There was a question that so many people never bothered to ask, and those that did, usually gave the wrong answer to. “Is this person or situation bothering me, or am I being bothered by it?” Those skeletons weren't bothering me. I was bothered by them, but if I didn't go over there and dump waste there, we wouldn't have met. They did nothing to me. I felt uncomfortable, but not because of what they did, simply because of how I felt with no action on their part being to blame.

It was like someone in a show I once watched said. It was something like 'If only we hadn't flown penguins to Pluto and then dumped oil on them, none of this would have happened”. I didn't antagonize them, probably... I say to myself without confidence. Maybe the bone dump should be the OTHER side of the forest. It was farther to the West than East, but I liked being careful.

We handed the bones to the skeletons, but didn't pull them out of the ground. Why would we? I don't know why they were there or what they were doing, but I could clearly see some sort of signs of civilization down there. They were supposed to be down there, I guess. After unpacking we headed back. The centipedes came out of no where again at night, but nothing really happened in the daytime, surprisingly.

It was a large annoyance, but getting rid of the rest of the bones was necessary. I had avoided it for so long, that I should just plain do it now, so I took a couple more drider with me to get rid of everything- it was kind of starting to get gross around here. Well, to others it would be, I guess. The bones weren't old, no where near it, so they still smelled like bones instead of like dirt. If they were old bones that had an old bone smell, then it could work as fun decoration.

A few days later, after we finally got to the Western edge of the forest, there was the other rolled hill I had seen before. There were broken roots sticking out of this one in a bunch of places... I wondered what they belonged to, since there didn't seem to be anything with a similar color of bark in the area.

Using some of the mammoth bones we didn't dump in the other direction, we started digging into the hill. After only a couple of feet, I hit something hard. I thought it was a rock at first, then a boulder. The sun's overhead direction changing taught me that no, the shadow created by the dirt over the rock was keeping me from seeing what it was- it was a rock wall. A hidden wall made of stacked stone, buried under a hill.

“Okay everyone. Let's figure out where this wall... there should be an opening somewhere. Either that or we'll just make one.”

Djraine was first to run around the hill, not bothering to check each inch to find an opening. She was of course right, and a hole was found. It didn't look like it was supposed to be a hole- something must have caused it a long time ago but it got covered in dirt, I guess.

There were skeletons walking around in there too, but they weren't humanoid. There were little skeletal birds the size of sparrows, and other similar-sized ones. There were a couple quadrupeds, though they didn't look like they used to be the same thing as the scalewolves were. Maybe related, but they might not be.

It made me uncomfortable, seeing such an odd thing. Skeleton zoo in a secret chamber? The other skeletons weren't dangerous, and these didn't look like anything that would have been aggressive even when they were alive, so probably even less so now. I kept everyone away and went down myself once the hole was big enough.

The animals didn't really pay me much attention, really. Moving past and over them was effortless, and beyond them was something that made much more sense than anything else did. There was a humanoid skeleton with a small crown sitting on the edge of a stone coffin, its lid broken in half, one half on the ground, the other laying against the coffin itself.

The skeleton lord was just sitting there, stroking the head of another humanoid skeleton. He didn't pet it gently, either. I watched its vertebrae between its head and collarbones slide out of place, which would have been a broken neck to something alive. I think. But then when he lifted his hand up to stroke its head again, its neckbones slid back into proper placement.

Needless to say, it was probably a good idea I didn't fight the other skeletons- if they can fix themselves and were already dead, then I don't see how anyone could win. Maybe with hot enough fire to turn the bones to ash, or a big enough explosion or enough acid, but not conventional weaponry, and definitely not with this world's technology level.

I looked at the skeleton lord. “Hello.”

No response.

I waved at him.

Nothing.

“Hello, skeleton!”

That got its attention, but not what I was going for! It scampered on its hands and knees behind its coffin, and ducked down. I did faintly (thanks, lantern) see it put its hands over its head.

The smaller skeleton that was sitting next to it having its neck broken over and over got up after a moment, and went back there too. It stayed standing though, and only put one of its hands on what I assume was the skeleton lord's shoulder. It stood there for a few minutes, then the two of them resumed their previous positions.

I had NO IDEA what was going on, but nothing seemed aggressive, so it was probably okay to dump stuff in here, since it was just bones, and they seemed to make good use of such things. I was at least a little worried that the assholes that burned my forest and attacked my family would be turned into skeletons that could move around, but they were far enough away that it shouldn't matter.

The skeleton lord should be able to control them all, right? It should be fine. Yeah, it's fine.