Helmgarth put his fist to his mouth, and bowed his head. Addrion's shoulders sank with loss. Zideo seemed affected, but focused on plotting a path over to the dead young man–the dead boy.

“Sure is dark,” he commented, leading the way through connecting cave passages that did not bend too far away from the corpse pit. No one argued the point.

The last leg of our route to the skeleton involved some sideways shimmying with very little space for feet. It was a bit touch-and-go, and I knocked loose a pebble went sailing into the corpse mountain, embedding in the nostril of a purple dragon’s corpse whose twin I recalled passing in the stairwell of Helmgarth’s apartment complex. The lip of the descent barely left room for my pads; I have no idea how the wide-footed humans managed.

To that end, why do we describe caves in such oral terms? The implications are highly uncomfortable, especially when you are the the one spelunking.

On closer inspection, the skeleton may not have been human at all. There was something about the proportions of his bones that did not seem right to me, although I could not put my paw on it. He sat with his hands together, calm and clasping some kind of necklace that had not decayed, though his clothing hung in charred and decayed shreds from his bones.

“You just hate to see that,” said Zideo. “I mean… geez.” His eyes searched the others for assistance. Addition rubbed her eye sockets, and Helmgarth muttered a chant under his breath, drawing scaldic signs in the air. I wished to know what benefit they were intended to convey for the dead. “Y’know,” continued Zideo, “I used to play some of his old g-words when I was a kid. It was traumatizing to see his death animation. He’d just fall into bones.” Zideo reached out to touch the green and yellow football helmet, and the skeleton lost integrity altogether, and collapsed into pieces faster than Addrion could say “Don’t!”

“Ugh!” said my human, recoiling. “Yeah, like that.”

“Bailey Blastoff was a loyal man, alien though he be,” said Helmgarth, bowing his head. “It is shame upon shame to lose him at such an age.”

Zideo blinked. “How old was he? He looked like a kid.”

“Seven.”

“Oh, god. That’s too horrible.”

“-teen.”

“Huh? Seventeen? Well, that’s still tragic.”

“-thousand years old.”

“What?” Zideo blinked. “So he was like old like OLD?” His brow furrowed. “My man probably died of old age.”

“Not all species have the same age scale,” said Addrion, and she did not add “you imbecile” or “you braindead carbon streak,” etc. I expect that grief had dulled the keen edge of her words.

Zideo pulled back the helmet to reveal two antennae sprouting above where either eyebrow ought to be, like the ossicones of a giraffe.

“So he was an alien.”

“Can you not?” said Addrion, her eyes appealing to his decency, but making no move to strike him as she might have in other circumstances.

“No,” said Zideo, examining the helmet. “That’s my problem.”

“I mean honestly though? If you think about it?” said Bailey Blastoff, “Alien just means somebody who’s from somewhere else, so you’re kind of sort of the alien here, in a way?”

Zideo screamed and dropped the helmet, which rolled off the ledge and into the corpse pit. Helmgarth let out an unintelligible syllable which somehow flattered him. Addrion tensed and took a step back, scarcely suppressing a grunt of surprise. For my part, I barked at the apparition before seeing that he held no malice and posed no obvious threat besides the one to our psyches.

Shoulder to hip with the humans, pondering his own remains and tapping his lip with a finger, stood the azure spirit of the departed alien, barely distinguishable in form from a human boy of seven aside from the subtly exaggerated proportions. He wore the football helmet that had just clattered down into the pit, or its spiritual twin, if such things can be said of inanimate objects. I noticed that his ghost did not wear a version of the necklace clasped religiously between the skeletal palms of the remains.

Addrion regained her composure first. “Bailey?”

The specter shrugged. “In the flesh!” His eyes flicked to his skeleton. “I mean. Kind of sort of?” He inspected my human.

“Wherever you’re from, it’s sort of like super duper far?” he asked. Or, perhaps he did not ask. His words had a perpetually rising intonation, like an overworked racecar engine downshifting and gunning the engine. “Like, I’ve got a whoooole new perspective as a ghost now, and I can see like a whole second world or layer or whatever? And it’s absolutely a different aura for you than for my friends? And your dog too? Who, by the way, is adorable?”

