Elrith paced back and forth in front of her comrades. The party was standing outside of Jorteg’s Dungeon, and about to enter. However, Elrith was in a frustrated, rather perplexed mood, and her frustration revolved around Rum.

“WHY can’t you be like a normal mage!? Normal mages have spells like Fireball, Lightning Strike or Mana Shield. I know because I’ve been in parties with normal mages. THESE are the spells we bring to a dungeon! Now I admit you were not entirely useless yesterday. BUT STILL…” The Heart-Piercer seemed at a loss of words. Her mouth was agape, trying to find the words to express her feelings, but she seemed genuinely dumbfounded for a second. In an attempt to continue her rant she tried screaming:

“WHO… MAKES… A SPELL… FOR BEFRIENDING… SKELETONS!?” Elrith pulled at her own hair, as if Rum was literally driving her mad. Rum himself admitted that his arsenal of spells was a bit unconventional, but shouldn’t she be glad I made a spell that’d actually work against skeletons?

“Will the spell–” Elrith continued, while trying to act calmer and more compromising “–at least let you take control of the skeletons to use them against the other skeletons?”

Rum stroked his beard, looking into the blue thinking about the statement for a second. “No, not precisely. The point you see isn’t power, in fact I have no desire to take power over anyone, that goes against my morals! I’m seeking to liberate the skeletons! However–“ he said, as Elrith’s eyeballs were about to fall out from how intensely she stared “–there is a chance the skeletons, with the help of time, will seek to defend us against other non-liberated hostile skeletons. This is because the spell gives them a special relationship with other intelligent sentient creatures, such as us. You could say this special relationship is akin to love. And like most creatures with this capacity, I believe they will defend those they love.”

Elrith looked at Rum like he was not just an idiot, but an idiot of the highest caliber. In fact a champion of idiocy among the idiots of the world, that’s what her expression might as well have been communicating.

“YOU” she yelled in an accusatory tone, “are about to enter a dungeon! AND A DUNGEON–“ she explained in more violent yelling, “–is a literal warzone! We are LITERALLY part of an army entering into hostile territory to wage war, against the dungeon lords! And you talk about not wanting power!?” She pointed at the dungeon as if to illustrate, “Would you rather we walk into the lair of this evil dungeon lord to talk it out with his evil highness!? You don’t see the need for power in this situation? In our job here?”

Rum nervously continued to stroke his beard, feigning what he thought a real mage’s confidence would look like, while he was actually starting to feel rather stupid and nervous. But Elrith was fortunately finished. She just shook her head and turned around, looking at the dungeon entrance. She mumbled “Bony Love”, and shook her head some more. Then she turned back to her party: “Alright, enough about that! I… I’m out of yelling energy. Yesterday worked out fine, so at least this day shouldn’t work out any worse, unless we are in for some bad luck.” she looked over at Rum, as if suspecting he was hiding some. “Light the torches and let’s just get on moving. If today turns out profitable we might just call this trip to the dungeon right here, and head home with the loot. If it turns out bad we’ll stay one or two more days until we got enough valuables to sell. Everyone on board?”

The crew responded with “Aye!”, the dwarves shouting, Darmon speaking normal, and Rum hastily mumbling after everyone else had already said theirs, because he wasn’t used to this form of group reply.

The party moved into the dungeon after that, and it didn’t take them long before they came to a very familiar, and very large door.

“Oh shit” Darmon said, “the damned dungeon lord repaired the door from yesterday.”

“Hah!” Rulli commented smiling, “That man really doesn’t like us walking into his lair, does he?”

“Can we get through it today as well, the same way we did yesterday?” asked Gilda.

The door wasn’t perfectly repaired the party observed, but the hole in it after Elrith’s Mana Bomb had obviously been magically put back together, considering a weirdly chaotic melted shape for the new wood that would pretty much only be possible with magic.

