Marrow did not know what had come over him out of the sudden. One moment he was crunching on a big spider, an action he had done already dozens of times, and the very next moment he felt… different. Cold, trembling, nervous, and utterly terrified – all of which were utterly unfamiliar and novel emotions and sensations for him.

And then he had run against the wall. A part of him knew that he did not fit through that hole, but another part insisted that this was where he had to go, that safety was beyond. And because he did not know which part of himself to believe, he just tried it a few times, partially, because he did not really know what else to do anyway.

Until he heard a strange noise. It was like clear and loud notes, ringing oddly through the hallways, and they left Marrow somewhat bewildered. And they came from the creature that had approached him and put him in this inexplicable emotional state.

Strangely enough, the emotions that had made him tremble and try to hide somewhere suddenly disappeared and were replaced by one of curiosity and a bit of… something. Marrow felt that just maybe he should be mad, that this was his territory and that creature should not be there… those other creatures were fine, but this one, the one that had approached him… there was something about it, her, him, that he instinctively felt was intruding into his area. And Marrow could feel the hair rise on the little patch of fur on his chest.

Slowly he got up and stared at the creature close to him. He used his penetrating stare, which allowed him to see all kinds of details that were completely and utterly meaningless to him, but still delighted him, because they were different colors and shapes – many, many things, that he had never seen in his life.

But then the creature stepped away from him, toward the spider web. And suddenly, Marrow understood what the creature was doing – it was going to eat his spiders! That… that could not be allowed. Those were his spiders and his territory! And there was already one spider that was approaching, probably alerted by all the vibration, or the noise, or whatever might alert spiders.

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Catlyn suddenly felt a lot less comfortable being that close to the skeleton. One moment, it had been behaving in a wholly erratic and, frankly, hilarious way and the very next second it suddenly almost looked menacing.

“Uhm,” was all she managed to croak because her mouth was abruptly parched and her throat oddly constricted. On top of that, she felt her bladder was going to burst any second out of the sudden.

“Catlyn, what are you doing? Come back here! It is… it is staring at you,” Borgar whispered urgently, clenching the claymore in his sweaty hands.

“Borgar, we need to do something,” Gamul shouted. “It is moving toward her. Catlyn! By Gamullatra’s legs, move!”

But before Catlyn could make her suddenly leaden legs move, the skeleton lunged toward her, eliciting a shriek of panic from the catwoman. She stumbled to the side with hands raised to cover her face protectively, and eyes squeezed tight. And then she felt something touch her shoulder and she stiffened in abject terror, finally losing control over her bladder.

Crunch!

After a couple of seconds of not feeling any particular pain or really any noteworthy physical feeling apart from the wetness dripping down her legs, Catlyn slowly opened her eyes.

And what she saw made her scream again, because right in front of her, the skeleton was standing, chewing slowly on a giant spider, while staring in an oddly penetrating way right at her face. It was almost as if… as if the skeleton was making a statement!

Gamul, Borgar, and Ikarias rushed over to her side and fuzzed over her while keeping a wary eye at the skeleton.

“It saved you! I saw it,” Ikarias stammered. “The spider was so close to you and about to bite, and the skeleton just grabbed it by its carapace and stuck it into its jaw! Just like that!”

“By Gamullatra’s magnificent bosom, does that mean this skeleton is sentient and friendly?” Gamul incredulously asked.

“I don’t trust it,” Borgar immediately replied. “Look at its stare! You, skeleton, stay there, don’t move!”

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Marrow heard all the chatter between those creatures but could make neither head nor tail out of almost anything. But it did understand the last thing the big creature had said…. Don’t move. That was something that Marrow knew intuitively - a three-word command, well within the limits of complexity and number of words of a standard skeleton.

Not that he cared to follow the command. But he also did not care to not follow the command. So he did what he had been doing, namely, stand where he was, chew on the spider, and stare at the creatures.

