50. The Ossuary


    The army fell into line, as disciplined and organized as could be expected of a group of skeleton soldiers. They stood in neat rows and columns, heads bowed (at least those who had heads to speak of) and weapons lowered by their sides.


    By all appearances, they’d formed up with Ash as the focal point, as if this living castle was the banner around which the army rallied. And perhaps, Serac mused, that wasn’t far off the truth.


    The moment had passed her by—just as it had back when she first ‘tamed’ Ashvanaga—but she could still recall a distinct connection between herself, her castle, and her soldiers. Whoever she’d been in a previous life, it was someone who could quell and rouse an army of bloodthirsty rebels. Right now, that army stood around her castle in silent vigil, waiting to rise again at her wish and command.


    Yes. Whoever Serac Edin had been in a previous life, that entity was making itself known to her—piece by piece and recollection by recollection. For proof, she needed look no further than the metallic band that had now embedded itself along the ridge from her right ear to the base of her right horn.


    Presently, Serac palpated this subcutaneous band, distracted by its presence and its implications. The pain had been but a brief flash, and the object now blended seamlessly into a Rakshasa’s anatomy, as though it’d always been a part of it. And perhaps, Serac could only resign herself to the thought, that wasn’t far off the truth.


    “What are you waiting for, Wayfarer?” Trippy’s voice came as a rude awakening, one that jolted Serac with its serenity—cold, like metal against skin. “The Aberrants have been ‘dealt with’. The path has opened to you. You’re free to proceed.”


    “Right,” Serac murmured her assent, though without much conviction. She then descended from Ash’s battlement, still in something of a daze. She felt as though her conscious being wasn’t fully in tune with her own physical existence—a continuation of that out-of-body experience from earlier.


    It was Serac Edin’s feet that touched the ground and it was her eyes that scanned the skeleton army in trepidation before turning to the [Ossuary]’s open door. And yet… did her body act by her will? How much of this was herself and how much of it was this ‘King’ that occasionally showed up, took the wheel, then refused to elaborate before leaving again?


    … And how much of it still was the cool, polite voice in her head?


    Before she could make much headway into her existential crisis, however, Zacko came back into the frame, eyeing the skeletons sidelong as he passed through the gaps between the columns.


    “Uh, you okay there, princess?” he said uncertainly as he joined Serac at the door. “Or… should I be calling you king instead?”


    “Neither,” Serac snapped, a tad more testily than she’d intended. “And before you ask, no, I don’t know who that’s meant to be, and no, I don’t know how to call them back at will. Not that I particularly want to.”


    Zacko nodded, rather sincerely by his standards.


    “It’s the same, uh, soul that showed up to talk down Ash, isn’t it? Whoever they are, they seem pretty useful for that sort of thing. Master of a mobile fortress, and now apparently the commander of a whole army.”


    “Whoever they are, they’re also very rude,” Serac pouted, oddly loath to give the revenant king the credit they might be due. “Easy for you to be blasé about it, when it’s not happening to your body. Moving forward, I’d much rather find solutions that don’t involve me being taken over by a complete stranger.”


    “Well, who knows? If it happens often enough, you might not think of them as a—”


    Zacko stopped himself when he saw the look on Serac’s face. He then put on a placatory smile before patting her on the back.


    “Don’t stress too much, alright? The afterlife works in mysterious ways. We just gotta roll with the punches as they come—especially if they’re helpful to us. Shall we?”


    Zacko was already halfway through the open door as he said this, but Serac stopped him with a tug on the arm.


    “Wait a minute. What do we do about Ash?”


    “What do you mean? Couldn’t you dismiss it like you normally do? I’d assume we can’t ride a Steed into this [Ossuary].”


    “Do you think that’s wise, though? See the way the skeletons are all lined up around Ash? What if they, you know, go crazy again as soon as Ash is out of the picture?”


