My name Laura's skeleton has really been causing me problems i have got to fix it and soon, I am having to hide from the good paladins while me hand regrows. I know from Ronan that there are units of Paladins scouring the area where the black market was held. They are all looking to kill me for the glory of the gods of good. Since my name is Laura's skeleton someone most likely Tony has pointed them in Laura's direction. The story of the insane bloody little girl has spread. She is famous

her infamy rating has not gone up much but mine has a bit. That does not mean the story of a blood drenched necromancer has not spread. Laura's name is being used to scare little children

Still Ronan has proven his experiencing yet again. He has me training up new minions. They are a tough lot. I particularly like stone the dark priest and potential sorcerer Ronan picked out. As my experiments with gruel did not go well. I decided i will not tell the new recruits they are eating spiders and giant leeches. Still why the giant spider head freaked Elizabeth out like that i do not know. The monster training manual mentioned they helped to get beings who lacked certain vitamin back in shape.

Other than the humans annoying need to sleep. They were doing quite well. My hive mind allows me to keep them going to just the brink of insanity or going beserk. I am learning all the time now also. I have discovered that Laura can be possessed i can enter her body and eat. I discovered food is so good. I love eating threw Laura. Still I see now why my recruits do not like my gruel. Well tough luck on them. It is cheap and they need all need a lot of food with the training i am making them endure. I actually had to slow down yesterday because one on my recruits was about to go into a murderous rage. My hive mind ability showed her rage meter hitting critical. When it comes to a fight i am sticking her on the front lines. In her beserk state she will sweep threw the enemy.

I sat on a rock and felt my mind enter Laura's as my recruit Stone was grabbed by a skeleton. He twisted and smashed the skeleton into the wall. Using hive mind i checked his status.

This being is ignoring pain due to broken finger. Beserk ability is not active. Finger is healing due to presence of cursed ring. Experience is being gained with multiplier * 2 this being is close to a new level.

This was good so far no one had evolved yet but if i kept on the pressure i could have them hit level 100 in a year or so. Or course i should be level 300 by then. The training had not leveled me up much but i getting a better grasp of my magic. I felt Ronan walked into the training camp and he approached me.

Ronan was happy “That black goo you said increased magic regeneration actually did what you said it would do. Your willing to share the recipe?” “Boiling them?”

I pointed at a skeleton which being ordered into combat by one of my trainees“This way for a fight to the death. There is a weapon below you. If you wish you may pick it up. Step forward and if you want to you can avoid the fighting circle and read this magic book instead or play cards.”I turned to Ronan humans seem to like it when you looked at them while sending out my thoughts

Ronan watched Stone get up stop panting and rip the skeleton apart with pure brute strength. “Wow those recruits have really improved. And Laura ability to create scrolls is useful. We will have a lot to go around.” I nodded

I lead Ronan to the pool veronica had created. In the pool a skeleton fish swam around. Where its belly should be was a bag of air. Ronan stared in amazement. “That is amazing a skeleton that can swim.” I nodded Ronan shook his head “Breaking that other ones jaw has already gotten you results. Wait for the time being”

From stone Letter home.

Dear mother,

As i do not know when i can send this letter home I will write a series and send them all at the same time. We have moved to a new hidden base. The skeleton has become a even scarier trainer. One of my fellow trainees told me he saw it get into a argument with a necromancer yesterday.

He told me a female apprentice necromancer had brought the skeleton a idea for using skeleton monkeys to tie the strips of cloth to the newly summoned giant skeletons. Her boss a necromancer named Simon told the skeleton he was a paid member of the guild. He had rights as a guild member and he was not letting the apprentice do something he had a right to be paid for. The skeleton asked him to leave. When he said he wanted double time for teaching the apprentice how to summon a non human skeleton and the bonuses he was due. Laura skeleton asked him to leave or it would stuff a rat down his throat.

At this point Simon threatened the skeleton. My fellow trainee was not sure what he said but Laura skeleton tried to stuff a live rat down Simon s throat. He did not manage it but he broke Simon's jaw in three places trying. Then he asked the apprentice necromancer why Simon was not moving. Apparently the skeleton did not grasp that Simon had fainted with the pain. As he does not feel pain he could not grasp what it was. Everyone trained extra hard that day. I could see the terror in there eyes.

