that, do they?”

“The Defender’s don’t,” Stormen said. “But there’s always someone who thinks high enough of themselves not to listen to the warnings of others. Men trying to make fast money off the promise of hauling a few unliving chattering skulls for the blasphemers in the capital to study. Or as you’ve seen, yet-moving limbs attached to nothing. They are curios - one of the primary draws of the Defender’s Guild.”

“Do they even move that much so far from here?” Ozzy asked. He knew he was an exception, propelled by some strange force of will that allowed him to be a blight in Gozzpek’s eyes. He’d felt that pull when he stepped over the wall. The very same which likely enthralled the majority of skeletons to stay.

“If you’re dispatched here,” Stormen explained, “it’ll be mostly to find and pick apart the living dead atrocities and bring back whatever you can keep intact.”

“What if I somehow get a whole one?” Ozzy asked, hopefully.

“It’ll be crushed to bits by anyone who sees it,” Stormen said. “Parts only. Bringing a live, whole monster back to human civilization is an act close to war.”

“...but value-wise,” Ozzy asked. Stormen huffed in response, thus ending the conversation. It’s probably a lot, but too hard to pull off. But if I show my face, maybe they’ll listen? Or…get confused and then I can put them in a - a big sack of some kind.

Downward and onward, and up to another encounter. No trap, just two skeletons armed with wooden shields and weapons. One held half a spear, pointed end forward, and the other wielded a hatchet. Small weapons, easy to use, weighted to deliver the most power with the least strength. They patrolled together in a loose formation and scanned their surroundings half-intelligently.

Stormen and Ozzy hid behind the covering of a hill. Stormen turned around and scanned the rest of the forest behind them. Ozzy did the same for what laid up the hill and just over the other side. He paid close attention to the branches high up for signs of something unusually white. Nothing else was around. Stormen led Ozzy on in a crawl behind cover as they listened to the bones clatter where the skeletons walked.

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They reached the end of a shallow ravine and had to climb up or face the skeletons. Stormen turned to Ozzy and holstered his cudgel. “I want to see what you can do,” he said.

“Oh,” Ozzy said, dreadfully. He put a hand over the handle of his rapier. It was utterly foreign to him on how to use it correctly, much less fighting creatures who had no skin to cut or blood to bleed.

“You know any prayers?” Stormen asked.

“Not really,” Ozzy admitted. “Not unless we’re stopping to eat.”

Stormen rustled his thick mustache with intense skepticism. Ozzy could see he was being scrutinized. Suspected, even, of a wrong he didn’t even understand.

“W-well, off I got a-killin,” Ozzy said, upbeat and eager. He drew his sword and held it aloft. The weight was balanced down at his hand. He felt his wrist tilt and twist a bit as he held it, then it settled firmly into place with the blade pointing forward off his forearm.

Just stab and slash, Ozzy thought, and hope that I look bad enough for Stormen to come in and save me. I saved him - this’ll be payback. Right? That’s how he works. He doesn’t want to leave any debts with a newbie, he’ll swoop in and teach me what I did wrong.

Ozzy hoped as hard as he could and approached the sightline of the hatchet-wielding skeleton. It saw him and meandered closer. Ozzy held the rapier up in front of his face and tried to strike a fencing pose. He shuffled his feet, forgetting which one should be forward, put his other arm back for some reason. He was woefully under-prepared.

The skeleton enemy stomped forward. It held the hatchet up over its head and broke out into a staggering run. It drew close - and it swung! WHOOSH! Through the air! Ozzy stepped to the side. He glided across the ground from how fast and urgently his foot moved, and he was behind the skeleton immediately. His enemy was fully exposed to him, a whole spine worth of vital points to seize.

NOW!

…

Ozzy froze up.

DAMN!

The skeleton turned to face him again. It opened its mouth and hissed.

KKKKKHHHHH!!!!! Ozzy hissed back. He jumped back a few feet as the hatchet swung again. The skeleton went on a frenzy and swung every which way with its whole body. Then the hatchet flew from its hand and knocked into a nearby tree, handle first. It looked at its own hand, confused.

Okay, Ozzy thought, this is not a top-of-the-game player here. Just a mindless type. Very stupid and easily startled. Probably got kicked out and thrown over the wall because even Marrowbane didn’t want to make use of it. It’s just a pathetic…almost hopeless monster in my way. Gotta kill it. Got to…find somewhere to poke it where it’ll hurt.