“I should have another charge of Mana Bomb today. A pity I’ll have to spend it on this door though. It’s almost like the dungeon lord planned for us to waste our only offensive spell” she quickly glanced over at Rum, where her eyes held another accusation, “on opening this damn door.”

But Elrith didn’t waste more time talking. And in a repeat of yesterday’s shot: she fired a crossbow bolt filled with condensed mana that magically detonated on contact with the wood. After an explosive moment of splinters flying everywhere, a hole in the door was open for them once again. Curiously there were no skeletons though. And as the party moved further into the dungeon, back to the river and the short bridge they’d left off at last time, they still encountered no enemies of any kind. So the party just continued, onwards into new territory.

It turned out that from the mountainous space with the river, there was another tunnel which they didn’t have to walk far into before they entered a tall hallway. The tunnel opened up into some kind of main street from which multiple tunnels led into all kinds of spaces, some of which looked like carved out primitive housing, or cave-like holes into the rock. All of these holes were empty though, at least as far as the party could see just after entering this main street. That meant that they were probably in for another trap though, they could all more or less feel it, Rum included. Some of these holes and tunnels would likely contain skeletons or other enemies waiting to ambush adventuring parties.

“Look out, they could be coming from anywhere” Darmon said, his shield raised as if expecting some of the holes that were higher up to suddenly have enemies spring forth from them. These higher up holes were only reachable by what appeared to be recently made simple wooden ladders. A general type of ladder was used to bring things both across horizontal gaps, like improvised bridges, or at an incline, like improvised stairs, and of course straight up vertically like normal ladders. It was all rather scary, as they really were all up against someone whom they could by now guess was betting on a successful sneak attack. They are all thus potential targets for assassination, bringing a rapidly growing serious level of stress to each.

The party decided to take a left turn on this main street, though they could’ve just as well had taken a right. The tall hall was the beginning of something akin to a labyrinth, the shape of which vaguely resembled those yellow cheeses with holes in them. Tunnels or gaps went everywhere, and so the party decided to try and stick to this thing that looked like a main street. Or at least that was what Rum called it in his head, nobody had actually commented on what to call it. It was a piece of rocky mountain ground that seemed like someone had tried to flatten it, but only half succeeding.

As the party moved down it, Rum tried to count all the different directions enemies could come from. Something which was made rather difficult by the general darkness of the hall and limited reach of their torchlights. He started to feel a slight panic when he realized there were somewhere between 30 and 40 different tunnels and holes he could discern, and from which archers could rain down arrows or waves of skeletons with swords and spears could storm them.

“Anyone else feeling like we maybe shouldn’t be walking here?” Rum wondered nervously out loud.

“We are adventurers” Elrith responded, “it’s our job to take risks.”

“I’m just thinking” Rum insisted, “that if we suffer a sneak attack, and there are many enough skeletons, our chances of making it out alive could be dangerously slim”

Elrith was quiet for a few seconds, everyone else looking around a bit frantically as Rum had raised their personal sense of danger to a new level.

“If they are too many, we could retreat into one of the tunnels to secure our front.”

As Elrith finished that sentence, Rum suddenly heard a WOOSH sound, followed by the clacking of wood against rock. What was that!? Rum thought with alarm, and it was obvious that everyone else had heard it too as they all got slightly panicked expressions on their faces.

Rum saw Gilda walk up to a spot with her torch to pick something up. As the object was lifted into the clear torchlight Rum saw it: it was an arrow.

“ARROWS!” Darmon yelled as he too recognized it. “Everyone get near me! See if you can spot the archer!”

Everyone did as Darmon asked. Rum cast Skin Toughen on himself, and touched both of the dwarves to do the same. He was about to do it to Elrith too, but even in her fear she was quick enough to smack away his hand before he could even touch her to cast it. For the longest moment they tried to discern where the arrow had come from, but the holes around them were too dark.

Woosh! Another arrow landed close to the party, narrowly missing both Rulli and Gilda. Woosh! Woosh! Woosh! Three more arrows in quick succession. It was obvious at this point that something was building up, and the tension in the air was all-encompassing.

