A Skull Full of Souls

Borbigmos or “Big Moe” is very confused. He pokes a stick into the campfire’s coals, stirring it before adding a fresh log. “Uhh, Julius?” He tentatively interrupts the chattering skeleton. It really is something, listening to a skeleton chatter animatedly about this ancient history. He speaks as if he were part of the elves and dwarves, or maybe one of the trees.

Julius pauses and glances back at Big Moe. “Yesh Moe?” Big Moe resists the urge to flinch. Both at the unsettling polychromatic gaze of Julius and the annoying shortening of his already annoyingly shortened name.

Big Moe’s black, almost gray skin ripples with his sculpted muscle. As he raises his hand to his white, well-trimmed beard, he hesitantly speaks. “I thought you said this story was all about you.” Julius nods, grinning. He’s always grinning. A few seconds pass as the two stare at each other. Big Moe’s eyebrow begins to twitch. “Well?” He demands.

Julius cocks his grin to the side. “Well what?” He asks. “Should I continue now?”

Big Moe throws his hands up and half-yells: “No! Where are you in this story?” Julius’ jaw opens in surprised comprehension. Before he can answer, Big Moe continues. “How can you know that a dwarf peed on the tree, were you there? How do you know what the investigation found? How do you know the timing and the dwarven man’s decision to break the wards?” Big Moe rose like a block of granite being manipulated by an elemental. He towered over them and pulled his wavy hair out of his eye. “If this is true, how are you aware of all of this, and what does it have to do with you?"

Julius nods and grins. “Ah, I shee your confushion. Yeah, I told you about the shtone, but you didn’t get it.” Big Moe looks sharply at the skeleton, suspicious that Julius had just called him stupid. Julius was already deep within his own words again and wasn’t even looking. “Letsh jusht shay that Vinny and Andy really liked to play with this magic shtone that can shtore memoriesh really well, and I’m really good at reading them.” Julius waves one hand. “Shomething about me being an amalgam of multiple shoulsh allowing me to internalize and interpret multiple conflicting pershpectives more effectively than other mortalsh. I’ll get to that part later.” Then, without so much as checking if that answered Big Moe’s questions, he jumped right back into the tale.

Andendor sat in a very luxurious and cushioned chair, his hands cupped around a steaming cup of blue liquid with motes of red fire glittering inside. The cup rested on a table strewn with etching implements and fragments of crystal, meticulously carved from a large rune-covered crystal. Significant time had passed after convincing the hungry plant monster to hear out his offer. His newly summoned table sat inside the dwarven crypt, where the monster’s centralizing animating consciousness resided. On the far side of the table, another glass was filled with a dark, viscous substance that looked disturbingly like blood. A small root had found its way into the glass.

Andendor sipped his drink and sighed. “So, in summation of my offer: I, Andendor, do agree to cast wards, summon minions to aid in both luring food and defending from attackers, and will myself reside here, bringing many who seek my death or knowledge. You are allowed to eat your fill of the invaders, barring any that I mark as mine. Thus, you—Did you like my suggestion of Vinius Vilenean Terrorforminnia as a name? Great! I’ll call you Vinny for simplicity!—gain increased hunting prowess and security, some company for the boring parts, and a great feast of adventurers with eyes full of greed. In exchange, you agree not to hurt me or those I claim, you allow me to change the layout and buildings, I reside here, and am allowed to conduct my experiments so long as I don’t harvest or regularly damage any of the flora you control.” The large heart root quivered as it tried to flex its appendages and grab the Gaunt Elf. “Whoa now, I included that caveat about not regularly damaging you and yours not because I intended to hurt you, or harvest any roots. It’s just that, every once in a while, my research is dangerous, and can sometimes…detonate. It might cause damage to a few roots.”

Vinny quivered, still dissatisfied. The dwarven corpses in their cracked crypts all spoke. “No hurt, we eat.”

The elf rolled the flames burning blue in his withered eye sockets. “I also swear to take every reasonable measure to mitigate harm to you and promise to make reparations in the form of nutrition, or other services until you are satisfied. Do we have an accord?”

The room was still for a full minute. Andendor would’ve definitely been holding his breath—if he’d actually needed to breathe. Then the dwarves spoke again. “Agree.”

Andendor grinned, stretching his withered lips and revealing gray teeth. “Excellent! Now I have here a magical representation of our contract. I’m not going to assault you, but I need a drop of your…sap? The fluid that flows through you and carries your animating energy. It must go on the contract to bind us to the deal. Here, I’ll go first.” He produced a dagger and poked his finger. Slowly a dark foul fluid oozed out. He tapped the stone tablet, and it glowed with purple lights. “That’s all there is to it, Vinny! May I do the same with a root? Vinny Rumbled in agreement. The mage grabbed the nearest root, knicked it, and touched the fluid to the stone. Green tendrils of energy spread from the droplet of sap, wrapped around the purple lights and seemed to naturally grow into complex sigils and runes. Then the lights slowly faded into the stone.

Andedor grinned, leathery desiccated muscles creaked in protest. “Excellent Vinny. Now then, I think the first step should be to work together to quickly shape a simple ritual altar. Then we drag a few of your more recent snacks down, and we’ll have a rudimentary labor force. Thus saving us from doing monotonous and strenuous tasks. Then, as they set about creating the spaces for more advanced projects and comfortable living areas, I’ll begin creating some of those promised wards. From there, we’ll take turns getting what we promised each other set up until we are in compliance with our bargain. On that note, I have some ideas about bating in more useful snacks early, and I wish to make my main chamber right above you with a false homunculus version of you, just in case they seek to kill you too.”