I resolved to consult the qualifications for Dog Points. Could ghosts get them?

“How are you here?” asked Helmgarth.

“That’s sort of kind of a little bit classified?” he said.

“We’re here on her majesty’s orders,” said Addrion. “We know she sent you. What happened to you? Who killed you?”

He didn’t so much as sigh as take in a deep breath, resigned to unloading the information. “Okay so the thing is? Her majesty knew Shard Platformia was kind of like in the worst shape of all the Shards, like it was the biggest threat because the Empire of Sorrow had like a million billion troops here and also the rest of the armies that the Bosses shipped over? And she knew there was sort of just like a lot going on over here, because there’s this thing called the Compendium that’s like a book that contains all knowledge but it takes a Player to open it and she knew it was here somewhere but she wanted to get a hold of it before the Boss Council got the Ohmpressors going? Because like they were already being developed and you know what those are, right? They’re so seriously bad news? And anyway she wanted someone with a platformer background to go right away and try to find the Compendium before the Bosses found it? But it’s like who cares because I died before I found it, which is SO annoying, and not like ‘oh boo hoo I lost a life, let’s try again’ died but sort of like, ‘oh, now my physical form is fully separated from my consciousness and I’m cursed to haunt the place of my unfinished business’ died? Like kind of all the way sort of dead?”

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

“Okay,” said Addrion, her palms out as though to flag him down. “Pump the retro rockets. She sent you here alone? Without telling any of us?”

Helmgarth looked like he had something to say, and did not want to.

“Yes absolutely except, no? Not alone, because actually if you really look at what happened, she sent me and Nereus together, because we’re the best platformer guys ever? Like the absolute top tier?”

Addrion tilted her nose down and looked at him over nonexistent glasses.

“Nereus is here?” asked Helmgarth.

“A little bit, yeah?” continued the alien who was hard not to think of as a boy. “But we didn’t find the Compendium, but we DID sort of get lost down here in Blunderworld, which is what I call the Purple Deeps, haha? Do you get it? But the thing is we found something else, it’s like this big purple glowing light so bright it kind of sort of hurts to look directly into it, which doesn’t usually happen with purple but y’know?”

“The Radian,” said Addrion.

“Ooh!” said Zideo. “We need that. Where is it?”

“So I know sort of approximately where it is but it’s pointless because only a platformer person can get it?”

Addrion crossed her arms. “We’ll see about that.”

“No, but yeah, but no like, it’s really hard to get to without a bunch of running and jumping and stuff and you have to be able to, and this is KEY guys, wall jump?”

“I’m pretty sure I can’t wall jump,” said Zideo. “Can you wall jump?”

“I can wall jump,” said Addrion. Then, she deflated just a little. “Or I could, if I had access to… it’s not important. Let’s say I can’t wall jump right now.”

“Oh, right now,” said Zideo. Even a dog could tell that egging her on was unwise. As an experienced reader of body language, I could sense the blood flow into her arm as she prepared to backhand him across the mouth. I find myself surprised that her glare alone did not incinerate him where he stood.

“But like what is it? Do you guys know? If I had the Compendium I bet I could find out the answer, but like I said it will only open for a Player but it’s like who knows? Maybe somebody will boot up Bailey Blastoff (19Ω0) or maybe one of my later g-words and I’ll have a player in my body and I can open it when they pause the you-know? It’s a sort of like kind of a longshot but I guess now it’s pointless because I’m dead and stuff?”

“I found it,” Helmgarth finally spoke up. “I stole it.”

“Oh my gosh that’s great, it’s sort of like so amazing to know that all my work and even like my death was not in vain? Like I’m a little offended that you were sent in after me to clean up my mess I guess? But still that’s incredible, so maybe I can just get out of here now that my worldly business is finished? Man thanks so much Helmgarth, mission accomplished? Bailey Blastoff, signing o-”

“The Bosses have it,” he said, trying not to look at Commander Zideo.