Then came the familiar sounds: the clacking of bony feet against rocky ground. Within a few seconds, these first few faint sounds came to reach a massive orchestra of clacking, culminating to what felt like a thunderous march. Rum turned to look in the direction he heard them from, and was just in time to spot a whole phalanx of skeletons marching out from one of the side-tunnels a bit further away. The phalanx, some 20-30 skeletons strong, had a first row of short spears, shields and sheathed swords. Two dangerous rows of extra-long halberds – part spear, part axe – followed behind the first. The sight of this many skeletons, this organized, struck terror across the party.

Elrith was right. Rum awed at the skeletons. We are in a war! Because that’s not hunting party or band of bandits; that is a battle formation!

As Rum took in this first phalanx, and feeling the dread grow in him, he saw two more phalanxes exit from two other tunnels in the same direction. As he heard more clacking coming from behind him, he turned around to see yet another two more phalanxes creeping on their rear as well. Each phalanx, though the darkness made it difficult to determine, was the same size of 20-30 skeletons equipped for fighting and tactically overcoming an army. Meanwhile, the arrows coming from above began to feel many, and Rum found himself hit in the shoulder by one, and barely dodging another. Luckily his Skin Toughen spell made it into just a little trivial wound, but as outnumbered as they were even a hundred little wounds would kill him in the end, and there were certainly enough skeletons to make that a reality.

“You know Elrith” Rum started saying hastily, “if we retreat into a tunnel right now, we might escape the rain of arrows. But if that tunnel is a dead-end, we will lose any further opportunity to escape all these ground skeletons, and I’m confident in saying we are looking at a minimum of 100 of them, possibly up to 150. What should we do?”

The Heart-Piercer responded by skull-piercing her first enemy as she perfectly sniped off a nearby skeletal archer peeking out from one of the nearby cave-like holes.

“There are three groups of enemies to our front.” she added verbally, “Two in the back, and also the tunnel we came from is in the back. We should retreat to the tunnel we came from! We’ll just have to destroy any skeletons standing in our way as we do.”

The team briefly looked at each other as they all, Rum included, understood this to be their collective plan. Rum also cast Muscles Grow on himself and considered what to do. I can’t just charge into all their spears and halberds, they could skewer me alive! Rum looked to Darmon, which was walking beside him as the entire party marched cautiously towards the two phalanxes standing between them and their retreat. Darmon has a big shield. If he used it to break part of their formation, could I get an opening to start rib cage tossing?

“Hey Darmon?” Rulli started saying from behind, and Darmon responded with a forward-focused “Aye?”

“Your shield is the only thing that can get past those spears.” Rulli pointed out, beating Rum to it, ”You have to try and break their spear wall. If we don’t break that spear wall, me and Gilda may be stabbed to death before we get up close enough to whack ‘em.”

“Alright!” Darmon said, a firm and cold-blooded determination accompanying his affirmation. He started walking faster and ahead of the rest of the party. The rain of arrows growing ever more dangerous now. Rum managed to be struck two more times while walking behind Darmon, and dodged seven arrows by what may have looked like badly improvised dance moves for an outsider. Meanwhile, Rulli and Gilda tried to keep the defenseless Elrith from being struck by arrows by using themselves as living shields, and deflecting as many incoming arrows as possible with their axes. The Heart-Piercer meanwhile managed to down 3 more skeletal archers, something which unfortunately barely made any difference to the piercing rain.

