This door opens with a gentle push. The thin sheet slides and swivels backward in a manner, unlike any other doors Douglas has seen. He pushes a bit harder and nearly falls down the smooth ramp that slopes downwards. Going down around five metres over a length of thirty, the incline doubles back into the direction Douglas has come from.
Looking back into the hall, he sees more doors with large green arrows. Shrugging his single shoulder, he carefully steps through the door. Even though the ramp looks completely smooth, the floor is rather grippy. Holding his one hand to the wall, he makes his way down with small steps.
He finds another door at the bottom. Putting his hand to it, he finds it unmoving. It gives way for a short distance before getting stuck. Douglas realizes that something must be blocking it and tries to pull the door. His bony fingers fail to find any purchase on the smooth surface.
He slams his fist against the obstruction and sees it bouncing back a single centimetre before he topples backward. Clacking his teeth in irritation, the skeleton tries to open the door for at least an hour with little result. The door is still pristine, and Douglas’ smooth fingerbones are starting to chip when he gets an idea. The magic thing he cast in the panic caused a lot of wind to blow. It caused a lot of wind to blow towards him. His dry thoughts then reason that he only needs to cast it again, and the door will be blown open.
Now clacking his teeth in praise of his own genius, Douglas focuses on the formation in his memories. The complex circle shines brightly in his mind's eye the moment he does so. Unwilling to compromise the integrity of his repairing legs, Douglas leaves the stream of mana be. He instead takes part of the dense mana cluster in his forehead and feeds it to the formation. Holding out his hand, the effects are immediate.
Wind once again starts howling around him as a spike of rock spins itself into existence above his outstretched palm. The door flies open, flooding the skeleton with light. The light immediately changes from off-white to stark red and casts light upon another conglomeration of bones, tissue, red slime, and skin, a conglomeration that starts undulating towards Douglas.
The red light casts the thing in sharp contrast, the skulls and bones very visible under or sticking through half rotten skin. Douglas falls back on his old technique of not moving at all and pretending to be but mere bone. The spell above his hand finishes and sends a spike of stone speeding towards the undulating mass.
[ UNKNOWN lvl NAN slain; NAN xp earned ]
[ Spell Shaping lvl 5 ]
Douglas briefly wonders why he had chosen this option instead of walking back up and choosing another way down. He is then covered by masses of biological matter as the thing falls apart on top of him.
Chapter Six – Window Shopping
Douglas overlooks hell. The sight before him is rather gruesome, even the amnesiac skull has to admit that. He looks down upon a walkway eight metres wide that stretches off into the distance on both sides. Odd signs and weird stretches of stylistic text are plastered everywhere on either side of this walkway. The four floors of buildings on either side are filled to the brim with text and symbols.
Except for the fact that half of all he sees is covered in red, pulsing mucus.
He has stood here for at least an hour, trying to take it all in. The accidental murder of the flesh horror that had come through the door had left him shaken and unwilling to act. The flood of creatures that followed - dogs, finger spiders, alien limb constructs, and more - had crawled all over him but otherwise left him alone. One dog had sniffed his glowing leg bones but hadn’t started munching on them.
So when that entire mess calmed down and the last finger spider had scuttled off, Douglas had walked through the door and gazed upon the large open space. The large open space that turned out to be covered by obnoxious advertisements and biological looking matter.
Similar to the previous hallway, the large walkway has a gentle curve upwards, the high ceiling allowing him to see a few hundred metres before the bend cuts off his view. Benches and plant pots are placed at spaced intervals along with other objects that fail to spark any recognition. The word ‘mall’ floats through his white cranium, but no other information presents itself.
Large windows display all kinds of interesting things, stylish billboards advertise even more items, and Douglas really wants to go and explore. The window front Douglas has been staring at the most holds relatively few large items. These things seem like a cross between a horse and a two-wheeled vehicle. Douglas does not know what they do, but he does know he wants to ride one.