All of my fellow trainees are really working like dogs as am I. It is getting easier for me at least. Some of the others are kind of old. They are doing the training and seem grateful. I asked one and he told me dark paladins have trouble finding good trainers. Better a couple of months of hell than a sword in the gut. When he said months i felt a shiver of cold go down my spine. I might be longer than the two extra weeks i had signed up for.

I am developing muscles and body mass. The ring has really helped. While there used only be me and one other guy with twelve girls now there are a lot of older men. The skeleton noticed that the old men do not want to be seen as weaker than the ladies. He has us all race the girls with us in armour. I swear some of the older men almost had heart attacks trying to stay ahead of the girls.

I would love to talk to the girls but the skeleton never misses a thing. If i get distracted it comes over to un-distract me. It does this mostly by forcing me to do pushups until my arms fell like they are going to fall off. I think it lets the older men talk to the girls when they are tired so they will pretend not to be. I will write more next week

From stone Letter home. 2

Dear mother,

i know you will be getting this letter with the others. My week has actually been fun. Laura's skeleton arm regrew almost over night. He has been using one made of ice. But suddenly he had a new black one with red crystal vein like all over his arm. It looks really freaky. And i swear the skeletons eyes have been glowing blue recently. Ronan came over to borrow the ring he wants to develop the iron stomach skill. He asked us to show Laura's skeleton how to play cards.

We were forced into our usual routine when i noticed the others looked worried. They were worried because Ronan was a hard task master. With a new quest coming up the skeleton was proving a very good trainer. So why were we teaching a skeleton how to play cards? I have got to say the skeleton learned cards almost at once. As it was a skeleton construct its memory is amazing.

I learned a lot of new things this week. The skeleton managed to drill silent spells into my head. It told a group of about five of us we was going to need to use a basic ward to keep off the bees. Then it cast a silence spell around us. After a hour of practice it unleashed the bees. My ward stopped them all. Then it blew out the candles one by one. I got amazing results. The others were not so fortunate. Jessica a dark paladin recruit cast a light spell as well as the ward and the skeleton kept us there until she ran out of mana. A couple of the others dropped there ward spells when the light went out. I could hear them screaming. Still the skeleton allowed them a balm to help with the worst of the pain before sending them back to practice in the dark. Except for Jessica she had hit another student trying to escape the bees. He had dropped his ward in surprise. The skeleton gave her ointment to him. I got to teach the skeleton how to play cards.

We got some new recruits and a new trainer Lion. He really knows how to use a bow and with our increased strength we are learning fast. My boss the skeleton was in a good mood recently and gave me a nice short sword. It even has a minor enchantment on it.

Letter home from stone to his brother

Hi Brother,

i am having this letter delivered to you do not let mom see it or else. I am also having a gold coin delivered with this letter. Buy the family something nice. Things are going well in my new training. So i thought i would let you know what happen at the weekend.

The Lauras skeleton my boss told us we could have a day off. We were a little suspicious but there was booze to be had. Ronan arranged for a huge tub of water to be delivered. As the skeleton does not bath we had not been given time to bath either. We all stunk. The girls kicked us out and used all of the hot water. Still the guys were relatively clean by the time we reached the inn.

If mom finds out about his next part i swear i will tell her you like boys or goats. We entered the tavern and got drunk with the skeleton buying everyone drinks. Then it pulled out a deck of cards and started a game of cards. Lion and some guy called Eric joined in. I lost all my advance Ronan had given me as did my colleagues. Lion plucked us like chickens.

Then the girls and a couple of guys decided to go skinny dipping in the river the inn was built next to. The water was freezing but well the girls outnumbered us. Who would not go. A few minutes after we had got into the icy water. Thank you cold resistance we saw a cart arrive at the front of the inn and the skeleton walked out with lion and Eric on its shoulders. They were both drunk it tossed them into the cart and returned to the inn

Then it then tossed a bunch of drunk sailors onto the cart. The cart driven by Ronan set off back to our camp. The skeleton walked over to me and the girls and asked if our luck status had increased. I said yes straight away but a idiot next to me said no. The skeleton asked me if i wanted a advance on my pay. There were a bunch of naked girls asking for booze. What was i suppose to say. The skeleton grabbed the unfortunate dark Paladin who had said his luck had not gone up, by the neck and with a unfortunate girl who had also said her luck had not gone up. It then ran off with them on its back screaming they deserved time off and puking everywhere. Have i mentioned the skeleton is seriously strong.

