Skeleton (4)

His legs felt completely dead, he had shattered at least three bones in his feet. Every step felt like hell after a certain point, he had his hands on legs and was hyperventilating, the air felt dry and bloody in his mouth. The skeletons had stopped chasing him once they saw the human civilization.

The only other person who had survived the ordeal was Ferro, he was furious but too exhausted to do anything. He had lost the bag filled with bones, and his sword, he couldn't carry them whilst running. If he took another step, he felt he would collapse. The gates were one hundred meters of dirt road away, but they couldn't make themselves take another step.

They both fell flat on their backs, breathing ever loudly. Having your life threatened, and running away from it was something else. It was insanely scary, very intimidating, anxiety provoking, but most of all, it was amazing. It was addictive to risk money, but compared to risking your life that was childs play.

Whilst Noah was running his stamina had increased by two points bringing it up to nine, and his agility by one, becoming 18. He had heard it was possible to increase your skill points by training but that had never happened to him before. "Maybe its because I only accepted safe quests" he thought.

He laid on his back and looked up at the sky, his breathing slowed down. The bright star filled sky was beautiful. He brought up his hand, the skeleton hand had dropped off and ran back to its host. Suddenly, a window popped up in front of him which caught him off guard.

'The god of adventure has taken a liking to you!'

His eyes almost fell out of their sockets, "A god that likes me, what does that even mean?". He gave the meaning a lot of thought, there wasn't anything else to derive of it, and he wasn't going to attempt to trick the god. In every story he had heard, that ended badly.

"I guess that I won't be getting a share?" Noah grinned at Ferro, Ferro returned a deadly stare. It didn't stop Noah's grin, he laid on his back eyes staring back at the sky. Silence took them.

…

Noah woke up in his cramped room, before he had gone to sleep, he'd gone to Eva to fix his feet. He was running seriously low on money, he had enough for one more meal of salted jerky, but after that he had nothing.

He made his way to the adventure hall with a half filled stomach, he felt strangely fulfilled from yesterday. The first thing he saw was Ferro, he sat at the table he'd sat on yesterday, this time he had nobody around him. He looked to be in a foul mood.

Their eyes connected, Noah gave a big wide grin whilst Ferro walked straight towards him. He gave him an uppercut aimed at his stomach, Noah fell on his knees and grabbed the floor with his arm.

Before Ferro noticed it, he had three swords pointing at his neck. He swallowed his saliva, Noah raised his hand and muttered that he'd deserved it. The adventurers took down their swords, Noah had made quite a lot of friends inside the adventure hall.

He got back up onto his feet, Ferro gave him a deadly stare for a solid three minutes.

In response Noah, ( :

"That sword had costed me all my saved money and now it's gone, probably in the hands of a pesky skeleton", Ferro wasn't upset about his party. He could easily assemble another crew, and they weren't anything special, but his sword was special. It had cost him a full silver, that was two months of saving for him.

"Why don't we go back there, and take back your sword"

Ferro froze, he had not expected that answer. "With what, our hands", Ferro shook his empty hands in front of Noah's face to make a point. "yes" Noah responded. Ferro flinched, in all actuality it wasn't a bad idea. "Why is he so eager to go back there, we almost died". Ferro saw something crazy about in his eyes.

…

They were walking down the road towards the skeleton fortress together, bare handed. It was a cloudy day, light rain fell on them, the winds were calm. Both of them became bored quite quickly and a conversation broke out.

"You heard what's happening soon?" Ferro said.

"What?" Noah responded.

"There's a tournament coming up, in the colosseum. Its specifically for juniors like us, and I am going to sign up for it."

"Nice, you might even win it. I don't know of anyone who can compete with you in a fight."

"Yeah, but people from all over the country are coming for the tournament, there's sure to be fierce competition. Yeah, the winner gets to make one request of the king."

"Really!? If you won what request would you make of the king?"

"Lessons from the strongest fighter in the world."

"Really?"

"yeah"

"You could have nobility, gold, an entire castle for that matter. And you choose lessons?"

"Yup"

"hmm"

…

They had appeared in front of castle. The outskirts were filled with parties like before, Noah had a weary eye towards them. Noah told Ferro that the deeper into the ruins they got, the stronger the skeletons seemed to get.

They killed a few brainless skeletons before proceeding further into the ruins. They had stopped chatting and used improvised hand signs to signal what they meant. It caused a great deal of confusion at some points. Putting the finger before your mouth was easy to figure out, but saying "enemies in front of us" was a lot harder.

When Noah tried it he took up his middle, and index finger and then lowered his index finger to signal that he'd take out one. The result? Ferrous deadly stare. As they got deeper into the ruins, the skeletons became smarter and their fighting patterns more irregular. But, there were no real weapons yet.

Soon there would be.