Bones

"Winter, I don't know a lot of things, but I do know that those bones are going to come to life if we get too close to them," I said. "Yup," agreed Winter, "but how close is too close," he said and took a step. Turns out that one step was the answer. The bones started to jump with joy as they began rapidly assembling themselves into a large skeleton more than two times my height. A health bar spread out in the bottom of my vision, with the name 'Remains of the Red WarDemon' over it. As the skull attached itself, its sockets started to glow a bright red, and thick, pulsing red veins traced itself along the entirety of its form. Another thing instantly stood out to me. There were numerous red crystals jutting out from the skeleton. One on each shoulder, two as horns, one protected under its ribcage, one on its forehead, and I could barely see the one that was on the back of its neck. If all that wasn't strange enough there was one other thing, "Winter, each of the crystals has a barrier around it," I muttered quickly. "I think that each crystal is a different core," He said back to me. "Use that monocle to deactivate one and I will attack it! Tell me which one you deactivate though." "left horn," I said. The barrier, which was a thin chromatic veil, vanished.

"I would start running!" Winter said while starting to smile. The boss started to move towards us. I started moving to the right and Winter went left, the only difficulty with that choice was that I would now have to keep the left horn in my vision while moving right, it shouldn't be too much of an issue though. I saw Winter levitate a bunch of ink above his brush before dragging it through the dirt for some reason. He then spun it into a spike and launched it at the horn, causing a large crack to run through it. I was now behind the boss and was trying to make myself small against the wall so that I would go unnoticed. The ink that cracked the horn came back around to Winter's brush. With a flick of his wrist it flew back into the horn, snapping it in two. The health bar instantly decreased by a seventh. "Other horn!" I yelled making sure to stay directly behind the boss. I was having an easy time compared to Winter who was running around and making shields of ink every once in a while but he seemed to be having fun for some reason. 'Crazy' I thought, smiling slightly. The right horn fell in 3 hits and the boss's health decreased even more. "Neck!" I yelled, "Why that one!" Winter yelled back, "Because it's easy to see!!" "Whatever," This one also fell in three hits. "Right shoulder!... The other right!!!" Winter has attacked the shoulder that was right from his perspective. "I see that!" He shouted back. This one fell in four hits. The left shoulder and the crystal protected under his ribs fell in five hits, and the forehead fell in six, The only problem with the forehead one was I had to be able to see the barrier. And this barrier was a lot smaller than the other 6 so I had to run around to where Winter was and almost got hit.

After taking down all the crystals the fearsome leftovers of the Red WarDemon crumbled into a pile of bones once more. 'Weird, you would think that it would turn to ash or dust instead of crumbling back into bones,' I thought. The health bar was still there too. "Winter, the boss's health is increasing," I said, "how can you tell, does the monocle tell you that too?" "no, do you not see the health bar?" "Health bar?" "It might be part of my system… but that's not important right now! What do we do?" "I think it probably has a main core somewhere, and the reason it kept taking more hits to bring down the crystals was because it was redistributing energy," Winter said as he looked into the eyeholes of the skull. "I was wondering if there was a proper reason as to why the eyes were glowing," He said and tossed the skull over to me, "Would you like to do the honours?" "uhh, sure," I said. Looking into the eyeholes it was evident that there was still a faint red glow, and with the length of my claws it was not hard to disperse the energy that served as the true core of the boss. The health bar, which had returned back to half, disappeared along with all the bones which faded away.

A few new system windows popped up. One said 'Congratulations, you have reached level 20! New features have now been unlocked' Another said 'Due to interference quest rewards have been cancelled' there were a few others but these were the important seeming ones. 'What do you mean interference??' I thought. Nothing popped up. "Ok then, what about the new features," I muttered. A window popped up this time. 'Because you have reached level 20 you have unlocked the inventory, which allows you to message other people, allows you to store your coins which will be automatically extracted when you purchase something, allows you to store 250 items, and allows you to see other information about yourself such as health and mana,' Was what was on it. 'YES! This is great!' I was thinking when a book went flying past me. I looked over to see Winter jogging to pick it up. "What was that!!" I said. "Sorry, I tried putting that book into this book," He said as I noticed that he had another book now, he stopped once he reached me. "Because the book said it could store things, but then after it got halfway in I felt a sudden dread so I threw them and they violently shot in opposite directions, Sorry," He said and started over to the book again. "How many things can that one store?" I asked, "50 why?" "Because my system has an inventory that can store 250 items," I said smugly. "I'm starting to think that the world does not like me," Winter said. "I'm guessing you hit level 20 though?" I said. Winter looked at one of his books,"Level 21, is that why I got this book?" He asked, "yeah" I also explained the other things that happened.

