Chapter 44: Kickin' the Worm Bucket

Jimbo-no was flabbergasted. “What do I think about yer next Minion being a plushie bear golem? Granny… What the fuck is wrong with ya?”

“It would not be a normal bear. It’d be a teddy bear!” I clarified. “There's a big difference!”

I had suggested the idea as a safe second choice. From past experience with Lucie I knew what a plush golem was, yet I still had no idea what a domovoy was capable of. And a small teddy bear sounded entirely reasonable to me. I had a perfect image in my mind of what it would be, as long as the System didn’t misinterpret my intentions. Plus, a walking bipedal form would provide another set of hands around the house. One that would ideally be cute, without going too far into the territory of uncanny valley.

Sure, I could choose any animal or monster from the enormous list of creatures I had. But would a tiger or lion be more fearsome than Tiptap? And I was confident in my ability to handle a mere animated teddy bear if things went south. As long as I didn’t give it a name. Or pump it full of extra Mana. Or use Gamblecraft during its creation…

Look, it was a safe idea as long as I didn’t do anything stupid.

“What difference does it make? A bear is a bear!” Jimbo-no pointed at me with one of his knitting hooks, which immediately unraveled his last stitched thread. “We don’t fuck with bears! Especially not in their natural habitats.”

The one eyed man wasn’t exactly bad at knitting.

Nor was he exactly good at it either. But all things considered, he could have been much worse at it. After all, he had never attempted this craft in either of his lives.

Spinemess, on the other hand, was a natural and an attentive learner. The dryad was a model fiber arts hooker, despite not having any System related Skills. Within less than an hour Spinemess had knit a baby blue, beanie style hat. Which didn't fit at all over their tree branch hair. So Spinemess gifted it to Jimbo-no, who had been wearing it since.

“He’s right,” Spinemess added. “That joke is not in good taste, Ethel. You should know better.”

Spinemess’s comment caught me off guard. I didn’t realize I was being offensive. Bears were dangerous, yes, but they weren’t monsters.

I looked to Jellybee for help. “Surely you don’t believe in all this bear propaganda, Jellybee?”

The boy didn’t respond. He was thoroughly absorbed in the task at hand. Which happened to be unstitching his own fingers from the sweater he was trying to make. One that was currently hanging off his chest.

Well, at least he was trying his best…

“Never mind,” I said. “Keep doing what you’re doing.” I sighed. “Alright, bears are clearly a sensitive subject. I won’t bring them up again. Let’s change the subject to something more pleasant.”

“Such as?” Spinemess asked.

I was about to respond, but then I felt a tug of movement on one of my Leylines below the Dungeon. Something had passed through it quickly, leaving a man sized circular tunnel in its wake.

Odd. There was only dirt down there. I began to Knit the surrounding area, seeing if I could find my mysterious interloper. The rhythmic beats were still in the distant background, so I knew this was unrelated.

There was a long silence.

“It’s my deathday today,” Jimbo-no suggested. “Not that any of ya’ll care. But yeah.”

Once again, I was caught off guard and unsure of how to respond. Birthdays are worthy of celebration. Days of death? Well, I supposed in a world where the dead rose like daisies, maybe that was a pleasant event.

I leaned over to Spinemess and mouthed, Is that good?

They shrugged.

Gee. Thanks.

Just when I start to think I’m getting a handle on this world, I start straight ahead into all the social faux pas.

“Congratulations, Jimbo-no!” I said enthusiastically. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier? I would have gotten you a present.”

Jimbo-no grunted. “Nah, keep your pocket lint. Just look the other way when I help myself to the wine cellar later.”

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“Nonsense! I’ll just have to remember…” There was another tug on a different ‘fishing’ Leyline. This one higher up. I caught the briefest glimpse of it. Some sort of rocky snake?

“Remember what, Granny?” Spinemess urged. They tilted their head, staring at me through that expressionless mask.

I didn’t want to raise any alarm. At least not yet. I wasn’t about to have us drop everything to dig up some slippery eels. There was no harm in them burrowing away from the home. I coughed. “I’ll just have to remember to get you a gift for your birthday instead. Which is…uh… when, exactly?”

“Dunno,” Jimbo-no shrugged.

“You don’t know?” I asked.

“Nah.”

“Surely you had to have been born, right?”

“Probably? Look, it’s a little fuzzy for undead. The veil ain’t kind to memories.”

Ah, so here was a pleasant topic I could get behind: death. It had been tugging away at me for a while, but I hadn’t exactly known how to breach the subject. What happened when people died in this world? As I’ve mentioned before, in my early years I had a certain religious upbringing. One that had ripple effects on my later years. And try as I might, I was still having to reconcile those teachings with how I viewed this particular Dungeon Core ‘afterlife.’ What did these people believe when the dead didn’t stay dead?

