Chapter 5

Early in the day, Frizzy was just minding her own business as she was wandering through the ruins of the ancients.

It had been her turn along with five others to explore and scavenge for tools, resources and maybe even treasures. Each going in their own direction. She had gotten lucky once while exploring and fond some pieces of a beautiful pin clasp. When she turned it in to the elder, she had been given her choice of mushrooms to take for her garden at home.

She and her fellow gremlins were natural seekers after all, especially with magic metals or enchanted items since they can literally sniff them out.

Today though was a new day and it had been a fairly enjoyable one too. She had found some pieces of good iron and copper, there was even a magic item! The item was a small glass marble and after playing with it she discovered how it worked. The small marble glowed a soft light and made the surrounding air comfortably warm. Oh yeah, she was keeping this one especially during those chillier nights.

The ancients really Knew how to make magic items and there was always more to find. There were many such items that people simply couldn’t make anymore and could only be found in the ruins of the ancients.

Frizzy loved hearing the stories of the ancients growing up. Her elders said the ancients were a strange people. Not as tall or as physically powerful as orcs, they were rich like the dwarves, spell casters were rare among their people compared to elves. Yet they were Masters of craft and mastered many mysteries of the world. From how her elders described it, they didn’t chalk every mystery to magic but understood the truth of various parts of the world. The old legends tell of how they would make tools and items meant for making people’s lives better. There were even tails of how they would make weapons and armor that could make people near unstoppable but only sold those to high nobility at absurd prices.

Sadly, their story ended bitterly. They had been betrayed by the elves and the dwarves. Their old trading partners and allies brought the city down. Killing all of the ancients in a surprise attack. But that was when the ancients of the city used a trump card. Everything for miles of the city was said to have been bathed in a horrible magic before sucking the life out of everything that lived. Frizzy admired the ancients for that. She knew that there were dwarves and elves who were peaceful that just wanted to be live out their lives. The gremlins in her tribe were very much the same way. But from how the stories were told, everyone involved in the attack were not very good people.

She remembered the sorrow she heard in the elder’s tone. Telling how the elves, dwarves, gnomes, and the lizardmen all banded together to kill off the remaining cities, towns and villages of the ancients. None were spared and Frizzy felt a deep sadness whenever she remembered the story. Not only for the wisdom that was lost with them but because she couldn’t help but wonder just how much brighter the world would be if they were still around.

She sighed before shaking her head to refocus on her task to forage around the old ruins.

She had some success and updated her own map as she explored. She enjoyed the freedom and being the first to see new and wonderous items just waiting to be discovered. She even found another scavenger a few hours after she started from another tribe. Around mid-day she had the good fortune to sniff out a rather interesting device inside a two-story building with hidden compartment.

The item was a twelve-sided metal device that looked as if each side was connected with each other. It was made of a brown yellow metal that was heavy in her hands despite its size being a little smaller than her palm. She tried to see what it did but after five minutes of nothing happening Frizzy put the strange device within the pouch around her waist just under her shirt.

It was shortly after that her originally pleasant day became horrid.

The two elves had cornered her as she came out, they demanded that she give what little treasures she found. When she refused to be bullied, the two attacked her. The ranger severed her arm above the elbow with a quick slash of their saber. Her limb falling uselessly to the ground as she screamed. Clutching the stump as best she could while she ran, trying to slow the blood flow as she escaped. Luckily, she managed to surprise both elves with her very shrill scream. Both of them covering their ears as she had just enough time to pull out string and tightened it as much as possible and stopped the blood flow.

She ran fast and hard, doing her best to try and lose the two. But it was no good. They ambushed her when the ranger kicked her hard, making her land in the pile of rubble with a scream in pain.

By the time she could recover from the stunning strike, she saw the two standing over her. When she asked them why, she could see the glee from the ranger and the disinterest of the mage as the false deal was offered.

That was when the skeleton shambled in. She watched when the ranger took the shot. Skeletons were incredibly weak undead that were easily put down, even groups of children could take one down with rocks and sticks if they were smart about it.

When it cast that strange spell and attacked the elves her hopes rose for a moment. If it was a magic caster then that might be the chance she needed to escape! Especially with the mage with a now injured arm. Before she had a chance to act, the ranger already had an arrow nocked and fired. It all happened in less than a second.

That’s when she was paralyzed with surprise.

When the arrow struck the skeleton and didn’t collapse, she stared at it utterly confused as to why it didn’t die. She could sniff that the ranger’s bow had a minor blessing of the moon on it. That should have been more than enough to put the skeleton down. When she saw the skeleton looked down at the arrow in its chest and then back at them with smooth movements, her confusion became all the deeper.

