There was a big box in the center of the room, and it rocked back and forth of its own volition. Each time it did so, it rattled like a cup of dice.

A batch of skeletons had been delivered, and as Vee warily watched the box vibrate on the floor next to Alforde and Kai, he wasn’t entirely sure that he wanted to open it.

It was all the packet’s fault.

See, there’d been a small packet of papers attached to the top of the box. It was an owner’s guide to keeping skeletons, and Vee had eagerly removed it from its packaging and started to read, excited by the prospect of improving Crestheart by adding a new type of minion.

However, on the first page, there’d been the following disclaimer:

Warning! Skeletons have an inclination towards mischief! They’re strong and nimble, and can cause significant destruction and mayhem in a deceptively short amount of time.

“Well, what are we going to do,” Alforde asked. “Just leave the box here like this?”

Vee rubbed his chin. He turned to Kai.

“You can talk to creatures, right? I don’t suppose you speak skeleton, do you?”

Kai reached up and flicked one of his upper branches. His leaves rustled a little bit.

“I’m afraid not. My [Naturetongue] only works on living creatures.”

Well, that was a bit of a bummer, but not the end of the world.

Vee took a deep breath. He wished that he could ask Reginald what to do, but the hat had asked to be left back in the office while everyone else settled the skeletons. The spirit had been acting strangely for the past few days, and Vee wondered what was on his [Majordomo]’s mind. Every time he’d tried to ask though, Reginald had just gone silent, and Vee still didn’t have a good way of making him talk. He hoped that whatever was causing the problem would resolve itself soon. Life without the hat’s constant yammering was simply too quiet.

Looking at the box again, Vee decided that his curiosity outweighed his caution. He wanted to see the new minions for himself. He walked over, reached down to the latch on top, and flicked the lid open.

There were two sections inside. The first took up roughly a third of the box and was filled with bundles of bones that were presumably the skeleton bodies. The rest of the box was filled with the skulls. These were apparently responsible for all the movement, as they chattered and wobbled of their own accord.

Now, in a perfect world, he could have simply removed the bodies and the heads from the box and left them as they were without any issues. However, the packet had also made it clear that the skill used to keep the skeletons animated would stop working in a week or so if the minions weren’t reassembled. If that happened, he’d be out the entire cost of the shipment, as he lacked the ability to reanimate them himself.

Vee sighed.

He pulled out one package of bones and a single skull and put them both on the ground. He waited for a minute or so, hoping that the pieces would like, magically combine or something. Naturally, that didn’t happen. Vee opened the packet and flipped through its pages until he got to the section he was looking for. It was labeled Skelt Const.

Looking down at it, Vee saw a series of competently-illustrated but unclear images that showed a person – or at least, he thought it was a person, the blobby limbs and weirdly elongated nose made it hard to be sure – putting pieces together. Then, after what looked like a lot of skipped steps, there was a picture of the person putting the skull atop the body’s torso. The last illustration on the page, inexplicably, showed the person and the skeleton…dancing? Fighting? It was impossible to tell. Hopefully it wasn’t important.

“Hey, uh, can you two give me a hand with this?” Vee asked. Alforde and Kai ambled over and retrieved their own skeletons, which they put down beside Vee’s. “Do these instructions make sense to either of you?”

Unwrapping their skeleton bones, the trio started trying to assemble their minions. Even though it’d been simplified to be easier for non [Bone Architects], the process was slow going and quite confusing. Unlike ectoplasm, bones were solid and unforgiving. Snapping them together required a lot of strength, and more than once Vee got a fingertip pinched between pieces.

Worse, the torsos were perfectly rectangular, which meant that the arms and legs could realistically socket into either end without apparent issue. However, incorrectly placing the limbs led to their range of motion being virtually non-existent. No matter how Vee looked at the sockets, he couldn’t see any differences that explained the disparity. Talk about poor design!

After fifteen minutes or so of fruitless cursing, the trio finally found success thanks to Kai. Back inside his barkbody, the bonsai treant managed to get his skeleton assembled in a manner that was approximately correct, and let Vee attach the minion’s head to its body.

With Kai’s help, Alforde and Vee assembled their own skeletons a few minutes later, and then it was time to activate them.

Kneeling down, Vee touched each of the skulls in turn and did his best to say the invocation on the last page of the packet. He wasn’t familiar with the base language, but thankfully it seemed pretty forgiving, since all three skeletons rattled and shook to life.