“Oh,” said Bailey. He was silent, which reminded me of being in my human’s Honda Micro-Commuter EV when he hit the brakes very suddenly, perhaps when a vehicle in front of him stopped unexpectedly. I could almost hear the tormented shriek of rubber against asphalt.

“That one,” Zideo volunteered reluctantly, “is on me. That’s my B.”

“Okay,” said Bailey. “Welp.”

“Can you tell us where find Nereus?” said Helmgarth. “We will need his help to get that Radian and get out of here.”

“Oh listen like if you find the purple glowy radian thing, you’ll find him I’m sure or vice versa maybe, but the thing is what’s the point because he’s definitely for sure dead?”

“Nereus is dead?”

“I mean I’m dead?” reasoned the boy alien. “And if I’m dead it’s like, what is he going to not be dead? We’re dead.”

Helmgarth pushed back. “Have you seen his ghost around?”

“No not particularly as such?”

“Then let us assume he needs our help.”

“Okay like that’s fine and everything but I haven’t told you what killed me and stuff?”

“What killed you?” asked Zideo.

“It’s like a whole entire Boss? Like a serious mega Boss that I don’t recognize? He is definitely not from a platformer and I don’t know what he’s doing down here, but he’s definitely still down here somewhere so watch out for him?”

“Who?”

“He’s like the Scourging Bane or whatever? Of the Corpse Garden?”

“Sourgorge,” said Zideo, to himself. He banged his knuckles together in thought. “That’s… not right. He’s the reason I quit Graven Path (20♫1).” Helmgarth and Addrion blinked at him and at one another. “You know. The souls games?”

The spectral boy-alien fell back a couple feet. “Oh, boy, wow, would you do me a huge favor and not say the g-word? I felt that one big time and it’s just like sort of waaayyyy worse when you’re dead? Holy moly, just like please don’t do that again?”

“Sorry. But y’all know what I mean by souls g-words, right?” asked Zideo. “Demon’s, Dark, and all the rest?” No spark of recognition illuminated their eyes. “Bloodborne and the Pinocchio one? And then the hardest soulslike of all time, Graven Path (20♫1). Anyone?”

“I like, want to know what you’re talking about but all I know is he’s Sourgorge and he’s the Scourging Bane of the Corpse Garden?”

“Is… this the Corpse Garden?” asked Addrion, with the faintest nod to the pile of countless bodies behind her.

“No,” said Zideo. “That’s a whole other thing. From his g-word, which is probably annihilated, if what you’ve all said about the Total Conversion is true. Unless there’s a shard for extremely punishing action games where you roll a lot and lose your progress a lot?”

The shrug was universal, and these things were quite out of my own area of canine expertise.

“Okay, well, they’re nothing like platformers. They’re like…” His eyes searched the room, as though to find the words. “You know how in platformers, you fight or hop over tons and tons of little bitty guys over the course of a couple hours? And at the end of worlds, there are mini-bosses or level bosses?”

“Sure, love,” said Helmgarth, but shook his head. Addrion made a rolling motion for Zideo to continue.

“Bosses are supposed to be a test of what you’ve learned. But in souls games, it’s like… everyone’s a Boss. Even the first little mopey zombie you come across. You have to watch for patterns and git gud.”

Addrion made a face. “Get what?”

“The point is, everything’s out of order in those things, and it’s all up to you. Sourgorge is not the final boss, but he is the hardest boss. He’s completely optional, just wanders this terrible place called the Corpse Garden. Absolutely no reward for beating him, other bragging rights.”

“Fine,” said Addrion. “So, avoid at all costs. Especially without my XLZ.” She rubbed her arm as though phantom pain tugged at her mind, even though the arm was there.

“I can point you in the right direction if you think you can get the thing. But you’re gonna need kind of sort of need this.” The spectral boy reached to his neck to clasp a chain that was not there. “Oh, oops.” He pointed to the pile of bones.

Zideo reached in and drew it out, wincing as it caught briefly on a cervical vertebra. It was a locket with the question rune: “?”