Eternal Rest

Bones returned to the tavern by evening. Silva and Tivaara were nowhere to be seen, and Solin was sitting in a booth with someone Bones didn't recognize. When Solin saw him, he waved him over. Bones approached and noticed a dozen empty mugs on the table. The other man was another member of the Hounds who had returned not long ago. Bones joined them and, seeing how this would be his final night here, ordered the expensive stuff.

Since this will be my final night here, I might as well make it a memorable one!

Another member of the Hounds joined them an hour later, followed by Clover. The party moved to the gaming tables to gamble, then switched back to drinking in the booth, and finally ended up in the courtyard where everyone lay drunk on the ground.

The next morning, Solin squinted as the sun's rays hit his eyes. “Gods… I'm never drinking again,” he falsely proclaimed before standing up and looking around, not seeing Bones.

Bones had left the tavern before dawn and visited the smithy by noon, just in time for lunch. Both dwarves were there and were surprised to see Bones so soon. He joined them at the table and briefly explained his situation, mentioning that he had left the capital for the time being.

"You're a magnet for trouble, aren't you?" Darsumi asked the skeleton sitting across from him.

"I'm not even trying hard," Bones replied, while Hemdus kept stuffing himself without commenting.

After finishing his meal, Hemdus voiced his opinion. "Think ye did the right thing leaving, Boney. From what ye told us, this Silva is a dangerous character. Yer welcome to stay here with me as long as ye want!"

Bones expected Hem to say something like that but shook his head. "Thank you, Hem, but I think I'll stay in the cavern for the time being. Do you need me to take anything with me?"

"No. We already brought and set up everything the farming team needed to stay. There's plenty of room, so you can make yourself as comfortable as you can. The team only comes to clear the dungeon and leaves right after, so they won't bother you much," Darsumi said.

They talked some more about the Skeleton Key, and Bones said he would return to the smithy after the farming team's next dungeon run. He didn't waste any more time and, before night fell, left Stonefalls and continued toward the cavern.

The day before, on the night Bones took to drinking with Solin and the others, a meeting was taking place on the opposite side of the city, in an abandoned building at an unknown location. A meeting of three.

Two figures introduced themselves to each other while waiting for the third. "You must be Silva? I've heard much about you. I'm Gustav."

"Mmm, likewise. I am Silva. Thank you for helping me with Bones back then."

"Hm? Ah yes, Bones. No problem at all! What did you wan—"

Gustav was interrupted mid-sentence when a third figure entered the room. Both turned and greeted Varia.

"Seeing as how you two have already introduced yourselves, I'll skip the introductions and get straight to the point. We're in the final and most important phase of our plan. So listen closely…"

The meeting was kept short and on point. Gustav would play a pivotal role in acquiring the security details of the festival beforehand. Until then, they put the final preparations on hold. With his orders received, Gustav left, leaving Silva and Varia alone.

"It's been a while! How's your pet project doing?" Varia asked, turning to Silva.

"It sure has. I'm... having difficulties with my pet. I'm afraid I'm going to have to tie a tight leash on it!" Silva replied, frowning.

Varia was surprised to hear that. "What happened? I thought you had him under control."

"Control? No... not him! I tried to dive in yesterday but got noticed."

"Hoooh! And?"

"And nothing. He scurried off to his room," Silva scoffed, then added, "I will have to go through the Soul Transfer earlier than planned!"

Varia thought for a while, then said, "Do it after the festival. I need you at full strength and not in a weakened state! Besides, you'll have all the time you need after the festival."

Silva stopped walking and, seeing Varia's questioning look, continued, "We have new orders from the client. We are to return to the Den after the festival and await further instructions!"

"From the client... Tusk?" Silva questioned, receiving a nod from Varia. "Then Wezar?"

"Yes, Wezar is returning, and our client has halted operations in both Wezar and Aphiton Kingdom."

"I see. Am I to guess correctly that our new friend... Gustav won't be returning with us?"

"Of course not. It was never our intention to take him with us. He will stay behind and take the fall. I see a torturous future awaiting him."

Silva smirked. "How much does he know?"

"Only on a need-to-know basis. Just enough to do his job and not enough to reveal anything important about us. I made sure of that!" Varia coldly stated.

"Alright, I can wait until after the festival with Bones. I've made contact with numerous local groups, and now that Domino is out, most of them took the deal. My guess is at least a third will cross us."

"Is that going to be a problem?" Varia asked. While he was the alpha of this whole operation, he left all the small details to Silva, so he wasn't up to date. He and Silva would meet and exchange information occasionally, but now that the time of the festival was near, they would meet more frequently.

"We will have enough people on our side. Rest assured," Silva replied. "What about you? Can you inscribe the bombs in time?"

"It's pressing, but there'll be enough time. It was a good call to booby-trap the tunnels. We'll do what we can with the remaining bombs."

"Like we always do!" added Silva. They both left the building, each going their own way.

It took Silva until the next day to notice that Bones had emptied his room and left for good. He was furious but quickly assured himself there was enough time left until the festival to find and bring Bones back. He instructed a few men to go to Stonefalls and search for Bones and another group of local thugs to scour Hagos. It was difficult to find a single person in a city full of people, but Silva had no other choice. He regretted giving Bones so much freedom.