As Darmon reached the spears he sprang forward. His shield came in at an almost horizontal angle, while his short spear struck its first skull, cracking it and leaving one less skeleton among somewhere between 100 and 200 in total. Shortly after Darmon had penetrated the phalanx Rulli charged in after him. Rulli’s opening move was to latch the blade of his battleaxe against the top of a first row skeleton’s shield, then pulling the skeleton forward by its shield. The move made the skeleton stumble forward, and in this moment Rulli lifted his battleaxe and swung it diagonally into the skeleton’s skull, putting the ground force kill count at 2. As Rulli had successfully joined the fight, Gilda abandoned Elrith and ran to join the developing phalanx brawl. Passing by Rum she just yelled “Protect Elrith!” and Rum looked back at Elrith, not quite sure how he would do that. But he gave it a try.

The next two minutes Rum pushed and pulled on Elrith, to her great frustration, as he desperately tried to keep the arrows raining down on them from hitting her. Meanwhile, he was himself developing a body so filled with arrows he was starting to vaguely resemble a hedgehog. He had to take time off just to pull some of them out and attempt to heal himself, which was difficult when he was still getting new arrows lodged in him.

At the other side of the battle Darmon, Rulli and Gilda were surviving, but not doing good, as they were now surrounded by two phalanxes that were actively trying to hack halberds down on them, pierce them with short spears, or slash them with swords. And just like Rum and Elrith, these were also not spared from the rain of arrows, and while Darmon was mostly protected by his armor, Rulli and Gilda were starting to suffer from all the arrows sticking out of them. The battle was looking desperate and Rum knew he had to do something. He had to abandon Elrith before the rapidly approaching phalanxes behind them would close them off entirely.

So Rum charged, and in his charge he yelled “Body Thicken” and turned himself from a tough-skinned heap of muscle into an outright juggernaut. He flicked away the spears and the halberds as best as he could with his free torchless hand as he entered the scene and started grabbing the skeletons, one after the other. As he had done before, but now brazenly from the front, he reach in to rib cages, lifting the skeletons up, and threw them around. The initial throws disorganized the skeletons who’d been trying to besiege the trio of Rum’s comrades, but besides making a bit of chaos and taking away attention, Rum wasn’t really helping in dwindling down the skeletons’ numbers.

“We have to escape!” Rum tried yelling at the trio as they were fighting for their lives. “I’ll go get Elrith, and then you have to help me carve a path through the phalanx towards the exit!”

Rum didn’t wait for a reply and just abandoned his position to run up to Elrith, which had barely been able to down any archers as she herself was besieged by their arrows, and unlike Rum would be severely hurt if she got hit by one. As Rum came up to Elrith he just said “Sorry Elrith, but we have to leave now!” and then grabbed her, carrying her like a wooden log under his arm.

“Put me down, I have my own legs!” she complained angrily in reply, but Rum ignored her and just ran up to the phalanx. Before reaching the phalanx he managed to mumble “your legs a short” before putting her down. Elrith must’ve heard it, because in the heat of battle she managed to just look at him with an agitated dumbfound look, like he’d just told her the greatest insult. Rum didn’t have time to respond to her expression though, and just threw himself into the mix of skeletons, grabbing and throwing them left and right to make a passage. He then waved her over as the skeletonless path started to take shape. The duo soon reached the center of the skeletal force where was the rapidly tiring Darmon, Rulli and Gilda.

“We have to make a path – NOW! That way!” Rum pointed towards where they’d come from, and pulled Elrith to stand in the midst of everyone where she’d be the most safe. “Okay, Darmon protect the rear plus Elrith! Gilda, Rulli, you should help me carve the path on the front!”

As Rum grabbed his first skeleton to make the path, he glanced back quick enough to see that the three other phalanxes had arrived and that they would soon be surrounded by five phalanxes, or upwards of 100 skeletons, if he didn’t act faster. So he did, and skeletons began flying left and right at an industrious pace.

As Rum started to reach the end of the phalanxes though, he saw something curious. High above, next to a finely dark red robed skeleton with a drawn bow, there stood a tall man. He too wore a dark red robe, but this one had an exquisite design and was open at the legs where he wore black pants. He also wore black shoes and dark red gloves. By his sides, meanwhile, were at least four, but could be more, women in dark red robes and pointed hats.

