“I was totally right,” I said, gesturing at the portal behind me, “Did you see that? I was right. Anyway, sorry skele-bro’s, I gotta save a dude’s life because of your untimely entrance.”

My feet took me forward, and I cried out as a spear hurtled out of the darkness, slamming into the stone brick behind me. I glanced to the side as it stuck.

“Wh… wait a minute. That’s…” Reaching out, I tugged on the spear. It was embedded into the wall. No matter how hard I struggled, I couldn’t break it.

Glancing at the humanoid skeletons, I thought of the man.

There was only one option, then.

“I surrender! Take me to your leader!” I said, raising my hands and letting go of my baseball bat. The skeletons slowly stepped forward, and I stepped back until I was flush against the portal, “Come on, you can understand me, right?” I gestured at a weaponless skeleton with a hat on, my hands still risen, “Especially you, you can certainly understand me. I mean look how handsome you are with that hat on. Handsome skeletons can definitely understand human speech, right?”

I swallowed as the skeleton with a hat reached out. The wall crumbled with ease as it pulled out the spear, and I spoke weakly.

As I was bullshitting, however, the weakness in my voice only lasted a moment. In spite of my lonesome, asocial nature, speech was my element, and the skeleton towering over me seemed to listen as I spoke.

“Definitely, which is why you, a soldier of your kind, will show mercy to little old me, who only came in here to save the life of one of my own. I didn’t come here in violence or to hurt you!” I gestured outside, “I just… thought there would be healing magic?”

My arms dropped as I gestured.

“I mean there’s definitely magic. Look at you,” I praised, “You’re the coolest skeleton I’ve seen on the planet! Or, well, are we still on the planet? I think this counts, right?” The skeleton reached out, and I grimaced, arms raising to hide my face, “Hey no wait—“

A hand wrapped around me, and I found myself being dragged.

“Oh. It worked. Did it work? No, the cute hat dude definitely didn’t throw his spear as a friendly greeting. Ayy! You can understand me! Can I understand you? Wait, I can’t hear—“ An unfriendly skeletal hand reached up from one of the other skeletons and smacked me in the helmet, “Ow, dude,” I said without any pain. When I turned to him, though, he leveled his sword at me. My free hand came up as I staggered after the skeleton with a hat who was dragging me, “Okay, okay, I’ll stop talking.”

The silence made the cold and the sight of the skeletons all the more creepy. I stared up at the skeleton with a hat. It had a human skeletal structure, though some armor was covering its chest and legs. I could see its hat from where I stood, but only barely.

The skeleton was taller than any human, and its eye sockets were a deep, haunting black that never lightened no matter how close he passed by the blue torchlight.

Glancing around, I saw the other skeletons. The hat skeleton was wearing some sort of thin, light metal, but the rest wore what looked like rags, none of them having a hat. Their heights varied, and some were only a bit taller than me while others were massive, though the hat skeleton was the tallest.

Equally, his skeleton seemed to be the cleanest, too.

“Huh, I was joking before, but you really are the cutest skeleton of the bunch, aren’t you? Very handsome, has a nice hat. Should I call you Sir Hat from now on?” I asked as my gaze returned to the skeleton.

A creeping chill washed over my shoulders, and I heard a very quiet rasp. Looking forward, I saw only darkness. Then the entire area lit up, and I glanced around.

High above was a blue chandelier that reminded me of Pokemon, kind of. The floors and walls were the same, all stone brick, though the walls had weird black-and-purple banners that were tattered and torn. It looked kind of like a throne room from a medieval castle, except instead of a throne there was a garden table and two chairs up the black-looking carpet that led up three small stairs.

In one of the chairs, sipping at a probably-empty teacup, was a very clean-boned skeleton. He wore black robes that flowed around his shoulders, and his eye sockets were lit from within by purple fire.

On his head was a very weird golden crown. It was thin and shrouded with a black aura that made it hard to look at. I found it weird because it looked like a really cheap crown you could get around the time of Halloween, though the materials looked more legitimate, I suppose.

“Wow, you look really cool. Are you a lich? I love liches. Liches are really cool,” I mentioned casually, then I hesitated, “Wait. Shit, I’m in a…” My attempt to panic faded, “No, wait. Call me schizophrenic or something, because I’m not at all concerned with this not having been possible like, an hour ago. You’re really cool. Can I approach?”

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The lich’s purple flames stared at me for a long moment before he gestured toward the chair with one hand. I walked up, slumping into it. Then, glancing at my frigid arm, I realized that while the cold remained, Sir Hat had released me.

When had he done that?

I stared at the lich for a long moment, watching his jaw move and hearing a faraway rasp that made shivers crawl up my spine.

“Damn. This would be really cool if I could hear you,” My elbow was set on the metal mesh garden table and I set my helmet on my fist, “I bet you’re saying all kinds of cool… Lich things.”

A feeling of exasperation emanated from the skeleton in front of me, and with a wave of his hand, I could hear the sound of my own breathing and the crackle of flames.