"Do you still have that blade that we couldn't use from earlier?" I asked. Winter tossed it to me so I swung it around a bit. "You can keep it, I have no need of it," Winter said. "Thanks," I said and put it into my inventory. To do that I just had to will it to go into it and it did, really convenient. He then tossed me something else. It was a scroll, 'Red Demon transformation scroll' was what it was called. 'If you use the scroll you will gain the skill 'Red Demon Transformation' which, for 10 mana a second, you will turn into a Red Demon to receive new abilities and a stat boost, Skill Requirements - 'Lesser Shapeshifting',' was what a window said about the scroll. 'This seems pretty good, and it doesn't require a sacrifice like the basic shape shifting skill does,' I thought. "Where did you find this?" I asked. "It was left where the boss vanished, which was like, right under you, I have no Idea how you missed it," Winter said. "Well… I was busy with my system," I said sheepishly. "Was there anything else?" I asked, "unfortunately, there was not," Winter responded. I looked back at the scroll and unrolled it a little out of curiosity. There was what resembled a magic circle and a box below it. 'What is this?' I asked the system through my thoughts. A system window popped up that said, 'To use the skill scroll you must place a drop of your blood in the box.' 'Well that shouldn't be too hard, given my claws right now,' I thought. I poked one of my fingers with a claw and wiped it over the box.

The scroll immediately combusted and turned to ash in an instant, which startled me and singed my fingers. I glanced over at my skill window which had just popped up, and sure enough there was a new skill there. "Red Demon transformation," I said out of curiosity. I felt like I was temporarily engulfed in flames as I very quickly reached Winter's height, and when I exhaled a faint smoke came out of my nose. I looked down at my hands and saw that they were red, as the skill name would suggest. "How do I look?" I asked Winter. He sighed, "I guess it would not hurt to show you with magic," he said. He conjured a thin veil of water that somehow solidified into a nice mirror. It floated in front of me as I looked at my new form.

I looked like a proper devil now. Red skin as I had previously known, my face was the same as normal except for the carved sigil on my forehead and black eyes. My ears were slightly pointed now and I had 2 goat horns sticking out either side of my head. In addition to the smoke that trailed from my mouth there seemed to be an everlasting fiery glow that was hidden just behind my skin. The mirror vanished. "Cool," I said. Winter nodded. I looked at my new skills. 'Fire breath - Shoot a stream of flames from your mouth for 3 seconds, Can be used three times per minute at no cost, 'Fireball' - for 25 mana you can shoot a ball of flames that will explode on hit, 'Fire control' - Passive, you can minorly control fire and you have a slight resistance to it, and 'Weak brimstone flame' at the cost of half your max health, your next fire attack will be infused with the everburning nature of brimstone.' 'Looks like I can finally do something now' I thought. I then looked at my stats briefly, +20 to Mind and Int, +10 to str and end, and + 5 to Ins. 'How do you dispel a skill?' 'Will it to be so, and it will happen,' Responded a system window. 'That's convenient,' I thought. I let go of the skill and returned to my normal self. "Should we go now?" I asked. "Sure," replied Winter. There was still only one door so it looked like we would have to go back through the whole thing.

I opened the door and to my surprise there was no maze that lay in front of me, but instead the light of day from what I presumed to be the entrance. I was not wrong.

Name: Kevin

Age: 17

Level : 21

EXP: 5,500/10,000

Lesser Shapeshifter

Stat Points: 18

Stats:

Vitality : 15

Mind : 5

Endurance : 10

Strength : 20

Intelligence : 5

Soul : 5

Instinct : 30

Tinkering : 5

Luck : 0

Skill Points: 5

Skills:

Language

Lesser Shapeshifting(level 6)

Red Demon Transformation