They sat up and looked at each other, their jaws chattering up and down in an imitation of laughter. One bounded to its feet and the other two followed. Without warning, one reached a bony arm back and socked Vee square in the face. As the [Dungeon Master] cried out and fell to the floor with a hand clutched to his jaw, all three skeletons bolted towards the door, clattering as they fled.

True to the packet’s word, the skeletons were quick, and they were free before Alforde or Kai could move to capture them.

Swearing and promising punishment as he sat back up, Vee checked his mouth and was relieved that none of his teeth had been knocked loose. There wasn’t any blood either, but he was still mad as heck.

[You have been given a quest: Capture those skeletons! Would you like to accept it?]

“You bet!” Vee hollered as he stood up and followed Alforde and Kai who were already in pursuit.

[Quest: Capture those skeletons!]

[Dangers: Fiends lurking in Westown!]

[Rewards: +1 Might, reclamation of your property!]

[Description: Chase the escaped skeletons and capture them. It’s probably your fault that they escaped in the first place.]

Vee disagreed but there was no point in arguing. Scowling, the [Dungeon Master] ran down the stairs to the ground floor and saw Kai sprinting away in one direction one direction and Alforde trotting off in another.

Juniper was outside her shop, with a big watering can in her hands. She looked at Vee, extremely confused.

“Which way did the third skeleton go?” he asked. The [Herbalist] pointed to the alley to Vee’s right. Nodding at her, Vee ran off after his quarry.

Kai sensed pockets of green energy all around him as he guided his barkbody after the fleeing skeleton. He chased it down one alley, and then another, surprised at the minion’s ability to duck and weave into narrow spaces that would have been almost impossible for anyone bigger than him to traverse. Running in the city was totally different than running back in the grove had been, but Kai liked it. The sound of his footsteps had a nice snappy rhythm, and the thrill of the chase was strong in his sap. This was why the [Oracle] had sent him to the city! What a blessing!

Once he was in range of [Vine Anchor], Kai raised his right arm and took aim.

Activating the skill caused the panel on the barkbody’s palm to spring open with a loud clunking noise, and a thick tendril with a hook seed on the end shot towards the skeleton. Kai watched its path, but he was confident in his aim, and in this narrow alley there wasn’t really space for the minion to dodge.

The hook seed found its mark and the vine went taut. Kai slid to a stop and pulled, and the skeleton lost its balance and fell to the ground. Fighting back the urge to yell “Yee-haw!” – where had that come from? – Kai retracted the [Vine Anchor] and pulled the minion towards him. It struggled to break free, but modern hook seeds had been carefully bred to remain attached to much larger creatures, and there was no hope of the little skeleton breaking free.

Still, Kai wasn’t taking any chances. Once he had the skeleton in his hands, he bound the minion’s limbs with other vines and slung it over his barkbody’s shoulder. It wasn’t terribly heavy.

He considered turning around and heading back to the tower straight away, but there was a lovely patch of wildflowers at the end of the alley, and he wanted to go take a look at them.

Kneeling down, Kai took his free hand and carefully examined the stems and petals of each blossom. They were all surprisingly healthy, but Kai infused a bit of his [Green Spirit] all the same. It never hurt to bolster plants against the future.

The flowers drank the energy up and then returned some of their own. Their essence was sweet and fragrant, and Kai imagined a future in which the alley was filled with more of these lovelies.

Heck, while he was at it, why not imagine a future in which all of these buildings were covered in ivy and blossoms year round? It could be a garden paradise! Instead of cold, dead stone, Westown could be filled with life and color and beautiful green energies! Wouldn’t that be a perfect place to live?

Kai thought so. With enough time, he could make it happen too. His duties for the dungeon weren’t too much to keep him away, yet. Reaching up to a small crack on the wall in front of him, Kai channeled some energy and set a few plants growing.

[You have been given a quest: Make Westown beautiful. Would you like to accept it?]

Kai took a step back and considered the popup. He’d only seen it a few times in his life, but the [Oracle] had been clear in her answer to his berry message: If you get the chance to put down new roots, take it.

[You can now earn points in Citizenship! Citizenship +2]

[Quest Assistance! Congratulations! You have unlocked the Verdant Builder class! Would you like to take it?]

Kai hit yes right away, and happiness filled his bark. He accepted the new class and felt himself shaking with power.