    Zacko took a moment and tried to see what Serac saw. His expression remained dubious as he shrugged and said, “If you’re so worried, why not just park it here?”


    “Park?” Serac frowned. “I feel like you’re not using that word correctly.”


    “Just you wait, Serac, I’ll make a Manesferan out of you yet. I mean to say you could just leave Ash here while we go do our thing in the [Ossuary]. Don’t see any signs or meters here, so I think you’re in the clear, as far as traffic laws are concerned.”


    As ludicrous as Zacko’s words were, the ideas contained within them made some semblance of sense. Serac doubled back to Ash and put a hand on its stone wall.


    “Be a good castle and wait for us here, okay? We’ll be back in a jiffy (and hopefully not more than once). You can look after yourself while we’re gone, can’t you?”


    Crreeeaaaakkkkk…


    An enthusiastic and reassuring yes. Serac gave Ash one more loving pat, then hastened to join Zacko inside the [Ossuary].


    As it turned out, inside the [Ossuary] featured an eclectic mix of surprising sights and (by now) totally expected oddities.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.


    First, the entrance doubled as a narrow staircase that led up, rising beyond the peak of the Bonespires. Both the walls and floors were of Huskbound construction (as expected), and the passage itself was sparsely lit by more blue lanterns. Welcoming and forbidding. It was on theme for what was clearly the Bone Lord’s lair.


    The stairs then led onto a large foyer of sorts. Here, the lanterns hung from the high ceilings as pale-blue chandeliers, giving the place an almost festive atmosphere—if said festival was attended only by silent Bone statues and a pair of armed and wary Wayfarers.


    From what Serac could see, not a single soul—Aberrant or otherwise—had waited to receive her and Zacko. No red carpet; only Bone. Bone everywhere, from the floor to the walls to the balustrades that lined a pair of spiral staircases and the mezzanine they led to.


    “Bone Lord wants us to find our own way,” Zacko observed wryly, then he and Serac set about searching for said ‘way’.


    They first went up more stairs. Up again, and therefore seemingly the right direction. The back of the mezzanine ended in another skeleton door, even larger than the [Entrance] from the graveyard. But this one too wouldn’t budge without a ‘key’. Serac had the inkling that the same trick wouldn’t work twice, even if she were able to summon her kingly side at will.


    Next, they checked the ground floor, noting three more (and smaller) skeleton doors. One clearly led to an eastern ‘wing’, another to its western counterpart, and a third that sat directly in the middle, just behind the spiral staircases.


    Only this middle door ‘opened’, and at a slight touch of its bony handle at that. The thing took its time creaking and rumbling, while two Wayfarers peered anxiously into the passage beyond.


    As far as Serac could tell from the boundary, the hallway looked to be more of the same: Huskbound walls and Rakshasa statues that lined them. The only difference seemed to be the lighting, which was to say there was none. The only source of dim, blue light here spilled in from either end of the hallway—some from the foyer, and the rest from whatever waited on the other side.


    It looked safe enough to enter, but by now, Serac knew better than to trust appearances. She glanced at Zacko to gauge the Manusya’s reaction.


    “Not like we’ve got any other choice, is it?” he said with another shrug. “Four doors, three of them locked. If your theory about the Bone Lord ‘testing’ us is correct, then I can guess at the intent behind this structure.”


    “Guess there’s only one way to find out,” Serac matched Zacko’s shrug but not quite his apparent confidence. She took the first step forward, somehow feeling like it was her duty to lead the way. Yet, how much of that was herself, and how much of it was her stranger?


    With every uneventful step, however, Serac’s pretense of bravado gradually solidified into reality. The Wayfarers first snuck, then strode through the darkened hallway, quickening their pace as their caution receded. At some point, the task felt routine enough to allow for more small talk.


    “I’ve been wondering,” Zacko began, “if you managed to score any additional Karma?”


    “Hm?” Serac murmured distractedly, still a little more anxious than her partner. “Karma for what?”


