I was feeling off as I sat down at a quiet table, Bonesy propped up across from me with a spoon crunching in their mouth.

There was a spoon in my own mouth, metal clinking against my teeth and I wiggled it around and let the lingering taste of honey fade away. It took some thinking, some soul-searching, to figure out exactly what it was that bothered me.

I was lonely.

My entire life had been filled with people. Friends and family and new faces that were just waiting for me to make them smile. We had moved a lot throughout my life, so I was used to parting with friends and making new ones all the time. That had to be it. This town was quiet, no one to talk to, no one to share with.

But that would change! I would accomplish my mission, the very reason I was here, then I would move on and find people. Maybe buy an airship and become sky pirate Broccoli! But without the piracy because taking other people’s stuff without permission wasn’t nice.

Nodding, I wiped my spoon clean, tossed it into my sack, then got things ready for a whole new day of adventuring. The sun was just starting to peak over the horizon, which meant I had all day.

Hopefully, by the end of the day I would be done exploring the city. Maybe I would even be strong enough to face the Evil Hole in earnest.

We’d see.

For now the plan was simple. Explore every house next to the ‘south’ wall as best I could, then move over to the shops. Something told me that I would find some much nicer loot there. Then... then I would need to find a way to get rid of all those ghosts near the church.

I would try talking to them first, but if that didn’t work, then maybe I could rig up a sort of trap? I was certain there were other magical items around that I could use to injure them. Flicking magic stuff at my adversaries until they poofed wasn’t the most glorious tactic, but it might work.

All my gear was prepped, Bonesy ‘Rrr’ed’ in readiness, and I was determined to make the best of the day.

The first home I scouted was across the street from the inn at an angle. A long, low house with a roof that had once been a vibrant green before decades of missing maintenance took their toll. The door was locked, but a kick solved that problem and opened it right up.

It was dusty and a little tarnished within, but nothing I hadn’t seen, or cleaned, before. Surprisingly there was only a small fireplace tucked in a corner. No kitchen proper. The place felt unlived in. The furniture pushed to the sides, the bedroom too large for the single bed shoved up against the far wall. The bookshelf empty of any interesting looking bindings but filled with broken knick knacks.

An ancient jug. Empty

I rolled my eyes, dusted the jug and moved on.

The next room was a big office, one with surprisingly few papers, but they were in good shape. There was a huge ledger-like book on the table, one that was entirely untouched by dust or grime and looked as if it had just come off the printing press. I fired an Insight at it.

Ledger and Accounts of the Well Inn Good, soul bound book

Soul bound? That was disturbing. Taking a moment to make sure I was alone, I moved to the big book and poked it. Nothing. Then I fished out a spoon and tried to open the book.

Warning! This book is Soul Bound!

Warning! The Soul Binding on this book has faded. The previous owner has passed away.

Do you wish to Bind your Soul to this book? Ledger and Accounts of the Well Inn Good.

Did I want to play with strange and unknown magics that messed with my soul without any idea of what they did? “Nope,” I said.

I dusted around the book, and over and under the desk. There was a rusty key in a drawer. I held it up and stared at it for a moment. If the book was the Inn’s ledger, than this key might be for the basement I couldn’t get into.

It didn’t cost anything to check! Then I remembered that I was an idiot and didn’t have to travel all the way over to the inn for that. “Insight.”

Well Inn Good Basement Key.

“Neat,” I said before tossing the key into my sack and moving on. The next house was entirely empty. Not even any furniture left behind. I didn’t get much experience in that one. The one right after wasn’t a house at all, but a sort of storage place.

The door was barred with a heavy gate that I couldn’t break through, and the windows were... well, there weren’t any. I pouted at the building, but that didn’t do anything. So I marked it on my map and moved on.

The next two homes were small and simple, but I could see the church through the windows, so I cleared them with as much stealth as possible. It was worth it though as I found some coins under a mattress in what might have been a sock once. One silver, some green disks that were either copper or bronze.

In the second house I found a magical device under one bed.

Cheap magical wand, old

All it did when I pushed magic into it was vibrate. Maybe I could use it to hurt ghosts though, so I tossed it into my sack.

Then it finally happened.

Congratulations! Through repeated actions your Cleaning skill has improved and is now eligible for rank up!

Rank C costs one (1) Class Point

“What?!” I said once I was done cheering (quietly). I did have a Class Point from when I levelled up, but I was loath to spend it so soon. Wasn’t I supposed to sit on skill points forever and never ever use them until I had to fight some big boss?

Oh well, whatever. A lost point at level one wasn’t that big a deal, I figured.

Spend one (1) Class Point to raise the Rank of Cleaning to C?

“Yes please,” I said.

Congratulations! Cleaning is now Rank C!

Cleaning

Rank C - 00%

The ability to Clean. You are exceptionally good at tidying up and washing off. Effectiveness of cleaning is marginally increased. You may now use mana to clean things you touch.

