Chatter Bones

Chatter Bones
Chapter One

Most classic tales of daring do will begin with the shining hero saving a whole village from a dragon’s wrath, or a hopeless underdog being granted sudden great magical abilities and being sent off to save the world. This story however, does not open upon a setting such as this. Rather, this story begins on a dark and windy night inside a shady tavern on the outskirts of Swordhaven. This place was not for the faint of heart. Its clientele was usually comprised of bounty hunters, assassins, and the occasional ninja. Most patrons of the Silver Skull, as it was called, lived rough and dangerous lives. They operated best in the shadows and took on the unpleasant and risky jobs that normal people didn’t have the stomach for.

The Silver Skull was packed that night. Even the most hardened of killers didn’t want to be caught outside in what one moment had been a strong wind and was now building into a gale. It didn’t take much persuasion to choose cheap booze over the crummy weather. Several bounty hunters lounged about the dank, dimly lit bar hoping to pick up a job or two. They were restless souls that didn’t really sit well together. Every couple of minutes a fistfight would break out when testosterone levels skyrocketed. The grimy barkeep, his face partially obscured by a red cloth tied around his head and over his right eye served drinks from behind a dusty and progressively decaying counter the wood of which had become infested with termites and had collapsed in places. A shriveled old goblin plunked out a macabre tune on a dilapidated piano in the corner of the room. A raven perched on top of one of the rusted candelabras suspended from the ceiling cawed loudly and cast a baleful eye at the crowd below. Several large men were arm wrestling at one of the creaky wooden tables littering the establishment, and…in the farthest corner of the room, a lone hooded figure shrouded in a deep navy blue cloak reclined in a spindly chair with a flask of some unknown liquid held idly in hand. Ever few minutes they would tip back the flask into their hood, draining some of its contests into what was probably their mouth. You couldn’t be too sure with the folks you came by in the Silver Skull.

The ring of assassins gambling at a table across from the mystery figure eyed the stranger warily.
“You think tha’s ‘er?” one member of the group who was missing an ear and a few teeth muttered to his partner.
“Dunno. I ‘eard ther was a battle in th’ arena t’night. S’pose she’d be there wouldn' she?” the man beside him replied.
“Could be that’s she’s grown bored what with all the winning she’s done of late. There’s no one what can challenge ‘er anymore.” another gambler chipped in.
A chorus of muttered agreement followed this last statement and it was then that their whispered discussion was cut off by a new arrival at the front doors of the tavern. A moglin with red eyes and blue fur slunk into the room. He had a long scar over one eye and was wearing some sort of necromantic get-up.

“Good evening all! I have a job for the taking. Are there any brave souls in here who think they’re up to the task? Meh heh heh heh.” The moglin cackled.

The crowd of ruffians glanced around at each other before bursting into raucous laughter.

“Good grief! Give me a break! Who in their right minds would take on a job from a moglin? We aren’t that desperate!” one of the men at the bar guffawed.
The man next to him was laughing so hard that he was gradually sliding off his bar stool. The blue moglin narrowed his eyes and puffed out his furry little chest, clearly insulted.

“Meh! You dare anger Zorbak, the greatest necromancer in the land? I can take you all on!” he fumed.
At this the laughter only increased. It was then that a cold, clear voice cut through the din.

“I’ll take the job.” The cloaked figure in the corner coolly screwed a skull-shaped stopper into the top of the flask they’d been holding and slid calmly out of their chair. The room instantly fell deathly quiet. That was a woman’s voice! And there was only one woman who would be brave enough to enter the Silver Skull alone…

“How much are you offering, moglin?” the figure asked while pulling back their hood to reveal their face.
A collective gasp echoed about the unusually quiet room. The bounty hunters and warriors began to whisper excitedly among themselves.

“That’s her!”

“No way! Why is she here?”

“Wow! I’ve never seen her up close before!”

The young woman standing before them glared irritably at the crowd around her. Her icy gaze silenced them instantly. Each and every man their recognized a truly deadly fighter amongst them. This beautiful specimen was the most deadly woman in all of Swordhaven. She had appeared as a fighter in the local battle arena just around a month previously. She refused to reveal her name to anyone and instead took on the stage name Pandora. From the time she had appeared until the present she had defeated each and every opponent pitted against her. She had even taken down a fully-grown Orc warrior. Though only having barely reached the age of seventeen this enigmatic young woman had made herself known as a fighter the likes of which Swordhaven had never seen. Zorbak, the moglin necromancer, knew none of this however. All he saw before him was a lanky teenaged girl with shaggy straw-colored hair, strange navy blue eyes, cream-colored skin, and lips that were the most delicate shade of pink. This girl looked like she should be frolicking through fields of flowers, not drinking from a hipflask in the darkest corner of the Silver Skull. But there was something about the girl that made it clear to Zorback that she was not an average pretty-faced damsel. He could see it in her eyes; this girl was magical. The aura surrounding her made Zorbak’s fur stand on end.