“Oh! You can heal? Can you heal my friend? He’s just outside the portal thing—”

“Hello,” The lich interrupted. His voice was raspy and hollow, like a very old man who smoked fifty cigars and one hundred cigarettes a day and had every type of cancer there was. Kind of what I would presume death sounded like, “Would you like some tea?”

I hesitated, staring at his tea set, “Uh, I’m wearing a helmet. I can’t drink right now. Besides, my friend is like two minutes from death and—“

“Time passes differently, here. Your friend will not realize your absence for several months, should you wish to stay,” The lich dismissed.

“… Oh. Okay,” I agreed, relaxing and taking the lich at his word.

What was I going to do, fight through the army of skeletons to get back only to watch him die anyway?

I sighed heavily, placing my palms on my visor, “Damn, I’m glad I was right about the whole portal-dungeon-magic thing. Totally could have been a blender or a rend in time and space that tore me to shreds.”

“Quite. I had not expected a visitor so soon,” The lich murmured, “Let alone one who was smart enough to surrender when they realized they were outmatched.”

“Huh? Oh, no, I’m not smart,” I dismissed, “I only surrendered because my friend needed help.” A very long moment of silence passed. Wait. Oops. That probably was taken the wrong way. My hands rose, “Oh, I’m not hostile, though. Just dumb. I totally wouldn’t have realized how outmatched I was, is what I was saying.”

“I see. My apologies for getting it wrong, then,” The lich said dryly, “And here I’d hoped for some good conversation.”

“Oh! What do you wanna talk about?”

“Why don’t we start with you? What is that light-emitting device you hold? What materials are your club made of? What is your species name, and do you have anything you are referred to as?”

I glanced down, only now realizing I still held my phone. Oh, shit, the battery. I turned off the light.

“This is a phone. It’s a method of communication and entertainment, though it does other things too. Club? You mean the baseball bat I dropped earlier? I dunno, it’s made of metal, like the hat skeleton’s armor,” I gestured to the side even as I slid my phone over to the lich, showing him the screen, “My species is called humans. I… uh… I have a name? Is that what you’re talking about?”

“Here, it says your name is Blood. If my translation magic isn’t awry, that means you’re named very violently.”

“Uh, no, no, I’m not named…” I sighed, “The dude I’m trying to save also has hearing loss. When he asked my name I just told him he couldn’t hear me anyway because of the blood in his ears.”

The lich hummed, leaning back in his chair as he sipped from his tea, “Well, I suppose names don’t matter when we are the only two who can speak.”

I watched an ethereal cloud of smoke escape from the teacup and disburse into the skeleton, like purple dry-ice or something.

“Huh. I kind of expected you to be more violent,” I mentioned after a very long silence. My thoughts were of a pale, shaking man with blood escaping him, concern filling me as I fidgeted.

“Likewise,” The lich replied.

Another long silence stretched out. I needed to heal the man, but… Well. If I had the time, I was recording. Science and information go hand-in-hand, right?

“So, um, what’s… what’s going on? The dungeons, the portals, the uh… skeletons,” I gestured at the army that stood in the greater area of the room, glancing at the very formal formation. They were waiting for orders, or maybe waiting for battle.

“This is the beginning of an invasion. Not from me, nor from the magical constructs you see,” The lich gestured with his teacup at the army, “We are simply here to make your species stronger as a whole. The invading species is known as Drowwe, and they are warmongering. They do not wish to fight weak species, so they send dungeons full of magical constructs and beings such as I. Based on your lack of magic and form, I believe the true invasion will begin much, much later.”

I hummed at the massive amount of information I was just given. Like the potato guys from Doctor Who? No, those war species didn’t give the planets time to prepare. It was just… arrogant.

An arrogant warmongering species. Drowwe. Drawe? Drauw? Drowwe. Hm.

Well, goodbye humanity, I guess. No point in saving that one guy if we’re all gonna be killed anyway. Or, wait. Much much later? Maybe that guy would die of old age first. Still need to save him.

“Damn. Sounds wild, my planet is doomed,” I said simply, “On the more short-term, though, are these dungeons dangerous outside of them? Like if no one goes in them, they’ll be safe from the magical constructs within, right?”

The lich stared at me for several long moments, his skeletal fingers tapping at his teacup, “No. Ninety days after the magical constructs are made, they will become solid enough to leave the confines of the dungeon, and they will do so, since that is what they were made to do. Fight the species of this planet.”

A cold chill filled me, and I glanced at the army of skeletons. I’d watched a skeleton put a basic spear through a wall of stone with ease. No one would survive.

“Is there a way to prevent that, then?”

“Yes, two that I know of. One is to defeat the beings such as I, the ones you find at the end of each dungeon. The other is to defeat the magical constructs themselves, at least in the first section of the dungeon,” The lich mentioned, “If there are many floors to a dungeon, only the first floor will need to be cleared. Then the dungeon will remain safe for a few thousand days, afterward.”