Boneshaper Cult

Cult from and ancient empire, focuses on creating and improving bones

{Shape Bone}

Able to manipulate and shape bones connected to the user's body.

Kaiman’s new skill, {Shape Bone} is actually quite an improvement to his last, {Remold Bone}, the difference is quite simple, the “Remold” part in {Remold Bone} was somewhat literal, meaning it was like the bones were put into a mold and melted to fit into it, once Kaiman used the skill the bone had to take it’s new shape for him to use again, on it’s own this does not seem that bad, but now with {Shape Bone} in his bony hands {Remold Bone} seems verifiably worse, {Shape Bone} can reshape the bones without interval and in a battle milliseconds can change the outcome. The new skill also seems much more natural for the Bone Juggernaut, I watch as Kaiman leaps forward and midair fuses his digits together, all the little articulations and grooves and whatnot in his hand and arm meld together and take a new shape.

Kaiman plunges his blade arm inside a grab, piercing through it and entering another behind it. The skill also seems to be just straight up stronger, either that or Kaiman had a few less brain cells than I thought in his non-existent undead brain and didn't understand that his entire body is made out of bone, or never tried to use {Remold Bone} to make such large changes. I am going to just go with ‘stronger skill’ instead of ‘new brain cells’, though that does make me wonder if there are such skills.

His blade arm changes forms again, becoming a lance, on the inside of both crabs holes appear on the nail, which is now more of a syringe, he then pushes his necrotic mana into the crabs soft insides. Using the drones I tell him of a shrimp aiming for him, he moves the crabs in the way of the shrimp, I can see the little guy does not retreat, even though it’s too late, his little crustacean friends are already dead.

Kaiman actually takes control of the bodies and transforms them into shields, his syringe goes back into a lance form, though now it has a hole at its point.

Ohhh he is going to do something I have taught him. I quickly tell him what the drones see, trying to send the image of their visions directly, which gives me an idea for another small project.

I see holes appearing on him as his inner and darker mana comes out, it mixes with the constant miasma around him and he quickly starts pulling in more mana as his second arm fuses with his first, a large bone spike juts out, this is in fact a hammer. Miasma is really just air contaminated by necrotic energy and gaining some of its qualities.

He aims roughly and shoots his {Bone Dart}, a piece of bone flies out and misses the target, he is still learning how to shoot. He shoots again, just as the shrimp starts to sink down into the mud, this time he hits the target, the shrimp is torn apart.

These are not simple party darts, these are actual war darts, me and Kaiman are still testing it,but some of them have been two meters long, we have also tested fletchings, with this last shot being a helical fletching.

The dart shooting is quite easy, first of all {Bone Dart} already creates and propels the dart, it is quite fast but both me and Kaiman agreed that it could be faster still, Kaiman, the physical genius that he is, immediately saw that he could create a dart right as he was swinging his arms, propelling even faster I just took the process farther a bit faster then he could on his own. I showed him a quick image of the pistol shrimp snapping claws, he creates a similar thing with the bones and a dense amount of necrotic energy, snaps it into place which pushes the energy out propelling the dart.

I have also tried imparting some magical rifling for Kaiman, I call it “rifling” but that technically is kind of wrong. It was a very old technique that I saw once on a trip, it's less of a rifling and more of a helical or spiral array inside a blowgun’s barrel, it pretty much works like rifling through, just a lot more magical. Sadly Kaiman is no Merlin, and that’s okay, he can learn at his own pace.

This does quite excite me in a way, maybe I can jump from bows and crossbows straight into guns, which is really not that difficult, I can already create some guns, is just’s the the cost doesn’t seem quite worth it for now, plus I am quite a bit more curious about the classes outside of gun people, maybe it’s the fantasy of it, back in my world you rarely ever saw people actually using stuff like blade’s, it was either magic or magic guns, I mean hell, the only people that have those long casting sticks are old men who pretend they are hundreds of thousands years old or some shit.

Wait a minute I am so dumb, using bone and the quartz I can create one of those steryotipical mage staffs. I can’t quite use wood sadly, I have been using some of the wood around the forest for some stuff, it’s just that bone is a lot more practical, specially after the skeleton mages learned how to mend it, plus the wood around here dies really easily if it’s around too much necrotic mana.

Well a bone wizard obviously needs a bone staff, the only reason living ones used wood was because wood could connect the user's mana better and make it flow faster than other materials, I do remember that you need to cut it in a certain way, something to do with the grain?.

Whatever, I kind of want to tell Kaiman to come back up, so I can take a piece of his new bone and so I can eventually recreate it, but he is having too much fun exploring his new body.

Barghest Bone

This bone still has the properties of the Barghest, it constantly produces a necrotic energy that heals the Barghest’s skin, wounds dealt by these bones take longer to heal the closer they are to user.

I have runs some quick tests and confirmed that “take longer to heal” mostly seems to mean natural healing, and I assume forms of regeneration, though I still have to test that, magical means of healing like Kaiman simply using {Remold Bone} or {Reshape Bone} seem to get past it quite easily. Though there is a change it’s wounding ability is simply necrotic aligned which makes it so Kaiman can heal more easily.

