The cabinet locks turned with oiled ease, letting the wooden doors swing out. Efrain carefully reached inside to retrieve the articles of clothing made when he was younger and a great deal more foolish. He laid them out, a long sleeved tunic, pants, a pair of boots, a hooded cloak, gloves, and finally, from a bracket at the very back, a cowl and mask.

It was an old thing, the only part of the ensemble that wasn’t handcrafted by Efrain. Carved of dark indigo stone, flecked with reds and purples, it proved a striking contrast to the relatively bland ensemble. The visage was a griever, eyes and lips rendered in amber tinged gold that stroked down the cheek to pool into mirrored teardrops. It was the corner-stone of the outfit, being the origin of the ensemble’s enchantment.

It had been quite a shock when his associate, a tailor that dabbled in one of the various Angorrah black markets, had produced his withered fingers. He was ecstatic to get rid of the mask after experiencing its downsides first hand, though Carnes had managed to reverse most of the damage. Cursed items were uncommon, even from the First Lands, but one of the mask’s potency was considerably rare. Efrain had spent the following weeks attempting to understand the exact nature and limitations of the magic, and found that it was ironically synergistic to his undead existence.

The curse sapped the life from animals, the smaller the faster, withering them into husks. However, it had little-to-no effect on necrotic flesh, including his own lifeless bones. A perfect match, Efrain had figured, until he found out where all that ‘life’ was going. As it turned out, with whatever energy it derived from this process the mask could repair itself, chips and cracks in the stone vanishing as if they were never there. Efrain had spent years after attempting to replicate the enchantment, often getting frustrated and walking away from the endeavour only to come back and try again.

Eventually, he’d at least partially succeeded - creating a set of garments that magic would mend and clean. He had worked with several other respected academics that had fled Angorrah to Karkos, laying further enchantments into the weaves. The result was a set of clothes that offered protection from blunt and sharp objects alike. It might not stop a full sword, but it would dampened pretty much anything less. Resistance to heat was an added benefit, as well as being almost entirely waterproof.

He ran his fingers across the cloth, the black fabric sparkling as the hundreds of tiny interwoven crystals caught the light. They accounted for half the time and a greater percentage of the expense, but the result was well worth it in theory. Efrain hadn’t truly tested the outer limits of it, and never when he had wore it.

For all its benefits however, it came with one significant downside - its permeability. Unlike with most other materials, the magical conductance of the cloth increased as it was saturated. If one was careless, they could find that their magic was quickly being syphoned away. Any wielder had to take great care to ensure that the flow was properly regulated as to not end up sucked dry.

On the whole, however, Efrain was quite happy, indeed proud, with his work. He gathered the cloth, taking care to lock everything behind him, as he left the room. Before he shut the door on his room of ‘horribles’, he glanced back at the newest member. The thick, iron-bound wood stood silent, contrasting with some of the more active members of his collection. Even from this distance he could barely sense the unyielding coldness of the crystal. He stepped out from the room to emerge into the larger vault, and then the antechamber. The hidden door slid into place and locked, becoming just another part of the mountain side.

As he emerge into his chambers on the opposite side of castle, he was unsurprised to find Plesco waiting for him in his chambers.

“How do you always know?” he asked the thing, which produced a bubbling warble.

Once again, he was unsuccessful at determining if that was an answer to how the creature always knew when he wanted a hand.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Well, yes, I have a job for you. Hold these, but don’t touch the mask,” he said, handing the clothes to his servant. The creatures raised its long arms up to hoist the clothing in the manner of a rather disturbing clothes stand.

One of Efrain’s many idiosyncrasies was that the magical field that held together his skeleton didn’t seem to extend to his jawbone. That wouldn’t do for his purpose, however, so he decided to finally wire it shut.

“Do you think it might be a bit… I don’t know, ostentatious? For most people?” he wondered aloud as he drove a silver pin through his jaw gap.

Plesco offered little reply other to chirp excitedly.

“The way I see it, I should offer a ‘lower degree’ of disbelief to make the rest of the act… believable,” Efrain grunted as he twisted the pin he’d driven into his skull, tightening the wires. He had thought it quite silly at how much time he had invested in actuating his jaw to move as he spoke. Now that it came to it, he realized he missed the clacking that punctuated his words.