“Pretend I know nothing about death and the undead and what happens after the undead die. Which I don’t,” I said. “Paint me a picture.”

“There ain’t much to it,” Jimbo-no began. “The more time ya spend rotting away in the dirt, the more yer mind rots too. To make a short story longer than it needs to be, for most of my old life I was a human with a decently high level Buccaneer class. At some point I kicked the bucket. The end.” He rattled with a laugh.

I glared at him.

He continued, “Obviously the bucket hadn't had enough of me yet. It came back for more. Luckily, I had been a strong human. I had managed to get enough Mana stored up in these bones. So I came back as the strapping young lad ya see here.”

I raised an eyebrow.

He rattled with laughter again. I recognized this behavior was a defense mechanism. Opening up made him anxious.

“Just kidding! As far as undead go, I’m roughly middle aged. That means that I put enough time in the spooky slammer that parts of my mind rotted away, taking away some memories. That included some of my Skills. And what d’ya know, that also included when I was born. Now look at me: I’m some washed up, low level Brigand class. The System thought that was a good fit for my current Skill set. Cheers and happy fuckin’ deathday. That good enough for ya?”

Thunder flashed. The cottage shook.

I felt another ‘tug’ on a Leyline. This one was further up. I got a better glimpse this time, since I had been waiting. It wasn’t a snake. It was a worm. Like none I had ever seen before. A giant worm with a stone body, longer than most men were tall. It had a snub nose like a mole. Below that was an open maw, encircled with multicolored geodes crystals. The geode ‘teeth’ were sharpened to a point, grinding and slicing through substrate. It followed along my Dungeon sight for a bit, then diverted course, disappearing from view.

It was getting closer, but wasn’t committing. Like a fish nipping at bait.

Jellybee let out a quiet curse as he managed to get another finger tangled up. At some point the brim of his mushroom hat had leaked, dripping long lines of fungal juice down his face and onto his hands.

I reached out an ethereal hand and placed it upon the boy’s knee. “Why don’t you take a break from this, Jellybee? I can see you’re frustrated. I could use your help with something else in a bit?”

He nodded and stood up. He trailed strings which shadowy Tiptap immediately seized upon.

“Once you untangle yourself, of course,” I amended.

I went back to mulling over what Jimbo-no had said. I wasn’t going to let this one off the hook that easily. “I’m sorry that happened. That sounds very frustrating.”

I could empathize. Getting old wasn’t fun.

“Eh. It ain’t so bad. Happens to all of us. Some of us get the shorter sticks.” Jimbo-no leaned over with a wicked sneer. “Just ask Spiney here. The youngest in our squad, yet this Mage forgot all their spells. All that Mana, wasted. Too much time spent as a human casting spells instead of strengthening their body. Only to end up sucking at both. Ain’t that right, buddy?”

I recognized the deflection, but still fell for it. “Is that true, Spinemess? You’re the youngest?”

I kind of assumed the opposite. The old Spinemess, pre-Rinafen bonding, couldn’t take two steps before falling apart. But mentally speaking, Spinemess had consistently demonstrated the most amount of maturity out of all of them.

“Fuck off, Jimmy. No, I’m not the youngest. That honor would go to Mardy. He spent no time dead at all. Strong mind and body. He even had kids, remember, Brigand?” Spinemess asked the other.

Jimbo-no grunted. “How could I not? The guy wouldn't shut up about them!

The idea struck me as another surprise. I spoke without thinking. "Kids? How can a skeleton have kids?" I asked, I immediately regretted it.

Jimbo-no opened his mouth to reply, but Spinemess covered his mouth with two hands and beat him to it. "Same as usual, Ethel.”

"I mean, doesn't it take a while for a body to decompose into a full skeleton?"

"Normally, yes, depending on environmental conditions. But the Evergreen Ossarchy is very, very adamant on proper sanitation. Witchpyre is used to cleanse away flesh to prevent the spread of disease and rot. There are heavy fines for any undead that infect humans." Spinemess gave Jimbo-no a look, then pulled their hands away.

“FUCKIN’!” Jimbo-no bombastically declared. “Yup, three brats and a wife in Lo Patross. I heard the guy still had a lot of debt to pay off. No wonder he went running back to Hard Pill with his tail between his legs the moment granny dropped in to say die.”

I stood up suddenly.

“Jeez, granny. It was a joke! Calm yer tatas,” Jimbo-no teased.

“What’s wrong, Ethel?” Spinemess asked.

“Need help?”

It hadn’t been just one creature. There were several.

The stone worms were closing in.

“We’re being attacked,” I said.

There was a loud crash as they broke through the bottom floor.

It was almost the end of the night, but clearly the monsters did not want to wait until morning.