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The skeleton mulled the issue over. "Well, you did help me out. And you aren't going to last very long in Heartstone on your own. It's a dangerous place."
“Don’t I know it!” Arwin exclaimed. “I met a blue screen of death!”
The skeleton sighed. "I suppose I could lend you a hand."
Arwin crooked an eyebrow. "Did you just do that on purpose?"
The skeleton made a roguish smile. "It's good to be able to laugh at yourself once in a while, right?"
Arwin beamed, pleased. "What's your name, sir skeleton?"
"Yaz."
“Arwin.” He offered his hand. "Yaz, I hope this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
Yaz grinned wider and shook hands. "What true friendship isn't? It’s my pleasure to welcome you to Heartstone, Arwin."
“Thank you!” Arwin did indeed feel welcome. He recalled how things had gone wrong with Eddie, a good friend, back on his world. There was a momentary hesitation at forming a new friendship, but this was a friendly, animated, talking skeleton! Of course, he was going to befriend it. Skeletons were awesome. Especially dancing ones. He wondered if Yaz could dance. A question for later, perhaps. He waited three seconds. “Say, can you dance?”
Yaz looked at him oddly. “Of course.”
“Awesome.” Arwin admired his newfound friend, studying him and trying, perhaps failing, not to stare.
The skeleton was naked, unhampered by the silly convention of clothing. While he appeared whole and as healthy as someone undead might, closer inspection hinted at the man’s age and perhaps at an eventful past. Yaz had a thin crack in his skull, hairline fractures here and there around his body, a metal plate in his left forearm that was keeping the bones in place, and one rib that appeared to be freshly bandaged to keep it in one piece.
“Wow. You look like you’ve survived a scrape or two in the past.” When Yaz gave him a questioning look, Arwin nodded towards the metal brace, then pointed at the rib fracture.
“Ah.” Yaz held his arm up and looked at the injury. “Yeah. As far as I can tell, I’m immortal but not quite invulnerable. This is the price of being an adventurer. I’m luckier than most, though. If I still had flesh, many of the things that caused these would have killed me. It’s not so bad. I still have a complete set. Haven’t lost any yet.”
“Any what?”
“Bones. And I don’t mind a crack or chip here and there. Girls like scars. They think it’s sexy.”
Arwin laughed. “Mental note: get scars on grand adventures, but don’t die. Then impress women.” He felt himself bonding with Yaz already. "So, before the unfortunate troll struck, where were you off to?”
“I’m on a quest for love and honour. Actually, I’ve been on this quest before. I’ve recently taken the task up again after an extended break. One last hurrah.”
“Cool! What’s the objective?”
“I’m going to rescue a princess."
"Oh, ok. Of course, you are." Arwin mock-condescendingly patted Yaz a couple of times on the bony shoulder. “How very cliché.”
"No, really,” the skeleton insisted with a frown. “I am going to rescue a princess.”
Arwin snorted. "Yeah, I'm sure. Why wouldn't you be? Blue fields that make you sad, bluebells for blue belles, funny trolls, talking skeletons. Why wouldn't there be princesses here too?"
Yaz nodded matter-of-factly. "Exactly."
Arwin shrugged. “Ok, if you insist. And how do you happen to know a real princess? Why does she need rescuing?"
Yaz’s hollow-eyed gaze somehow grew distant. "To make a long story short, many centuries ago, we were in love.”
“Er, I hate to break it to you, but short stories don’t start many centuries ago…”
“Shush and listen! She was a princess, and I was a knight. And in love with her, and she with me, though I was told nothing would ever be allowed to come of it. Then a real bastard took my true love from me, killed her father, and forced her to marry him to make him king. I tried to stop it. He tortured me to death and turned me into this. He taunted me in my undeath by being with the woman I loved right in front of me. And he did so in a way that I no longer could be, as I no longer had the flesh of a man. Epheria, my love, was heartbroken and determined to deny the magician usurper his prize.”
“Oh! There are magicians here, too?”
“They were all called magicians back then, as the science of magic has only become mainstream in the past six or seven hundred years. Today, those who use the scientific method in their magical studies are called magicists, and more rudimentary users are called magicians. Anyway, in an effort to protect herself and frustrate him, Epheria stole a magical device from the villain’s library and encased herself in crystal for eternity. Furious and with nothing to taunt me with, the magician buried me so deep in the ground that it took me eighty-two years to dig myself out, inching my way up through the clay and soil, grain by grain. By the time I was free, the magician was long gone, the kingdom had collapsed, and my princess had vanished. I don't know where she went. I’ve been searching for her ever since.”
“I thought you said you took an extended break?”