[Green Spirit + 5]

[Your vine and seed skills are now more powerful!]

[You can now use the Verdant Enclosure skill!]

His sap brimming with excitement, Kai turned around and sprinted back to Crestheart as quickly as his barkbody legs could carry him. The skeleton remained on his shoulder, almost completely forgotten.

He wanted to test out his new skill!

As he chased the skeleton, Alforde wished that he’d grabbed Hammy. If he’d had his trusty weapon, he could have used [Unstoppable Charge] and caught up with the minion almost instantly. As it was, he had to pursue the little jerk with his own two feet. Though the eventual outcome was never truly in doubt, it was definitely going to take more time than it should have.

After running through an empty lot, the skeleton reached a pile of debris and scrambled up. Once it reached the top, it jumped through a broken window and into the building nearby.

Groaning, Alforde circled around until he found the door and smashed it open with a good old fashioned pauldron slam. He paused and listened for a moment until he heard the distinct clattering of bonesteps up above him and started looking for stairs.

However, his progress was halted by a bevy of fiends that stepped out of the rooms on either side of the hall. Having gotten so used to Vee’s orchestra, Alforde wasn’t used to the pure malice and hatred that the monsters exuded, but he wasn’t intimidated in the slightest. The fact that he didn’t have Hammy wasn’t a problem; Alforde simply raised his gauntlets and got to the good work of smashing them all to smithereens.

[Might +1]

As he sidestepped each clumsy blow directed at him, he thought about when he’d helped Vee clear out the tower before opening Crestheart. It felt like a lifetime ago. He’d managed to defeat a few fiends back then, but it’d been hard work and he’d secretly been relieved when Vee had stepped in and done most of the heavy lifting with his [Ghost Maestro] skills.

Today, he felt confident that with enough time, he could clear all of Westown singlehandedly.

There were only a few fiends left, but they were the biggest and meanest ones of the group. One, which had six arms and a gaping maw full of wicked teeth, leapt for him with its claws raised and ready to strike.

Alforde could have dodged the attack easily, but he wanted to see how much damage it would do, so he stayed in place and let it land.

He didn’t feel anything, and the fiend bounced away. Alforde disposed of it with a swift right hook. The rest of the fiends were dealt with in a similar fashion, and the armorsoul climbed the stairs in time to see his target trying to jump out another window. This time though, its bony fist couldn’t break the window, and Alforde closed the distance and scooped the minion up to end the chase.

“You were surprisingly speedy, but you’re a million years too early to compete with me,” Alforde said.

[Wit +1]

Holding the skeleton tight, Alforde headed back to Crestheart.

It wasn’t quite as bad as climbing stairs, but Vee didn’t particularly enjoy running. His legs burned and his lungs never quite seemed to fill with enough air.

He kept losing sight of his skeleton as it was just a little too fast for him to keep up with, but thankfully they were in a part of Westown where there weren’t a ton of branching paths. In fact, it was mostly open, and it reminded Vee of the market area in Northtown a little bit. Turning the corner, he willed his legs to keep pumping against the ground and put on a burst of speed.

[Might +1]

A few steps later, he had to be honest with himself and slowed back down to a walk. There was only so much the mind could do when the body wasn’t willing.

[Might -1]

Vee scowled at the sky but shrugged the change – or lack thereof – away. He wasn’t going to catch his target by himself. That was fine. He had other options. Gasping for breath, Vee took out his [Ghost Baton] and reached through his bond to the Medium Section of his orchestra. Once he had their attention, he ordered them to apprehend the skeleton.

He felt them abandon what they were doing and come to his aid, converging on his location from every direction. Vee raised his arms and locked his fingers behind his head. So far as he was concerned, the matter was settled. All he had to do now was wait. The fiends would take care of it.

That was just fine, because while his heartbeat wasn’t still pounding in his ears like a drum, it was still plenty loud. However, as he caught his breath, Vee heard the sound of flowing water. He followed it to a canal a few streets over.

The brackish water flowing along the bottom of the channel was only a few inches deep, but it was moving quickly. Vee wondered where it was coming from, but he was far more intrigued by the possibilities the area offered. If he directed the Light Section of his orchestra to come and start cleaning the canal and the path around it, he might be able to eventually turn it into a little daytime destination for people in town with vendors and restaurants and things like that.

