He merely takes the last, small spell shape in his mind, feeding it a rather large amount of his regenerated mana. Red lights flash a staccato as the air starts turning into droplets of water in front of his blackened hand. The ceiling that was previously the same warm glow as everywhere else is now painting the entire horrific scene in stark black and red.
The rather large mass of unknown bones he sees trapped under the being’s undulating skin cries out to be freed. Douglas does not plan to take them for his own, but the mere thought of other, fellow skeletons being part of things like that rankles him on a practical level. If beings of flesh and blood go and decide to have skeletons in their employ, they could at least count on them for structural support.
The old necromancer had commanded Douglas like a mindless slave, sure, but at least he employed his own skeleton in the proper manner. This undulating conglomeration of flesh, blood, and bone seems to use skeletons for filling, a mere supplier of mass instead of a vital piece of supporting infrastructure.
So it is with a slight hint of righteous vengeance in mind that Douglas sends the wafting spike of ice upwards into the large, blocking mass. Dozens of cubic metres of biological goop freezes, hundreds of cubic metres of muck sloughing off its dead and frozen core. Douglas’ sizable ice spike disintegrates into large volumes of air once again as it crumbles where it comes to rest, stuck inside the ceiling. Frost-rimmed metal crumbles like glass as the blue spear disintegrates into a large volume of cold wind.
Douglas watches with interest as a couch and a small table fall down from the ceiling. The hole his ice spike has made seems too big for the unassuming blue skewer it shot off. His dark vision allows him a glimpse of a rather tastefully decorated living room which is now missing a couch and table.
[ Meat slime lvl 3 slain; 2000 xp earned ]
The skeleton stares at the blue line for a long time. Either he is as slow as he seems, or something is wrong, because that slime was much bigger than the previous two, at least ten times as big. He decides to move on, but the idea that the blue box system is just pulling stuff out of its ass seems more and more likely.
Douglas continues walking. His previously slow shuffle is now a calculated gait. He has practised with walking on legs that end at the knees to such an extent that he shuffles through the melting pile of goo and bones while only falling once a minute on average. He mentally curses at the long, trailing pant legs and boots that keep getting stuck on random things.
The beasts around are stirred into a frenzy again, something that seems to happen each time one of them dies. Douglas ignores the hyperactive masses, calm returning not too long after. Walking through the wide thoroughfare, the skeleton’s skull swivels from side to side each time a new store comes into view. He spots buildings that are completely empty, shops that are filled with rows of cabinets with glass panes filled with rotting produce, and other shops which are total mysteries.
Douglas walks onwards, slowly making his way through the large hall. He starts to recognize patterns in the shops after a while. Lots of store fronts with suits in them have the same four types he saw before, the differences being the number of limbs and the general shape of the suits. He wanders for hours, leaving red stains on many storefront windows as he inspects the goods.
In the meantime, he has been splitting the mana his forehead has been generating. One half stays in his forehead while the other half he sends through his body, keeping his lower half together while slowly repairing his lower spine, pelvis, and femurs. It took some finagling, but the bone shards stuck in his boots are now back on his lower limbs.
Then while staring at a rather fetching cart-like thing on display, he feels that his forehead is full again. This wakes the partial skeleton from his daze. The mana flowing to his broken bones doubles as he loses mental control over the split, his forehead no longer accepting more power.
Douglas ponders what to do for a few more minutes, looking around as he does so. The spells he has been using seem really effective, but he’s just throwing loads of mana around without really having any control. Douglas decides that as long as he is strolling anyway, he might as well practise a bit. The shops are pretty interesting, but he has seen each type at least three times now.
Remembering the disastrous effects of the windball, he forgoes that one for the spell that had the least negative impact on his direct environment. Water gathers from the air and the goo around him, catching fire as he trickles a small amount of mana into the spell.
Douglas also keeps the small, blue boxes of his health and mana open, checking how much mana he pumps inside the spell shape.
[ HP: 24/40 ][ HP/h: 0.0018 ]
[ MP: 175/180 ][ MP/h: 19 ]
Looking between the minuscule fireball hovering above his hand and his mana pool, he throws it at a nearby meat slime. The spell explodes with a small flash, burning a part of the now furiously moving slime. Douglas didn’t expect the slime to rush him at all and panickily forms another spell, throwing the fireball at the foe.
[ Meat slime lvl 2 slain; 1000 xp earned ]
[ Spell Shaping lvl 10 ]
[ Spell Shaping has reached lvl 10; Scholar 1/4 ]
[ Mana Control lvl 4 ]
Covered in a fresh layer of goo, Douglas checks on his mana levels.
[ HP: 24/40 ][ HP/h: 0.0018 ]
[ MP: 16/180 ][ MP/h: 19 ]
He decides to postpone any more testing to a later date and continues slogging through the walkway. He resumes walking through the dirty hallways, the endlessness of the entire structure largely failing to register on the patient and tireless skeleton.
Many, many hours later, his progress is blocked by a solid wall of steel. The shops had been getting scarcer. More and more storefronts had solid materials blocking the glass panelling, their doors barred by lowered security grates. The amount of biological matter scattered about had also grown less and less, leaving the dirty walls and floors empty more and more. Douglas looks at the multitude of signage painted on the wall, which after a long time studying, turns out to be a single word written in many languages.