There was no way a Skeleton should be able to take a hit like that and move so smoothing. When it took a pose that was just so alive with its arms crossed and a tilt of its head her, confusion became shock at the truly impossible behavior. When it spoke, Frizzy’s understanding of the world nearly shattered.

“If the first arrow didn’t work, what makes you think the second was going to do anything? I’m fucking dead genius.” The skeleton said with no small amount of annoyance and mild amusement.

She watched as it spoke to them, responded to the elves’ words. Then when it fought them, she saw it used strategy and spells to give itself the advantage. Even when it seemed pinned it mocked them before killing the mage first. When the ranger cut the skeleton in half, it mocked him and made jokes. Faking pain to use the ranger’s sadistic nature against him before turning them into a shriveled husk to grow new legs.

The skeleton was smart, had personality and moved and acted like a genuine living being. None of it made sense! None of it should be possible! It could even use magic weapons that could cut through magic defensive spells! Those kinds of magic weapons were rare to in this age and from how only its edge glowed and from how it smelled, it could have only come from the age of the ancients! How! How can a skeleton use magic items, mock someone, and act like it was a living person with a soul?!

“WHY DIDN’T YOU RUN?!” The skeleton yelled at her. Shaking Frizzy from her internal crisis.

“I’m sorry!” she squeaked with a jump.

The skeleton stared at her for a second while getting up. It dusted itself off when it paused to take a look at itself.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Damnit… I’m naked again.” The skeleton whined. “Took a while to make those cloths too…”

Still freaking out, Frizzy wanted to say something. There was no telling what might be possible right now. This was the stuff of myths, legends and the wild ravings of crazy people.

“E.Excuse me!” Frizzy called and the skeleton looked right at her. “C.Can I ask you something?” She asked in a voice that felt it was growing weaker along with her courage.

The skeleton tilted its head at her.

“I don’t see why not.” The skeleton answered.

She watched as it moved to kneel down next to the mummified ranger. Patting down the body in search of something.

“W… who are you?” Frizzy asked unsure if it was the right question to start with. It was already out now so no sense in regretting her first question.

The skeleton watched her quietly while tapping its chin in thought. She could feel the stare of missing intelligent eyes. This skeleton, no this person, was no fool. Magic creatures don’t say their names since names have pow-

“Well, I’m Jack but I think you meant to ask ‘what’ I am but baby steps I guess.” The skeleton, Jack, offered offhandedly.

JUST LIKE THAT HE GAVE HIS NAME!?!? Frizzy screamed internally.

“Your arm looks pretty bad.” Jack said with his arms crossed. “Got to get that cauterized before an infection sets in.” Jack said while looking over at the downed elves.

“You are going to help me?” Frizzy asked, struggling to understand why an undead would want to help the living.

“I mean… Yes?” Jack sort of asked. “Why wouldn’t I? So far of the three people I have meet since waking up, you haven’t been a prick.” Jack said picking up the dagger then moved to the sword to pick it up and flicked it. Listening to the metal as the ring steadily died down. “Wow… this is a piece of garbage. Who the hell would sell a blade like this? Pffft amateur hour at best.” Jack grumbled before he paused and looked lost in thought. “… How did I do that without lips?”

Frizzy was going to ask what he meant until he waved the question away.

“Never mind, not important.” he said, turning his attention back to the offending sword.

Fizzy watched while Jack the skeleton dropped the sword then walked over to some bushes and plants growing from a nearby wall. She watched what this strange undead being was doing as he took the dagger and carefully trim off some clipping from some of the plants.

With the clippings Jack rolled them together to before crushing them with the two smoothest rocks he could find nearby. Once the herbs were as much of a paste as possible, he scraped the green paste onto a stone before going to one of the bodies to cut up strips of fabric from the fresh corpses.

Frizzy continued to watch quietly as she tried to figure out what exactly Jack was trying to do. From what she was understood, he was making plant paste and from the cloth he was making wrappings of some sort. That was until he laid out the strips of cloth and waved a hand over them. The motion made a faint glow appear over the strips with the smell of manna filling the air. She watched in amazement as the strips of cloth became cleaner and the frayed fibers knit together. The cloth reforming and shaping itself into three lengths of some of the nicest looking bandages that Frizzy ever seen. Each one was of the proportions as the next.

“Um… Jack?” Frizzy asked, getting the skeleton to look in her direction while he was taking a glob of plant paste and placed it on one of the strips of cloth. “What are you doing? How did you do that with the fabric strips? They look brand new as if they were never cut?”

Jack in response shrugged his boney shoulders.

“Just making some basic numbing medicine and some bandages.” He said as if it was obvious. “Can’t make anything too strong since I’m not the greatest at alchemy and I don’t have a proper lab to refine it. That said, it should be more than strong enough to numb the stump. No sense in you feeling the pain for cauterization if we can help it.” He said while rubbing the paste into the first strip in one hand and the others in the other hand.