The rest of the night is a drunken haze. But when i came to i was naked in the cave. The skeleton had collected me from the girls who had boozed all my gold away. So now the skeleton owns my debt and i am trapped training with the demented thing for at least six months. I found out later that Eric owes something like two years service and lion three months. There were also a bunch of idiot sailors who a Marine called Blackjack came to ransom.

That gold coin i am sending will be my last for a while but it was a hell of a night the bit i remember. Truth be told i would do the whole thing again in a heart beat. Of course next time i am not going to drink so much. I have plenty of sinning to do and doing it sober will be nice. Now all i have to do is survive the next few months.

From stone Letter home. 3

Dear Mother

Something is up i know it. A lot of the others had hangovers from last night. As i am saving my gold like you told me i avoided the debauchery in the local inn. This morning after i signed up for six months intensive training. I got to practice throwing explosive jars. These are jars with oil in them wrapped in a small scroll to detonate them. It was awesome.

I am worried we are being trained with new weapons and our equipment is being packed as we say. The boss skeleton had given us all armour piercing arrows. The only real difference between armour piercing and standard arrows it the design of there head. Still broad head arrows are used to hunt and train. These new arrows are all slightly magic and very toxic. They have been coated in basilisk venom.

I noticed the arrow heads are all teeth that have altered until they took the shape of a armour piercing arrow. Given the toxic nature of a basilisk i doubt anyone even scratched by the arrow would survive. Lion has been told to get us ready and he has. We can now shoot a person at about forty feet with accuracy.

Last night Lion and all the recruits were sent off to set down traps. We dug down and created a bunch of small holes. Then we put in a pointed stick covered it in poison and moved on to the next hole. All our stuff has been moved to a cart. We leave in the morning.

From stone Letter home. 3

Dear Mother,

I am sending a draft for enough for a dowry for perhaps two of my sisters. There is more to come. We were attacked today my share of the spoils of the fight is huge. I have decent equipment or will have decent equipment when i get it re sized.

What what i can tell Ronan leaked the location of our training ground to the good paladins. They saw us pack up and attacked early. About 270 of them made a move against us. Including all of there higher ups.

45 of them attacked at dawn with the sun at there backs. Thats when they hit the line of traps we had put up the night before. Most of them went down. They charged right onto the traps we had left out. About twenty made it threw the pits. Then the 10 skeleton archers volleyed a row of arrows at them. They went beserk at this stage charging at the skeletons. The skeletons next shots all missed as the knights had not reacted as expected. That is when the hidden skeleton archers let loose.

I was escorting our supplies with a dark paladin squire Jessica. When i saw 16 knights appear on the road before me. I had a crossbow and used it. One of the knights fell. Jessica tried a prayer but she was nervous . I pulled out a bow and three arrows hit the knights before they realized i was not as helpless as i appeared i scored two solid hits. While the knights milled around. Jessica cast enflame on her weapon. The knights had started to get ready to charge by this time . So i cast a spell my first in any serious fight. It was a exploding fire bolt.

It seemed to slowly blossom from my hands and almost gently hit the squashed knights. The fire ball killed two of the knights but the noise caused four to fall off there horses. the remaining knights threw down there arms and now i am rich. I get full twenty percent of the of the booty from the fight. Jessica gets five percent as she did not help much.

I found out later the skeleton used all sorts of dirty tricks. I missed the main engagement. But for us it was a total victory.

We got off very lightly on this skirmish. My future looks bright. The temples of good had about 400 paladin troops in the local area. A loss of three out of four of there troops. I am still adjusting to this scale of the defeat for them. Keep a look out mother if the other temples do not step the dark priesthood would be a suitable opportunity for another couple of my brothers. With the loot i have coming i might be able to buy one of them a dark paladin squireship.

One more thing mother do not boast of the gold to anyone. I fear the priests of the good gods might be looking for victims. So no boasting about what I did. I am unsure of where we more to next. It might be a while before i can send anymore letters. In truth I am worried about sending this letter. But Ronan assures me he has a iron clad system for getting the post in. I will send a big merchant letter with all my gold as soon as Ronan finds a place to sell all my extra loot. I am letting him sell all my goods as i know he will get a better deal than me on my own.

authors notes

as the last part chapter got good feed back i figured another similar chapter would not go amiss

i am thinking about a curse from the criminally insane violent god odin name used mean something similar originally.

not just insane but violently criminally insane if he does get this curse he will need to earn it somehow. Let me know what you think

i am going back the the skeleton for the next chapter but i have plans for more Laura diary. she still has to explain to her mother about the whole necromancer insane girl and cannibal skill.