‘Storage’
Douglas does not really know why, but he feels the need to continue exploring. So far, he has seen a lot of interesting things and he has learned a lot, but he still feels like there should be more. The feeling that something is completely wrong about this entire place gnaws at the back of his skull, and Douglas somehow knows that answers can only be found through exploration.
So Douglas looks for a door, hoping to enter this so-called storage area. He looks around for a while, his blackened hand exploring the seamless wall. He has felt the entire wall before giving up when the whole thing turns out to be solid steel.
Something else gnaws at the back of his mind. He remembers something about a map or a tool that should allow for the making of a map. Standing still for the first time in hours, Douglas turns introspective. He then pulls a tool from his belt, a smooth handle topped by a sphere.
He taps it for a bit, the single button not causing any reaction. Douglas then remembers that everything about his suit is now in manual mode. Thinking hard, he recalls fragments of the instruction booklet that allowed him to set the suit in manual mode. He spends a few minutes fumbling with the buttons that are hidden on his sleeves.
Both the arms of his suit contain the buttons needed for accessing the inbuilt computer. Once again, this function has only been added to comply with such and such regulations, leaving usability as the last priority. Douglas does not care. He entertains himself by slowly and methodically exploring, remembering, and testing the functions of the barebones computer.
The display is projected on the inside of his visor. He explores the suit's status - terminal damage to the right hand, no longer space worthy, warranty voided - while searching for the option to link the sonic scanner. The written language slowly becomes clearer to the skull as he slowly reads every single scrap of text he can find.
A long while later, he finally
manages to forcefully have the suit detect the sonic scanner, touching it to a place on his loose chest in order to make the connection. Douglas presses the button, and his bones rattle slightly. He feels the intense vibrations in his skull, even if he does not hear them.
A grainy map of his surroundings starts appearing on the inside of his helmet as the suit slowly processes the received data. Douglas quickly spots a way to enter the storage area. One of the few open shops will allow him access to a narrow walkway at the back of the buildings. This hallway then goes backwards and into an area that contains lots of small rooms that seem filled with all kinds of random chests and stuff.
Douglas turns around and starts walking towards the open shop, only to freeze in place. A wall of monstrous dogs, meat slimes, bulging arm creatures, and other horrors is crashing towards him. Douglas is immediately rather sure that he will not survive the coming onslaught. It’s like every single being in the radius of a few kilometres suddenly started rushing towards him, Douglas muses while panicking.
He immediately stops musing and starts shuffling towards the store front with the back exit, calling up a spell shape as he does so. In his hurry to escape, the methodical skull somehow manages not to think of one of the smaller spell shapes but the large one instead. His mind, not skilled at multitasking at all, has poured all his mana into the humongous, complex shape before he can stop himself.
The inner circle of the spell lights up at his mana disappears into nothing. A ball of blue mist with the slightest hint of green forms in his hand. He throws it in a panic, his mana starved mind now working on automatic. The ball reaches the front of approaching horrors quickly and explodes. It fails to do anything except for making a slight flash of teal light.
Douglas manages to reach the store’s entrance just as the wave of horrors crashes past him, piling on top of the sonic mapper he dropped in his haste to get away. Douglas reads the single line of blue text before his depleted mana causes him to blackout.
[ Renovate dead; failed ]
Chapter Seven – Raising Hell
Douglas wakes again. The skeleton knows that he has no need for sleep, but these constant mana-drain-induced naps do refresh his mind at the very least. Standing up, he methodically walks to the back of the store. Not casting a single glance at the rather loud ruckus behind him, he approaches the garishly painted emergency escape. The thin pane of glass is crushed, and the handle behind it is opened with his blackened skeletal hand.
Another bare hallway greets him. Not to be deterred by the simplistic environment, Douglas walks on. He shuffles for a few minutes, stopping at the first door he sees. The door is adorned by a small rectangular panel. Tapping it with a finger does nothing, so Douglas grabs his loosely hanging left glove and slaps at it.
‘Welcome to long-term storage locker HW82560J34. This locker has been in lockdown protocol for 4 years, 3 months, and 27 days. This locker has been made available for free-claim for 3 months and 27 days. Please present a bio key to take ownership of this locker.’
Douglas’ jaw falls open as he reads the screen’s contents. The suggestions tell him that a ‘bio key’ is a characteristic unique to an individual. Douglas then looks at his hand and presses it against the screen.
‘Bone structure detected. No bio key of sufficient grade found.’
Douglas rubs his helmeted head in a forgotten reflex as he lets the meaning of the latest line of text percolate through his mind. Unsure of what to do, the skeleton just presses his hand to the screen again.
‘Bone structure detected. No bio key of sufficient grade found. Histaff infection detected. Lockdown for 100 years. Forcing lockdown of all nearby doors according to Histaff protocol.’
