I crushed the skeleton’s skull, so there’s no telling what its face looked like, but the bone structure is different from any I’ve seen before. Obviously bipedal, with hands capable of grabbing. The length of the legs is rather small, with the arms being significantly longer in comparison… it’s possible these things move with their arms instead of their legs.

Noted.

A quick survey reveals there was nothing but terror as loot from that sarcophagus, so I move on to the next one.

I kick open this one with a lot less force, trying to avoid what happened last time. Of course, as soon as I recoil from my kick, a skeletal hand waving a sword bursts from the interior. It is, however, unable to do any more because the stone lid prevents it from getting up or doing much besides aimlessly swinging the sword and chattering. I had to unleash the sword side, didn’t I. Classic. I’ll see if I can wait it out. Maybe it gets tired?

A solid minute passes before I start to lose my patience. This shitty skeleton, or ‘Wight’ as the game calls it, is just being an ass and keeping me at a distance, and doesn’t seem to be slowing down in the slightest.

Maybe I can knock the sword away? I quickly take the time to focus my Energy into my weapon before clashing with the sword and trying to beat it away. The sword remains in the grasp of the wight, and I feel a slight discomfort as a chip is taken out of my stick. Grimacing, I decide not to risk further damage.

But how...

Ok, fine.

Carefully moving to the other side of the sarcophagus, I kick the lid, hard, back in the direction I originally kicked it from, catching the idiot skeleton’s arm between a rock and another rock and thoroughly severing it (and the sword) from the rest of the body. The lid, of course, continues past that point and ends up crashing to the floor while I finish off the ‘disarmed’ (I’m so sorry) Wight.

[Congratulations, you have slain a Wight. +30 Power (10)]

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30 more Power and I’m finally in the positive again! No more strange Power debts. Not that I’ve needed it for anything lately, but I need to replenish my stockpile anyway. Not all the skills I come across will be super rare and offer a payment plan.

I check through the sarcophagus to find only bone dust and bones, and with nothing to collect that in, it’s useless to me. The sword, however, will be very useful. Finally, a cutting implement!

I heft the stone slab and find the powdered remains of the skeletal arm, and a sword, neatly shattered into at least fifteen pieces.

Nailed it.

With the sword thoroughly destroyed, am my stark unwillingness to carry broken shards of metal, I start to move towards the final sarcophagus… but… wait just need to check…

Sure enough, the handle of the sword is still solid, and about 3 inches of the blade are still holding on to it.

Well. It’s a shitty dagger, but it’ll hurt all the same if I can get the drop on something. I can’t carry it, however, on account of my having nothing to wrap it in. I’m not cutting up my pants by being an idiot. I’d spill my nuts. Nobody wants that.

Instead, I opt to have my stick in one hand, and the broken blade in the other. The dagger feels cold and heavy in my hand, nowhere near as comfortable as the close familiarity I feel with the shitty stick. I could probably Imbue Energy into this thing as well… but it *is* a broken sword, and I can probably do better. I don’t know if there’s a cap or something on how many things you can have attuned to you.

Based on how emotionally attached I seem to become when I attune to something, I doubt I’d be willing to destroy it to make room for better stuff.

Best not to risk it.

A quick kick and a loud clang later, I’ve successfully attacked the sarcophagus for zero damage, because it’s a rock and all these surprises have me seeing the appeal of ‘stab first, look second’. Just because it was empty doesn’t mean it was stupid. It just *looked* stupid. There’s a difference.

Fortunately, my haphazard stab failed to hit the one notable piece of loot inside: a decrepit looking leather satchel bag. It’s full of dust, which I unceremoniously dump onto the floor, and it looks like the latch to keep it closed has disintegrated. The strap is cut on one end, making it unlikely to be useful for carrying anything heavy until I can cobble together some things to repair it. I’d kill for a needle and thread…

After trying a few (admittedly quite terrible) configurations for carrying the satchel, I rest on wrapping it around my waist a few times and looping it through. For now, it will hang shittily against my right thigh, but I’m not going to put anything in it until I can find a way to secure it to my leg. Otherwise… I’m just *positive* I’d die because the thing swung around and hit me in the dick mid-combat.

No thank you.

Room one, down. Just have to go through the entire rest of the dungeon…