Catlyn stared with a forlorn expression into the roiling toxic mist. The furious screeching of the rat queen echoed through the corridor, interspersed with the dull thuds of something hitting flesh repeatedly.

There was no sign of Borgar, and Catlyn tried to come to terms with the idea that she might never see him again. He was not the greatest hero out there or the most valiant fighter, but he was her friend. One of the few she had. And now he was gone. Slain by a gigantic rat in this cursed dungeon.

She would have given up the treasure they had found in the previous fight against the rats in a heartbeat if it would bring back her friend. Alas, it was too late.

Catlyn had considered throwing herself into the poisonous gas to try to save Borgar, but there was nothing she could do against that huge rat, even less so given the poor visibility and the lethal nature of the gas.

Tears started streaming down her face and, even though she intellectually knew that she should help her remaining friends get up and retreat while they still had the chance, she just could not get herself to turn around and leave.

Borgar was there, somewhere in the fog, at the mercy of a rodent from hell.

Suddenly, the screeches of the rat queen turned from furious to… to fear? Catlyn could not believe her ears. Of course, she did not really know what a scared rat sounded like compared to a furious one, but her cat heritage, minor as it was, gave her an intuitive understanding of such sounds – and it very much sounded as if the rat queen was starting to panic.

And then, a short while later, there was silence. The only movement visible was the fog drifting slowly around the area of effect of the rat queen’s ability.

Gamul and Ikarius quietly moved up to Catlyn, the only noise coming from Gamul’s rasping breathing - the remnant of the poison that had burned his lungs. Ikarius grabbed Catlyn’s shoulder with an iron grip, staring into the green cloud with burning eyes.

Abruptly, Catlyn jerked.

“Did you guys just level up as well?” she whispered with wide-open eyes.

“By Gallamutra’s ti…,” Gamul glanced at Catlyn, cleared his voice and continued. “Erm, heaving bosom, I just got to the third level!”

“Does that mean… ?” Catlyn cautiously asked.

“I think so. The rat queen just died!” Ikarius agreed, surprise clearly written on his face.

“Borgar,” Catlyn screamed immediately, hoping against reason, that he might still be alive.

Ikarius did not wait for a response, but rushed into the fog, waving his arms wildly, trying to disperse the noxious fumes.

------------------------------------------------

Marrow chewed on the brain of the big rat that had appeared out of nowhere but felt strangely unsettled. Something was different. The brain was somehow… mushy. Or perhaps not mushy. Maybe without substance was the better word. And then, to Marrow’s surprise, the brain disappeared altogether from between his jaws. This had never happened before. Was it something special about this rat? Or did something else change?

Before Marrow could further dwell on this mystery, the voice spoke to him again.

“You have killed your own familiar. As a result, you have earned the title [Bane of Familiars]. As long as you have this title, no familiar will bond with you. +20% to damage against familiars]”

“-“.

“Yes.”

“-“.

Since nothing further happened, Marrow considered what else to do. He was perfectly content just standing there too, but he noticed the gigantic rat queen in front of him and its huge head. After a brief moment of contemplation, a feat in and by itself, Marrow decided that he had never tried to eat a gigantic rat brain. Maybe it was different from the smallish ones. And even if not… a brain was a brain, and it brought messages.

As he stepped through the remaining green fog toward the head of the rat queen, he stumbled over the prone form of Borgar, still laying on the floor. At first, Marrow ignored him and continued toward the furry mass of the giant rodent in front of him. But then he stopped and looked once more at Borgar, in particular, his head.

What if… what if Borgar’s head would produce a message?

Marrow had considered that possibility once before, but at the time, the four strange creatures had provided so much other interesting stuff that it seemed better to simply watch them and see what happened. But now Borgar was laying on the floor and not really doing anything. So maybe now was the time to see what happened if he munched on his brain.

Rat queen or Borgar? For a moment, Marrow was indecisive.

And then he bent down and spread his jaws impossibly wide to encompass Borgar’s head and bit with all his force.

But contrary to the spider and even the rats, Borgar’s head seemed unnaturally hard. Which already was an interesting finding by itself.

Marrow ground his jaw back and forth but still could not crack the skull. Something was moving, though, and, reluctantly, he relaxed his bite. With a clang, some type of outer shell on top of Borgar’s head fell down and rolled to the side - something he had noticed on Borgar’s head but had thought of as skin or bone.

With that out of the way, Marrow bent down and lifted Borgar’s shoulders off the ground. Not because he was worried about Borgar’s comfort or anything, but he thought it might make it easier to bite into his skull. Just when he spread his jaws wide and put them partially around Borgar’s head, he heard Catlyn shouting Borgar’s name and noticed something running through the fog toward him.

