Chương 10: Chapter Ten: Folk Tales

The room was nothing more than it seemed. Well, there was one unexpected thing. The chasm that had opened up at the back was far deeper than Hollis could have imagined. He had to crawl over to the edge of it for fear that some subterranean predator might pull him off the ledge.

"Shoot one over there," he said, pointing to the left. Willo obliged, sending a flitting, hovering ball of light that looked exactly like himself down over the edge into the darkness until it faded to nothing. The light didn't manage to cut through the darkness. Hollis couldn't even tell if the little Will o' the Wisp had dimmed down to nothing or if it had simply dropped so far into the darkness its light didn't travel back to him. The darkness was overwhelming.

"I'm not making that climb," he said. Willo shook quickly back and forth, then paused, looking at Hollis.

"No, you aren't going down there either," he said, looking into the darkness. Willo backed away from the darkness, blinking with relief. Climbing upward was out of the question as well. While the chasm had opened up, there was a thick layer of rock and dirt above. The only way out, it seemed, was back through the large metal door and into the boneyard.

Hollis had hoped that after a few minutes, the skeletons would return to their pool and things would calm down, but all the fuss and fireworks must have sent them into a more aggressive state. They were hunting, and he didn't know how long they would wait. He waited for the sounds outside to disappear, for the occasional rush of bones against the metal doors to stop for good, but they didn't. The room had been almost empty even before it sat around for centuries. There was nothing of use lying around.

However, he did notice that up above, a few roots had broken through the ceiling. That was truly amazing because he was at least a hundred feet deep. The roots were white, and though most were thin, some were as thick as his forearms. [Naturalism lvl. 5] You see tree roots hanging from the ceiling. These roots were searching for water before they opened up into the room and atrophied. That wasn't much use to him.

He might be able to climb up and grab some to use as a torch if he felt the skeletons would be afraid of that, but it was unlikely. It was time to wait, but not just wait. It was time to work the problem. He still had tools at his disposal. He could study. He could plan. He walked over to the corpse that was sitting up against the wall. When he first laid eyes on it, he remembered thinking how it looked too new to be three hundred years old. Did he still believe that now that he had seen the monster outside?

When he first saw it, the way the skeleton appeared to rise out of the dusty mess beneath it hadn't been too interesting. How many dead people had he seen in real life? Well, a couple. But how many had he seen up close after advanced decomposition? None. The corpse had few traces of flesh left on its bones. Well, the top of it didn't. The bottom half was basically sitting in what remained of its former flesh and clothing.

Time had hidden most clues from him, but he swore that in the rotten mess around the body, he saw remains of a lab coat. It wasn't white, but there was a long piece of fabric that matched the shape. He didn't know if this skeleton was the same as the others, but the sturdy, clean bones made him think it was. He put his leather gloves on and carefully reached out and grabbed the skeleton's left hand. It didn't move. Was he really about to break off a dead man's finger? No. He wasn't. But not for lack of trying.

He grabbed the pointer finger and put in enough force to snap a twig, expecting the dried remnants of old tendons and cartilage to give way. They didn't. He applied more pressure. Not only could he not break off a finger from the skeleton, but he could also barely make the arm flex at its joints. He took out his knife and cut between the joints, finally successfully removing the digit from the hand. All the while, the skeleton showed no signs of life, or undeath, as it were.

The finger was heavy, like it was made of lead, not bone. He placed it on the dry stone floor on the other side of the room and stared at the skeleton. These bones were not human, at least not completely. Why they were not slithering around trying to wrap up his legs, he didn't know yet. Medicine had called the animation of bare skeletons impossible. Archaeology didn't think they existed. Naturalism failed to find a biological or magical means of making human bones act like a snake.

But when science, medicine, and history didn't have the answers, there was one last place to check.

"Are there any folk stories about skeletons like this in Periapt?" he asked his inspector. The screen in his head almost seemed to think for a moment. [Folklore lvl. 1] You see an unusual skeleton on the ground. It reminds you of many different campfire stories meant to warn of the dangers of Periapt. Stories that were meant to teach lessons. All cultures have stories meant to instill a healthy fear of dead things. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

It wasn't much. There was no confirmation of walking skeletons being seen in centuries past, but it didn't dismiss the issue the way entries for Archaeology, Medicine, and Naturalism had.

"Add a point to Folklore," Hollis said. Folklore could be useful in many ways. It contained knowledge related to lots of skills, just from a different perspective. You never tired of hearing about old Periapt when you were a child. The abandoned continent was a source of endless mystery. It held the origin of your people and stories that stretched back eons. [Folklore lvl. 1] -> [Folklore lvl. 2] Hollis looked back at the skeleton.

"Now what do I know about skeletons?" [Folklore lvl. 2] You were too young to have met anyone with a natural memory of old Periapt, but the old stories sounded with the voices of your ancestors. Some stories were from before the exodus. Some stories were already legends by the time the continent was lost. Stories of impossible things, of monsters that were unbelievable even to those from Periapt. Among them were tales of the undead, even stories of skeletons. These stories faded into myth long ago.