It’s just a shame the floor is covered by pulsing growths, patrolling horrors, and scuttling bugs. Bigger and stationary versions of the large horrors are scattered across the place, entire stores acting like large storage areas of biological matter, fleshy sacks bulging out of multiple floors. Areas that are clear of amalgamations are covered in goop or grime, a stark contrast to the cleanliness of the hallway above.
Looking at a particularly large dog, Douglas eyes the small blue dot at the bottom of his vision. The panic induced by the melting goo monster and the subsequent inspection by a legion of creatures had led Douglas to mentally lash out at the blue screens. The message that told him he had slain another UNKNOWN along with the NAN level and experience points had pissed the skeleton off. He had ordered the lines to go away, but the blue screens had scuttled off behind a corner of his vision instead of following his orders completely. The system seemed to have hidden, the two blue lines shrinking into a small blue dot at the bottom edge of his vision.
Douglas is feeling a bit better now that he has spent some time looking around and mentally commands the small blue dot to expand again, showing him the two lines of text he had mentally pushed away earlier.
[ Meat slime lvl 1 slain; 500 xp earned ]
[ Spell Shaping lvl 5 ]
Picking at the red flakes that are now peeling from his white bones, Douglas is pretty sure that thing isn't any form of slime. Already used to the system acting less than logical, he looks at another of the hulking collections of bone and goo. This one is busily undulating directly beneath Douglas’ spot. It’s as big as both slimes he has seen before, and he finally feels ready to test some things.
Also, his forehead feels full again, the spot his mana keeps coming from now back at full strength. Douglas stretches his single, skeletal hand downwards, aiming his palm at the shivering horror. He chooses another of the smaller spell circles at random and starts feeding it mana.
The metal walkway that Douglas is standing on starts disintegrating as the material starts fragmenting. Losing his footing, the skeleton falls through the railing he was leaning on mere moments before.
The sight is quite interesting Douglas finds as he catches sight of himself reflected off one of the oddly blank stretches of smooth wall. His skull is stuck on a thin and narrow spine which is connected to a rather large looking pelvis. The figure is further unbalanced by its large shoulder blade jutting from a thin looking collarbone. Two relatively thick femurs glow with a blue radiance as they windmill through the air. The skeleton’s arm is held forwards, a shimmering ball of force appearing in front of his outstretched palm. Metal flakes away from the balconies and walls as the skeleton falls past.
By pure coincidence, the skeleton flips three times, his hand pointing downwards by the time he has reached the ground. The ground can be more aptly named a pulsing flesh horror, in this case. This pulsing flesh horror explodes in a viscous manner when Douglas’ hand pushes the ball of hyper-concentrated air into the slime.
[ Meat slime lvl 2 slain; 1000 xp earned ]
[ Spell Shaping lvl 8 ]
It only occurs to the skeleton to make an inquiry about his state ten minutes later when the hyperactive monsters running around have calmed down again.
[ HP: 23/30 ][ HP/h: 0.0018 ]
[ MP: 5/180 ][ MP/h: 19 ]
[ Shattered; Con max 3, Vit max 3 ]
Standing up, Douglas notices that he is once again covered in a th
ick soup of mysterious muck. Looking around, the partial skeleton decides that getting a new suit is a priority. The feeling of having his arm splinter as the dog chewed on it is still fresh in his mind. The suit took a long time to take on and off, but if there is one thing that Douglas has in spades, it’s time.
He stumbles forward on stumpy legs, swatting at the all too curious flesh spiders with his single free arm. In the meantime, he admires his own handiwork. The spell formation he just used had apparently been the Decalcinate one, turning earth into air. The knowledge that came with the spell tells him that it’s supposed to turn ash into air again, but Douglas fails to understand that train of logic. The metal he was standing on just flaked away like it was nothing.
