POV Aron Brightcloud

What do I do now?

My “towel’s” upgrade to skeleton was a most joyous occasion. Yet he had done so at the dumbest moment possible. It would have been okay if he hadn’t talked, but naturally he had to...

Now Anna thought I possessed a unique familiar. Which was true, but opened a whole new can of worms combined with the fact that I had two. If this came out the magicians would fall over each other to get a piece of me to study.

Should I silence her?

I could. We were too close, and Anna didn’t have the mental strength required to kill me before I passed the distance. Yet I didn’t want to. She had proven honorable. I loathed to return kindness with death.

Anna chose the moment to speak up.

“Knowing that this piece of news is most likely very dear to you, I have a way out for the both of us. I want us to proceed as friends. In the circle of nobles, we utilize contracts to safeguard important or dangerous information. I will promise you to not talk or imply about this knowledge. As long as I am not under extensive torment the contract stops me from speaking about this to anybody else.”

She took out an old scroll and handed it to me.

Scanning its content, I understood the idea. A onetime-use formation had been imprinted onto it. If I added the content I wanted hidden, we would be safe and could proceed as normal. Anna’s core would fall two tiers to “weak” if she broke the contract. It would destroy a big part of her life.

“This will solve our problem nicely. It will make me much more comfortable, knowing that this knowledge is safe and hidden. Let’s sign the contract.”

We quickly set it up and filled the scroll with the information needed to make it binding. With a flash it activated.

Both of us relaxed. Anna must have felt some of my more radical thoughts on a subconscious level.

“Great, to a happy friendship!” I smiled innocently at her.

Seeing my pure smile she relaxed. It was easy to convince people of something they already wanted to believe.

Now we could-

A panicked yipping made us aware of what was happening next to us.

During our little chat my skeleton had moved over to Anna’s familiar and before either of us or Fenrix could react, had grabbed the little vixen and crammed her into his mouth. Said part of the body had comically expanded to contain its prey. My partner’s appearance resembled more a head with six extremities than anything else.

“Little bro! What the heck! Stop! Spit her out!”

He luckily followed and spit the scared fox out again.

“Why did you try to eat Fenrix?!”

Having lost the food, his mouth retracted to normal. The now correctly proportioned hip sized skeleton looked up at us like a tearful child who knew it had acted wrongly.

“I suddenly felt so hungry! I couldn’t stop myself. I mean I wouldn’t have killed her, she doesn’t die if eaten, Anna would simply have to re-summon her, right?”

I felt the need to bury my face behind my hands.

“I am so sorry Anna. This wasn’t on purpose, I promise!”

To my surprise she smiled, at first lightly then opening up to a full-blown laugh.

“It’s okay, nothing happened. But I think you have to teach your child some manners. For one, familiars are not meant to do such things without orders and the contract will mean nothing if your little heap of bones outs itself through its actions the moment it steps out of the dungeon.”

“You are right. Bones, you have to behave yourself when we get back, okay? At least I have found a name for you now. How do you like the name Bones, little bro?”

The goblin skeleton moved into a thinker pose, soon it changed into a widespread smile.

“Yes! I love the name! I am Bones!”

I grinned. In the end everything had turned out well. My injury had mostly healed, Bones had found a name and a physical body and Anna would keep my secrets safe. It had the added benefit that my worth to her had grown. Before, her help could mostly be attributed to me saving her life. But this could only account for so much. Now that she knew I had a special familiar, it made it more reasonable to invest in me.

I needed to quiz my partner when we arrived at my apartment. He had shown many useful abilities which I wanted to incorporate into our future strategies.

We walked over to the corpses of our slain enemies. For most of them I had no hopes for good loot except of the variant goblin. I checked the ground where Bones had taken over the body.

Nothing could be found. Damn, had it been too much to hope for some loot? A cracking noise made me aware of Bones. He had followed me and stood now four feet behind me. Lost in thoughts he munched absentmindedly on a half eaten bracer, scratching his ribs with one of his other hands. The cracking sound came from the metal he tore apart with every bite.

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As I watched him flabbergasted he threw the rest of it into his mouth and swallowed. Instead of falling through his jaw and out between his rips, the equipment disappeared. He gazed up at me contently.

He ate my loot!

“Bones, what have you eaten just now?!”

My mini vacuum cleaner answered happily, “I don’t know, it had lain next to my new body. I loved the color, so I tried it. It tasted delicious. I feel much better now.”

“Bones, next time you see something "delicious” call me first, okay?”

It might have been better if he had remained a ghost. A sudden vision appeared in my head. All the treasures that should have been rightfully mine, eaten by a mini devourer. Leaving me without equipment and money.

I swallowed, sweat ran down my back. This had to be prevented at all costs!

“Aron, is everything fine? You don’t look so well?” Naturally Anna chose this moment to rejoin our little group and talk further.

“I couldn’t find anything apart from some coins. Did you have better luck with the variant goblin’s spot?”

I covertly moved myself in front of Bones. Knowing his childlike behavior, he would betray himself given the chance. I for sure didn’t want to explain to Anna that my familiar had eaten the loot.

“The only thing I found were some silver-coins. Seems we have bad luck with loot. Here, you can have it.”

Anna shook her head, that bit of silver not worth her notice.

“Strange, I would have thought that such an enemy warranted some loot. The dungeon must be angry that it didn’t get a kill.”