You cannot recall stories of skeletons like this one, though. That wasn't enough, but he was getting closer. He really hoped he wasn't throwing his points away for something that wouldn't help with his predicament.

"One more point," he said. Your nan was a storyteller. Folks would come from miles around to hear her tales of the ancestors, passed down from generation to generation. She could spin a yarn about any old thing. She knew about the world back before the exodus, before the ages of Expedition, Enlightenment, and Dominion. She could even talk about the age of Heroes and what came before them. Sometimes when the night was cold, and there were no stars, she talked about the ages to come, but you never believed her.

You wish you had listened to more of her stories. [Folklore lvl. 2] -> [Folklore lvl. 3] Chills ran down Hollis' spine. His nan… his character's grandmother. He suddenly felt emotional, as if a light from the past that had always been there was now visible to him. His past had changed. He remembered her, this woman who told stories. When he triggered his Folklore skill one more time, he knew it would work. He didn't know the words, but he felt them. [Folklore lvl. 3] You got sick with a summer cold when you were a child. Your mother would tuck you in and give you an awful bitter medicine to help cure it. You spat it out when she wasn't looking. One night, while you were still in bed sick, your nan came in to deliver your medicine, but she had never forgotten what it was to be young, so when you tried spitting the gross potion out behind her back, she leaned over and asked, "Did I ever tell you the story of Brittle Bud?" You shook your head.

She had so many stories, but you had never heard that one.

"How about this?" she said.

"Brittle Bud was a sickly one, whose bones would break at the thought of fun… Do you remember that part?" You didn't. She smiled at you and began to recite a story older than any building on the island. Brittle Bud was a sickly one, whose bones would break at the thought of fun. That's what folks said about him. Didn't matter if he ran, climbed, or tripped over his own feet, something always cracked. So while the other kids played, Bud watched, wrapped in splints and sighs. One day, he'd had enough.

He went to the medicine woman at the edge of town and asked her for a cure. She looked him over, slow and careful, and said, "There is a way. But it isn't safe." She told him about a forbidden pond called Graveyard Keep.

"Swim in it every day," she said.

"Don't be afraid to gulp the water. It'll make your bones strong." Then she leaned close and whispered, "When your bones start to harden, you must come back to me for a special tonic. If you don't… your bones will grow too strong for your little body." Brittle Bud was a sickly one, whose bones would break at the thought of fun. Bud did exactly as she said. He swam. He gulped. And soon, his bones stopped breaking. He ran. He jumped. He played harder than any kid in town.

When he went back, the medicine woman handed him the tonic and asked, "Did you take your medicine?" Bud nodded. But in truth, he hadn't. Brittle Bud was a sickly one, whose bones would break at the thought of fun. He kept swimming. His bones kept growing stronger. He got so hungry that he ate twice what any other boy ate. Again, the medicine woman asked. Again, Bud lied. Brittle Bud was a sickly one, whose bones would break at the thought of fun.

After skipping his medicine once more, Bud felt tired; he felt heavier than ever before. When he laid down in bed that day, his bones got up and walked away! They clattered through the streets, straight back to Graveyard Keep, dove into the water, and swam forever. Bud never moved again. But then, at least he never broke any more bones!

"So remember," your nan said as she held out another dose of the disgusting concoction for you, "Always take your medicine!" Hollis almost fell back. The memory might not have been his, but it sure felt like it. He looked down at the bony finger in front of him. The story was about how children should take their medicine, sure, but buried inside it was the concept of someone becoming infected with a bone-strengthening ailment picked up by swimming in a pond.

He covered his mouth and nose with his shirt and grabbed his hatchet. He turned it over and swung the blunt side down on the finger against the stone floor. It took a few hard swings under Willo's light, but he managed to crack one of the finger bones open. Inside, he saw something that almost made him hurl. The bone didn't look like bone. It looked like muscle, almost, like hard, white muscle, but those were not muscle fibers. He knew what they were the moment he saw them.

He grabbed his tweezers from his med kit, plucked one of the fibers, and walked over by the door, where a wet patch still existed from the water he had tracked in the room. He bent down and dropped the bony fiber into a small puddle and waited. And waited. And waited. Only after a few minutes did he start to see the little bone fiber move. He saw it for what it really was. This whole time, he had thought the skeletons were moving like snakes. He was wrong. They were moving like worms. White, squiggly worms.

Parasites. The kind you get from drinking unclean water. As he watched the little worm wiggle through the water, he realized how strange it was that knowledge of these creatures' existence was absent from academia. His character could only know things that someone who grew up on the outer islands could know. The only evidence that these worms existed to make it off the continent was an old, scary story told to children. And yet it appeared scientists were experimenting with them here in this underground facility.

Whatever knowledge they gained had never left this place. What had he uncovered? Who had done this? As the worm reconstituted and came to its primal senses, it suddenly noticed Hollis and began squiggling toward him. He moved away a few feet, a distance that was miles to the worm. It turned around and reentered its little puddle. You have made a discovery! He sure had, though he was not the first. The real question was: how could he use this discovery to escape?

What did he now know about these skeletons that might help?