Ozzy broke stance and raised his other hand. He wielded his rapier two-handed, to brace it and give it much more solid form. The blade was long and solid, edged near the end with about four inches worth of flattened cutting area. The rest was thick and cylindrical, like a baton, all the way to the rounded handguard which was thick and blunt. He had, all in one, a spear, a club and a hammer. The possibilities of combat raced through his mind for the first time in his life.

Take it slow, he thought. Take a breath, step in, and kill.

He sucked in some air.

Then felt a sudden push from behind. He looked down and saw the tip of a spear sticking through his many-layered getup. His precious clothes, all he had in the world to cover his bones, and much of the spare stuffing that made up his bulk, were ruined.

KKKKKHHHHH!!!!!

Ozzy stepped back and ran back-first into the skeleton that stabbed him.

“AGH!”

He spun his hand around and smashed it in the skull. Right in the temple with the pommel. The lights in its eyes went off as half its head cracked to pieces. The rest of it went limp to the ground. Ozzy looked down and assessed the situation a bit further. The spear was run straight through him. It was run all the way up to the end of the broken shaft. He grabbed it from the front and pulled it the rest of the way through. It felt weird. He knew it was going right through him, and he felt no pain because it connected with nothing, but he used to have guts down there. A weak phantom pain of yanking something through his fleshy stomach made him feel weird.

The other skeleton didn’t just stand by and wait for his turn. He got his ax back and was coming in for the attack. Ozzy hoisted the spear up in his free hand and tossed it. The skeleton blocked it with the meager wooden buckler, which snapped out of its hand. But it still had its ax. Ozzy double-gripped his rapier once more and wiggled it around to try and parry or riposte - just stab the damn thing away.

He got close. The ax was too wild to predict. He stabbed deeper and hit the skeleton in its chest. Then through the ribs, hitting nothing. He wiggled the blade out and scraped part of the bone on the way past.

“GAK!” Ozzy exclaimed.

“Kikikiki!” the skeleton foe chattered. He had Ozzy on the backfoot. The ax swung too wild to keep up. Ozzy took a breath and tried to think while he had the advantage of distance.

STORMEN! WHERE ARE YOU!? This isn’t going well. But, if he trusted me with this weapon, and trusted me to fight and win and also kept me alive this long and even helped me avoid threats up to this point - it’s because he believes in me. And wants me to succeed. Or he ran off and God help him if he reaches the lichyard.

Ozzy stopped retreating. He evaded to his enemy’s unarmed side. One hop, two, three - he strafed around and the skeleton continued to swing, following him one twisting step at a time. Once Ozzy was completely behind his foe, he reached a boot forward and stepped on the hatchet-swinger’s exposed foot, crushing some of the weaker bones with the stomp. The skeleton couldn’t turn anymore and the ax was too far away to reach.

Ozzy two-handed his rapier and pommel-based the skeleton in the head. It worked the first time, and the second. Not ideal for fighting off skeletons but it worked. He defeated them both and only suffered one potentially fatal wound from it.

Damn it!

Ozzy went down on his knees and tried to tidy up the entry-exit wound. He packed in the stuffing, filled it in with some panicky handfuls of dirt, and tied the remaining cloth together as quickly as he could.

“You alright?” Stormen asked. He was up on the shelf of the upper ravine wall. He climbed up while Ozzy was fighting to clear the way.

“Uh, yeah,” Ozzy said. “They, uh…hurt my clothes.”

“Better them than you,” Stormen said. “No wounds? No bleeding?”

“N-no, I took care of that,” Ozzy nodded.

“Hmph,” Stormen huffed. “You got out unscathed once. Don’t think you’ll ever be that lucky again.” He sounded proud. His little cub scout got his first scar, making him an official Defender’s Guild initiate. And all it took was a spear through the back and out the liver.

“Y-you would’ve saved me, right?” Ozzy asked. He turned back. Stormen had a smirking tilt to his mustached lip. He reached a hand down to help Ozzy up. Ozzy finished smoothing over his clothes and made a light jump to latch on.

It was then that Stormen noticed how bizarrely light Ozzy was. But he paid it little mind. The boy proved himself. That was all he needed to see. They went on, down the grade, toward the lichyard at last…