Is that Jorteg? Rum allowed himself a moment of distraction, which was punished with a sharp halberd axe-blade crashing down on his neck, creating a relatively deep and blood-gushingly bad wound. Rum stumbled for a second, and blood gurglingly said the spell “Restore Body”, throwing in massive amounts of mana to close the wound quickly. Rulli, seeing the state of Rum, charged forward to push back the skeletons and give Rum a necessary moment of respite.

As Rum spat out a last remaining piece of blood from his wound, and stood up mostly healed, all of the red robed human figures except for one woman was gone. As Rum used his respite to stare at her, he saw her walking up to the finely dark red robed skeleton with its drawn bow, and she cast a spell. Is she casting it on the skeleton? No, on the bow? No… on the arrow! The arrow gleamed bright and the skeleton looked ready to fire it at their team. But who was the target? The bow skeleton let the string go and the arrow flew. Rum quickly traced its arc and it was flying against Rulli. Rum rushed to get Rulli out of the way. However, Rulli didn’t move quickly enough, and Rum got to experience the arrow pierce his own body, and straight into his lung.

The effects of having his lung pierced was immediate, as Rum started to feel strange, almost as if he wasn’t breathing properly. Actually, with a lung pierced: a person probably wouldn’t be breathing properly. He realized.

He turned to look up against the skeleton again, and was pleasantly surprised to see the skeleton fall forwards and straight down after having taken one of The Heart-Piercer’s bolts to the skull. Meanwhile, the woman in the dark red robe and pointed hat was gone.

Rum reached inside of himself with mana, highly conscious of the arrow lodged inside. Magic – there was magic seeping from the arrow into his body. What kind of magic was it? Rum couldn’t immediately tell, but as he stumbled on with the rest of the party continuing to clear the path and nearly having broken through, he tried studying the magic inside him. It was some kind of necrotic rotting magic, and it was spreading inside of him, rapidly eating at his organs.

Scared, and not knowing exactly what to do, Rum tried the only thing that he did know what to do. He moaned “Filter Body”, and tried to will the rot magic out of himself. But where was the rot magic supposed to go? Rum started to pull up his robe, and started the most bizarre sight that any of his party members must ever have witnessed on a battlefield, as Rum walked forward pissing, the piss going straight at the nearby skeletons and pretty much everyone else who were unfortunate enough to be in the half circle space in front of him, which included Rulli and Gilda. Rum would’ve preferred to just hit the ground, but it was difficult to aim with an arrow sticking through him. Unbeknownst to Rum though, the only one who noticed Rum peeing on anything and everyone was Elrith, who was so stunned and flabbergasted she had no words to comment on what was going on. She was completely unable to not gawk at it, and so for a little while no more bolts were fired from her crossbow.

Finishing up his exorcism though, Rum let his robe fall down again and decided to do something which he knew he shouldn’t be doing. It went against the number one rule about getting shot with an arrow, but he was too bothered not to do it. He condensed his mana and latched it onto the arrow inside him. He then forced the mana to push at the arrow, sending it out of him in a long painfully slow process that just as was expected made the arrowhead further cut at his insides. But when it finally fell out, and Rum dosed himself with a powerful “Restore Body”, he was able, though light-headedly so, to repair most of his internal damages. But not all the damage could be repaired, and he still felt a bit unwell. At least he was able to go on now though. Soon after the party broke through the skeleton encirclement, and they started running towards the tunnel from which they’d come, arrows flying on their heels.

As they entered the tunnel, and ran through it, coming into the space with the river and the short bridge and crossing it; Rum fell down, feeling drained, pained and light-headed. Elrith meanwhile was short on breath, and Darmon was actually pretty exhausted, his armor not made for running but to stand and to fight. Behind them the first few skeletons arrived shortly after, coming in at light jog with their short spears, shields, swords and halberds. They reformed their phalanx quickly upon entering, and together as the formidable force undeath that they were; they marched on the short bridge, filing into a narrow formation to cross it. That’s actually good. Rum observed. If they’d crossed the river in full force we’d be surrounded again. Are the skeletons configured to avoid the water?