“I asked you how much you were offering moglin. Don’t keep me waiting.” Pandora set a hand on her hip and narrowed her eyes at him.

“Meh. I’ll pay you Five hundred gold if you can finish the job. Still interested girly?” Zorbak tried to look as intimidating as possible and gave Pandora his best evil leer.

“I’ll take the job.” Pandora was far from being intimidated.

“Alright…Meh…. and you name would be?” Zorbak scratched his ear and looked up at her expectantly.

“I have no name. You may address me as ‘Pandora’.” Pandora pulled her hood back on over her head.

“Meh. Very well Pandora. Meet me outside the cemetery in Battleon tomorrow night.” With that being said the moglin disappeared in a cloud of acrid blue smoke.

Chatter Bones
Chapter Two

Pandora stared at the burnt ring on the floor marking the spot where Zorbak had disappeared with a bored expression on her face.

“Well, guess I’d better get going. Battleon’s a good ways away, and since I can’t travel by more convenient means, I’ll have to stick to horseback.” She thought.

She turned her head and realized that all the other bar patrons were still staring at her with a mixture of awed and fearful expressions.

“And what exactly are you looking at?” Pandora snapped in a venomous voice, eyes flashing.

The bystanders quickly turned back to their tables and barstools, not wanting to incur her wrath. A few months ago one of them may have been foolish enough to try challenging the young woman, but they all knew better than that now. Pandora sighed heavily and made her way back to the chair she’d been relaxing in earlier. From behind it she retrieved a very long item wrapped in a blue tinted animal hide and bound tightly with silver cords. She strapped this item securely to her back and strode across the room. Without a backward glance, she shoved the creaky wooden door open and disappeared into the night.

The minute Pandora was out of sight the bar broke into an uproar of talk.

“Was that really Pandora? The she-dragon of the Swordhaven battle arena?”

“Had to be. Who would be fool enough to pretend to be her? That was the real deal!”

“Sure was. I’d recognize tha' chil’ anywheres. It’s thanks to ‘er I’m missing me left eye innit?”

“I’m sure t’was her…and I’ll betcha anything that thing on her back was Ildanach.”

“Could be….it was big enough to pass for it.”

“Wow…the real Pandora in the flesh. Not many men have been this close to her and gotten away unscathed. She’s a scary one, that girl.”

“Looks like she’s leaving town though. Who’da thought the princess of the arena would run off for a job from a moglin?”
“Why would she? It’s strange, that it is.”

Had Pandora still been in the room and cared to answer that question she would have said she was bored with fighting weaklings like the men who were currently gossiping about her like old housewives with noting better to do. But Pandora was not at all concerned with what people said about her. She was more preoccupied with fighting through the gust after gust of forceful wind that was impeding her path to the stable behind the Silver Skull. Her blonde hair streamed back behind her head as she fought her way across the shadowy back lot to the ramshackle old structure. It wasn’t holding up very well against the wind either. As Pandora watched, chunks of the roof were tearing off and flying away. She reached the stable door and was greeted by an anxious whinny. Roran, her blue roan stallion snorted and pawed at the straw strewn floor nervously, his eyes wide and ears flattened back on his head in fear.

“Be at ease boy. It is only the wind, nothing more.” Pandora ran a calming hand across the horse’s neck and rubbed his withers.
“Easy boy…”

Roran recognized his mistress’s voice and began to quiet down. He nickered and affectionately nuzzled Pandora’s shoulder. Pandora took the steed by the reigns and led him outside. Battleon was a long journey from here. She would have to make it all the way through the western Green Guard forest to get to the village, which of course was full of all sorts of monsters and who knows what else. This didn’t bother Pandora much at all however. If anything she was more bothered by the crummy weather. But Mother Nature did seem to be making it up to her in a small measure by giving her the light of a full moon as a guide. If she rode all night she would reach Battleon by morning and then could sleep in the local inn until nightfall to meet Zorbak at the cemetery. With that plan in mind and a determined spirit Pandora leapt nimbly onto Roran’s back and snapped the reigns.

“Hyah!” She yelled, spurring the steed into movement.

Roran reared onto his hind legs and shot off at a full gallop. As she sped away from the Silver Skull and down a thorn bush infested pathway toward the center of town the young warrior looked like a righteous angel on a mission from the heavens, where in truth she was more like a demon from hell on the hunt. Nothing was going to get between her and her goal…and live to tell the tale.