Curious, Marrow looked up to see whether it might be another rat or something different. And then Ikarius emerged from the fog, followed by Catlyn. They noticed Marrow standing behind Borgar having his shoulders lifted off the ground and immediately rushed toward his legs, each one struggling to raise one of them.

Marrow wondered what was going on.

Did they want to bite into the foot?

Based on his previous experiment, a foot or leg would not provide any voices, though.

But maybe there was something that he did not know about.

And then they started pulling Borgar away from him, which Marrow had not expected. He stumbled after them for a few steps, holding on to Borgar, but, out of balance as he was, not able to pull in the opposite direction.

He was not quite enraged about their behavior, as being enraged was a foreign concept, one that required more emotions than Marrow really possessed. But he was… annoyed.

Before he could think of an appropriate response, they came out of the green fog, and Catlyn and Ikarius dropped Borgar to the ground, coughing violently. Immediately, Gamul rushed forward and put his hands on Borgar’s body, shouting some unintelligible things. And, to Marrow’s surprise, Gamul’s hands started glowing in a soft, silvery light that seemed to sink into Borgar’s flesh.

Marrow did not know what was happening, but it was interesting enough to just stand back and observe for the time being. The first change Marrow noticed was that the beautiful pale sheen of Borgar’s skin reverted back to the more brownish coppery tone he usually had. A marked reduction in looks, as far as Marrow was concerned – not that it mattered all that much to him.

A few seconds later, Borgar started coughing and wheezing, and before Marrow could react, Catlyn jumped at him and hugged him tightly.

“Thank you for saving him. Thank you so much,” she sobbed into his collarbone.

As usual, Marrow was not quite sure how to respond. At first, he had thought that it was some sort of attack, and was ready to defend himself, but then he realized that it had to be something else. After all, why would someone put arms around him and get really close yet fail to restrain his jaws or arms?

So perhaps it was what Catlyn had done with Ikarius before when they had found those little colorful stones. And since Ikarius had put his arms around Catlyn in response, Marrow did so too. Maybe it was another pattern to discover.

Before he could analyze if there was any significance to all of this, Catlyn already had disentangled herself from his arms and looked up at him with her tear-filled blue eyes.

“You are the best, Marrow.”

“.”

“Yes.”

Marrow said the only thing that he could think of because he had no idea what she was talking about.

“Did you defeat the rat queen all by yourself.”

“Yes.”

“How did you do that?” Ikarius asked, joining the conversation while Gamul kept on casting healing spells on Borgar.

Marrow’s head swiveled around to look at Ikarius.

“Yes.”

Somewhat confused, Ikarius looked at Catlyn, but she only shrugged her shoulders.

“Well, it does not matter. We are really glad that we found you here in the dungeon. You have already saved us three times now,” Ikarius continued.

“Yes.”

Marrow realized that the opportunity for him to try Borgar’s brain had passed. For some reason, the others were not keen on chewing on his brain and instead were fussing all over him. At first, he had thought that perhaps it was a territorial thing… like Borgar was their property to do with whatever they wanted, and that is why they had pulled it away from him… but the longer he watched, the more he suspected that they were doing something else.

He contemplated cracking his skull anyway but instinctively knew that doing so would bring him in conflict with the others. Not that he was afraid, but he realized that he actually liked being with them and that would change if they were all dead.

So he turned around and walked back to the giant rat that now was fully visible as the green fog had finally begun to dissipate.

Once there, he started gnawing through the massive skull of the creature. Initially, it was slow going, but once he realized that some gnawing interspersed with powerful punches allowed him to crack the head and then bite through the softened bone barrier. And eventually, he reached the squishy, soft, white-pink interior.

The next problem was that the brain of the rat was so big that Marrow could not possibly chew on all of it at once. So Marrow punched his fist inside of the gooey mass and shoveled it into his mouth by the handful. Most of it dropped to the floor and the rest cascaded down his bony jaw and ribcage in a moderately disturbing waterfall of brain matter.

“Do you want to try to absorb [Rat Queen] brain? Chance of success: 10 percent.”

“Yes.”

“No experience penalty due to the boss class of [Rat Queen]. You choose to increase your potential for future growth by absorbing a skill from a [Rat Queen]. Attempt: Failed!”

“Yes.”

“.”

Nothing happened, and Marrow slowly started to see a pattern. Sometimes “yes” produced follow-up messages, and sometimes it did not. And he began to recognize the respective types of messages. But it also suddenly made him realize that understanding more of the words would be very good because maybe, just maybe, there was meaning there and understanding that meaning would allow him to make better responses, which just may lead to follow-up messages.

And Catlyn, Gamul, Ikarius, and even Borgar seemed to know a lot of words. Which… made them useful?

