Omar shot through the air like a comet, buffeting through the windy night as he sailed down, down towards downtown Gifflenberg. It had been a violent exit, being expelled by the mega dragon due to extreme spiciness, but it had been the only option to ensure he held on to his life. He had no wish to become as the undead skeleton that sailed through the air beside him, some lifeless collection of sentient bones.
"Good show, old chap! How do you expect us to make it in our descent without getting crushed on impact with the harsh ground below?"
Omar couldn't stand how cheerful this obnoxious little skeleton man was, but at the same time, he couldn't bring himself to dispatch the goofy skeleton, either directly or indirectly. And standing idly by while the fellow fell to his doom would certainly count as standing idly by. Only... would falling spell doom for the skeleton?
"Okay, I'll level with you, skeleton," said Omar.
"Jolly good, you're ready to level up? I'm afraid my leveing is capped now that I'm undead, but-"
"That's not what I meant you fucking doofus. I was speaking figuratively. I want to figuratively level with you."
"How do you figure you'll do that?"
Omar took a deep breath with which to compose himself. He knew that if he was not careful, he'd lose what little cool he had and take a swing at the stupid skeleton himself, and he didn't want to - this skeleton had, for between or worse, save him from death by his own element. It would be unfair to retaliate against the skeleton's obnoxious friendliness. So, Omar controlled himself to the best of his ability. "Look, dumbass, I was just trying to say that I'm confused as to why you're concerned about us dying on impact when you're an undead skeleton. Doesn't that mean that you'll survive the fall?"
"Depends on what you mean by survive, old chap."
"Stop fucking calling me old!"
"It's just a turn of phrase, old chap. Just like when you asked me to level with you. Now, the thing is, that yes - technically I would survive. However, it's not that simple. In truth, my good lad, it's never that simple for us undead skeletons. You see, undead skeletonship is a bit of a burden all its own. Yes, yes, we get eternal life, however, that life is designed for the spirit realm, it is not designed for the harsh realities of the lands of the living such as this. In effect, I may actually suffer a fate worse than death on impact. See, all I am, is my bones. My bones house my awareness, they house my aura. But they are old, and they are not formed for this world. So, when the laws of physics in this realm meet up against my immortal, skeletal bodice, bad things can happen. Primarily, what is most likely to happen on my impact with the ground is that all of my bones shatter to a billion pieces. Now, let us again consider the reality of my existence as an immortal being. My consciousness is tied to my bones. I do not die because I am not alive, however, if my bones shatter, so does my awareness - imagine suddenly becoming a ball of inifinite awareness consisting of hundreds, hell, of thousands of small pieces of shattered skeleton bones. That is my future if we land on the ground at the presently increasing speeds we're encoutering. Total anhilation, and a death that is at once not a death at all, and simultaneous with a hellish, eternal torment."
Omar nodded slowly. He had to agree, none of that sounded like a great experience - in fact, it sounded quite awful. "Well, I've got good news for you, buddy. I already knew how to get out of this situation. Take my non flaming hand and check this shit out."
The undead skeleton grasped Omar's hand and watched as he squatted in the air and started to focus his energy. Slowly but surely, a small flame flickered on the outside of Omar's rear end. As he continued to focus, the flame got larger and larger, and the descent began to slow. Soon enough, Omar was lifting himself and the skeleton around in mid-air, floating without falling or gaining altitude. They were, in a sense, treading air.
"Wow. You weren't kidding. It's a tad distasteful, of course, but better than dying by a long shot," replied the skeleton.
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"Yea, I'll fucking say," Omar said with a sigh. Did this skeleton really complain that his [skill] was rude? What a snob. Still, at least this would fulfill his obligation. A life for an afterlife, Omar figured. He would lower this skeleton down to the ground safely, and then he'd leave him to his devices - which of course would probably result in the skeleton getting destroyed by people of Gifflenberg as soon as the whole apocalpytic smattering that was currently overhanging the city calmed down a bit, and everyone had the energy to get in an uproar about something else. Omar himself figured this would take about two weeks.
