Cody's wooden blade came down on his opponent with all of the power of a man falling directly from a second story building into a downward blow. When it connected with the opposing blade the blow rattled his arms as it sent the skeletal creature spinning away from the blow even after it had braced itself for the impact. Seeing the monster put off center, Cody slammed it with a full push towards the opposing wall, sending the creature flipping through the air.

When it landed, its feet were oriented towards the wall, and it used its one free arm to post its body in an exaggerated crouching position even as it must have felt the full weight of three men pushing down upon its body. Cody had to release the push as his own body started to buckle under the pressure, sliding back across the sandy ground towards the opposite wall, even with the counter push he had sent behind him. The skeleton seemed to jump off the wall just as Cody released his push, breaking into a run as soon as its legs made good contact with the ground again, rushing across the short distance.

Cody pushed backwards on the wall, letting his legs drop out from under him as he slid across the ground with his sparring sword swinging downward towards the skeleton's legs as he passed by. Instead of blocking the blow however, the skeleton rolled sideward into the sliding man, dropping its sword and gripping Cody's chest armor as he rolled over him and the two started sliding across the ground together. The skeleton dug one of its elbows into the ground, bone wearing away where it made contact with the floor but forcing the two to change orientation so that Cody's back was facing the wall that they were sliding towards.

Not to be outdone, Cody decided to use his trump card pulling in with an inhalation of breath to try and protect his body with an inward pull before exploding out in all directions with as much force as he could muster. What he hadn't expected was the fact that as he made the inward pull upon his own body, the skeleton used the chance to pull itself closer to him as well, hooking its legs around the back of his thighs to compress as much of its body into the man as possible.

When he sent the outward push in all directions, the skeleton's torso was lifted slightly off of Cody's body, but otherwise remained intact ast he joints on its shoulders and hips flashed with orange light. The duo flipped haphazardly through the air, doing several somersaults in place while neither touched the ground as long as Cody continued pushing, but accomplishing nothing of note. When he finally stopped the outward pressure, the two hovered for a moment in the air before falling limply to the ground.

The skeleton fell into the sandy floor first, but that did little to pad the fall as Cody crashed down after him, the two of them devolving into a mass of bone and flesh on the ground. Cody tried hammering at his opponent's head with the pommel of his sword a couple of times, but the skull was pressed into the crook of Cody's neck glowed violently, warding off the blows with sheer persistence. At the same time, Cody felt a cold thin hand slither up towards his neck to wrap its fingers around his airway. As soon as the pressure on his neck started to build, he didn't even wait to fall unconscious and instead took his free hand and patted twice in quick succession upon the skeleton's back.

The pressure stopped immediately, the entire skeleton releasing its grip around his body as it allowed the boy to extract himself from death's embrace. Cody rolled over onto the sandy ground, panting as he stared up at the boring stone seams in the ceiling as the two settled down. His skeletal friend stood up then reached down with its hand, extending it to Cody as he offered to help the man up. Cody shook his head at the skeleton and he went back to staring at the ceiling as he continued to try and catch his breath.

“No thanks. I need. A minute.” Cody got out.

The skeleton withdrew its hand, then walked over to retrieve its fallen sparring sword from earlier. The skeleton meandered over to a corner of the room, picking up a small slate board that he had started using to talk to Cody over the last couple days, then walked back over to the man and settled into a crouch. The strange sound of his white writing material clacked against the black slate piece before he turned around the board to face Cody.

“I don't think that full body push worked well for you. Maybe an upward push to seperate my arms would work better?”

Cody laughed into the blank room after he read the words. A fucking skeleton was giving him sparring advice after it had just beaten him for the third time in a row. Well, not just any skeleton. It called itself Xei. That was still hard for Cody to wrap his head around. That, on top of everything else of course.

Xei used a small bit of cloth he carried with the board to wipe away his writing before starting once again.

“Why are you laughing?” He wrote.

“Because no shit that last push did me no good! That seemed perfectly clear when you choked me out less than ten seconds later.” Cody was on the verge of yelling at the skeleton, but he still chuckled as he said the words.

Somewhere along the line their routine sparring matches had turned from a terrifying fight for his life into something resembling a good time. He couldn't quite remember the last time anyone had given him a challenge like Xei did. And then to give him pointers on the other end of things? Well, at times he seemed downright human in a way.

“I worry that your happiness is wasted in here.” The skeleton wrote out.

“Yeah? I don't know the last time anyone described me as ‘happy’. Not like you're gonna do anything about it though.” The joy had ebbed from Cody's laughter as he got out the words, suddenly reminded of the fact he was still a prisoner here.

Xei looked down at him for nearly half a minute, considering something with those strange glowing eyes of his as the small sconces continued to burn in the corners of the room. Then he began to write once again.

“I could though. Can I trust you?”