Up until then, Marrow had classified things and creatures as either providing some sort of novel experience, voices being especially valuable for some reason, or not. And he had behaved accordingly – disinterested in some things, and in pursuit of those new experiences for the others.

Now he started to realize that maybe he could use various approaches to increase his knowledge, and hence the supply for novel experiences. He had done some before, with his experiments and effort to recognize patterns. But all of that had been based on his own efforts to gain insights. He realized that perhaps the group could… teach him something.

He was not sure why they would do that, but they had already talked to him for no discernable reason, and then even jumped onto him and grabbed him around his ribcage, which Marrow was still a bit puzzled about. So maybe they would teach him as well if he just stayed close to them.

Mind made up, he turned around to walk back to the group, but immediately stopped when he saw Ikarius and Catlyn stand there with open mouth, staring at him.

------------------------------------------------

The green fog had cleared quite quickly, and, once it was entirely dissipated, Catlyn and Ikarius stepped closer to the rat carcass to inspect the monster that had almost been their end.

And then they noticed what Marrow was doing – he was thrusting his bony arms into the smashed head of the rat and stuffed his jaw full of brain goop.

“Ewww, is… is that normal behavior for a skeleton?” Catlyn asked Ikarius with a slight tremor in her voice.

“I am not sure,” Ikarius responded uncertainly. “I fail to see any reason for him doing that. I mean, he cannot swallow anything. Heck, anything he stuffs into his jaws will just drop down onto his ribcage.”

Catlyn had to fight hard to keep her food down. It wasn’t that she was a delicate flower like some ladies of the nobility, and she had seen already a few battles with bloody carcasses and wounded people. But this was way more disgusting than any of that.

And then Marrow suddenly turned his head and stared right at them.

Even though Catlyn knew that he was a friendly and helpful skeleton, weird as that was, he was still an alien entity in some sense. And sometimes it showed.

“Hey Catlyn, did you notice Borgar’s helmet?” Ikarius interrupted her contemplation.

“His stinky leather cap? What about it?”

“Well, look at it. That ‘stinky cap’ might have just saved his life. Do you see those indents all around the steel frame? And how it is all scraped up? That rat queen must have chewed on it trying to crack Borgar’s skull,” Ikarius speculated wistfully.

“Oh no, he is never going to let me live that one down, after all the time I have complained about it,” Catlyn whined.

“True enough. But you know Borgar, we’ll find something else to tease him with soon enough.”

While talking, Ikarius busily moved around searching the area around the rat queen.

“Look at that, Catlyn,” Ikarius shouted in triumph. “This is some type of high grade, or perhaps even magical dagger. And there is more!”

Catlyn immediately forgot everything else and rushed forward to join Ikarius in his search.

“I found a wand,” Catlyn shrieked almost immediately. “And look there some potions. Are those…?”

“Yup, two high-quality healing potions and three mana potions!”

Catlyn started giggling almost uncontrollably, until she felt Marrow’s eyes on her, which made her rather self-conscious. Not that it helped. It only changed the giggling to her usual snorting a lot faster, which, arguably, was even worse. But then she noticed that Marrow was looking at all the treasures they had been finding, and that sobered her up rapidly.

“Uhm, Ikarius, so… is it finders keepers or whoever kills the monster gets the treasure?”

“Whoever kills the monster, of course, or contributes significantly to the fight somehow,” Ikarius immediately responded, almost sounding offended at the idea of the distribution of treasures based on finding monster drops fastest. “Otherwise, it would create all kinds of chaos in dungeon explorations and battles. Why?”

“Well,” Catlyn swallowed nervously. “Marrow is watching us… and… I mean, I don’t think we contributed much to the fight…”

“Darn, you are right,” Ikarius moaned. “I got carried away. Well, might as well continue and collect it all. I am curious about what else there is.”

It turned out that the only other thing that they found was a sword that was, oddly enough, quite rusty. Ikarius debated to just leave it where it was, but in the end, pulled it out from underneath the rat’s carcass and added it to the small pile of monster drops.

Marrow, meanwhile, stood uncomfortably close to them, watching them intently. More than once, Catlyn glanced at him in some discomfort, until she finally could not contain herself any longer.

“Marrow, do you have to stand that close to us?”

“Yes.”

“But why, do you not trust us? Do you think that we might take away some of your treasure?”

“Yes.”

“Hey, that is not nice!” Caltyn shouted indignantly. “We are nice and honest people!”

“Yes.”

“What? So if you think we are nice and honest, why then this distrust? I don’t get it,” Catlyn complained.

“Yes.”

Ikarius looked on with a flabbergasted expression on his face. Something was weird. It was as if…

“Catlyn, let me try something.”

“Marrow, can we have some of the treasure.”

“Yes.”