Admittedly, that was like, a long time away. For now, he had to stay focused on improving Crestheart.

Through his bond with the Medium Section, Vee felt the skeleton get captured and directed his minions to take the wayward pest back to the tower.

Still, he didn’t totally want to abandon this new, shiny endeavor. As he made his way back, Vee reached out to the Light Section and ordered them to start cleaning the place up. It had probably been a pretty nice area, once upon a time, and there was no reason it couldn’t be again.

[Citizenship +1]

[Failed to receive quest! Reason: Citizenship too low (Requires 20 points)]

Vee dismissed the popup with an irritated sigh. He’d been enjoying life without constant alerts, and the prospect of having to see this particular notification every time he got a point of citizenship didn’t make him want to go get more in a hurry.

Quite the opposite in fact.

***

Back at the tower, Vee sealed the windows and the doors with multiple layers of ectoplasm to keep the skeletons from escaping once again. If anyone wanted in or out, they’d have to pass through one layer, make sure no skeletons were with them, close it up, and then go through the second layer. Tedious, but a good safety measure to take, given the circumstances.

[Quest Complete! You have successfully recaptured the skeletons!]

[Might +1 You have reclaimed your property, but now what?]

“We’re going to have to figure out a better solution for where to keep them,” Vee muttered. His solution, while effective, certainly wasn’t something he wanted to keep up for any prolonged period of time.

“I might be able to help with that,” Kai said. The bonsai treant explained his new class and skill, which allowed him to use a variety of warding mosses, mushrooms, ferns, and hedges to create a boundary that monsters couldn’t pass through. The way he described it, it sounded a bit like making a menagerie, and Vee was intrigued. He agreed right away.

[Leadership +1]

“There’s another empty lot a few streets over if you want to build it there,” Alforde said. “It’s not as big as the one we built Crestheart on, but it should be fine. I can show you where it is so you can get started right away.”

Vee wondered what time it was. The dungeon was scheduled to open pretty soon, but so long as Alforde was back before the day’s first run, there wasn’t anything to worry about. “I can send the Medium Section along with you too,” he said. “They’re not as good at building as the [Dungeon Maintainers], but they’ll make sure no other fiends bother you so you can work in peace. How long do you think it’ll take to finish up, Kai?”

The treant thought for a moment. “Four or five days should be enough for a basic pen. Most warding plants are pretty quick to grow, and I’ll see if Juniper wants to help, too. Her powers will really help speed things up.”

Vee grinned. “Sounds like a plan. Make sure you’re back before we open, Alforde. I’ll stay here and assemble a few more of the skeletons in the meantime.”

The [Dungeon Champion] gave him a thumbs up and followed Kai down the stairs.

Taking a deep breath and praying that he wasn’t about to let all three of the skeletons out once more, Vee opened the first layer of ectoplasm and went inside.

Character Sheets:

Vee Vales:

Primary Class: Ghost Maestro (Locksmagister University), Level 21

Secondary Class: Dungeon Master (Oar’s Crest), Level 10

Tertiary Class: Guy-Who-Takes-Things-WAY-Too-Far (Self), Level 3

Might: 9 (+1)

Wit: 28

Faith: 18

Adventurousness: 6

Ambition: 9

Plotting: 13

Charisma: 5

Devious Mind: 15

Leadership: 12 (+1)

Guts: 6

Intimidating Presence: 6

Citizenship: 6 (+1)

Alforde Armorsoul:

Primary Class: Hammer Afficionado (Self), Level 17

Secondary Class: Right-hand man (Vee Vales), Level 10

Tertiary Class: Dungeon Champion (Oar’s Crest), Level 10

Additional Class: Clunker (Vee Vales), Level 3

Might: 31 (+1)

Wit: 11 (+1)

Faith: 24

Adventurousness (Bound – Vee Vales): 7

Endurance: 11

Intimidating Presence: 8

Heart of a Champion: 2

Citizenship (Bound – Vee Vales): 3

Vigilance: 4

Kai Ginficus:

Primary Class: Grove Caretaker (Pachi Palmatum), Level 15

Secondary Class: Barkbody Pilot (Pachi Palmatum), Level 12 (+1)

Tertiary Class: Verdant Builder(Self), Level 1 (+1)

Might: 8

Wit: 6

Faith: 11

Green Spirit: 27 (+5)

Adventurousness: 5

Guts: 7

Citizenship: 2 (+2)