Sera’s anger has not dissipated any in the last two hours, and so all she’s done is stomp around the ritual room, abuse her innocent pillow, angrily eat a bit of salted pork, and write ‘let me punch you once’ on her request wall. None of these have been very healthy or helpful, but she wasn’t thinking about that to begin with, so Sera doesn’t mind. She once again finds herself pacing back and forth, trying to come up with more and more things she wants to say to that skeleton whenever it gets back, when she sees the undead by the stairs move away, and a more familiar one with its stupid homemade belt around its waist step into the hall.
Sera immediately starts towards the skeleton, preparing a barrage of questions, vitriolic comments, and other assorted un-niceties, when she spots specks of black char on its belt. Sera stands still, speechless, and examines the skeleton from about thirty feet away. Even from here, she can see small amounts of dried blood in between some of the area’s on the skeleton’s joints, and some black soot or ash clinging to water droplets in its ribcage.
“Why do you look so distress-” Vey starts, but Sera cuts off the skeleton immediately, closing the distance as she bombards the undead.
“Why did you lie to me? Why are there burn marks on you!? Why is there blood in your joints!? Where were you!? Now! Now! Now! Now! NOW!” Sera finishes as she finally reaches ‘melee range’ as it were, and wraps her right hand in cloth from her shirt and starts rubbing bits of that ashy watery residue off of Vey.
Vey somewhat sheepishly stands there, confused. It had thought it did a pretty good job using [Create Water] and some cloth from one of the zombies to clean itself, and it didn’t expect Sera to notice the condition of its makeshift belt thing either. If it had the muscles necessary for it, its jaw would be hanging agape. It is not helped by the fact that its attempt to push Sera away from Vey was met with Sera staring up at Vey with the beginnings of tears in her eyes. Vey decides to just let her do whatever it is she’s doing and answer her questions slowly.
“I… I came back on time.” Vey’s first answer is met with Sera scrubbing some of the blood between its right ulnohumeral joint rather forcefully, enough to cause an entire point of nonlethal damage. “Ah… The mage used a fire spell on me. I took the hit head on.”
Vey sees Sera stop for a second, and the look of intense frustration and annoyance on her face is replaced by one of fear and concern, but only for a moment. Vey tries to take a step back, but Sera steps forward even farther, enough that Vey’s left leg gets stuck between Sera’s, and she continues her ‘cleaning’ which Vey now realizes is actually her way of lashing out.
“I used my arms and… some spells to kill the mage and the other enemies, so-” Vey flinches-it didn’t know it could do that-as Sera cuts it off.
“I know about the spells you hid from me.” Her tone sounds remarkably hateful, like nothing Vey has heard from anywhere other than its own voice.
“The dried blood is from using [Cutting Hand] to slash and stab people… And I was at the road, scouting, when-” Sera cuts Vey off again, this time without even looking up at it as she manages to cause yet another point of damage with her ‘cleaning’.
“Don’t fucking lie to me.” Sera says curtly, then slowly looks up to meet Vey’s focus with a stare. The cold anxiety that had been building when it saw her stomping towards it freezes solid as the words escape her lips. “Or I’ll run.”
“I attacked a caravan traveling towards the town on the road. Seven or eight people total, some horses. I killed the people, the horses ran. I stole stuff from the supply wagon and burned the rest. I took-” Vey struggles to get out the words fast enough, and assumes that’s the reason Sera tried to take another step into Vey, forcing it to take a step back before trying to continue. “Salted fish for you, ale for testing, the items the well-dressed girl said were valuable, and the weapons. The only one I didn’t kill quickly was that girl, and only because she didn’t talk.”
Vey isn’t fully sure why Sera’s threat is so… threatening, but doesn’t have time to dwell on it, as Sera’s next step forward and Vey’s prompt backpedal leaves nowhere left for Vey to go but through Sera or to be crushed against the door to the stairwell. Not that Sera is actually strong enough to crush Vey, but the thought that she might hate it enough to try is… uncomfortable.
“Do not lie to me. Ever. Again. And every time you leave the dungeon, I’m going with you, or I won’t be here or alive when you get back. I promise.” Sera’s voice is softer now, less violent and more emotional, which Vey would’ve taken as a good sign, if not for the actual words she said. It finds its arms around her immediately, ‘hugging’ her as gently as it can. Sera accepts the hug, which is good for Vey, as it uses the embrace as a way to spin the two around their twisted legs, leaving Vey on the outside and Sera against the door. Vey doesn’t let go, but it does take a step back to be more comfortable, and to give her more room to breathe.