“What?” Catlyn shouted partly outraged, partly delighted. “You just told me you don’t trust us.”

“Yes.”

“Catlyn, I think I know what is going on. Let me demonstrate.”

“Marrow, do you know my name?”

“Yes.”

“Marrow, did you forget my name?”

“Yes.”

“Do you get it now, Catlyn?” Ikarius asked with a smug expression.

“No!?” Caltyn shrugged with a bewildered expression on her face. “That does not make any sense.”

“Exactly! I don’t think Marrow has any idea what we are talking about. Did you realize that the only thing he ever says is “yes”?”

“That… oh my, I think you are right. But he is not stupid, is he? He just does not understand the words, I think.”

------------------------------------------------

A short while later, Catlyn and Ikarius had apprised Gamul and the recovering Brogar of what they had learned. They stared pensively at the small pile of treasure while eyeing Marrow contemplatively.

“So, what should we do?” Gamul asked. “Just take the treasure? Or leave it and see if Marrow picks it up?”

Instead of answering, Ikarius bent down and picked up one of the health potions. He then offered the potion to Marrow and waited for him to move. Marrow, however, just stared at him without moving even a single finger bone. So Ikarius moved as if giving the potion to Gamul and watched Marrow’s face carefully.

“He does not seem interested in the health potions,” Ikarius said with more confidence than he felt. “Let’s just divvy them up between Borgar and Gamul.”

Ikarius proceeded then with the mana potions, which got handed to Gamul and Catlyn, the wand, which Catlyn grabbed almost possessively, and the dagger which Ikarius kept to himself.

As the adventurers had guessed, Marrow had no interest in any of the items. But when it came to the rusty sword… somehow it was calling to Marrow. He did not know why, but there was something about it that just felt right. So while the heroes admired their fancy new gear, he bent down and picked up the sword, which no one had even bothered to take a closer look at. And he felt oddly complete. A void that he had not even been aware of was filled.

“So what is the plan now?” Gamul asked after a short while.

“What, you feel antsy to move around?” Borgar asked with a wheezing voice that still showed the damage the poison had done to his lungs and throat.

“Well, not all of us like to sit on their ass the whole day,” Gamul quipped slightly annoyed.

“Why don’t you take another few deep breaths of poison gas and then we can talk some more, little man,” Borgar shot back.

“Little man? At least, all the rest of me is big, unlike for some other people here!”

“Oh, is that so? I have heard different!”

Gamul started turning slightly red. “What? From who?”

“Well, you know, that la-“

“Guys! Stop it,” Catlyn shouted exasperated. “That kind of argument is not helping right now.”

“Oh, I see how it is,” Gamul grumbled. “Are you then that “la-“ he is talking about? Huh? Something going on behind my back?”

“Argh! Stop it!” Catlyn screamed. “Don’t drag me into this. If you want to have a pissing contest or compare your pitiful man-bits, be my guest, but only once we are out of this dungeon, you bloody morons!”

“Pitiful man-bits?” Borgar and Gamul shouted almost simultaneously, outraged.

Marrow meanwhile watched the spectacle with obvious interest. As usual, he had no idea what was going on, but it was lively, so he did not mind.

Eventually, Ikarius decided to step in.

“We don’t have much food or water, so we need to figure out a way to get out of here. In the worst case, we can eat dungeon creatures for food, but unless we find a source for water we will perish soon,” he stated in an almost disinterested tone, which immediately silenced the rest of the group.

“Shit, you are right, Ikarius,” Gamul grumbled. “And now that you mention food, I am getting hungry. Does anyone have any food left?”

Glumly, each of the other shook their head. They did have some emergency rations, but that was about it.

“Don’t most dungeons have like safe zones where there is at least water?” Catlyn asked.

“Some do,” Ikarius responded. “But certainly not all of them, so we cannot rely on that.”

“So what are we waiting for then?” Gamul asked. “Let’s get searching for that rat-tunnel as we had planned earlier.”

It did not take the group very long to figure out how the rats had entered the prison area – there was a hole in the corner of one of the rooms that opened up into a tunnel leading down.

The group stopped at the entrance to the tunnel, and Gamul signaled the others to be quiet. Some faint noise that sounded suspiciously like fighting was clearly audible in the silence.

“What should we do,” Borgar asked with a slight quaver in his voice.

“It can’t be helped,” Gamul grumbled. “We need to move on and find another way out… unless you prefer fighting that Shadow-Prowler!?”

“But what if there is even worse down there?” Catlyn whimpered.

“Well, as I see it,” Ikarius argued with his infuriatingly reasonable voice. “There is certain doom fighting against the Shadow-Prowler, and there is an only possible disaster waiting down below.”

After a moment of hesitation, the group, including Marrow, who just followed the others, descended into the dungeon.