“Yes. Well. You see, after discovering that I had been trapped underground for eighty-two years, I realized that, should she have been freed from the crystal somehow, she would likely have died of old age by that time.”
Arwin nodded. “But you searched anyway,” he stated, guessing.
“I did. For many years, I wandered the length and breadth of Heartstone, searching for what had happened to her. I spent decades looking for her. Thing is, you can only keep going for so long. I heard nothing. Not a rumour of her whereabouts, no legend, nothing. A decade passes, then a century, then two. In all that time, no matter where I looked, I found not a single clue, not one hint that she still existed. Not even descendants. And…at some point, other things started coming up. Life. A friend needed help here; a kingdom needed saving there. We slayed a few dragons and crawled a few dungeons. The next thing you know, twelve hundred years have passed by. And, you can only take the loneliness for so long.” He sighed deeply, the weight of years on him. “I loved Epheria with all I had. I did. But after a while, with nothing to go on, I had to accept that she was gone. Eventually, I had to move on. I’ve fallen in love many times and enjoyed some truly heartfelt relationships. Most recently, I fell in love with a very pretty vampire, and we spent a lovely century together.”
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“A vampire?” Arwin asked with surprise. He smiled knowingly. “A sexy vampire?”
“Obviously. That’s my type.”
“Ever date a zombie?”
Yaz looked affronted. “Why? Because I’m a skeleton? Even I have standards. I may be undead, but I have no desire to hang out with shuffling corpses, mobile disease bags, and mindless, feral bloodsuckers.” His voice turned rosy. “Mistial, the vampire, is a very beautiful and classy girl, a properly turned vamp, not one of those graveyard crawlers who live in the dirt. She passes for human when she wants to, which is how she takes a lot of her prey.”
“A beautiful vampire. That’s dangerous. I’d probably get sucked in easily.” He laughed. “Unfortunately, I suppose, for a living guy like me, hot vampires might best be appreciated from a distance. But hey, there’s a huge upside to being an animated skeleton. She couldn’t drink your blood, right? So you know that she loves you for you, not what she literally gets out of you. Good for you.”
“Thanks. I have to admit, it was nice not having to worry about the one you love growing old and dying on you. Or constantly worrying about them falling ill and perishing in plagues. And, as a vampire, she had no problem walking the streets alone at night. She could take care of herself. It was great.”
“Are you still together?”
“No. After a century as a couple, we both realized it was time to shake things up. We both wanted to go out and experience different things. But we still love each other. There’s always a chance we’ll find our way back to each other someday. Neither of us is in a rush, being immortal and all.”
“So, what made you interested in finding Epheria again?”
Yaz took a deep breath. “Well, after all those years in love with Mistial, once I was on my own again, back to wandering Heartstone, I got to thinking about Epheria, something I hadn’t done in a very long time. And it felt like I had unfinished business.”
“Surely, you must have searched everywhere by now, though. Where are you going to look?”
“It’s been a while, but I think there are maybe only two places left that I haven’t fully explored in person: the castle currently occupied by the Dark Enchantress and Ogre Home.”
“So, I’m guessing the home of Heartstone’s evilest witch and a village full of giant, man-eating ogres.”
“Yes. Exactly that.”
“I can see why you might have skipped those in the past.”
“Yes. It never occurred to me until recently, but, thinking back, I think I can remember that the old magician who killed me had used a couple of ogres mercenaries at one point. I suppose there’s a tiny chance that maybe he gave the crystallized princess to them, or maybe they took it after he passed away? I don't know. But it was always too dangerous to visit Ogre Home, and I didn’t think I had a real reason to do so, so I never did more than scout the perimeter.”
“And the Dark Enchantress?”
“The Dark Enchantress wasn’t alive back then, so it seems very unlikely she’d have it. I questioned her predecessor at the time, but she claimed to have nothing to do with the magician who’d done this to us. I had no reason to doubt her; she was widely respected, and I believed her honest. But, technically, I never did take a look around her castle, so I suppose there’s a faint chance it’s there. Or Epheria and the crystal prison could have been destroyed. Or she was freed and died of old age before I got out of the ground, and there’s nothing to find.”
“So we’re grasping at the last two straws here, huh? The only two places you have left to check are also two of the most dangerous and unlikely.”
“It wouldn’t be a proper quest if it was going to be easy.”
Arwin looked at the skeleton with worry. “Yaz, you’re going to get yourself killed.”
Yaz gave him a pointed look. “Um…” He waved at his skeletal frame.
“I mean even deader than you already are. The Enchantress could probably vaporize you or something. The ogres could crunch your bones into dust. And what if that doesn’t even kill you? What if you just become sentient dust and are blown around by the wind for all eternity? Yaz, former knight, now just dust on the wind.”