I stared, then started to giggle, and then, because I didn’t want the ghosts across the street to eat me, I slapped a hand over my mouth and ran out of the house.

My next stop was somewhere I was curious about, and where I could practice my new magic. Magic! I had magic! I didn’t so much run as skip to the Inn.

The Inn was how I had left it, deserted but surprisingly clean, like a house in bad need of some love ready to be shown off to some prospective buyers. I twirled around, skirt flaring for a moment before I refocused on my task. A bit of searching later, I had the basement key in hand and was fitting it into the lock.

The door opened with a deep groan, revealing a long room with a low ceiling. There were stones with glyphs on them fixed to the beams above, a long table in the middle of the room with a few scraps of what might have been a map, and some crates stacked up to one side. The far wall had big kegs that had probably held the wine and mead and beer that they once served here.

No ghosts, wraiths or even a rodent of unusual size.

I was in the clear to explore.

Deeper in, I found three stands with armour on them, each rack covered in roughly scratched glyphs. The armour looked intact as if they had been completely untouched by the passing of time.

I gasped, already giddy at the idea of using magic, now doubly so if I got to wear cool armour while casting my first spells.

The first two sets looked like something I’d expect a lowly adventurer to wear.

Simple steel armour, old.

Simple steel plate armour, old.

They were neat, but built for someone way bigger than me. And male. The third set was more to my liking.

Simple armless gambeson, old.

The thick padded cloth, all of it coloured a sort of beige, would make me look kind of chubby, that that was alright if it meant not being dead. It even had a sort of jacket above it made of a thick leather. A skirt made of long strips of leather with little brozen scales sewn into it hung below.

Boiled leather jacket, old.

Boiled leather skirt, old.

A glance at the racks and a quick ‘Insight’ revealed how they had survived so long.

Magical armour rack.

I took the armour off the rack and weighted it in my arms for a bit. It was all a little heavier than my usual clothes, but that was fine. “It’s such a shame there’s no way for me to clean this poor, dirty old armour with a spell,” I said with false exasperation.

I focused on my magic--the same stuff I had been using to make water with the showerhead glyph--and pushed it towards the armour. A wash of tiredness swept over me, but that was secondary to what I saw. The dirt and dust flaked off of the armour, the straps took on a faint shine and the cloth looked freshly cleaned.

I laughed aloud as I spun my totally awesome new armour around. I had magic!

First cleaning spells, next, fireballs! A quick check of my stats showed me just how much I had lost which was kind of disconcerting.

Mana 79/105

About a quarter of my total mana. Mana which I knew went up by about one a minute. Still, the amount of time it would have taken me to clean the armour as well as the spell had was... probably the same?

I flipped the armour back and forth and looked at how clean it was, then considered how long it would take me to reach the same level of cleanliness by hand. About twenty to thirty minutes? Which was the same time it took to regenerate that mana. So it was a fair trade.

For the sake of practice I fired off the spell on the skirts and the leather jacket and lost two different amounts of mana, both lower than the gambeson alone. Neat!

“What do you think, Bonesey?” I asked my skeletal friend.

“Rrr,” was his bored response.

“Yeah, I guess you saw all sorts of magic in your day, huh?” I told it. “I hope you don’t mind, but I need to get dressed, so...” I reached over and turned Bonesy so that it was facing the far wall. As friendly as we were, well, it wasn’t so friendly that I’d let it see me getting dressed.

I debated keeping my blouse on or not, but I didn’t want to armour to chafe and the soft cotton of my blouse would keep my skin safe. Still, I took it off and winced at how dirty it had become. Oh, if only I had a solution to that.

A few more points of mana down the drain and I had a perfectly spotless blouse. One that I was going to wear over skin that hadn’t seen a shower in two and a bit days. Yuck.

Another drain of mana and I gasped. I was... clean. Very clean. I was clean all over. ”Oh, wow,” I said as I shifted around. “That’s... refreshing.”

Mana 42/105

I shrugged and fired off another cleaning spell at my skirt, because I could. Then slid back into my blouse. It felt... itchy. Had I just exfoliated my everything? I had to be careful with this great power.

Still, it wouldn’t be right not to share!

“Hey Bonesy, how you you like to be the cleanest, leanest skeleton on this side of... wherever we are?”

“Rrr?”

“Uh huh,” I said as I placed one finger onto the bony skull and pushed.

Magic flowed out of me.

Bonesey shifted, jaw opening, then hanging slack as a ghostly form, just a head and the hint of shoulders, appeared out of the skull.

Ding! Congratulations, you have sent ‘Bonesy. Skeletal Bard’ Level 3 beyond the veil! Bonus Exp was granted for cleansing a monster above your level!

“Bonesy!” I shouted.

The ghostly afterimage above the skull floated up, taking the shape of a man’s face. “Thank you,” he whispered before fading away.

My knees crashing into the dusty ground.

“Bonesy! No, no, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”