Marrow was tempted to just say ‘yes,’ and see what happened. But he had started to realize that some of these questions actually required some forethought because there were patterns. And choosing better patterns just might lead to more messages later on or other things that he might like - a short while ago he had not even known that it was enjoyable to be part of a group, to have a position, a role, to belong.

So this time, he thought about his choices because he was pretty sure that this was what it was about. After all, he had recognized a few of the words, such as class, kill, levels, fight, magic, intelligence, and a few more. Not quite enough to make sense of it, but perhaps enough to discover some patterns. And he had recognized that little raising of the voice at the very end of what had been said, which indicated that he indeed had to respond something.

Marrow briefly glanced at Catlyn, but she was running around from Borgar to Ikarius and then Gamul and back again, clearly agitated. It was unclear to him why, but, then again, most things were rather unclear to him.

But maybe this was too important of a choice?

Marrow decided that he needed to find out a few more words at least to make sense of things.

“Catlyn, what is a [Killer]?”

“Marrow, is this important?”

“Yes?” Marrow responded somewhat hesitantly because he was not quite sure what ‘important’ meant.

“Ikarius is a killer!” Catlyn responded after a quick moment of contemplation. And then she mimicked stabbing someone with a dagger from behind. At least that was what Marrow thought she was trying to say.

So… he could become Ikarius! While that was intriguing, and the pale skin Ikarius had revealed made him somewhat more attractive than before, at least from Marrow’s perspective, he was not sure if he wanted that.

“What is a [Hero]?”

“You are a hero, Marrow, the way that you broke the charge of those kobolds…,” Catlyn responded distractedly.

Marrow considered the response or at least the part he had understood. So by choosing that option… he could be himself? While that was not bad, and he was perfectly fine being himself, it was also not very novel.

“What is a [Fighter]?”

“Marrow, please, I know you want to learn stuff, but I am quite busy! Can you ask me those things later? Perhaps you can just help me as well!”

There were too many words in that sentence to make any sense out of it. And it just did not have an interesting feel to it… so Marrow discarded the option immediately.

“What is a [Dark Mage]?”

“Marrow!”

Oh, so he already was a dark mage? That kind of made sense, because the voice had told him earlier that he had learned dark magic. Marrow was not sure why this was an option then, but he trusted Catlyn. It made just as much sense as the hero option, after all.

“What is a [Lich]?”

“A leech? Oh, you mean the mind-leech? A leech leeches things out of people, like blood, or, in this case, memories and emotions. How to explain… all those kobolds around us,” Catlyn nodded at the pile of kobolds with crushed heads, followed by making a sucking motion while pointing at the head of one of them, “their memories were leeched, leaving them like drooling idiots, curled in on themselves, because they did not know what to do any longer.”

Marrow paid close attention to what Catlyn was saying. She pronounced [Lich] a bit differently, but he had noticed that Ikarius had done so too. And, for that matter, all four of them frequently differed slightly in how they pronounced various words, even each other’s names. So it was just another thing to investigate at a later point. The important thing was that apparently being a [Lich] allowed him to suck something out of brains. Now that was something he could get behind because cracking skulls was not always the easiest or fastest option.

“[Lich]!” he shouted into the room, to Catlyn’s obvious annoyance.

“Choice confirmed. Before transforming into a [Lich] you receive a special skill for obtaining this skill at a level that much below level 50:

Black Ray of Death R3

Aura of the Grey Consul L1

Blood Domain R4

Soul Manipulation L2

Which skill do you want?”

“.”

“Catlyn, what do black, ray, and death mean?”

“Marrow, please, I need to snap these guys out of it. Can you ask me those questions later?”

Marrow just stared at her, unsure whether that was the explanation or more was forthcoming. It did not quite feel like an explanation, but perhaps that was because he had hardly understood a word of it.

After staring at her for a few seconds, Catlyn relented with an exasperated sigh. “Ok, fine. Black is a color, like… uhm, like this belt that I have, or the handle of my little knife. Ray is a… hmm, not sure how to explain that really. Like … whoosh!” Catyn made a quick movement with her arms from left to right, wiggling her hands in the process and making a noise to underline what was going on.

“And death, well, you are dead. Kind of. Or those kobolds are, got it?”

Marrow did not get it, in fact. The only thing he really understood was the color black. That part was easy. And it already made him decide against the skill. Black was no good. He really liked white, like his bones, and light was interesting… it fascinated him on a more primal, almost instinctual level he had found.

“What is Aura, Grey, Consul?”

