Chapter 14) Junior League. Or, Them bones.

The smashed will o wisp didn't leave anything behind to clean up and writing "2: Mr. Rude. Didn't listen.” only took a moment.

After that I called up a skeleton and took possession of it to put the ax Rude had dropped and put it back into place.

Then, I grabbed one of the grappling hooks and put on one of the higher up shelves that I had made but turned out to be unnecessary.

Then a whole lot quicker than last time came a [ 10 ]

It had only been about the same amount of time since Rude had left, that the next person began to arrive, and it had been the same amount of time York had been here between her leaving and Rude arriving.

So that meant… Maybe it took that long for the air to get back to normal?

[ 8 ]

Shoot. Skeletons can't talk. I ran for the climbing room and began to scramble up the twenty foot wall, getting almost all the way to the top before [ 1 ], and then throwing myself back to hit the solid floor in the middle of the sand pits I had left at the floor of the climbing walls.

A twenty foot drop was enough to shatter bones and free me back into my glowing ball form, and with that, I was free to fly back in a rush back to the equipment room. Surprising the pudgy young boy there.

"AH!"

He began seining the spear he had picked up before I got there back and forth in the air between us. Back and forth in the twelve foot gap between the two of us with the five foot long spear.

“Ah, it’s okay son. I’m your guide and… You know I need to take care of something in the other room. So I’ll give you a chance to catch your breath and will get right back to you.”

Junior seemed a bit jumpy, so finding a pile of broken human bones back in the climbing room might look a little bad. After cleaning them up I head back, pausing at the entrance to the equipment room and calling out. “Hi. Are you alright with me coming back in? The name’s Tex by the way.”

A hesitant voice called out. “Ah, I’m Nathan.”

“Hi Nathan. If you don’t mind me asking, how old are you?”

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The kid hesitated as I slowly floated it, still keeping some distance between us. More to reassure him than for a fear of getting swatted. But then again I don’t rightly know if getting smacked with a spear could hurt me or not.

"I'm fifteen. Is this real?"

“Sure seems to be. But they block out whatever happened to you that got you sent here so you focus on learning how to be a Fighter rather than getting distracted."

Nathan leaned up against a wall, then slid down to sit on the ground, letting his spear fall beside him.

“I think I died.”

I floated a little closer.

“I demanded to know what had happened to me from the woman who greeted me hear. I know that I died. Pneumonia.”

Nathan looked up. “You were human?”

“Yep, in my eighties. It wasn’t a nice way to go, but not much in the way of pain. Just feeling miserable until I didn't wake up.”

The boy rubbed at his eyes. “Leukemia. They kept me pretty drugged up, but I was in the hospital for a long time. It all kind of blurred together.”

Nathan didn’t look like a hospitalized patient. If anything he looked a little chubby, like a teenager getting ready for a growth spurt.

We had time to let the kid sort things out by talking them out, and the longer we took, the more time it seemed like I would have to go check out the Defunct dungeon.

So we talked.

About his sister, his parents, his dog.

After a while, he seemed ready and I walked him through what we needed to do.

“You have to learn three skills, and I got four rooms set up for those. But you can unlock other skills too. I think the starter city you’re going to should have people to help you out, but you can look for someone named York to ask for help. Tell her Tex sent you.”

The kid nodded as I had him fill up his backpack with various goods.

Stuff he could use, like the sharpening stone, the cook kit, the starter gear. And things I thought might be in demand in the city he was going to. Salt, ink, the blank book.

Then I showed him the skills out in the hall he could unlock and he gave out a terrible rendition of Happy Birthday that still went and unlocked [ Singing ]

The Boy had focused in on using a spear because “I heard once it was the most common weapon in history, and swords are really only for fighting other people.”

Smart kid. And he took out a rabbit pretty well, but I had him take down a few skeletons using the spear as a staff and me in control of them to really put him through some moves.

After he got grossed out and a little messy getting [ Dressing ] by cleaning up the rabbit, we went back so he could unlock swimming, and use the soap to take a bath. Then we got climbing and jumping out of the way before he started a fire and unlocked [ Cooking ] as well.

Finally, he went through the gate with a wave, two armloads of gear, and a "Thank You Tex."

3: Nathan Grogoski. Nice Kid.

First. I cleaned the pool. Removing all the water squares and replacing them with new ones.

Then I flew up high and got a bearing to the defunct dungeon.

Third. Inside of another skeleton, I checked the shelf where I put the grapple. Pulling it down I compared it with the one that had appeared for Nathan.

Two of them, identical.

I gathered up a collection of what I felt was the most valuable stuff left over, and set them up on the high shelves.

Extras. For anyone that wanted them, or that I felt might need an edge of having some extra stuff to sell or trade.

After taking Mr. Bones up the wall and another jump, I put in a series of wide short slots in the wall behind the entrance gate. Which I should have done before I went into a skeleton to check the shelves. But it’s not like I was going to run short on skeletons.

Then, wearing some bones again, I climbed up and set off for the Defunct dungeon.

I figured I had about six hours.