"I should've kept him on a leash from the beginning, damnit!" Silva exclaimed, infuriated. He took a deep breath to calm himself. "No matter! There's a month and a half left until the festival, and I will find that old bag of bones. You can run, but you cannot hide from me, Bones!!"

Meanwhile, Bones had made himself comfortable in the accommodations in the cavern. He summoned Skully and had him stay idle while infusing the cat construct with a temporary nucleus, instructing it to chase flies in close proximity. "Whatever, as long as it's active and I'm gaining experience," he thought.

As for himself? He stared at his engraved hand for a bit, then shook his head. "Not now. Creating the Skeleton Key is a priority!"

Darsumi had given him a sturdy piece of bone to make the Key from. Bones didn't know where the bone came from, but he could feel the resilience of a silver rank, if not even a second tier. "This will be a challenge!"

Bones sat at the table in the kitchen and got to work. Hours passed, and Bones barely scratched the surface, so to speak. No matter how hard he tried to shape the bone, it felt impossible to do so. It was a small piece, yet it was giving him so much trouble. After another two hours, Bones gave up. "This absolutely won’t do, Skully!"

"The only way I see it happening is if I engrave the bone first. It would make any attempt at shaping easier. It's just…"

Bones was right. If he were to engrave the small piece, he would have an easier time manipulating and shaping it. However, engraving presented another hurdle.

Bones took out his engraving tools and took a deep, metaphorical breath, concentrating. When he felt focused enough, he began engraving.

Hours passed, and the cat construct eventually ran out of power, stopping in a lying position. Bones glanced at the cat, then slowly stood up and walked over. He didn't need to, but felt like stretching after hours of working. The whole day had passed, and the mana crystals embedded in the walls of the room turned on as night fell, illuminating the accommodations. Bones hadn't even known the dwarves had installed the lighting.

After creating a new nucleus and infusing it into the cat, he returned to the table and continued working. "Skully, make yourself useful and start practicing," Bones said, mentally directing the golem on how to move and attack. Once Skully started practicing, Bones sent a simple directive to keep repeating the pattern and focused back on his work.

Engraving was a slow process, but Bones made progress. He thought that without his engraved hand, engraving the key wouldn't be possible. By the second day, he had completed the engraving and switched to shaping the bone. After an intense effort, Bones grinned. He could shape the bone!

After a week's time, Bones finally finished shaping the key. He had greatly miscalculated the difficulty after his successful shaping on the second day. A little nudge he managed made him... content, and he thought he would have it easy from there on.

"I... I should have engraved my arm first!" Bones said, his voice shaky and tired. He took small breaks every ten hours or so but ultimately hadn’t stopped working on the bone until now. The bone had a classic design of a key with a round bow, a thin, long stem with all the teeth filed down, and a double-notched bit at the end of the key.

There was some final polishing left to do, but when all was said and done? The key could be considered a success! After Bones finished the finishing touches, he received a notification of the successful creation of an Incomplete Skeleton Key. Somehow, it didn’t sound like a success. Bones didn’t like that the key was incomplete but understood the limitations.

In time, as he maliciously worked on the key, Bones received a level up in Golem Mastery and two levels in Mana Engraving. His efforts weren’t without merit. Bones left the cabin and circled in front of the spiral staircase, deep in thought. "I wanted to start doing alchemy, but... I already started engraving my bones. With how things are, I think it would benefit me a lot more if I were to continue engraving... It’ll be bloody painful though!"

There was a bit less than three weeks left until the dwarves came for a dungeon run, and Bones decided his time would be best spent working on himself. He would've loved to do more work on Skully, but there wasn't anything else he could do to improve him. The whole lizardman skeleton was already engraved, and Bones wasn't able to inscribe the runes yet. Skully was limited by Golem Mastery, and the only thing Bones could do was to try and raise it as much as possible in the time he had. He instructed Skully to continue practicing while he gritted his teeth and started engraving the rest of his arm.

A week later, Bones finished engraving his arm up to his shoulder and received a notification. He wasn't surprised when he read that he had scarred his arm and damaged the integrity of his bones. The pain was substantial and didn't subside upon finishing. Bones spent a few days recovering from the ordeal until the "scars" disappeared, then polished the engravings done. With less than two weeks left, he started engraving his other arm. The process was easier and slightly faster now that he worked with an engraved arm, but the pain was still there.

Bones pushed himself hard and ultimately overdid it, but managed to engrave his other arm too and just in time. Before he could make the final touches and polish the engravings though, he succumbed to exhaustion. Bones entered Eternal Rest and was recovering for the last two days before the dwarves would show up. He was startled awake from his rest by the loud and merry dwarves entering the cavern and started packing his things.

He wasn't very familiar with the farming team as he only saw them once before. After a small talk, Bones learned that the first stage of the dungeon had a miniboss he completely missed the few times he cleared the stage. It was an enormous Giant Golden Mole with dark, thick, and glossy brown wooly fur and large sharp claws. Bones had regrets about not fully exploring the network of tunnels but not so much as to go back and repeat the stage. He didn't plan to enter the dungeon this time. He had enough of the second stage, and there wasn't much he could do in the third stage. Besides, he had a lot to do before the festival and was short on time. He said his goodbyes and left, picking up the pace and heading back toward Stonefalls.