“How do you come up with all these weird words?” Catlyn asked, flabbergasted. “Aura is like an aura around you, got it? Grey, look, this color here, that is kind of grey. And consul, hmm, is like someone that represents a country, I think. A type of leader, I guess. Gee, I am kinda bad explaining this stuff, huh?”

“Yes!?” Marrow said hesitantly. He knew he had been asked a question, but it was unclear to him what the exact question was or how to respond properly. And he had not understood much of the explanation either, apart from the word grey. And that was almost like black. Better than black, but not great.

“Blood, Domain?”

“Blood is this stuff here,” Catlyn pointed at the pools of blood that had accumulated around the piles of kobolds in the hallway. “Domain,… I have no idea, to be honest, sorry.”

Why would he need that squirty, squishy stuff? No, thank you. He was fine with his bony self. Which only left one option.

“Soul?”

“A soul? Well, that is a tough one. It is, like,… hmm, like something inside of people,” Catlyn pointed at her ribcage, “their spiritual self, the place that makes them what and who they are. Some archwizard has even speculated that it houses the skills and classes and even mana…, but that has never been confirmed conclusively, to my knowledge.”

At first, Marrow had thought that Catlyn was talking about the protrusions on her chest – something Marrow did not feel that he needed. But then she kept on saying stuff like spirits, skills, and classes, so it sounded important. Certainly, more important than the other skills.

“Soul Manipulation!”

“.”

“Are you sure?” The voice asked after a brief moment.

Marrow was a bit confused. Why did the voice ask him if he was Sure? He was Marrow!

“No!”

“Before transforming into a [Lich] you receive a special skill for obtaining this skill at a level that much below level 50:

Black Ray of Death R1

Aura of the Grey Consul L1

Blood Domain R4

Soul Manipulation L2

Which skill do you want?”

For some reason, the voice stressed the first three options and barely whispered the last one. But Marrow had [Ultrasonic Hearing], so it did not bother him.

“Soul Manipulation!” Marrow repeated.

“.”

With a resigned tone, the voice said: “Choice confirmed. You obtain the skill [Soul Manipulation].”

Meanwhile, after Marrow had said ‘soul manipulation’ yet again, Catlyn looked up from her efforts.

“Marrow, I just explained that to you,” Catlyn said, somewhat annoyed. “Why are you asking me all those questions anyway? Is something going on? Wait… are you… evolving? Or getting a class? That is great, Marrow!”

Catlyn started beaming at Marrow, which threw him somewhat off. Why was she contorting her face like that? Was she angry at him? Not that he really cared one way or another, but it was essential to understand those things. If he could better interpret what those facial contortions meant, he would be better able to understand creatures, he had realized. There was like a whole unspoken language there that he needed to figure out.

And then, in the middle of those crucial thoughts, something suddenly happened to Marrow. He felt his bones slightly stretch and contort, and biting-cold darkness started seeping into his body. His thoughts became blurry, and there was a pressure in the pocket-dimension that represented his brain. After some time, the weight suddenly lifted, and then there was clarity - profound, and crystal clear.

Marrow looked around, but everything still seemed the same. The kobolds were still piled on top of each other, seeping that liquid, and Catlyn was running around, trying to get Gamul to stand up, Borgar to stop crying and hugging the air, and Ikarius dressed – although none of her attempts seemed to be met with any success.

All of which meant that not that much time had passed since the changes to his body had taken effect. Speaking of, Marrow felt insights flooding his brain - a profound understanding of himself, of what he was, and what allowed him to operate. Although he could not read the runes that were carved into his bones, at least he was aware of them now. He could even surmise their primary functions – the part that allowed him to draw energy from his surrounding and recover from basic injuries over time, the runes that enabled him to think much more complex thoughts than standard skeletons, and the part that gave him the ability to level and take classes, even evolve.

And then he noticed his hand – the bones were dark. Not exactly black, but a lot darker than before, with a swirling blackness that seemed to be inside of them. It was mesmerizing in some way…. but it was DARK!

With rising panic, Marrow checked the rest of his body, and to his horror, all of it looked similar - his beautiful bleached bones had turned a sinister dark.

And then Marrow got angry. Angrier than ever before in his life, in fact. Which did not mean all that much, overall, because he had been angry only a couple of times before in his life, but this time it was serious. A wave of red-hot rage swept through Marrow, causing his bones to tremble slightly and his jaw to slightly grind back and forth, which, for Marrow, was an extraordinary display of emotion.

And he felt that he needed to… destroy something. His head swiveled around, considering potential targets for his sudden urge to hit something. Alas, it was just a dull, wide corridor with piles of dead kobolds, the group of adventurers, and walls.