He briefly considered punching one of the creatures in front of him, or perhaps chewing them, just for the off chance that the deep voice would say something different, but since those creatures were talking all the time, there was really no need. They provided plenty of voices. In some way, they almost made too much noise. After centuries of silence, it was just a tad overwhelming to have so many new impressions around him all of a sudden.

And, as if it was not enough, as he was chewing his latest spider, he was rewarded not only one, but two new notifications.

[Skill obtained: Crushing Bite]

[Level up: Level 2; Two new characteristic points available. Would you like to spend them now?]

Marrow stopped his chewing and waited for something else to happen.

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“It is obeying,” Borgar said incredulously. “How is that possible? It is not moving at all now, not even chewing.”

Gamul had been fussing over Catlyn but turned around to stare at the skeleton as well.

“This is incredible!” he agreed. “Have you ever heard of such a thing?”

Catlyn finally recovered from her shock and embarrassment over wetting herself and hesitantly looked up at the skeleton. “I… well,…,” she started, and then, with renewed vigor continued, “Thank you! Uhm, skeleton, ah…”

“Uhm, what is your name?” She finally stammered, feeling incredibly awkward.

The skeleton did not respond or react in any way at all. It merely kept staring at her face in this strange, and quite unsettling way. Which certainly did not make things less awkward.

“Do you have a master?”

The skeleton did not even blink. Not that skeletons could blink. It was just unsettling for Catlyn to interact with someone that just stared at her without the slightest twitch or at least some wavering of attention.

“Sooo, that is a no? Uhm, well, why are you here?”

No answer.

Catlyn turned to the others. “Do you think it understands me?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ikarias scoffed. “Skeletons cannot think. They are the most basic and stupid undead out there, apart from zombies, perhaps.”

“Oh yeah? And how do you explain that it just saved me from a spider?” Catlyn responded almost defensively.

Ikarias shrugged his shoulders dismissively. “Well, I am not sure why it would do that, or why it would chew on spiders, but perhaps its master had given that as a command.”

“But who would that master be? We must be the first people down here in centuries!” Gamul asked. “And my spell did not do anything, which means… well, I don’t really know what that means.”

“So, let’s just destroy the skeleton and move on,” Borgar proposed, now much calmer and more confident than just minutes ago.

“What? No way! It saved my life!” Catlyn shouted immediately, waving her staff with the light crystal around animatedly.

And the skeleton started swiveling around its head rapidly.

At first, the sudden movement of the skeleton made the adventurers jump back and grab their weapons tighter before they realized that it was not a hostile movement.

It was Ikarius who understood the reason for the skeleton’s movement first.

“Catlyn, move your staff to the right?” He hissed.

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

And, lo and behold, the head of the skeleton turned left, following the staff.

Giggling, Catlyn moved her staff to the left and then in circles, causing the skeleton’s head to first turn right and then do an odd swiveling movement, while the rest of the group looked on in disbelief.

“This is one weird skeleton,” Ikarius finally stated, saying out loud what all four of them had been thinking.

“Can we… can we perhaps keep it?” Catlyn hesitantly asked.

“Keep it? What a ridiculous idea!” Borgar protested immediately. “It is a skeleton, an undead. An unholy creature of the night and evil!”

“But, Borgar, look at it!” Catlyn argued pleadingly. “It seems quite harmless if a bit odd.”

“Well, I have to agree with Borgar on this one,” Ikarius said. “Not that I think that skeletons are necessarily evil. They are just a tool. But we don’t control this tool so it might be dangerous. And, perhaps more importantly, there is no way we could take it up to Gyssal. People would panic!”

“But…,” Catlyn pleadingly turned to Gamul.

“By Gamullatra’s bony hips, I really don’t know, Catlyn. I am intrigued, but it is such a weird skeleton. And how would it be useful for us? I mean, yes, it saved your life, but it has shown no other skills or awareness at all. Apart from standing still after Borgar commanded so. But frankly, that is no proof of anything, since it might just be standing still for other reasons, or no particular reason at all.”

All four adventurers took a step back and thoughtfully stared at the skeleton. Eventually, Catlyn shrugged her shoulders in acquiescence. “Fine. I see your point. But we will not kill it! Otherwise, I will turn around right now and leave you three down here by yourself!”