Rum put that thought aside for now though. Instead, in spite of his sickness, he steadied himself to his feet and walked up to the exhausted Darmon. “This should give you the strength to fight” he weakly said, and put a finger under Darmon’s helmet and onto his neck, whispering “Muscles Grow”. Darmon quickly stood up straight again, as if all his stamina had been returned to him. Really though he had just been blessed with a bigger stamina pool and more fresh unused muscles. Darmon went up onto the short bridge, dropping his short spear and pulling his sword; positioning himself to defend what separated them from the great force of skeletons. Rum went up to Rulli and Gilda and gave them both “Muscles Grow” as well, and the two dwarves quickly rallied behind Darmon for one last stand. As Rum’s spell-casting duties felt like they were over, he rolled onto the ground again, unable to do much as his damaged insides continued to make him nauseous and weak.

For the next nearly 10 minutes the trio, plus Elrith firing from the back, fought off wave after wave of skeleton. But towards the end the trio began to suffer severe tiring. They’d disposed of nearly forty skeletons and had achieved supremacy of the bridge, but the skeletons just kept coming – incapable of losing morale or even tactically retreating. This whole thing was turning into a war of attrition.

“I’m running out of bolts” Elrith commented matter-of-factly. Meanwhile Darmon, Rulli and Gilda were all wheezingly exhausted.

In his near slumber Rum had been thinking about what to do during these nearly 10 minutes. Rum had cast “Clear Mind” on himself to try and overcome the light-headedness. Using his mana he had been reaching out and searching through the skeletons’ magic, and he thought he might have confirmed the possibility of an answer to the situation, an answering stemming from something he’d noticed in his studies of the skull the night before. To try and confirm his barely developed theory, he had tried analyzing and probing with his magic for something that could be done about the skeletons’ magic. And it was in these pursuits he thought he might’ve found a way to disrupt it all.

Was Rum now going to be making a spell in the midst of combat? Nooo. Rum thought, Or maybe. But this should work! Steadying himself up, Rum looked out across the small sea of skeletons on the other side of the river. He reached out with his hand towards one of them and felt its magic. He searched through it, and finding the little hole, or mechanism, that seemed to influence the skeleton’s skull to a degree somewhat more than its other magical parts; he latched onto it with his own mana.

“Mana Ghost!” he yelled. But the mana ghost created wasn’t used on the skeleton, but on himself, because as his next move, Rum pulled and squeezed at the magic in the skeleton. Within a couple of seconds, the skeleton went from standing to collapsing straight forward, its upper body becoming submerged in the river. It worked! Rum felt astonished by this desperate attempt. He quickly took the mana ghost and pulled it into his mind, where he hastily assembled a spell, just after casting a highly overcharged “Clear Mind” on himself, causing his brain to work at racing speeds. The spell, within the span of just minute, was thus stored into his mental spellbook. But what do you I call you?

Rum raised his hand again, and now just pointed it in the general direction of the mass of skeletons. He named it as he cast it, throwing a huge pile of his remaining mana into the spell:

“DISRUPT SKELETON!”

As the seconds passed, one after the other, the skeletons started to fall at a variety of angles: forward, backwards and sideways. Within a minute of channeling the spell, nearly half the remaining skeletons were dealt with. Rum fell to the ground now and really almost entered immediate unconsciousness, the nausea and mana expenditure taking a toll on him. The fighting continued though, but ever slower as Darmon, Rulli and Gilda were all spent and, despite Rum’s powerful spell, they were now on the defensive, only trying to stay alive against the still standing bundle of death-seeking reanimated bones.

