《Lord of the Night》The First King Chapter 4
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Two bodies, less than five meters away from each other, lie on the soft dirt. I feel nothing for their deaths. Enough of my memories have returned, for me to know that I am not supposed to hold life in so little regard. Maybe something changed in the way I think, or maybe it is that just skeletons have no love for life; they are after all skeletons. My body is no longer human, I can accept that, but my soul and my consciousness still is.
That really plagued my thoughts for several minutes, as I lie between the dead bodies, so I can just relax and clear my thoughts . The night is brightly lit and the sky is amazing. Stars of all colours fills the night sky, looks like someone used their brush to slash dots of paint all over, the result of which is this beautifully lush night sky. The clouds look normal, no different that the clouds on Earth: puffy white with unpredictable shapes. One of the clouds looks like a bunny. What strikes me the most, are the two moons. One regular size moon, looking just like the one back on Earth, and right next to it, is a much smaller moon of the same bright yellow color.
What is better than a starry night with a beautiful moon? A starry night with two beautiful moons. With much effort I stand up. What to do now? I look around for the sword that the man dropped. The slick khopesh felt well balanced in my hand. I took a few swings of it to test the sword with both my left and right hand.This will be a good replacement for my sword, which I did not find in the cave. I search the corpse, but find nothing on him but a few copper coins. It is a clear sign that this world has some sort of economy.
Seeing the fully clothed man made me feel naked. You have very little to hide if you are a skeleton, but for me it was not about hiding anything. Wearing clothes seems natural. To be more specific: it made me feel human. If I need anything right now, it is to feel human again. I begin to strip the man. I look at the clothes laid on the ground: a pair of brown leather boots, a tattered black cloak, a thick belt, a white shirt, and black leather pants.
I put the boots on first, pulling the laces tightly so they wrap nicely around my bony feet. The belt is really important, in order to make this possible, or the pants would slide off in no time. The belt also serves as a sheath for the khopesh. I did not have any problems with the shirt, and the cloak suited me perfectly. I left the hood of the cloak down.
I look up at the sky, which is still pretty dark. I am not sure how long the night will last, but I have been thinking of a way to avoid the sun. I try to move around in the clothes, but I feel restrained. I guess this is a bad idea. I remove the shirt, which took more effort than I thought it would. I still did not feel right. I remove the pants next, and I feel much better. I will probably keep getting into fights, as long as souls are my source of food. My exposed ribcage and skull will help scare the lights out of anyone, making killing much easier.
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I move the bodies to align with the location that I came from, in order to be sure of the way to return I am curious about who else the dead woman was running from. Maybe I can find some sort of human civilization. I cannot even talk, so they would see a skeleton and probably think I am there to kill them. Which, given my current track record of encounters with humans, is about right. I cannot hold it against them.
I begin to look for tracks in the dirt, in order to get an idea of where the man came from. I am no tracker, so it took an embarrassing amount of time to locate a single footprint. I hope to trigger some memories of tracking, by looking at the footprint for several minutes. However, nothing happens. I simply do not know enough to form any reasoning behind how, or why, these memories appear. Also, why do my bones hold together and move like I have cartilage tissue? It is really odd. All these things are happening without reason. There has to be some scientific reason behind why my body is being held together.
Hmm...my bones behave like I have a living breathing body? Interesting. Does that also mean that it reacts like a living breathing body would? Well then let's see, I have all this energy in my reservoir, might as well put it to use.
I sit down on the ground, then move my left hand in front my face. What I am looking at is not good; the two bones that were connected to my wrist, one of them is sliced straight through, the other bone is cracked. My arm would fall off if I swing it too hard. That does not sit well with me.
I start to draw energy from my reservoir. It feels like breathing. I may have drawn more energy than I need for the weaving. I will have to give some thought to experimenting with this too, so I will not waste energy in the future.
I weave the sub threads and connect them together to form a bone thread. I follow up with the repair thread and wrap both threads with the stop thread. I unleash the weaving, and allowed the spell to enter the physically realm. I am correct about using more energy than I need. The unused energy, however, is safely dissolved in the air, thanks to the stop thread. I watch as my arm begin to glow a luminescent blue. I look at my arm, still fascinated, as the bone connects itself back, and the cracked part of the bone mends itself.