Swordhaven was deserted that night, and it wasn’t only the weather that kept the townsfolk shut up in their houses, lights snuffed out and shutters tightly latched. The village had an undead problem. Fearful creatures roamed the shadows at night and it was not uncommon for some poor unfortunate fool who had been left wandering home alone after dark to be captured and killed by these reanimated horrors. However, while women and children trembled in fear of these fiends, seasoned warriors like Pandora were unafraid. Most of the creatures were merely lowly underlings of mediocre necromancers, annoyances that were a waste of time to deal with. Pandora could smell the undead creeping about the minute she reached the village. They were watching her from the shadows, thinking that she was a traveler unaware of the danger she was in. A cluster of rotting skeletons some with rusted and cracked armor, others with ancient and badly damaged weapons stared with eyeless sockets as she passed by, thinking that they were going to get lucky. A fresh young soul, ripe for the taking; wouldn’t that be tasty? Little did they know that Pandora was more than aware of their presence.

“There are three of them at my left flank…and an additional three waiting for me up a ways ahead. They’re trying to ambush me.” She thought, listening intently to the creaking of decayed bones and the dry shuffle of undead feet against the cold hard earth.
“I’d better take out the group at my head first. There is one among them with magical abilities.” She reasoned, sensing a spark of magical aura from in front of her.

Roran danced nervously in place and snorted. He too could sense the presence of things not living. He didn’t want to move any farther forward, fearing what lurked not even ten paces away. Pandora clucked her tongue impatiently and dug her heels into his flanks, demanding compliance. Roran began to back up and his eyes rolled. With a disgusted look Pandora struck him sharply on the hindquarters. She would not coddle a cowardly horse. They would be moving forward one way or another. Roran squealed in pain but began to trot forward again, much against his will. Pandora reached behind her back and slid the large object out of its covering. In her hand she held a massive sword that gleamed menacingly in the pale moonlight. Its hilt was silver and the handle wrapped in blue and black leather. The hilt was also decorated with dazzling sapphires and opals. The lengthy razor sharp blade was nearly as long as Pandora was tall and had an odd blue-ish gleam to it. Engraved in the metal a few inches below the handle in an elegant script was the word ‘Ildanach’. It was this blade that had felled over ninety opponents in the Swordhaven arena. Ildanach…the sword of Pandora the Fierce. The skeletons surrounding her cried out with strangled rasping voices and beat at their shields with their crude weaponry. As one, they lunged toward her aiming to kill. Pandora tossed back her head and laughed, it was an unnatural harsh sound that struck fear into the hearts of mortal men., and for a moment it caused the skeletal forces to cease their stampede, realizing at once that they had bitten off more than their decomposing jaws could chew. They shuffled their feet nervously and stared anxiously at this strange young girl who was still laughing in that terrifying howling tone. Suddenly, her laughter ceased and Pandora turned her head to gaze at the reanimated cadavers with the most horrifying evil leer ever to be seen on a woman’s face. They were the prey now, and Pandora the hunter.

“Let the chaos begin.” Pandora murmured the catch phrase she’d coined during her many arena battles.

With a mighty leap she launched herself off of Roran’s back and into the air. For a moment it was as if she was suspended their floating in thin air with the moon at her back, and then in an instant she vanished, only to reappear directly behind a pair of confused undead soldiers.

“You fools should watch your backs.” She whispered in a deadly voice before slashing through them with Ildanach. The female warrior dashed forward to deal with the remaining undead.
“HAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA!!!!” her manic laughter reverberated through the crisp night air.

Pandora moved so fast that she blurred; dashing from skeleton to skeleton dispatching them with ease. Her movements were so fluid that she appeared to be dancing across the dew covered grass, her feet barely even brushing the ground as she twirled and spun about. The moonlight cast an ethereal silver light on the entire scene giving it a surreal appearance. With the grace of a faerie she flitted in and out of view twisting and turning as she destroyed the moaning and decaying militia advancing upon her. The more intelligent of the otherwise brainless bunch of skulls realized that fighting her in close range was futile. Long ranged tactics would be the only way to take down this particularly fiery little meal. One of the skeletons ripped off its skull and hurled it toward Pandora. It aimed for her head, moldy teeth gnashing viciously. Pandora caught it in her unoccupied hand and promptly crushed it into dust.

“What a bunch of weaklings. This is no fun for me at all.” She sighed.
“I think it will be best to cut to the chase and kill you all if you can’t even put up a good fight. It’s best to put powerless wimps out of their misery.” Pandora slid Ildanach back into its sheathe and instead raised her gloved hands to the heavens.