As he lowered the skeleton down, and they approached the ground, Omar saw fit to ask the fellow his name. He was a little embarassed he hadn't done it sooner but disguised that embarassment with enough swear words to make the skeleton feel so uncomfortable and yet grateful to have his moniker considered that the fact that it had taken so long to ask never even occured to the affable undead skeleton.
"Gottfried," replied the skeleton.
"Is that a last name?" asked Omar with a furrowed brow under the living wood on his face.
"No?" The skeleton further explained that he only had one name, and that name was Gottfried.
"That's a strange situation. Did your brothers only have one name, too?" Omar asked.
"Oh, gods no, they had at least three if not more, my good lad."
Talking to the skeleton seemed to often go this way. Omar was just glad that, sooner rather than later, he'd never see the skeleton again.
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The voice was relishing its new life inhabiting Frank the undead skeleton's body. It had walked through the ransacked streets of Gifflenberg, feeling powerful and indeed untouchable. The only disappointing thing was that, due to the meteor and the undead creatures spilling out from a presently closing perforation, the city was a bit ghastly - there were not a lot of living souls walking around, ready to devour, whether they be animals or tauman beings, it seemed everything was in a bit of hiding at the moment.
Still, the voice knew what it was doing, and it had the power to sense when life was nearby - for it had a system of its own, as well. Its chief [skills] included:
[Absorption], the [skill] that the voice had utilized in order to suck the foolish fellow Gehaffrey into its gaping, skeletal maw for all eternity.
[Detection], the [skill] that alerted the voice when living things were nearby, and whether they were weak enough or not to be absorbed.
And, of course, there was its favorite [skill] of all, [Mind Tap]. [Mind Tap] was the [skill] that had allowed the voice to get into Gehaffrey's head, the [skill] that allowed the voice to get into anyone's head. Anyone sentient, at least. And once the voice was in someone's head, it was awfully difficult to wrench that terrible voice out of their head. Which, of course, was all by design. And sure, at lower levels, the [skill] could only do voices... But the voice was definitely not a low level. The only thing that held the voice back was the radius of [Mind Tap]. If you were in the voice's radius, and it was familiar with your thought patterns, you were suceptible to its attack and manipulations that, among many other things, could easily leave you thinking that a pile of mud was a plate of cheese, or that a burning pit of fire was a nice wave pool.
The voice wished that it could smile with Frank's body as it thought of these [skills] and their power, but that was out of the cards - it wasn't like there was any skin or living wood on an undead skeleton. Regardless, the voice walked through the downtown streets, the near-dead downtown streets, quickly sucking into its wake any unfortunate creature that existed - most of which at this point were simply small gnats, or worms, or possibly every once and a while if the voice was lucky, a rat. The beings would simply zip through the air as if pulled by a strong magnet and congeal into a whirling, twisted string that the voice would eat through Frank's mouth. It was impressiverly effective, and indeed the voice could feel its power increasing with every successful consumption. Of course, all of these paled in comparison to the power boost the voice had gotten from absorbing Gehaffrey. Now the voice would just need to find another living tauman to absorb - then the fun could really begin.
And then, the voice caught sight of something strange in the sky. There was what looked to be two corporeal forms zooming down through the air - plummeting? - no, not plummeting, but they were zooming down in a controlled fashion. The voice focused closer, realizing two things. First, that there was only one living being zooming through the air, the other one was an undead skeleton much like the voice's currently occupied body. Second, the voice recognized the presence of the living tauman zooming down - it was Omar, he'd met Gehaffrey and Frank, so having access to their consciousness was more than enough to know plenty about Omar. And the most important thing to know about Omar, or at least, the most important thing for the voice to know about Omar was that he was exceptionally powerful.
He was the perfect, juicy morsel for the voice to absorb into its conglomerated power. And he seemed completely unaware of the threart - after all, how could he know of the voice and its plans?
The voice chuckled to itself. This was going to be too easy.