Almost instinctively, Marrow raised his hand at the kobolds, and a ray of dark power poured out of his body and shot into the pile of corpses. All at once, six of the bodies started twitching, first slowly, and then more vigorously, until eventually, they managed to stand up.

One after another, they turned around and looked at Marrow, as much as they could, anyway, because Marrow’s approach to cracking skulls was not the gentlest procedure and many were missing one or more eyes.

When the corpses started standing up, Marrow had raised his sword, ready to rush forward and cut them to pieces to vent his anger. But then he paused, staring at the bones in his arm - they were back to a beautifully bleached white!

Marrow stood stock-still, trying to figure out what had happened. He had been angry… but that had happened before and had neither made dead creatures stand up nor had it changed the color of his bones. That rush of black energy, however, that had been new. So… was the blackness of his bones perhaps the black energy? If so, then releasing it to animate a dead creature, which evidently was what he had done, had drawn the energy out of his bones and therefore returned them to their former beautiful color.

Happy with his deductive reasoning and his regained bleached looks, Marrow relaxed, his anger completely evaporated.

Only to wince slightly, when his sensitive ears were exposed to an ear-shattering scream from Catlyn.

“Zombies!”

And then, in her painfully high-pitched and this time slightly trembling voice she shouted:

“Marrow, help me! We need to protect Borgar, Gamul, and Ikarius!”

Marrow understood the word protect – it was part of the standard vocabulary for skeletons after all. He just did not understand what he was supposed to protect them from. Clearly, those zombies were not attacking. In fact, they were just standing around, staring at Marrow.

And after another few seconds of hysterical screaming, Catlyn seemed to realize that as well.

“Marrow, why are they looking at you like that? And why are they just standing there? Did… did you have a hand in creating them?”

Suddenly, Catlyn’s eyes looked somewhat bigger than usual, and they were darting back and forth between the zombies and Marrow.

Marrow was sure that meant something… but, as usual, he was a tad lost on what exactly. And how was he supposed to respond? Put his arms around her? Stick his sword into her? Or stretch his lips and show his teeth, like the others sometimes did?

Marrow decided to go for the last one, but strangely enough, it seemed to have the opposite effect on Catlyn. Showing his teeth came naturally to Marrow, but perhaps the issue was that he did not have any lips and instead had wiggled his jaw back and forth as a proxy?

“Marrow, what class did you take?” Catlyn suddenly asked with eyes still stretched unusually wide.

“[Lich]” Marrow responded. He was happy that he had understood exactly what Catlyn had wanted to know. This was definitive progress.

“Leech? What kind of class is that? Or did you actually mean, …, oh no…,” Catlyn stumbled backward, a small whimper escaping from her lips.

Since Catlyn seemed to behave somewhat erratically, Marrow decided to ignore her for now. After all, he wanted to see if there were changes in his status that he could connect to his abilities.

“Status.”

Promptly the voice responded and listed all the numbers and names that apparently constituted his status.

Name: Marrow Class: Lich Type: Basic Azkera’t Skeleton

Lich special bonuses and skills: +1 Int per level; +2 mana per level; raise and control #level basic skeletons or zombies; increased dark magic affinity; increased resistance to dark magic; decreased resistance to holy magic; once a day [Shadow Spike]; once a day [Aura of Fear]; once a day [Become One with Shadows] for three seconds; successful strikes in unarmed combat cause [Weak Life-drain];

Titles: Bane of Familiars

Level: 6 Experience: 4350

Strength: 8 Stamina: ∞

Dexterity: 5 Health: 48

Constitution: 8 Mana: 144

Wisdom: 3 Divine Favor: 18

Intelligence: 22

Free Points: 0

Skills:

[Skill absorber; R4]

[Forceful Punch; C4]

[Devastating Bite; U5]

[Penetrating Stare; C3]

[Ultrasonic Hearing; U1]

[Obstinance of a Cat; U1]

[Kobold’s Sense of Smell; C3]

[Dark Magic; U1]

[Soul Manipulation; L2] – inoperable because you don’t have a soul.

Spells:

The voice had talked for a lot longer than the last time Marrow had requested his status. Which made him happy. Obviously, that was connected to the class and the skills he picked up, which further reinforced his desire to gain more of those. Was it possible to gain additional classes? He had to ask Catlyn about that.

But now he wondered if he had made the right pick for class. Maybe one of the other classes would have given him even more voice…

“Class Fighter!” Marrow said experimentally.

No response.

“Fighter!”

Yet again, no response.

