A place where the sun never shines, a place where all plants and life is dead, a place where the sky that used to have plentiful birds was now covered in dark clouds, a continent that used to have kingdoms, cities and towns with bustling Streets and was once filled with life was now filled with ruins of what has been. This place is now known as the badlands.
The start of this story takes place in the west of the badlands and it's about the long journey that a skeleton is about have. Will he chose the path of radiance and make lots of friends or will he chose the path of betrayal because of selfishness and greed?
The skeletons of the demon lord's army didn't have any consciousness or awarenesses, they were just mindless soldiers that had tasks that need to be accomplished no matter what. One of these skeletons was on his his way to do a task, a skeleton general with ebony black bones and patterns carved all over him that show his rank. He had no eyes since he was a skeleton, but his eye sockets were glowing blue.
His task was to retrieve soul stones from the ruins of a wizards tower close the the edge of the western territory.
The tower was located at the top of a mountain. From the outside of the tower you couldn't even see the top of it, since about half way up it was covered in black clouds. It was very run down it as if it could collapse any moment, it looked like it definitely hadn't been used in centuries. The skeleton made has way to the front door and tried to push it, but it looked like the door was rusted shut. He unsheathed his shortsword from his left hip bone and mindlessly slashed the door in half. The fragile tower shook slightly from the small impact, being a step closer to collapsing. The skeleton didn't care and just went in.
After entering the ruins, all the skeleton saw was endless stairs going up. He began ascending the stairs to reach the top of the tower, some of the steps were trapped with magic runes and some steps were missing on top of it being seemingly endless so it took a while to get up. At the top of the tower he looked around and saw multiple rooms, they were pretty messy with layers of worn out books scattered around the floor, it was as if the people who used to live here were in a rush to get out. He began to search, but after searching from room to room for days all he found was debris and layers of burnt books covering the whole floor, nevertheless he continued searching for the soul stones.
He had been trained to clean up messes, so he sorted the books to the antique shelves. Eventually he found a book that was perfectly fine and it looked like the cover was made out of human skin stitched together, but he didn't find it odd because he wasn't aware of what was and wasn't unusual. He just grabbed it to get it out of the way, but as soon as he touched it he saw a vision.
He saw a blacksmith in a small town where the sun was shining and the lands were fertile, he could smell the metal of the sword the blacksmith was making and feel the heat from the sun touching his skin. He had a feeling he couldn't describe, a feeling of seeing a scenery he hadn't in a long time, he felt nostalgic.
"Sir I didn't know you were coming to pick up your sword today" said the blacksmith with a huge smile from cheek to cheek.
The skeleton was startled "is he talking to me?" He thought. He looked down and saw the hands of a human and was very confused about the situation. He tried to reply to the blacksmith, but he couldn't speak.
"Oh I was in town to do some errands" the skeleton replied uncontrollably and thought to himself "why can't I control what I'm saying?"
" A prince doing errands? You are one weird guy. hopefully nobody finds out you snuck out of the castle again. Anyway the sword is actually done I'll go grab it from the storage once I'm done with this one, come back in a few minutes"
After that sentence the vision stopped, all the skeleton was looking at was the book he's holding. A lot of thoughts and emotions were going through his skull
"What was that? An illusion? No there's no way it's an illusion, Memories maybe? My memories or the memories of the owner of the book?"
"If you're thinking about what you saw then I'll answer you. Yes those are your memories, if you want to find out more about your memories then you must help me with something"
"Whose there?"
The skeleton looked left and right expecting to see someone lurking in the shadows but no one appeared. Then a thought came across him, did the book speak to him? Surly not maybe it was just the wind going through his ribcage making that noise?
The book asked him once again to help him if he wanted answers. The skeleton was caught of guard, but he quickly flooded the book some questions because he was very excited and impatient.
He wanted to know who or what the book is and why the book gave him a consciousness. he also asked why he was a skeleton when he was once human. And he wanted to know about the memories as well.
He agreed to help the book if he got the answers.
The book told him about a deal, the deal was that he'd answer anything the skeleton asked, but the skeleton would have to help him get a new body in return. The skeleton had agreed again.
"Excellent, I'll answer some of your questions right away"
"I wasn't always this book, I used to be a genius sage but I bound my soul into this Grimoire before I died in the demon lord's invasion 500 years ago. honestly it was getting quite boring and suffocating staying under those books for 500 years (I was counting every second). you have my thanks"
"I didn't give you a consciousnesses, I just freed your soul from it's chains. All skeletons from the demon lord army still have their souls, but most of the soul is locked up and only the basics are kept, such as only following orders from the demon lord "
" I don't know what you saw in your memories because I can't see them myself, but i can cast a spell to return a few memories"
"That's all I'll give you for now so you'd better keep your promise and help me. I'll tell you my plan"
The book explained his plan and his goal to get himself a new body. The plan started with them going west using a ship they'd build to cross the ocean (since skeletons can't swim and just sink in water), then once they get far enough they'll reach a different continent, the continent of Orion. When they're safely on land the book would disguise the skeleton as a human with an illusion spell and get knowledge and rumors about what happened in the past 500 years they missed.
Next was finding a way to get money and connections for the last part of the plan. Becoming a merchant or adventurer seems like an easy way?
The last part is hiring a master alchemist with the money they made to make a perfect homunculus body and find a way to transfer the book's soul into it.
"So do you like my plan?"
"…."
The skeleton didn't fully trust the book entirely and thought he was hiding something "can he be a mass murderer since the cover of the book he's in is made out of skin from countless humans, maybe the pages are the same" is what he thought with an uneasy feeling, but he wasn't confident enough to ask about it and just continued the conversation normally.
"I Did promise to help you so I'll try my best to succeed. By the way what should i call you? We haven't even introduced ourselves"
"Call me Krause, Krause the sage" said the book proudly
"Alright, then I'm Arlo. It's a pleasure to work with you"