“Catlyn, w-” Borgar started to argue.

“No, I won’t hear an argument about this,” Catlyn immediately interrupted. “Let’s just move on then. Perhaps we will finally find some treasure to make this all worth our time.”

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Marrow had waited for the voice to say more. Alas, he had waited in vain.

In the meantime, it had listened to the creatures surrounding it, not that he understood much of what they were saying. But he did recognize a few words here and there, which struck him as curious. Why could he understand some things, but not others? And, strangely enough, it kind of bothered him.

It was not as if he felt excluded, no, it was more that he finally realized that there were many words out there and that these words had meaning. Up until that moment, he had liked hearing voices because they were different. Now… this was not enough any longer. These words described things beyond what he could see or hear. And they were longer than three or four words… longer than he should be able to comprehend, but he felt that he, just perhaps, could.

So he listened and tried to understand what the voices were saying.

It was not hard to figure out that some words referred to the creatures. Borgar and Catlyn were the names of two of them, he was reasonably sure. Instinctively, he knew what names were. He even knew his own name, Marrow. It was a good name, he thought. Fitting, for some reason.

Could he perhaps emulate the voices?

Marrow had never considered that before. But the creatures talked to each other, using names, so perhaps he could also say a name. Just to see what happened.

The only problem was that Marrow did not know how to speak at all. So he tried to copy what the creatures were doing. He opened and closed his mouth rapidly, smacked his non-existent lips together and swiveled his head from side to side.

“…”

All he managed to do was create a bony rasp, probably because of him grinding jawbones on each other.

It did cause all four creatures to look at him though, which Marrow thought was a success. After all, when they had been talking, they also looked at each other. So this was part of communication. He had succeeded. Happily, he kept on doing what he was doing.

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“By Gamullatra’s luscious lips, what is it doing now?” Gamul asked disbelievingly.

“I have no idea, but it is creeping me out,” Borgar responded with a slightly quivering voice.

“Oh, shush, you big sissy,” Catlyn admonished him. “It looks as if it is talking, don’t you think?”

“Hmm, you might be right, even though it is looking quite ridiculous… who opens his mouth like that when talking?” Ikarius said.

“Uhm…,” Catlyn giggled, looking pointedly at Borgar.

“Hah, you might be right there, lass,” Gamul chuckled.

“Wait, what?” Borgar protested, opening his mouth wide in disbelief.

Ikarius snickered.

In the meantime, Marrow turned his head from side to side, trying to imitate what they were doing. And it was somewhat disturbing to see a skeleton try and giggle – Marrow’s head bobbed up and down rapidly in tiny movement, and its whole skeleton shook and trembled.

“By Gamullatra’s glorious-.“

“Shut up, Gamul! Seriously, if I hear one more Gamullatra’s something or another from you, I am going to throw up right here!” Ikarius shouted.

“Young friend, I-.“

“Young? Gamul, you are barely two years older than me!”

“So? That makes you younger than me!”

“Well, maybe, but not-.”

“Guys, focus!” Catlyn interrupted before the argument could escalate. “Did the skeleton just laugh?”

“It sure looked like something you do, Catlyn, when you giggle.”

“What?” Catlyn shouted in outrage.

“Caaallnn!”

The four adventurers stood stock-still, staring at the skeleton.

Marrow stretched out an arm, pointing at Catlyn. “Caallnn.”

Catlyn backed away, tripping over her own feet, while Gamul, Ikarius, and Borgar gawked at Marrow.

“Is this for real?” Ikarius asked, pinching himself in the arm.

Marrow turned his arm to point at Borgar. “Boooggaar!”

“Booger, it called you booger,” Ikarius could not contain his mirth.

“Shut up, Ikarius,” Catlyn, Gamul, and Borgar said almost at the same time.

And then Marrow moved his arm again. The four adventurers held their breath, waiting who he would identify next… and were stupefied when Marrow pointed at himself. “Marrow.”