“True, that wouldn’t be fun. But I’ve lived a long, good life.” He looked down. “And I really miss Epheria. I’ve never stopped loving her. I want to give finding her one last shot.”
Arwin thoughtfully looked at him and came to a decision. “Ok. So where do the ogres live?"
"In a village on some hills at the southern edge of the Enchanted Forest.” He pointed that way. “Not far from the South-Western Artery.”
“The what now?”
“South-Western Artery. It’s one of the four major river systems in Heartstone.”
“Right; ok then. And…I think someone told me that the Dark Enchantress lives near here somewhere?”
“Yes. I thought I’d try there first. It’s where I was heading before the troll came along.”
“Do you have a plan to get in and convince her to help you?”
Yaz replied defensively. "I'm working on it.”
"And?"
"No, I don't have a plan."
"Sounds like you're the one who needs a hand, after all. You can have mine. Both of them, if you like." Arwin physically offered them both, though he meant the gesture symbolically.
Yaz regarded Arwin with surprise. "You're offering to help? What about your job, your life, your world? Aren’t you eager to get back to where you came from?" His tone of voice indicated that this was naturally the most expected course of action for Arwin to take.
Arwin waved at the scenery around him. "And turn down an opportunity for an adventure like this? In a world of magic and puns and talking skeletons? Not in a million years. Besides, my new friend needs help, and I want to give it."
Yaz shook his head. "I'm on a thirteen-hundred-year quest to rescue my beloved. She is quite possibly in the clutches of a famously evil magic user of unparalleled ability and power, or she’s in a village of large, immensely powerful, human-eating ogres. You're in a land you've never been to and know nothing about. You could just as soon die from not knowing the real nature of a seemingly harmless but deadly plant or be burned alive by a fire-breathing dragon. And you want to help?"
Arwin’s eyes widened. “Do you think we’ll get to see a dragon? That would be cool!" he enthused.
Yaz waved his hands in denial. “No, no, no. I really don't think you have the correct attitude about dragons at all. No one says 'Cool!' when they see a dragon. Definitely not with any sort of enthusiasm.”
Arwin gave his new friend a look. "Then maybe you should learn to appreciate the world around you a little more."
Yaz gave him a flat look.
Arwin snapped his fingers. “You know, I’ve already seen a dragon! That’s how I got here. I was driving along in my world when I turned a corner, and there was this huge, pink dragon—“
“Pink?”
“Yes. With really colourful wings, like a dragonfly or butterfly or something.”
“Probably Syntheloxirim.”
“Wow, that’s a mouthful of consonants. Who the hell came up with such complicated names for dragons? Anyway, seeing a real live dragon freaked me out. I went off the road, somewhat shocked and terrified, and ended up here.”
“Well, you didn’t get eaten. Count yourself very lucky.”
“I do. And now I’m excited to find this princess with you. And maybe see a dragon, but from a safe distance.”
“You really shouldn’t join me. It’s going to be foolhardy and dangerous.”
Arwin shrugged. “I’m ok with that.”
“You don’t know how to use magic or swing a sword, I assume? You’re going to die a horrible death.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, I do. Death. Gruesome death.”
Arwin stared at him.
But Yaz was relentless. “Bloody, ugly, painful, gruesome, deathly death.”
“I’m willing to take that risk,” Arwin steadfastly insisted. He knew this was probably ridiculously stupid of him. There was no need for him to throw himself into the jaws of an evil mage on his first days in Heartstone. He should probably just wander around on his own, take it slow, and get to know this new world in a safer way, like a tourist. After all, hadn’t he just left the Blue Region in order to stay out of danger? And yet, an adventure like this was just too good to pass up. He felt himself growing very excited.
Yaz regarded him in silence for a moment. "Can I talk you out of this?"
Arwin hesitated only a moment, then shook his head once. He looked Yaz in the eye sockets. "No, you can't. Besides, it sounds like you could use a friend right now. Gotta be lonely tromping all over the place by yourself, feeling hopeless and down because the love of your life is gone."
Yaz defensively crossed his arms. "I've got plenty of friends,” he protested.
"Any of them willing to sneak into the castle of the Dark Enchantress with you right about now?"
"No,” he admitted, bony arms falling to his sides.
Arwin grinned. “Then let's do this!"
Yaz grinned back. "This might be the start of a beautiful but very short friendship."
"Psh.” Arwin outwardly dismissed the idea with a wave, though inwardly, he worried the very same thing. “These witches and ogres might have had the better of you alone, but together? Hell no. We can do this."
Yaz clapped his new partner on the shoulder. "Arwin, I like your attitude. Very well, we join forces. A friend when we’re in need is a true friend indeed."
Arwin liked the sound of that.