“Shut up. We can talk more when you’ve calmed down. Should I carry you? You seemed to like that…”
--
Vey’s gambit with the hug had worked masterfully, as Sera now lays in her bed, with Vey sitting on the floor leaning against it. It hadn’t gotten up to sit at the table when it dropped her here, and she wasn’t falling asleep or crying yet, so Sera was simply laying there, trying to think of what to say. Vey hadn’t gotten violent with her, hadn’t retaliated at all, actually. It seems to have tolerated her combination of angry tirade and assault on her owner? Captor? She still didn’t quite know what exactly Vey thought of itself as being in relation to her, so perhaps she shouldn’t think too hard about it either.
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Vey had started explaining everything that happened, from why it thought it should go try and kill people on the surface, to its opinions on the scenery as it walked back, which had a mixture of effects on Sera. The idea that it needed to kill people in order to get stronger, or that some part of it actually wanted to was painful to hear, but the idea that Vey thought of Sera as something so important that it didn’t want to die because of her made her heart hurt even more. She’d tried twice now to explain the concept of love, both romantic and platonic, to the skeleton, but it hadn’t understood either, and yet what it described thinking about on multiple occasions was almost exactly the definition of both. But Vey didn’t seem to realize that.
Vey’s unabridged description of the fight had shocked Sera, but she quickly managed to mentally detach the idea of a bunch of innocent guards being butchered from the fact that she was the one who asked to hear this, and so said nothing as Vey described each kill, the strategies and tactics it employed, and how and why it tortured the noblewoman. The significance of her position as a Marquis’s daughter being the only thing Sera had interrupted it to say, and the description of Vey clawing her cheeks, stomach, breasts, legs, and arms repeatedly until she became obedient made her blood run ice cold. Sera asked Vey to stop for a moment so she could collect herself when Vey tried to tell her what the girl had said and screamed, but eventually let Vey continue after remembering Vey's own words and concluding that it would never do that to her.
At some point, she must have fallen asleep, because when opened her eyes she no longer felt so tired and drained, and Vey was at the table, not on the floor anymore, and a small wooden plate with what looked like dried fish and steamed cabbage on it was sitting in front of her seat, while Vey simply sat with its head tilted back, clearly not focusing on anything at all. Sera stands up and walks to the table, sits down, and pokes at the salted fish. She didn’t realize it until she looks up at Vey again, but it looks… taller? And its bones seem to look… whiter? When Vey levels its head at her, she blinks in surprise, as instead of two almost invisible dots of blue light focusing on her, two blue rings in the shape of irises, patterns and all, focus on her gaze instead.
--
Level and Hit Die:
4, 6
Current HP/MHP
52/52
Armor Class
13
MP
43/43
Class:
Wizard
Name:
Vey
Race:
Evolved Skeleton[Human, Male, Adult]
Subrace:
White Evolution Path
Alignment:
Lawful Evil
Height
5’9 ft
Attributes:
MHP
STR
CON
DEX
INT
WIS
CHA
SPD
LCK
NAC
Base:
52
12
11
10
12
10
10
30ft
2
10
Race:
0
2
2
4
2
2
4
5ft
0
2
Study:
0
NA
NA
NA
3
3
0
NA
NA
NA
Total:
52
12
13
14
17
16
14
35ft
2
12
Proficiencies
Skills(Passive)
Skills(Active)
Magic Effects
Pacts and Curses
Simple and Martial Weapon
Proficiency
Undead Endurance
Alacritous Cogitation
Positive Energy Weakness
Simple Tool Proficiency
Death Blow
Overcast
Negative Energy Healing
Light and Medium Armor Proficiency
Preparation Spellcasting(Wizard 4)
Layered Augmentation
Evolved: Innate Arcane Sight
Spellcraft(Wizard)
Arcane Strike
Evolved: Emotional Expansion
Undead Leadership
Flesh Guise
Lifetime Achievements
Titles
Human(Common) Killed: 9
Awakened One
Magical Breakthroughs: 4
Arcane Thesis
Elf(Common) Killed: 2
Elffriend
Dwarf(Common)Killed: 1
Bandit
Orc(Common) Killed: 1
Warmage
Successful Surgeries: 1
Evolved One
--
Level and Hit Die:
0, 1
Current HP/MHP
5/5
Armor Class
11
MP
N/A(Non-caster)
Class:
None
Name:
Sera Eranda Eclir Luvil
Race:
Elf
Subrace:
High Elf
Age:
15 (12 Days till Age 16)
Alignment:
True Neutral → Neutral Evil
Height
5’1 ft