Jay sat by the fire as he watched Dark dig out a few more sword molds under his supervision. Red glanced over every free moment, seeming discouraged at having to lend its new sword back for the molds, or so Jay guessed. But his guess was better than any as he had been gaining a sense of his skeletons attitudes over the last few weeks, if one was brazen enough to suggest such abominable creatures even had feelings.
Before Blue returned, Dark had finished three molds in total. With no other orders it joined the skeletons in slaying rat-moths, keeping them from bothering their supreme by the edge of the fire.
Jay admired how Dark preferred to stick to the edge of the light, wavering between the border of the shadows as it cut open its fluttering enemies. Its bones were stained a few shades darker from the corrupting swamp water, giving it extra stealth, but the necrotic mana that permeated through its body betrayed it.
Dark’s green beady eyes were like two glowing fire flies caught in a romantic dance as they darted about in the darkness. It could control them to shine less at the expense of some of its shade vision, but the biggest betrayal of its stealth was under the skeletons ribcage.
At the heart of all Jay’s larger skeletons was a binding pool of necrotic mana holding them together.
“Dark, come over here.” Jay said. The dagger-wielding skeleton appeared and Jay crouched down, looking under its ribs.
Like all the other level three skeletons, it had a small lobe of glowing necrotic mana in its chest, a heart that didn’t beat. Small tendrils branched out from it like a poisonous growth, going to the inside of the ribs, into the shoulder blades, and down the spine towards the legs, all of them entering the bones at various points and disappearing underneath, giving the creature its life.
A slightly thicker artery went up along the spine and into the skull, where there was the familiar glistening flickers of intelligence, a mesh of mingling stars of green lights, speeding back and forward like a nest of hungry ants.
Jay knew it was a necessity for his creations, keeping them held together, making the inanimate, lifeless bones into functioning parts of its own body. He guessed that the smaller skeletons must have needed less of these internal strings of life, and could mostly hide it within the bones themselves, which meant that larger skeletons would need larger mana circulation, becoming more apparent the larger they became.
“Red.” Jay said, pointing at his side. He dismissed Dark and the level five skeleton sprang over. He stashed its shining armor away and checked over its skeletal body.
“Thought so.” He murmured to himself, seeing a larger lobe of necrotic mana resting on the back of its spine.
The branching tendrils spreading from it were not only thicker, but more numerous. The only comparison Jay had were the endless trees he had marched underneath, all separating to smaller and smaller branches until spreading their leaves and vying for a sliver of light. The thicker artery trailing up its spine was slightly different, as it was flatter with an indentation running along the middle, and Jay guessed it would separate into two arteries as Red leveled up. Perhaps even three, given enough time.
As Jay gave Red back its armor and it covered the glowing heart, he had an idea, and took out an old cloak from his inventory. He had tore up his coat after replacing it with the Molodus coat, but he still had this cloak, which he once planned to use evading the Loslan guards during the forest incident, but never made use of.
“Dark.” He ordered.
The skeleton returned from the edge of the shadows again and received a new gift from its master; unique and different from any weapons or armor the other skeletons had attained.
“Wear it. And don’t let it get damaged.” Jay said, handing over the dark cloak.
Dark nodded back, and tenderly rubbed its clawed bone fingers over the fabric before trying to put it on. It needed some help from Jay as it tried to don the cloak, but afterwards it gave Jay another nod, followed by a deep bow.
Jay smiled, seeing how appreciative the small skeleton was of this small gift.
“Take good care of it. And no more hunting the fire lights for you.” He said, not wanting it to come back with a tattered cloak filled with burnt holes.
For the time being the cloak was too big for the skeleton, coming down below its hip bones, but it was only a matter of time until it grew into its full form, and Jay was sure this would help it gain its assassin class; something he’d been encouraging it to pursue.
As Dark slipped back into the darkness, he narrowed his eyes and slowly nodded, finding it harder to track the skeleton with his eyes. The only signs of it were the sounds of its blade tearing through the air, or whenever it turned its deathly eyes back to the light.
Such a small thing helped a lot. Jay thought, noting that even the insignificant things could pay off.
A splash of water sounded as Blue returned from the abyss, and with Dark and Archers protecting Jay, both Blue and Red began to craft the new swords while Jay watched from the edge of the fire.
Red clacked its jaws, stared into Blue’s eyes, pointed around, and waved its new sword. Jay raised a brow as he saw Red hand its sword over so Blue could test it, then together they began to craft. Red formed the condensed sword cores while Blue handled the rest, using its larger mana pool to do most of the mana work.
Jay patiently waited at the fireside, and decided to cook some of the mushrooms that Archers had gathered earlier. Of course, he stuck to the ones he had identified, while the unidentifiable ones lay in a pile closer to the ramp of his one-room house.
The familiar aromas of the juicy mushrooms made him salivate, and he feasted on them without worry, filling his stomach with gladness, but a part of him missed the practice of sitting down at a table, eating his meal from a plate instead of the old saussage-skewer he cooked it with. He reminisced of the times he ate at his quiet butchery while watching the field nearby, the mist-sheep appearing and vanishing in and out of their herd cloud of foggy families, then he thought of the other times he haggled with their shepherd for a fair price.
I wonder how Trenly’s going. He’s probably claimed the butchery for himself by now—unless those bastards killed him. He thought.
Jay chewed into another juicy piece, feeling the watery juices spread across his tongue, and cast the thoughts aside.
(Blue, send one of your sub-skeletons north. Scout and see if they’re getting closer.) Jay ordered, addressing a pang of worry that had been growing in his heart.
Blue nodded back to Jay, then went back to sword-molding. Its five little skeletons were away hunting the fire lights, but sending one off to scout was as easy as a thought.
After a while, Blue presented its crafts to Jay. Three new swords.
Jay inspected each of them, looking for any imperfections, but he was surprised to see that it made the pommel slightly smaller, while the cross guard slightly pointed upwards.
“You changed it? Are you sure you want them like this?” Jay asked, raising a brow, and Blue nodded back.
Jay shrugged, “If you’re happy, then nice work.” He said, and only had to point out a few other details on the sword, showing some parts of the blade to be slightly thicker along the sharpened edges, which Blue quickly fixed.
Jay checked over the sword’s stats one last time and nodded, seeing they were as strong as the one Red crafted. He also gripped the sword in one hand and tapped the end with his gauntlet, glad that there was little vibration in his grip.
“Good. Keep one for yourself, give one to Sweeper, and the other to Lamp--if it even wants it.” Jay said, doubting that the skin-suit-wearing skeleton would want to switch from its dagger and shepherd-staff combo.
Blue bowed, grabbed a sword and caused Jay to smile as it copied him, tapping the end of the sword with its skeletal knuckle. It grabbed the other two and stopped by Hegatha’s shack, handing one sword to Sweeper before slipping away into the waters.
The only skeletons left without the new swords were Handy, Heavy, Dark, Archers, and the seven sub-skeletons of Red and Blue. Heavy was still too small to wield the new swords, and currently guarded the underwater bridge with Red’s two guardian skeletons, posted there as Jay doubted it was fast enough the catch the fire lights. Handy, Red, Dark and Archers guarded the island, while the others were on light-hunting duty.
Most of the skeletons were too small for these new swords, and only Dark and Handy were the exception, as Dark dual-wielded daggers and Handy had crafted its own two-handed sword.
With the upgrades complete, Jay sent Sweeper to watch over Asra so that Dark would go back to monitoring Hegatha, leaving it with one simple instruction that he whispered.
“Try to hide your presence.”
Foll𝑜w current novels on fre(e)w𝒆bnovel