The skeleton paces forward through the stone arch, light gleams onto the creature's frame, shadowing it to the nearby ceilings. Finally, the outside world.
A low plain of yellowish grass flanked on all sides by large trees of birch, the wood is white with speckling of black, and the bark on some trees is slightly rolled off the tree, almost stripped off of the main trunk of flesh.
It's a pity I cannot breathe, the air is fresh, and I can feel it on my bones.
{Intelligience +1}
{Feat: Fresh Air}
The warlocks boon speaks to me once more, intelligence? What kind of blindsided insult is this I am quite intelligent already. Hmm. Now that I can feel it, it is almost as if I am more in tune with the world, I cannot determine what this means but I can indeed feel something.
The wretch continues observing the open area, small critters dart among the trees, and tree rats and birds flutter among leafy greens and burgundy wood
Much better than the drab cave.
The wretch looks back at the natural buttresses of stone that lay behind.
Some day I may return if need be.
{Dexterity +1}
{Feat: Now entering Overworld}
The warlock's boon is being quite generous today, perhaps this is telling of the hardships to come in this so-called Overworld.
The wretch continues forward, and the sun gleams off the creature's bones, after being granted more boons the bones look visibly healthier, not brittle, and almost sturdy by some standards, it also seems the skeleton has grown taller by a slight margin. The wretch had fought the living of its kind for days while traversing the small cave labyrinth to reach the surface, it lost its precious bone club along the way to a quite vicious wretch that almost ended its unlife. Now with its surroundings sufficiently scouted the skeleton trots forward and lays itself into the fold of the forest, thistles, and branches lightly slap and scrape along the undeads body as it traverses itself into the entrance of the woods.
Before I go further I should arm myself, if my premonitions are correct this forest may be even more hostile than the cave from which I came.
The skeleton grabs a nearby rock and begins whacking at a small shrub, after a few minutes of felling the shrub falls, and the wretch begins its work by cutting the leaves off, the bones of the skeleton's hands are useful for this task as it can easily slap the leaves off, there is no flesh to catch on thorns or small knobs in the wood. The task is tedious but nothing has disturbed the skeleton as of yet, after the leaves are cleared off the scraping of the bark begins at the top, slowly the branch is crudely cut into a sharp point at the top, the skeleton takes the rock and slashes is it in a circular loop around the branch to provide more grip, a problem it has faced so far is that the lack of flesh makes gripping things quite hard so it must add this extra detail to provide the needed friction between the bones of its hand and the wood of the 'spear'.
I shall make a few more, in case this one breaks and to throw, A ranged advantage will help me greatly in any skirmish I may encounter.
The skeleton repeats the same process 3 more times, daylight frails into midday when all the work is done, now armed with a hand full of short wooden spears the skeleton feels confident enough to continue a little further into the woods, from where it is standing now it can still turn back and see the clearing where the cave entrance is, assuring there is an escape route the skeleton continues on, now the plain of grass shrinks from its sight.
Time passes once more, hours of slow creeping, the skeleton has trotted miles into the forest, every step taken with care to not alert any beast or creature that could annihilate it.
Perhaps I was wrong in believing that the forest would be a nest of hostile cretins, I may have prepared weapons for no reason other than my own paranoia.
As if ordained by the gods a low growl sounds throughout the brush the moment the skeleton reassures itself of its own safety.
Great, just when I begin thinking I am safe, here comes all the fetid creatures of the night to rebuke my thoughts and violently murder me.
A thistle brushes away revealing a medium-sized wolf-like animal with floppy ears and fierce red eyes, its brown shaggy coat flutters as a low gust of wind blows through the trees.
{Forest Hound}
The warlocks boon flashes for a few seconds, revealing the full name of the foe to the skeleton.
The forest hound slowly circles the skeleton, investigating it for any weakness the hound plans its strike.
A wild dog, I am made of bones so of course it wants to destroy me, it would have something to chew on for the rest of its life.