“I’m out” Rum heard Elrith say after a little while, referring to her bolts. The cling and the clang continued on the bridge though. After a little while longer, Rum opened his eyes to look at the fight. Darmon was sitting exhausted on the skeletonless part of the bridge. Rulli was kneeling, exhausted, bleeding severely from his side, and dripping with sweat. He was rummaging weakly through his backpack and trying find a potion it seemed. Gilda was the only one stand, but she was pretty exhausted to, and there were still at least a dozen skeletons left.

Rum got up, and decided it was time for him to help finish this. Elrith was standing helpless next to Darmon, a short sword in her hand and the crossbow on her back. She looked like she wanted to help, but had settled for protecting Darmon, as she probably realized she’d not be of much use against skeletons who won’t go down from a simple stab at her height.

Rum shambled over to the bridge and to Gilda attempting to dodge multiple spears lunged at her. “Disrupt Skeleton!” Rum yield again, and one by one they fell, until there was just one left. This one last skeleton Rum spared intentionally. This one Rum had a special purpose for. As the skeleton stood alone, a shield and a sword in its hand, weighing its new tactic situation, Rum turned around and weakly said to the others: “Don’t kill this skeleton, okay? Leave it alone.”

Rum then shambled over to it. The skeleton charged him in return with a downwards cutting motion. As Rum was unable to dodge in his current state, he just settled for taking the sword blade into his hands and letting the skeleton slash open a small wound there. Rum was still strong though, so pushing the sword out of the way he grabbed the skeleton’s shield to bring it closer. Last he put his hand firmly against its head, ready to cast one last spell:

“Bony Love” Rum whispered at it, his eyes closed and focusing on the spell. The skeleton froze over in its movements. As Rum finished the spell he tried sitting down, but mostly he just fell hard into a sitting position. At the ground he took on a meditative resting pose, feeling thoroughly spent.

The skeleton dropped its shield and sword. It looked around for a second. Then it looked down – at Rum. It knelt down to Rum on both legs, and embraced him. Rum had barely enough energy to respond. He opened his eyes smiled, whispering weakly: “Well hello there.”

The skeleton retracted its embrace and stared wondering at Rum. Rum couldn’t do much but smile back, thinking out loud: “What should I call you?”

The skeleton didn’t respond. It had no means to respond either. Skeletons, after all, didn’t speak.

“Oh right, you don’t speak.” Rum nodded sagely. “I suppose I will have to name you then?”

The skeleton tilted its head to the side, looking deeply into Rum’s eyes. At least Rum felt sure it was doing so. Having only a couple of eye sockets from which a glimmer of blue magic shone faintly, there was only guessing to be had at where its eyes were really focused.

“What about… Rose?” Rum smiled. The skeleton pulled back and put a bony finger on its bony cheek, as if thinking, its head looking a bit down and away. Rum meanwhile watched upwards while he was thinking, mumbling to himself “Rose… Rose… Rose” as if tasting the name. “Roses are pink or red, mostly. But you are white, aren’t you?” Rum gazed into the skeleton’s eyes, “Or white-ish?” The skeleton looked at its hands, and then shrugged. Skeletons were white-ish, that was true, but the -ish part was due to the fact that they were also kind-of yellow-ish and brown-ish. Though if that was because the skeleton was just dirty, or if that was their natural color, this Rum didn’t know.

“So what about White Rose?” Rum took out his hand, grabbing the bony hand of the skeleton. “Nice to meet you, White Rose.” and Rum shook the skeleton’s hand as if they were meeting for the first time. “My name is Rum.” and he shook with the skeleton some more, the skeleton seeming very interested in the handshake; staring at it like it was the most curious thing.

“What do you think of your name, White Rose? Is it okay?” Rum whispered the question with what concern his remaining strength allowed him to express. He did not want to impose upon the skeleton a bad name, even if it couldn’t currently name itself.

The skeleton responded by shaking Rum’s hand back, rather clumsily but enthusiastically. Rum smiled warmly, “Is that a yes?” and the skeleton shook some more.

Rum laughed heartily in relief.