Douglas recaps the spells he has used so far, trying to find some logic in the magical mess. The earth spell sucks up all the air, making the ceiling go red and causing all the doors to close. The air spell eats away at the metal making up the environment. He fears what the other three spell shapes he knows might do - especially the big one. Through a simple process of deduction, the stumbling skeleton concludes that the massively complex spell shape must be for the death element, the turning of earth into water.
The two smaller shapes must then be fire and water, from water and air respectively, but those will come later as Douglas has just seen a storefront with all kinds of helmeted spacesuits lined up. His teeth clacking enthusiastically, the skeleton enters the store.
The area he enters is relatively clean, the only pollution being a few streaks of black. Podiums are arrayed throughout the room, the spaces in between getting smaller towards the back. His previous suit, a blank, spherical helmet and smooth, white fabric, looks simple and drab in comparison to the ones on display.
‘Brickad Fekston - 42nd edition’
‘N’ghftog - Vulgtmnahog’
‘Spektar - SideLine Mist’
‘Tyrian Royal Line - Marquis 5’
With flaming eyes, Douglas inspects the front row. The first armour looks like someone bolted a lot of yellow steel reinforcements along with a lot of pistons to a heavy suit of armour. The second one looks to be made from a rubbery, wet looking material, designed by someone with a tentacle fetish. The third one seems rather black and insectoid, soft padding alternating dull, black plates. The last one is a suit fit for a king, purple and gold ornaments adorning every single visible surface.
The text on the podium is made up of a lot of different types of letters. The top lines look familiar to the skeleton, and he reads them without much delay; it takes him a mere minute per line. The other lines say the exact same thing, it turns out, but cause Douglas’ skull to hurt. The logic of writing something in more than one way escapes the skull, but he has enough problems as it is without adding linguistic questions to the mix.
Douglas’ hand reaches out for the golden one. Some people might ponder about which suit to choose; they might even consider this some form of personality test. Douglas makes a grab for the shiny gold suit because it's the closest one.
Then Douglas falls backward, the flimsy material tearing under his eager hands. The suit starts flashing red, the glowing base lighting up the ripped material. Grates and fences slide from the ceiling, attempting to seal off all the entrances. Most of them get stuck on the muck everywhere, and the exit fails to be closed off.
Douglas looks around and grabs for the black one. This example also tears as soon as Douglas’ bony fingers grab it. Frustrated, the skeleton walks through the entire store, and each suit he grabs turns out to be a hollow display model. He stomps around, now kind of miffed that each shiny suit he tries to grab turns out to be a mere shell. The entire store is now filled with broken and flashing pieces of hollow paper.
Glancing around the store, he sees a counter at the back of the shop. He walks over but sees absolutely nothing interesting, the entire table a solid and featureless slab of metal. Behind the counter, inside the wall is a rather garishly painted handle that seems familiar. He breaks the glass with a well-practised punch, pulls the handle, and drags the chest from the previously hidden panel in the wall.
‘sVital nWear autoSuit’
Douglas is overjoyed. He has nothing but good things to say about the suit, and he still remembers the way to manually open the thing. The tools that came with the previous one seem to be missing nor does he find the medicine or the food. That reminds him … Douglas decides that looking for food will be a top priority.
He reaches inside his pelvic bone and pulls the three tools free. He briefly wonders why the items didn't fall away when he fell, but the goop sticking to them practically glued them to his pelvic bone. Clacking his teeth in contentment, Douglas starts prodding the armour.
Two hours later, a fully suited skeleton saunters from the wrecked store, ducking under the half-open security grating. The moment he is outside, a large dog bites the loose part of his right leg and starts shaking. Douglas feels his left leg breaking as he smashes against a bench. Douglas crashes against some more items as he tries very hard to be merely an inanimate skeleton.
Then another dog starts pulling on his loosely flapping left suit arm. Douglas concludes that these beasts just won’t leave him alone until he makes them. Because nothing seems to have worked every time except for magic so far, Douglas immediately calls up the image of a lesser spell shape, burning the formation in his mind while pouring in a controlled amount of mana.