When Jack approached, he paused a fair distance away for Frizzy. The bandages held in hand in front of him to make sure she saw the them.

“I know that right now, I am pretty much the last person you want touching you after what I just did to that guy.” Jack said as he motioned to the mummified husk that was the ranger with his head. “But since you are down a hand, you’re not going to be able to put this on yourself that well. Plus, the sooner we do this the sooner we prevent an infection. Sooooooo…. Do you want me to tie?”

Frizzy blinked up at Jack at what he was saying. The way he said it so casually and to the point, not shying away from the facts for what they were. Especially since he wasn’t wrong. Especially after what she saw him do to the ranger but right now, she couldn’t let an open wound like this go without treatment for too long. She’d seen what happens to others with lesser wounds that went untreated. It got bad and it got bad fast. Frizzy had just managed to survive being attacked and watched her attackers die at the hands of a talking skeleton named Jack. If she died of an infection, that would just be a sad way for her story to end. She needed to see what would happen next.

Mustering her courage, she held out the severed end of her arm to Jack. Wincing from the pain of the effort.

“I…. I want you to wrap it, please.” She said as she forced herself to look at Jack’s empty eye sockets.

“Alright. Fair warning. For the first few seconds, this is going to REALLY suck.” The skelet- no, Jack said before taking the couple of arrows and pressed them together. “Just bite down on this. I’ve done this a few times and trust me it helps.”

Frizzy reached out with her good arm and took the bundles of arrows and placed them in her mouth. Once they were in place, she looked at Jack and held out what remained of her arm again.

“Alright. On the count of three. Ready?” Jack asked as he held the paste covered bandage.

Frizzy nodded, bracing herself for what was about to happen. She knew the pain was going to be terrible and she was not looking forwards to it. Yet she had to endure it all the same.

“One…” Jack said before she suddenly felt the bandage pressed to her open wound with Jack holding it tight.

The pain was so sudden that it left her speechless as she clenched her teeth so hard on the arrows that her teeth started to cut into them. First second was agony with the next not being any better. Then the pain started to fade fast. Quickly becoming a faint memory as her stump soon became completely numb. After ten seconds, her entire arm became numb to any sensation.

Frizzy looked in awe at how her arm no longer hurt in anyway though she was panting hard from the endeavor since, as he said, that REALLY sucked at first. Spitting out the arrows, she looked at Jack in a new light. There were legends of only one group of people with medicine like this, clever enough to make something priceless out of weeds, not to mention use such powerful artifacts that she had just seen.

“You’re an Ancient one!” Frizzy all but yelled while jumping up to her feet proper. Surprising Jack to the point that he stumbled backwards and fell on his boney ass. “I have so much to ask you! What was the city like? What were the common magic items? What was your profession? Do you know what happened to the armies that attacked here? Can you tell me wh-mfff!”

Frizzy had been speaking a mile a minute. Firing off every question that came to mind since she had someone in front of her that not only lived in the ancient times, but was ancient themselves! She wasn’t going to let this opportunity pass. There was simply too much to learn and she wanted to learn as much as possible from the ancient! That was until a boney hand covered her mouth and stopped her in mid question.

For a few seconds, Jack had kept her mouth covered before slowly taking it away once he was sure she was done talking.

“Calmed down?” Jack asked, still sitting on the ground after falling backwards.

Frizzy nodded though barely restraining herself from ask all the questions that came to mind. There was no telling what kind of secrets this ancient might have and the wisdom he could share.

“Ok, let’s finish up the arm first. Then I’ll ask you a few questions before I start answering yours. Deal?” Jack the ancient said while offering his hand to shake.

Not needing to think twice about it, she took his hand with her remaining one and shook it vigorously.

With the deal done, Frizzy watched as Jack picked up the ranger’s sword once more and took the dagger to it. Resting the edge to the flat face of the sword to heat it up until went from a shining grey, to a blister red, then a scorching white. With the metal headed up, Jack pressed the tip of the sword to the stone floor until it bent. Once the metal was bent to the make a flat surface parallel to the ground, he heated up the flat surface until it was glowing bright red.

“Your arm should be really numb by now, so you shouldn’t feel anything.” He said coming closer with the glowing metal cauterizer.

At seeing the glowing metal coming closer, Frizzy closed her eyes and braced herself. She knew the ancients were wise and this one, Jack, was not going to lie to her. Yet she still closed her eyes and turned her head away. Despite her arm being numb, she did not trust herself to not flitch away.

As she waiting with her eyes scrunched shut, Frizzy decided that once the treatment was over, she was going to have Jack to take her as an apprentice. The man, or skeleton, was the only true connection to the lost knowledge of the ancients. Knowledge that would give her people a chance at a better life.

She couldn’t wait to learn of the wisdom he might share.