In my core room I watch closely as a few soldiers use their skills together against a few summoned imps, the imps can be quite agile and fast so this is a good exercise for them,

something interesting happens when two shields bash, or rather, squashes and imp between them, the imp explodes, that seems to be a thing for them, most things just rot and release foul smells and then give nutrients back to nature but these guys just explode in a hail of fire, like the world’s most dangerous piñata, but when they explode into the shields they left a Imp dust mark.

Imp Dust

Dust from the remains of an imp, fire resistant.

And so I am in the process of making the few shielded soldiers here coat their shields in the stuff, or most of it. I also want to try and coat an entire skeleton with the dust, I have already done something similar with quartz, the problem is making the dust from on the skeleton without breaking it too much. I am also changing them and giving them a new body, filling them with bones, these are the cream of the crop of my soldiers so they deserve it. Besides the body I have also engraved their shields with an ‘attract’ array. The array is pretty simple, it is also whats used in the sliding bone doors, when activated the array simple attracts itself coming close together, the array on the shields is a bit more sophisticated, when the shields are side by side they can basically join and be almost magnetically joined making it a tiny bit more difficult to separate them, when on opposite sides like when using {Flaking} though they attract each other right on the center, to help boost the shield bash sandwich.

The line up is three shield and spear skeletons, one of them being a Level 25 Skeleton Thorn Soldier. The other skeletons are also close enough, a single Shield Bearer, the one with the Exoskeleton skill, with two more hammer skeletons and the highest leveled thrower of the three way battle into the entrance of the greenhouse, who kept the lead and is now close to 25 too, this is the same guy that fought that fencer crab .

Near Him is a Chameleon coat, one of the special drops from the battle, and the only one which is magical, the other being simple gorilla furry capes, it has the ability to change colors like a chameleon it fits him quite well, helping him stealth around so he can throw shit around.

I could have given it to someone else but he uses it best when you consider that the skin is simply too small for my other undead, like Kaiman, Bob or Gorger, speaking of him.

Gorger is here too and of course he is eating them too, His horns are growing quite well, and I am also glad that no undead cares about smell, cause he smells strongly of sulfur, together with his natural rotten smell it is quite the combo. He is not the only one charging and looking different.

Kaiman is also starting to look different, mostly his tail is growing quite larger and thicker. I see a new group approaching, Kaiman is not alone, besides the drone skulls there are a few groups of skeletons mostly in a large circle around him, attacking and breaking some groups apart.

This new group has a good 30 or so crabnoids. I tell Kaiman what I want him to do, these are not battle plans or strategies my genius mind is giving to Kaiman, this is more like homework, or a rule of engagement?

Kaiman sprints to his new batch of opponents. A few meters in front of his enemy his body shifts, much of it going to his tail as he abruptly stops and forcefully stops and drifts on the muddy ground, spinning around and swiping his tail towards the opponents, he does not want to hit them with his tail though, instead long bone darts grow on the tail and are thrown, the tail visibly shrinks in size as the crabs are pelted with bones. Kaiman completes his spin and again runs towards his opponents, who are still stunned by the bone shower they just recieved.

Kaiman jumps and shifts mid air, and aims for the center of the cast of crabs, his body shifts again as his arms, legs and tail mass congregate in his chest, which separates into ten parts and detaches from him, falling and bonking some crabs.

His arms are now long blades of bone, he falls softly, compared to how he generally falls, much of his weight has been shed off. This is another one of the things we are training, forms, this is his fast form, although it should probably be called light form.

A crab tries to stab him, he simply counters with a slash or his own, not quite hitting the joint but close enough that his blade naturally slides to it before going for the brain. He absorbs the crab’s chitin and uses it to create a second pair of arms; the rest of the crab’s carapace is transformed into bone darts.

Soon enough only the larger bruiser types remain, Kaiman has three pairs of arms and three tails, his body shifts again, and I feel his focus heightning as his body becomes like a spider, or rather, a daddy long legs made out of bone, and with a crocodile’s face. He then shifts again his body plunges down with a impressive level of control as his legs become tentacles, or spines mimicking tentacles, his main body, where all the spines connect is a large circular thorax with his head in the middle surrounded by ribs, which all close around the crab right in the middle. His long almost starfish body reaches for all the bone pieces he dropped in the beginning of the fight and absorbs them back, in a weird sense of humor Kaiman becomes a large crab being, instead of simple crab legs all of his legs have pincers on them. The pincers then gain teeth as they feast on the remaining crabs.

By this point the crabs have stopped sending enemies to my undead force, they know I won’t go too far down their territory, plus I don’t want to expand my borders yet. Good timing too, cause my floating skulls just reported seeing… a bunch of cats appear in the lizard dungeon, meaning my trial will soon begin. Right as I tell my forces to return I see it.

Invasion Trial: The Jack Brothers

The Jack Brothers invade, defeat all of them.

However instead of appearing where the barghest did, I see them pop up right in my core floor. Well at least I was able to upgrade my soldiers.