The skeletal bard let out a yelp as he fell backwards in an attempt to avoid Tatterhood's massive spoon. Undeterred by the swing and miss, Tatterhood kept up the assault, slamming the spoon downward.
"Oye, ¿podemos hablar de esto?", the skeleton bard exclaimed as he avoided the incoming blow by rolling backwards back into a standing position.
"Waitaminute, did the skeleton just speak Spanish", RJ thought as he watched the one-sided battle between Tatterhood and skeleton bard. Evidently, it didn't dawn on him until this moment to consider that a skeletal mariachi player would probably know how to speak Spanish, if he could sing in Spanish.
As he thought about this stupidly obvious revelation, his phone suddenly displayed a new prompt.
[Language unknown to user has been detected, would you like to purchase a Universal Language pack for 1000 gold coins]?
"...alright", RJ thought before clicking "yes" on the prompted screen. While normally he would ignore such prompts in other games or applications, he had the distinct feeling he was going to need this for any future encounters.
[Purchase confirmed, preparing to download language pack...now].
"Gya! Brain tingles!", RJ muttered as an insane amount of information in relation to language began to enter his brain all at once. Everything from the "Tower of Babel" to modern slang used by Estonian and South African teenagers flooded his brain. While he wasn't sure if he could write in those languages now, he was sure he could speak and understand those languages now.
"Oye chica...Pardon moi...Hey girlie, can't we talk about this?! I'm just playing guitar here!", the skeleton said as he kept dodging the attacks, "wait a moment, you can see me"?!
"Uh...yes?", RJ responded for Tatterhood in perfect Spanish. He was a little shocked at his sudden fluency, but decided to calmly just...roll with it. His entire day so far has been one magical fever dream at this point, suddenly speaking Spanish was somehow the least weird thing.
"What? You can see me too?! Is this crazy girl with you?", the skeleton asked as he dodged a wide swing aimed towards his head. However, he did not expect Tatterhood to keep the momentum going and use it to sweep his legs from under him.
The skeleton bard was knocked onto his butt as a result.
"Oof! Oh come on can't we-Ay!", he began to say before Tatterhood pointed the spoon at his skull like a blade.
The skeleton shot his hands up like he was being held hostage at gunpoint...despite the weapon in question being a giant wooden spoon.
"So min venn, shall I send this dead one back to the afterlife or do you want to recruit him?", Tatterhood said whilst keeping her spoon pointed at the skeleton.
"Uh...".
"Recruit? What are you two? Gangsters or something?', the skeleton asked with fear in his voice, "Just so you know, one of my friends is a police officer and he would not like it if I joined a gang! Wait, why do I know that"?
"Enough talk!", Tatterhood said as she thrusted her spoon forward in a threatening manner.
"Ay"!
"Hold up Tatterhood", RJ said as he stopped Tatterhood from trying to smash the skeleton, "I want to see something real quick".
Tatterhood eyed RJ for a bit before putting her spoon back. The skeleton bard let out a small sigh now that the spoon wasn't being pointed at his skull.
"Whatever you say, min venn".
"Thanks...now then", RJ said as he shifted his attention to the skeleton bard. Sensing RJ's gaze, the bard began to straighten up his posture. He wasn't sure why, but RJ felt compelled to ask the skeleton a few questions about who he was and how he got here.
"Hey".
"Y-yes"?
"Do you know what you were doing"?
"Uhh", the skeleton paused, "playing music"?
"Yeah, but do you know why you were playing music? It caused a bunch of people to just sorta... pause and cry like crazy", RJ explained.
"It did? I was just doing what the voice in my...head? Said to do", the skeleton responded while scratching his skull.
"A voice"?
"Yeah, it just told me to put my feelings into a song, so I did. Guess I got lost in the music or something", the skeleton responded with an awkward laugh.
"Huh...okay...do you have a name?", RJ decided to ask. While inside the Spirit Garden, RJ finished up reading up on what the "storied" were and learned that they could be divided into two main categories: the named and nameless.
The named ones were like Tatterhood, they tended to be main characters of a story or have some amount of backstory that made them...them. These included fairy tales, mythological figures or historical figures, oddly enough. They can have differing manifestations, but they all could be traced back to "a name".
The nameless on the other hand were like Ember, Frost and that Huoshu from earlier. They tended to be monsters, faceless side characters, fairies or a type of spirit that didn't have a name,or specific backstory, but were known to do a thing or live a certain way.
The example given in the turtorial was: "Shrek is an ogre, but not all ogres are Shrek".
With all this mind, RJ needed to figure out whether or not this skeleton was named or nameless.
"That...I don't know", the skeleton bard replied after a moment,"All I remember was waking up at the bottom of the bay and coming here...wait...maybe you can help me"!
"Huh?", RJ said incredulously.
"Yeah!", the skeleton said excitedly, "I mean, you and the crazy girl, no offense".
"None taken".
"Seem to be the only ones who can see me! Come on amigo, you gotta help me"!
Suddenly, a window prompt appeared between RJ and the skeleton.
[Optional Quest: Help the bard remember his name]
"See? Even the universe says you should help me! Actually, what is this thing?", the skeleton asked as he began to poke at the window.