I have my own little victory laugh inside my head.
Now let's get back to following these footprints in the dirt. The dead bandit did a lot of twist and turns in his attempt to sneak up on me. I feel honoured that he saw me as such a threat. The bandit first entered the clearing in a straight-line, relative to where I first met with the running woman. I keep walking forward, hoping to meet with others with similar morals as this bandit here. You can never have enough souls. The woman was most likely too scared to think, and simply choose to run in one direction. I can tell from the footprints I find. It made following her tracks easier.
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I begin my journey of curiosity. Onwards to discover, chart new lands, and meet new people. I will try my best not to kill anyone that I do not have to, keyword is: try. I am starting to feel bad about breaking the poor lady’s neck, she was after all just trying to escape. I do not remember being this easily triggered, certainly never to the extent of killing. Despite the fact that I cannot remember huge portions of my life, I knew I was not this sort of person back on Earth. I want to know why I am here in the first place, and why I have such a strong feeling that I must stay.
I did not have to walk far, the light of the dancing flames guided me towards the camp like a beacon. As I got closer, I crouched down, and was pleased at how small I could make myself. I shift behind a thick log, holding onto the trunk with both my hands. I elevate my head slowly then took a look around the campfire.
The first thing I notice, mostly because of the noise, was a whimpering boy. He looks no older than ten years old, maybe even a bit younger. What stood out to me, is the young boy’s grey hair, well more silver than grey, shining in the bright moonlight. The boy's clothes are in a mess, and he is bleeding from a long gash on his right cheek,starting from just above his lip and ending right below the eyes. He is also tied down by thick ropes that go around a tall tree, as is his upper body and legs.
A wagon is parked a slight distance away from the campfire itself. Crates are unpacked and stacked by the wheels. Wooden kegs stands atop the stacked crates. I watch and wait while the bandits talk. I count three of them in all. They must have been drinking, because an empty keg is being tossed aside in favour of a full one.
“What’s taking the fool so long! Should be here with thaa bitch by now, my cock is hard just thinking of thaa ass “One of the bandits blurt out, as he gulped down another mug of whatever alcohol was in the keg.
“Yuh-yuh going to wait you fucker, I got dee longest stick! “Another one said as he buttoned his pants up, just having taken a piss by a tree. The same one the boy was tied too.
“Both of you morons shut the fuck up, and stop drinking the damn wine! Listen“, The man took a deep breath, trying to calm himself, “There is good fabric here, a lot of furs that we can sell. See that boy there? He may have some rich daddy, and I'm sure we can sell the lass Zayzle brings back. That's enough coin for a month of whores, but-”
I am trying to get closer, to hear what is being said, since the conversation is really interesting so far. Unfortunately, I disturbed an iguana nearby. The iguana runs through layers of leaves just to escape me. Damn. The guy is starting to walk this way. I look for which direction to run in. Should I run though? I mean, well, I want their souls. Souls are always good.
I could just kill them, since it is the human thing to do. It could be argued that those bandits were monsters. I mean, back on Earth they would have gotten a death sentence in some countries. Could it be that doing more humane things cause me to remember important memories of my past or from other souls? It was worth a shot. Maybe killing them will make me feel better. I still had some regret for killing the woman. I could also save the boy? That seems like it would be worth the most human points, if I want to get a new memory.
I look around for a place to go. I smile mentally as I look at the log. This is going to be good.
“Yuh worry too much Gage, it's probably just a lizard or sumfthing “The man, who had just finishing taking a piss, said as he fills his mug with wine.
The man looked back at the two other bandits, having just walked around the large log twice.
I reach out slowly with both hands from inside the hollowed log, then, with quick movements, I grab the man's foot and pull hard. He hit the forest floor with a heavy thud while screaming. I pull him down halfway into the log. His eyes meets my glowing blue ones, and his scream intensifies, but it soon turned into a gurgle as my khopesh slid slowly under his jaw, through his mouth, and into the brain.
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