“Surprising wealth makes for a more believable story. Mortals are such bizarre creatures,” Efrain remarked dryly, well aware of his previous status as one.

He sized himself up in the mirror wall - a stooped skeleton, cracked and scratched. ‘Master of the undead’? More like a withered sack of old bones. That didn’t stop the adventurers from coming though.

It was ironic, really - him not being particularly fond of killing. He did kill people, especially intruders - but they had largely marched into his home, dismembered many of his servants, then loudly challenged him in a duel to the death. He was sure most of it was technically legal in some jurisdiction or another, not that he’d ever get a fair trial.

He was in the middle of wondering if a legal definition of ‘person’ could be expanded to the undead when Innie swept into the room, noticeably raising the temperature.

“What do you think of this, Innie?”

He took the mask in hand, tilting it and then slowly lowering it over his face as it hooked into his skull. There was a faint buzz in his teeth as it came in contact with the magic pulsing within.

“It seems like you’re investing a lot of resources for a simple excursion,” the creature said.

“I might have some other plans,” he said, a tad more defensively than he had intended.

“I doubt that,” she said.

Efrain paused to consider whether the statement was an insult or not. Cats were an indecisive breed, but tended to lean toward outright disdainful belligerence rather than veiled passive-aggression. Then again, this was Innialysia, who also tended to set fire to those who displeased her. Upon that consideration, Efrain decided to go for a more neutral response.

“Well, either way, it never hurts to be over-prepared,” he said, as he began to pull on the wrest of the outfit.

Innie hmmmed as she glanced up and down the shimmering cloth he began to pull on, her amber eyes locking once more on the mask.

“Where’d you get that? It’s got a nasty curse on it, if my eyes don’t deceive me.”

“Through means and ways, Pasgriman origin, I think. I never managed to track down from what region exactly.”

“It makes me uncomfortable,” she said as she began to groom a paw.

“Well, it’s a good thing that you’re not wearing it then,” Efrain responded as he pulled on the gloves and boots, snapping their connectors to the tunic and pants respectively. Finally he dawned the cowl that covered his spine and all the skull that the mask did not conceal.

The whole thing looked about as good draped over a bare skeleton as one could expect. But that would change when let magic flow into the various bands and signets stitched into the frame of the outfit.

The entire thing ballooned, rather absurdly at first, before the columns of air began to flow in the shape of flesh, if it had still clung to his bones. Efrain stepped in front of the mirror once more, and this time a relatively tall, thin man dressed in glimmering black cloth, looked back at him.

“It works,” he shrugged, examining for any traces of bones that could give pause.

“Not if you want to be inconspicuous,” Innie said.

“I’m a talking skeleton Innialysia. There’s not many costumes that’ll render me ‘inconspicuous’.”

She snorted as she began to pad out of the room.

“Come find me when you’re finished,” she said as she rounded the door frame.

“Don’t have too much fun,” he called out after her, to no response.

He pulled on the cloak, the edges sweeping across the floor as it drew around him.

“Definitely a little too ostentatious,” he muttered as he inspected himself.

Plseco made an utterance that might’ve been curiosity, to which Efrain turned.

“Well, then, Plesco. You’re in charge of the castle until I get back. Just keep everything reasonably clean, and not burnt down.”

The creature bounced up and down, in a manner vaguely reminiscent of a dog. It might’ve even been considered ‘cute’ if not for all the mismatched limbs and lack of discernible face.

Efrain strolled out the door frame, leaving Plesco to scurry about cleaning his chambers.

“Now, where is she?” he said, glanced down both ends of the darkened corridor. Deciding that it was only a matter of time before he found her, he depart down to the south.

It wasn’t really all that hard in the end, all he had to do was follow the cats.

The wisp-mother had made her bed in a small alcove. The mass of cats that had gathers to sit around her dispersed lazily as he pushed through. The midday light began to trickle onto the stones as her amber eyes first cracked open, the glow around her body receding as her fur shook.

“Did I miss anything important?” she said as she yawned in the now warm air.