Cody sat up as he read the words. He had considered the fact that this might happen as the two of them had started talking over the last however long he had been stuck in here, but for Xei to bring it up in this way was, well, oddly human. Now, he wasn't even sure how he should answer.

A large part of him screamed that he should simply say yes, that the skeleton should trust him. Try to convince the monster that he wouldn't run away, then when it seemed to be distracted he could flee and get back to the capital. But there was another part of him that felt revolted at that idea. This creature had started to trust him for some odd reason. And if he betrayed that trust, what would that do to an immortal undead creature like this?

He'd been considering things over the past couple sleep cycles. Thinking back to the words he heard through the holes in the wall. Thinking back to the one strange night where he had stumbled onto something ominous as a cultist raised the dead from their slumber. Yet, in all that time, he had to admit he hadn't seen them actually do something bad per say.

The preacher had threatened him while telling him it was for his own good, and now that he had somehow managed to live through the experience, he felt just a little bit more trusting of her words. They could have just killed him after all.

They'd even allowed the snake creature they originally threatened him with to exit his system. Now, that had hurt. Alot. And the way it tried moving to help him get it out as he pushed. Ughhhhh. Those memories would still haunt him.

But even now, Cody had to admit the skeleton was being more understanding than it

had any right to be. Xei was just sitting there, allowing him to think about his answer without taking back the offer or changing it's mind. Here cody was, lying on the ground at it’s mercy, and it still took the time to allow him to think things through instead of snatching that freedom away from his grasp.

“I think.” Cody spoke tentatively, choosing each and every word carefully before he continued. “That I would like to see what else you have going on inside this place before I make up my mind.”

The skeleton nodded its head thoughtfully for a moment, then allowed the orange fire to die out in its eyes as the skeletal body went still. Cody had started to understand what this meant over time. Whenever he talked to Xei when his eyes weren't burning the skeleton wouldn't respond or even seem to have heard what he was saying at all. It was like the creature had gone somewhere else during that time, leaving the body behind as a husk to be returned to when it was convenient.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

He let himself slump back to the ground. The seconds passed, slowly and quietly without change in the small prison, the dull hum of conversation coming through the holes in the wall opposite him as he lay there and thought.

Did he really believe that skeleton was just gonna let him out of this cage? He wanted to punch himself with the delusion of it all. He was just there to be a plaything. A test dummy for that bastard to learn how to fight force mages, that's all he was. And the conversations they had in between matches? It was just a ploy.

They were conspiring against Cody. This entire cult had set him up to think that they were something else, when all they really wanted was to string him along so he wouldn't refuse to teach Xei how to fight people like him. And now that he understood that, well, he'd show them. He just wouldn't fight anymore. Even if they wouldn't feed him because of it, he'd rather starve than be used and thrown away whenever it became convenient. At least then he would take control of his own fate again.

The stone wall behind him started to shake and move. He was used to the small movements of cubby's that deposited and gathered trays of food and buckets of water for him to bathe in every once in a while but this was different. The entire floor shook and Cody flipped around into a ready stance as he faced the growing light source coming into the room. When the wall finally stopped receding into the ground, only two people were there, one of which quickly turned around and walked away after their task was done.

Xei stood there in nearly full armor with a studded leather jerkin over his shoulders, a thin layer of chainmail over that, and thick padded pants that ended in adventurer's boots over his skeletal feet. All in all, he looked downright almost human in comparison to the naked set of bones that he used when the two of them had interacted in Cody's cage.

The skeleton walked past Cody without a word and picked up his slate board and chalk from beside the sitting skeletal body near the center of the room. Then he walked back out into the hallway while Cody remained motionless, stuck by his own indecision of the last couple minutes he had spent thinking about things.

The skeleton looked over its shoulder at him and waved its hand forward, beckoning him down the hall.

Cody followed after it.

—

Janette woke up to the sound of muffled crashes coming through her open door. She'd taken to leaving her doorway open nearly all the time so that she could at least have the little human interaction each day of talking to the maids as they passed by. Otherwise, her iron cage of bars continued to remain locked in place at all times over both the door to her room as well as the window.

She rolled out of bed and wiped at her eyes before walking over to the iron cell door, trying to peek down the hallway. A bell was ringing in the distance, deeper in the manor with a sound that she didn't quite recognize. It certainly wasn't the same sound that the servant chimes used via their pulley system. So what did that mean?

She heard a series of carpet muffled footsteps as someone seemed to be running down the hallway towards her door. A guard rushed past her room in the direction of the front entrance and Janette tried to call after him as he passed.

“Hey! What’s happening?”

The man didn't respond to her as she heard the door to the stairwell open up and his footsteps faded into the distance. Another doorway opened up diagonally across from her’s and another woman's head peeked out to look down the hallway.

“Lady Jessamine. What's happening down there?” Janette called out to her.