That is another lesson he learned; suddenly falling and rushing towards the large meat slime had caused a bit of panic, and he had offloaded all the mana he could find into the wind spell. Seeing the absolute overkill that occurred, he now slides but a trickle of mana into the formation.
Water from all around him starts getting pulled to his outstretched right hand. The air dries out and slime crumbles to dust as the spell forcefully takes all liquid. A small ball of fire spins into existence above his hand. Then his hand is on fire. Being pulled back and forth between two savage monsters, Douglas only gets an occasional glance at his arm as both dogs try to tear him apart. And what Douglas sees is kind of worrying.
He quickly decides that worrying about his burning spacesuit can come later as he swings his hand around. Flames that seem too bright and too dense for any natural fire follow in his widely swinging hand’s wake. He manages to touch one of the beings, which seems to have perky triangular ears and a rather long tail for a dog, which causes it to catch on fire.
The dog thing still doesn't seem intent on letting Douglas go, so the skeleton punches the dog. The dog that is not a dog is then a flaming comet hurtling towards the wall. Douglas uses this brief respite to also punch the first dog. This dog also becomes a flaming meteor that splatters against the wall after having crashed through a few panes of glass.
[ Hulking cat lvl 2 slain; 150 xp earned ]
[ Hulking dog lvl 2 slain; 150 xp earned ]
[ Spell Shaping lvl 9 ]
[ Mana Control lvl 3 ]
[ New skill learned; Punching lvl 1 ]
Now staring both at the blue boxes and his burning hand, Douglas fails to react to the large meat slime that rushes towards him. All he sees is a red blur before the mana construct on his hand seems to suck up all his mana. The fiery explosion and subsequent rain of red goop do not register to the mana drained skeleton.
He wakes up a few hours later, his mana half full and once again covered in red goo. A few of the creatures stop sniffing his suit-clad form and scatter as soon as he moves. Standing up, the skeleton sees his single hand is black. The suit is melted and stuck to his wrist, his hand no longer covered or protected by the glove.
Staring at the disastrous damage done to his brand new suit, Douglas wonders why the suit is so flimsy. First, a simple bone blade made a large scratch in his visor, and now, his entire glove is burned to molten slag.
The facts that the force needed to scratch the single crystal alloy visor is in the order of hundreds of tonnes without some spatial monomolecular edge or that a standard su
n wouldn’t be able to burn the mass-produced suit he is wearing are completely and utterly unknown to the complaining skeleton.
Instead of grasping these rather odd facts, Douglas walks onwards. Dressed in a white suit with black stripes, his goo-covered self is once again ignored by all beasts. Douglas might be slow in the skull, but even he is smart enough to recognise such an obvious coincidence. He then decides that he will roll around in red goo when putting on a new suit.
He stumbles a few hundred more metres, his speed hindered by the distinct lack of anything below the knees and a spacesuit not designed for creatures that are missing everything below the knees.
He keeps an eye out for a potential new suit, but all the stores he passes that contain items similar to the ones he saw in the suit store have the wrong amount of limbs. A large collection of stores seem dedicated to providing now non-existent customers that have too many legs or not enough heads. Other stores have wares on display, the use of which escapes the shuffling skeleton entirely. Other stores contain no visible markings at all, their only wares rectangular boards that seem perfectly white.
His slow trek through the shopping mall stops when he is confronted by the biggest meat slime he has seen so far. He has managed to squeeze past any pulsating obstacles up to this point, but the being in front of him seems insistent on blocking his path through the sheer mass and volume of its existence.
Douglas decides to finally test out the last spell he has not tried yet, the phlogistonation of the natural world around him through the effect of turning air into water. The miscellaneous magical knowledge he has retained tells him odd tales of returning burned materials to their pre-burned state. Those advanced theories of magic are totally lost on the skeleton, though.
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