The screen flashes red, and Douglas hears loud metal clanking noises. Then all the other screens in all the other doors flash red, followed by another chorus of clanking noises. Holding his hand to the screen again, nothing changes. Douglas is even more unsure what to do now and keeps holding his hand to the screen. It’s not until he sees the screen flash, replacing the neat ‘100 years’ with ‘99 years, 255 days, 23 hours’, that he moves his hand.
His spells have solved all his problems so far. Why not try that again?
Holding out his hand, Douglas imagines the spell shape that formed the fire. Pouring in quite a bit of mana, the water around him fails to gather in any significant way. A mere few drops of liquid form before his black palm, the air sucked dry of all moisture rather soon.
The droplets ignite when he presses his hand to the screen. The red glowing rectangle pops as the clear cover begins to bubble and melt. It starts to burn while releasing an acrid smoke. Douglas keeps pouring mana into the spell shape at a steady trickle, burning away the entire panel.
The smooth, black iron behind the screen fails to be impressed by the small flame. The skeleton tries to infuse more mana into the spell shape, but it somehow fails to absorb it, the shape in his mind unwilling to take in more.
Frustrated at his lack of progress, Douglas starts pouring mana into the spell shape that formed the ice spike. This small looking ice needle pierced through the mall’s ceiling before, so Douglas has good hopes for this spell.
Keeping the blue box with his mana pool information open, he pours in around twenty mana before tossing it at the door. The spike splinters, leaving only a shallow dent. The backlash peppers Douglas with sharp spikes of ice, which shortly after gives him the frozen status effect once again.
Feeling like he should be shivering right now while also feeling rather fragile, Douglas stares at the door. The ice spike previously went through metal with ease. Holding out his hand again, he pours forty mana into the spell formation. Still not feeling confident, he pours in another twenty. Just before blacking out, he sees the blue spike tear through the door, sending shards of frozen metal everywhere.
Douglas wakes again. Standing up, he sees the hallway covered in a thin sheet of frost, and small ice crystals adorn the shattered door. Happily grinning at the effectiveness of his spell, he carefully clambers inside the room.
More bare metal walls are visible in the lacking light. Metal boxes, stacked crates, and empty shelving take up his attention until he sees the thing in the back of the room. A cylinder a metre in diameter and three-metre long that glows with an eerie purple light. Lines wrap around the entire thing, forming geometric symbols that looks suspiciously like the spell formations in his head.
Approaching the item, the skeleton sees a few legible words written on the side.
‘SpaceSleep Luxury Stasis Line’
No deeper meaning comes to him when reading these words, only the way these words would sound and the barest hint of information. Douglas carefully touches it with his bony fingers. All the lines, text, and glowing things vanish, leaving him looking at a dull cylinder. Then text appears once more.
‘No bio key detected. Opening is @&$^@ overdue. Lifesigns terminated #*#@ ago. Please confirm evacuation.’
A large, green v-shape and a large, red x-shape appear underneath. Douglas reads the text one more time but fails to understand any deeper meaning. Douglas does, however, know that nearly all his problems so far have been caused by red things. First, there was the red planet. He nearly burned to a crisp! Then the red horrors and the bone-pulverizing dogs that bleed red.
Douglas firmly presses the green ‘v’.
Nothing happens again.
Douglas firmly presses the green ‘v’ with the loose glove of his left hand. The pod immediately hisses, expelling dense clouds of purple fog. A vertical crack opens across the entire item, the two halves splitting open. Douglas takes a step back as the entire thing rises from the floor, opening like a flower.
And a flower is revealed. Even Douglas in his hormone-less and equipment-less state has his breath taken away. The two half cylinders fold away as a platform rises, putting its contents on full display.
Clad in a sheer gown of clinging material, a goddess is revealed. Perfect curves make up a body that
could sink galactic fleets. A face that could make gods weep is ringed by blonde hair so soft and perfectly curled, it looks like angel wings framing a saint. Plump, rosy lips form a perfectly shaped mouth, a lithe neckline followed by a pair of peaks that are not too small nor too large. Hips, waist, and legs obey all the rules of perfection and beauty ever made, jade-like alabaster skin shining in the little light available.
No, the rules of perfection and beauty are made because of this creature, this being of absolute and exquisite grace. Douglas can't help but stare at the vision of elegance, his jaw hanging down as far as his joint will let him. Purple mist curls along the floor as the pod finishes opening.
‘Please dispose of the corpse to start disinfection procedures.’
Only hours later, when Douglas feels his forehead full of mana once again, does he wake from his transcendent daze. Knowing that the image of perfection he is looking at is, in fact, dead does little to deter from the beauty.
Anger boils up inside Douglas. Still not real anger, but compared to his anger at having to listen to the same broadcast for untold hours, it feels real indeed. Removing this woman from the universe would be a crime against the heavens itself. How can something this beautiful and exquisite hold malice? This being performing evil acts is not a possibility Douglas even dares to entertain.
To see this being smile at him, Douglas realizes, he would fight all the gods, even life and death itself.
Didn’t he see something like that not too long ago? Come to think of it, what did casting the death magic do anyway? Did it renovate the dead? Something like that. Douglas then decides that he shall renovate her. Even if it takes a million years, Douglas will see this beauty walk again.
Histaff Page 9