Quickly nodding, I reinforced her theory. Yes Anna, that’s a great theory. Go on, don’t look back at my little black hole in the guise of a skeleton.

“Let’s return outside. Even though we didn’t find any loot I’d say we have improved much, no?”

Anna nodded happily. “Yes, I learned a lot and we’ve earned many experience points. I feel my core improving.”

Walking back, I lamented the dungeon’s behavior. Why did it have to absorb the monsters and their equipment after a short time? Now I would have to buy my familiar new weapons. Sadly, they had disappeared before we had made our way to them. Only the short-sword in my hand remained. Anna followed me during our way back, her thoughts clearly preoccupied, not paying attention to her surroundings.

I would have been surprised if she hadn’t been. In comparison to me, she never got to experience this sort of dangerous situation. Although taught from young and grown up with knowledge that this would be an integral part of her life, it still needed a while to get used to. As long as she could actively concentrate on something Anna seemed just fine. But given a bit space and time to sink into her own world, all the memories would come back, burying her below them.

Knowing that, I took over surveillance. Better to be safe than sorry. I could ask Bones some questions in the meantime.

‘Bones, can you leave your new body? Or are you bound to it?’

Being able to talk through our minds made delicate discussions so much easier.

‘I am bound to this body, but I am able to transfer it to another space. That means I have now two shapes. One as a ghost, and one as an awesome warrior!’

These were splendid news. I had access to a spy and a “warrior” in one. Let’s keep the brackets there for now, a hip sized mini skeleton fit the description of warrior marginally at best. Still, it marked a substantial improvement in his skill-set.

‘Go back into your ghost form, the others shouldn’t know about your other form for now.’

‘Aye Boss.’

Anna watched surprised as the walking goblin skeleton suddenly got sucked into itself, vanishing from view.

“Aron, what happened to Bones?”

“Everything is okay, I told him to change back to ghost form. Please don’t tell the others for the time-being.”

“Okay, Should we set-up a second contract?”

“No, it is okay. They will find out in the near future.”

Looking at the progress of our dungeon dive today, we had finished most of the first floor. The only part left was the boss room. Because of the hard fight and the little experience Anna brought to the table, I decided to postpone the boss-fight for now. It would be safer for her to experience more battles before we tried him.

The portal room soon arrived in our sight. Anna sped up and walked next to me.

“Thank you for everything today. It has vastly broadened my horizon. Although I have a stronger elemental core, I am way weaker than you. I would like to dive and learn from you in the future. Are you up for it?”

“Sure, I would love to. Won’t you have problems with your sister and the others?”

She raised her head. “My sister will believe me if I say you are worth it. And for the others, we will see. I am loath to stop interacting with you purely because of some rumors and prejudice.”

Great, at least for now I had my dungeon-dive companion. We would see how long that statement held. Either-way, this clearly showed an improvement to the situation I had been in this morning. We would see if a genuine friendship grew out of it or if it stayed at a professional level.

_______

We were the first to arrive in teacher Monrose’s classroom.

Seeing us walk in, he scanned us, surprised.

“You are back early. Did you dungeon dive as a team of two? How was it?”

I stepped in front of Anna and spoke up before she could.

“Yes, Anna had decided to help me out. We have come quite far, completing most of the first level. We stopped before we entered the boss-room as we wanted to train more. This was only possible due to Anna’s mastery in magic. Without her I would have had no chance.”

Anna didn’t react to my story changes. It would help her image and she knew that I liked to “fly below the radar”. Nobody should ever think that I had been a waste, lost my core, magically revived and then suddenly got strong although my body was still a mess. That positively screamed possession. Nope, didn’t want that.

Monrose nodded “That is great to hear. I would have thought you needed longer, especially as a team of two. Your father will be very happy to hear of your performance Anna.”

She bowed her head in thanks of his words. He wasn’t wrong. She had significantly improved during the dive. I planned to sharpen her into a true adventurer if she held her word and joined my group in the future. Naturally I didn’t talk about magic, but about mindset and behavior. In Magic I had nothing to teach her, as I had more than enough to learn myself.

With a wave of his hand, he motioned us to take a seat. To my surprise Anna chose to sit next to me instead of sitting at her own table.

“Are you sure?”

She gave me a half smile. “Yes, I am.”

I simply nodded. This was her decision.

Gazing out the window, the sun marked the time to late afternoon. We still had around one or two hours before the official classes ended.

Teacher Monrose hadn’t given us new topics to study. I decided to play with the magic arrow spell. My changed pathways forced me to only use quick spells that didn’t need a lot of mana. As the more I tried to charge, the more my energy leaked into the wrong pathways instead of where I needed it.

A certain part of it migrated into my muscles and bones. It made my already paltry reserves even tinier. The radiation hurt my body, putting me at an additional disadvantage.

I needed to somehow counteract that. Conjuring a mini arrow, I began to play with its structure. If I could improve the impact of my arrow with the same amount of energy, it would lighten the burden on my body as I could do the same amount of damage with less energy. Luckily I had the manipulation rune in my core. It made magic folding and weaving much easier.

The whole process happened on a cellular plane. I altered the arrow’s very structure, trying out my ideas. From outside, the arrow had yet to change as I only applied the concepts and didn’t expound on them. Had I done that, the arrow would have shrunken and alerted the others. As long as I kept it down, Anna and Monrose wouldn’t realize my mastery.