Marrow concluded that it either was not possible or too complicated to figure out using trial and error. So instead of worrying about his class, he decided to further investigate his status. Many of the words he did not fully understand, but it was reasonably clear that they referred to various skills and abilities he now possessed. What those exactly did he was unsure of. For instance, while [Shadow Spike] was somewhat obvious, [Aura of Fear] was not, and neither was [Become One with Shadows], or [Weak Life-drain].

And then there was that phrase after [Soul Manipulation]… what did that mean? And what did the skill do? He did not precisely know what ‘inoperable’ meant, but overall the message seemed to be that he, apparently, did not have a soul, hence a skill that had the name ‘Soul’ in it would not work.

He had to find out more about souls… time to ask Catlyn.

Marrow swiveled his head around, trying to find her, and noticed that she was pulling Borgar away from him with all her might. Not that she had gotten far, because obviously, Borgar was a lot heavier than her.

Resolved to learn more about his skills, Marrow walked toward Catlyn, who, inexplicably, started pulling on Borgar ever more frantically.

Marrow looked around to see if there was some type of threat behind him, but there was nothing he could see, apart from those six zombies that were standing motionless to the side.

“Catlyn, what doe-”

“Stay back, Marrow! Don’t come closer!” Catlyn shrieked.

Somewhat confused, Marrow stopped and once more started looking around. Was there something that he had missed? Or perhaps Catlyn was busy with other things… she had mentioned that a few times.

In that case, he had to learn about his abilities by himself. Marrow activated [Aura of Fear] with a mental command, and he could feel some… energy radiating out from him.

Suddenly, the sobbing and muttering from Gamul, Borgar, Ikarius, and Catlyn changed to shrieking and then they started to run. Marrow immediately rushed after them, swiveling his head around to check his surrounding once more for hidden enemies that might have scared his companions. But there were only the zombies, and they just stood there quietly and still unmoving.

At first, the four intrepid heroes were pulling away from Marrow, but eventually, his tireless steps enabled him to catch up. And his presence seemed to further invigorate his companions. The closer he was, the faster they were able to run. Marrow drew some satisfaction from that fact. So perhaps the [Aura of Fear] was some type of benefit bestowed on his group, just like Gamul’s blessing that had made their weapons glow during the fight against the rats.

He still was unsure what they were running from, but the others probably knew something that he did not, so he was content to just follow after them.

The rushed along the meandering corridor for a few hundred feet, until it opened into a huge room, easily a thousand steps across, that was filled with ramshackle little huts and bustling with kobolds. They were first noticed by the guards on the makeshift walls that had been erected next to the entrance. But by the time the flabbergasted sentries could wrap their minds around the approaching group of shrieking, weaponless humanoids, one of which was naked of all things, they were already past them, descending into the village proper.

The lone skeleton that was following them almost slipped their notice until they suddenly felt more afraid than ever before in their life. The sentries dropped their weapons and, shrieking loudly, rushed after the humanoids as fast as their short legs could carry them.

The kobolds in the village looked up from their daily tasks to observe a spectacle they had never dreamed they would ever see. And then it hit them as well. Falling over in a panic, mothers dropped their babies, and rushed away, side by side with elderly kobolds using their walking sticks more vigorously than they ever had before. The heartrending wailing of the dropped babies and the screaming of the terrified kobolds and humans alerted the sentries on the other side of the village, who, weapons drawn ran into the village to find the reason for the commotion, only to be swept up in the unimaginable terror.

Soon, Marrow overtook the kobolds in their mad dash, which made them promptly turn around and run in the other direction. Once they got away far enough, their panic rapidly subsided and, scratching their heads, they wondered what had hit them – a new legend was born.

And our stalwart heroes?

They kept on running until Catlyn spotted a stone-archway with slightly glowing runes chiseled from top to bottom.

“The exit portal! Guys, turn here!” She screamed exultantly.

By then, the panic had lessened substantially, and they even started wondering why they had been afraid in the first place. Even more, Gamul, Borgar, and Ikarius began to ponder what had happened to the kobolds they had been fighting and that mind-leech – their memories were spotty at best, and it was hard to explain how they had suddenly ended up rushing helter-skelter down the corridors in abject panic, without weapons and, arguably worse, Ikarius without any clothes on.

The whole ordeal had lasted only a few minutes at most, but all four of them were winded and desperate to feel safe. As one, they turned sharply into the portal room, followed closely by Marrow. Before even considering the possible implications, Catlyn shouted exit and all five of them suddenly appeared next to a fountain – a fountain in the middle of a busy marketplace.

Catlyn almost cried in relief and started hugging the others, who were similarly rejoicing – until, that is, they started hearing the sniggers.