The woman cocked her head, trying to listen to the strange ringing bell down below before she answered. When she finally seemed to place the sound her head shot up and she looked across at Janette with wide eyes.

“Child, shut your door, now!” She shut her own door and Janette could hear the sound of a locking bar being put into place on the other side.

“What?” Janette asked aloud, staring dumbfounded across the hall at her terrified neighbor's door.

The doorway to the stairwell slammed open and a figure dressed entirely in black darted down the hallway far faster than even the guardsman had ran by just a moment before. Janette jumped back from her door, surprised by the sudden noise and blur of speed, but then she heard a strange ripping of cloth like something had just torn through the carpet running down the center of the hall. A strange patter of running feet came back to her doorway, and Janette tried running forward to close her outer door before whatever it was could get back here.

A strange human dressed in black slammed into the wooden outer door where it lay open across the inside of the hallway, causing the door to buckle under the weight of the shoulder check and nearly breaking it away from its hinges. The person slid down the side of the door as its momentum stopped in its tracks, white mask staring over at Janette as she stood there frozen with her arm outstretched towards the door. Had this stranger just used her door as a stop cushion for her run? That had to feel like throwing yourself at a wall for no good reason.

The elbow servant reached over and grabbed the iron bars of Janette’s cage as she took a closer look at the girl. Thin white nails at least three inches long wrapped around the metal bars as their hands settled onto the door frame. The servant pressed their mask up to the metal doorway, cocking their head as they looked straight at Janette, still standing limply halfway towards the door. She couldn't quite see inside the mask the servant was wearing, but it almost looked like a strange red flame was glowing from where her face should have been.

The servant cocked its head, waited just a moment later, then twirled around and started running further down the hall again.

Janette rushed forward, grabbed the outer doorway by the latch, and pulled the door shut as fast as she could. The door groaned and squealed as it settled back into place in the doorframe. Something cracked by the hinges of the door, and the entire door slide downward half an inch to land on the floor, causing Janette to jump.

She walked backwards towards her bed, eyes never leaving the broken door, and climbed up onto her bed to sit with her back against the wall. As she thought back to the image of that featureless face looking back at her, a shiver went down her spine. That thing, whatever it was, was barely human. That, she was sure about.

A loud bang occurred, followed by a crash of something hitting the ground, then screams echoed from further down the hallway. The screams only lasted a second or two before they cut off abruptly.

Tears welled in Janette's eyes. She knew what that must mean. Someone she knew was now…And she could have done something about it. She was a force mage for gods’ sake. She should have been able to protect her family.

Janette stood up from her bed, turning to face the door as she allowed a thin bubble of force to surround her on all sides. She hadn't had much to do over the past couple days other than practice with small object pulling and pushing while keeping up her barrier, so maybe if that monster came back here.

‘CLANG!’ The window bars behind Janette made a noise like a chair had just been flung into its side. She jumped up into the air and immediately lost her concentration on the barrier as she turned around, flinging herself back to try and avoid whatever was attacking her window. As she landed on the ground, she saw the masked servant hanging from her window grate with both its hands and feet gripped around the poles.

Feet? No. Those things were claws. Big, white, nasty claws that looked like they could tear through flesh like it was nothing. She backed up until she was touching the stone wall behind her, not trusting anything but the solid assuredness of stone.

The creature cocked its head at her, then rocked back and forth a couple of times as though it were testing the metal grate that held her captive. It then reached out a single bony clawed hand towards the lock and lifted it slightly as it looked over at the thing. It reached over with its other free hand, weaving its arm through the grating to stick its finger into the end of the lock.

It wiggled around like that for several seconds as Janette contemplated whether she should do something. Had this thing just ran down the hall to kill someone, then doubled back along the outside of the building to find her window? That was insane, absolutely insane, even for another force mage to do, and none of this felt like force magic to her.

A small red handkerchief was visible, tucked into the breast pocket of the creature's uniform. So it works for House Brent. Or at least is pretending to work for house Brent. She'd heard about this creature attacking a couple of different houses recently, always with a different color marker on its chest. So what was its game?

The lock popped open with a click.

The creature bent its finger in a strange direction away from the head of the lock, and the claw seemed to snap off in two with one end still sticking in the lock. It then withdrew the small padlock from the hole keeping her window in place and set it down on the windowsill.

Janette just about jumped out of her skin when the creature pushed off of the wall around the window grate, swinging the iron piece outward as it twisted around the metal bars to land on her now open window. The creature reached down for the padlock and put it back in the hole that used to hold the window bars into place, closing the padlock one more then twisting the broken finger claw in the device and pulling it out.

It set the strangely shaped piece of bone white material on the windowsill, looked back up at Janette, then jumped away from the window out into the night.

Her heart would not stop beating no matter what she did as she let her legs crumble out from under her, sliding to the ground. That thing. That monster. Had just come back to open her cage for some reason.

Insane. She was going insane, just like He always told her she was going to end up.