    “You know, for putting down a whole skeleton uprising. Seems like a pretty big achievement. And a ‘virtuous’ one at that. Didn’t Pathsight reward you for it?”


    At this, Serac stopped for a second and pulled up her own status.


    [Designation: SERAC EDIN]


    [Wayfarer Race: RAKSHASA]


    [Karmic Level: 24]


    [Liminal Karma: 3,845 ?]


    “Nothing,” she reported. “Guess it’s not as big a deal as you think. Either that, or Pathsight just can’t be bothered to calculate anything that doesn’t involve a smiting.”


    “See, I’ve always wondered about that,” Zacko pounced on the topic with unusual eagerness. “Don’t you think it’s so weird? I mean, I get rewarding us for smiting Aberrants, and I guess Secondary Transfer is a rather thoughtful touch, but why don’t we get Karma for, you know, doing good things and being good people?”


    Serac snorted. “Are you trying to suggest you’re ‘good people’, Zacko?”


    “Well, maybe not me specifically,” the man admitted easily, “but what about you?”


    Serac stopped again, this time to blink at Zacko.


    “Oh, don’t try to deny it, princess. It’s in your nature to help others, even when it’s not clear that you’ll get anything in return. You helped me before you knew me as anything more than a fleshy blob. You helped the Hopers—built a bridge for them even at the cost of stripping down your own castle. And now you’re here trying to rescue Dashi from the Bone Lord’s clutches.”


    “You’re here for Dashi, too.”


    “Sure, but I probably wouldn’t be, if you hadn’t stopped for the children in the first place. My point is, your whole”—Zacko gestured vaguely in Serac’s face as he searched for the right words—“style is counterproductive to Wayfaring, at least in the way Karma is distributed and earned. But I’m also saying that feels wrong, you know? If the aim is to reincarnate in higher, more virtuous Realms, then why is it that Pathsight only encourages us to smite and hoard? Shouldn’t we all aspire to be, I dunno, more like Serac Edin?”


    The Rakshasa was left speechless again, as she struggled to square Zacko’s appraisal of her with her own knowledge of herself.


    Was she ‘good people’? As a Penitent lifer, she’d never thought of her own existence in terms of ‘good’ or ‘bad’. The more important thing for her—indeed, the only important thing—was to be free.


    And that hadn’t changed this far into her journey as a freesoul, had it? Even after she’d been roped into helping others along the way? Even if… she wasn’t always herself while—


    “The discussion is an interesting but ultimately pointless one, Wayfarer,” Trippy cut in then. Polite and cold. “Karma is Karma, no matter how it’s distributed or earned. Every step of your journey thus far—though there have been bumps on the road—has taken you through a Path of consistent progression. Do not lose sight of that now. Especially when there are yet sources of Karma lurking in every corner…”


    Right on cue, the hallway came to life.


    Where the graveyard had played host to a skeleton war, the [Ossuary] was home of the Huskbound. Even now, two of the statues that lined either side of the hallway stepped forward and turned to face the Wayfarers. A pair of Bone-cast Rakshasas—not unlike Hanuman in its man-sized form.


    Then, as the Wayfarers watched, both statues raised a hand at the same time and… shoved them into their own chests.


    The hands shot out again in short order, leaving behind fist-sized holes. Each of the statues held out heart-shaped pieces of themselves, raising them into the air as if to allow the Wayfarers to get a good look. But not for long, before they both crushed the pieces into dust.


    The bone dust immediately spread itself into a cloud that filled the hallway. Serac felt its familiar effects even before Pathsight informed her of it:


    [Wayfarer Status Effect: OSSIFY]


    [TRIBULATION active (x2): current buff at 10%]


    This was the same ‘spell’ the Bone Maidens had used, except the statues’ source of Bone had been themselves. As if to acknowledge their commitment, Pathsight graced both of them with an HP bar of their own, along with the brand-new label: [Pishacha Footman].