The skeleton archs its arm back, with a wooden javelin in hand. With a whoosh the wooden pole slings forward and hits the hound on its hind quarters, the weak weapon barely embeds itself into the hound, it hangs on limply, and the canine lets out a loud yelp and limps backward, gnarling its teeth quite ferociously.
Here comes number 2 you cretin.
Another javelin whooshes through the woods and barely scrapes over the hound, flying far off and bouncing off a tree.
The hound rushes forward, shaking out the javelin embedded into its back, it leaps onto the skeleton and pins it to the floor, it barks ferociously and begins snapping at the skeleton, it keeps the hound at by sticking one of the spears onto its ribcage horizontally.
This isn't good, I will soon crack under all this pressure. I must do something quickly. I will have to make a gamble.
The skeleton rolls to the side letting the hound latch onto its left forearm, it grabs a spear that had rolled out from its left hand and with all its might the skeleton thrusts the stick into the hound, blood pours out of the wound hole and the hound yelps loudly then slumps forward.
{Strength +1}
{Feat: Deafeated Forest Hound}
That was closer than I anticipated, me, felled by a small forest cretin. I would rather die.
The skeleton retrieves its weapons and shakes its head.
These boons, I can really feel them. My strength has surely tripled from when I awoke in the cave. The next hound may be an even easier foe, surely as I am granted more of these 'feats' I shall become a beast among these forest creatures. These forest hounds will not be the strongest foes I face, if I encounter a pack of them I will surely fall, I should tread lightly for now and pick and choose single engagements only.
The skeleton recuperates and continues on, treading even lighter than before. The sun has now begun to crest and small patches of darkness take the forest.
It would not be ideal to be out in the open when night falls, when the prowlers and predators go out for the hunt I should be sheltered at least.
After some time the skeleton is surrounded by the growing dark, it has passed through a few clearings but none are good enough places to stop for the night.
As if fate is taunting the skeleton from the dark another forest hound appears this one seeming off.
Is this one here for revenge? Are these creatures capable of feeling the need for revenge? Apparently, they are because this one seems to be fuming with anger.
The engagement begins like the last, this time the skeleton is luckier with its throw which embeds a javelin into the chest of the ravenous hound. With a quick step forward it launches another javelin and decisively strikes the hound again, the gain of strength from the feats makes the javelins embed much further into the hound causing it to turn tail and begin a slow retreat, the skeleton lurches forward and plants another javelin into the hind of the hound, this time causing it to teeter to the ground where it is then easily finished off by the skeletons longer main spear.
Well, that went much better than expected, the boons seem to be adding up quickly, and the single lurking forest hounds shouldn't pose a threat any longer. Though this one was actually smaller than the last one so I shouldn't be too proud.
{Gained Throwing 1}
{Feat: Hound Hunter}
Another feat on the same day? This is the first time that has happened, I never used weapons much before so maybe that's why. My precious club broke quite early and I was using it to hunt creatures that were much weaker than the hounds so perhaps the warlocks boon did not deem them worthy of a feat? The warlock who has put this spell on me was quite an interesting one I imagine, granting such power to a lowly creature.
Waving off the floating words the skeleton looks down on the corpse of the hound.
Perhaps I should harvest material from this, I am not sure how but the fur and leather would be useful for making weapons and clothing, I am no craftsman but I shall try.
And so the second killing of the animal begins, the skeleton hacks up the hide and fur, leaving crude rips in tears in the hide. After the butchering of the hound, the skeleton holds up the slashed-up hides, as if it is proud of its work.
Taking the furs and what was left of the tough hide the skeleton continues its work, wrapping it up tightly into what looks like a cowl or cloak. It drapes the makeshift clothing over its body and it lands softly on its shoulders.
Now when it rains my bones will have some protection, It should stop me from withering at least, I will need to practice on more forest creatures but I should be able to make a full set of clothing eventually.
Further, the skeleton delves into the forest, and the sun sets once more over the trees as the night passes, with only a few beasts being encountered by the skeleton.