Skeleton Simps (Arno's Perspective)

(Back to Arno's Perspective)

I sat in the cage contemplating how I'm going to get out. All the thralls left the room. I was alone and completely unsupervised. It was completely silent. The cage trap was almost identical to the one on my floor, which meant it was definitely too heavy to physically move and there was no way I could reach the crank on the wall to lift it.

The bars of the cage were fairly wide, but not wide enough to fit my whole body through. If I dismembered myself I probably could fit. I began detaching the various bones in my legs and pushing them through the bars of the cage. I then removed each individual rib bone. This greatly reduced my width. The last thing I severed was my left arm all the way up to my shoulder blade. My bones were piled up outside the cage.

If I was human it would have been impossible to get out of that cage without magic. Luckily since I'm undead, detaching my bones was painless. I used my remaining arm to drag myself through the bars. Now that I was out, I just had to reassemble myself…

I left the room and started walking down the corridor. There was no one in sight. At the end of the passage was a wooden door that was shut. I could hear a commotion coming from the other side. I cracked the door and peeked through. There was a crowd of skeletons gathered. Erika was in the center of the room. Everyone’s gaze fixed on her.

It looked as though she was attempting to perform the seal transfer ritual. The only issue was it wasn’t going to work. She was using an ordinary rock, when she should be using a magic imbued crystal. Also she wasn’t using the special scroll I created. All she did was poorly draw a bunch of squiggly lines on a piece of paper.

I threw the door open and rushed into the room. Three skeletons instantly reacted and tried to rush me. I drew my dagger and severed the first one's skull from his body. The other two, I swept their legs with my staff, causing them to fall to the ground.

Craigs men weren’t particularly good fighters, which wasn’t surprising considering all they do is sit around and play role playing games all day. I heard that when they were alive they were the guardsmen for their village. Apparently, they didn't actually do any guarding. They would spend their days doing anything except their actual jobs. Unfortunately for them, their village got attacked by bandits and everyone in the village was taken captive, while they were killed.

Craig seemed shocked to see me, "How did you get ou-!"

I landed a kick straight to his chest before he could finish. He fell to his back and I planted my right foot on his ribs.

Erika had a surprised look on her face.

"Mr. Arno, what's going on? I thought you were friends with these guys, why are you attacking them?" She asked.

"C'mon Arno... I was just jo-."

"Shut up!" I snapped at him.

He went completely silent. I pressed harder on his ribs. They felt like they were starting to crack. None of the other skeletons dared try anything. They all stepped back in a cowardly fashion. Unfortunately for me, they were still blocking the exit.

Erika was growing concerned, "please calm down Mr. Arno. What did he do to upset you so badly?"

"This idiot trapped me in a cage, so he could coerce you into doing the seal transfer ritual." I explained.

"Miss Erika, it's all just a misunderstanding." Craig said, trying to save face.

"Um... Maybe we can all just talk this over.”

She gave me an obvious wink as she spoke. If these thralls weren't complete idiots they probably would have caught on. It seemed like she had some sort of plan for getting us out of here. I just hoped it wasn’t a stupid one.

"Please let Mr. Craig go." She asked.

I took my foot off of his chest. He got up off the ground. Looking a bit relieved.

"Thank you so much Miss Erika. You truly are a kind person." He responded with gratitude.

"Okay, would you guys mind going into that room over there? I would like to speak with Mr. Arno in private for a moment about his actions."

She gave me another clearly noticeable wink as she spoke.

"Yes, anything you say... Everyone in that room, now! This is an order from Miss Erika." Craig Shouted to his men.

Without hesitation all the skeletons blindly went to the other room. Craig was the last in. He closed the door behind him.

"What are you planning to do?" I asked.

Erika whispered to me, "Can you grab that chair over there and prop it against this door?"

I did as she said and wedged the chair against the door, trapping the skeletons inside. To my surprise, she actually managed to come up with this on her own. Maybe she was brighter than I gave her credit for.

"Let's get out of here," I said.

We left toward the staircase to the final floor. As we were leaving, Erika spoke,

"Hey, when I was trying that seal transfer thingy, was I at least close to getting it to work?" She asked.

"No, not one bit." I replied instantly.

"Oh… I see. I tried to remember when you did it, but I just couldn't get it right."

I offered her a bit of sympathy, "that is a highly advanced ritual. It took me years to develop it."

This was it, we were on our way to the final floor. Once we got through there, we would be free.