Instantly balls of flame formed in her palms and cast a garish red glow upon Pandora’s face, making her looks even more like those of a bloodthirsty demon. Upon seeing this, most of the skeletal forces hastily fell back behind one unusually large armored corpse bearing a moldering staff in one bony and a horned skull with fangs protruding from the upper jaw. This was the magical presence Pandora had sensed earlier. It was an undead elemental mage, clearly the strongest undead present, and most likely the leader of the pack. Most people would have shrunk away in fear after seeing such a horrific beast with it’s glowing green eye sockets, blood-caked, clawed hands, and wicked snarl, but Pandora only sighed in disappointment.

“Not even you,” she complained hurling both fireballs at her opponent, “are a challenge for me.”

The mage roared in agony as the flames consumed it and its body collapsed into ashes. The remaining undead began to tremble and when Pandora laughed again and took but a single step toward them, collapsed into motionless piles of bones.

‘Pathetic.” Pandora spat, summoning fire into her hands again and igniting the whole lot.

With that done she ambled over to Roran who had taken shelter in a thicket of nearby trees.

“See boy, there was nothing to fear.” She murmured.
Roran didn’t share her sentiments. He didn’t know who to fear more now, the undead, or his mistress. Both were deadly beings indeed.

Pandora mounted Roran once again and steered him back onto the road out of town. The poor frightened horse trembled at what was probably awaiting them in the forest ahead, but figured nothing could be much worse than Pandora’s anger if he refused to comply with her wishes.

Chatter Bones
Chapter Three

By the time Pandora reached the quiet haven of Battleon, the sky was pre-dawn grey and birds had begun to shake out their feathers and chip the opening notes of their morning melodies. Both horse and rider were exhausted as they climbed the steep, grassy hill overlooking the village. Pandora was leading Roran by the halter and walking slowly beside him. She had been doing so for a good three miles since it would have been very cruel to make the poor animal carry her any father when he looked near the point of collapsing. Pandora herself looked a little worse for the wear as well. She’d lost count of the number of creatures who had attempted to attack her during her journey through the treacherous Greenguard Forest. None of those pathetic, stupid beasts had been left alive of course, but the constant killing had taken a toll on Pandora’s body. After all, unbelievable though it may be, at the end of the day Pandora was just a seventeen-year-old girl. The feat she’d just accomplished wasn’t normally possible for a girl of her age. It was this phenomenal strength and endurance Pandora possessed that caused many to wonder if maybe…just maybe she wasn’t really human…or at least not fully human. Pandora halted Roran and removed his tack, allowing him to wander and take a well-deserved rest. She didn’t worry about him running off. He’d come back when Pandora was in need of him like he always did. All she would have to do is call for him and he would come to her. Pandora tossed her saddle unceremoniously in front of a sturdy oak tree and unbuckled Ildanach, sheathe and all. With an enormous yawn she sank down onto the damp earth and leaned heavily against her saddle. After cleaning off the blood that was starting to dry on Ildanach’s blade she sheathed her weapon and promptly fell asleep right then and there.

Pandora would have remained in a state of deep and dreamless sleep until nightfall if it hadn’t been for the series of sharp pokes assailing her side. She was discontentedly roused from her slumber only two hours after she’d drifted off into dreamland with her saddle as a makeshift pillow.

“Sh-she isn’t d-dead is she?” a high, squeaky voice buzzed irritatingly in her ear while that bothersome poking continued.

“No. I don’t think so. She’s still breathing.” A human female’s voice replied.

Pandora’s eyelids snapped open and bored into a pair of shiny black eyes only mere inches away from her own.

“Gyaaah! She’s scary!” a red moglin bearing a leaf-topped staff (clearly the culprit behind the throbbing pain in Pandora’s side) leapt back into the arms of a young woman dressed in the clothes worn by members of the religious order of the Dishpanhand, quivering in fear.

“Don’t be rude Twilly. She probably didn’t appreciate being poked awake.” The woman, who didn’t look that much older than Pandora, stroked Twilly’s large red ears and smiled apologetically down at Pandora.
“Greetings traveler. My name is Cleric Joy Are you feeling well?” she asked Pandora directly.

“I’m fine.” Pandora answered indifferently.
Slowly, she got to her feet and reached for Ildanach before turning her frosty gaze back on the cleric and her moglin companion.
“Tell me, what is the closest inn around here?” she asked briskly.

“That would be Yulgar’s inn. It’s just down the hill from here. You can’t miss it.” Joy answered with a smile, pointing her in the right direction.
“Would you like some assistance with carrying your belongings?” she offered, indicating Pandora’s bulky saddle with its attached and equally bulky saddlebags.

“That will not be necessary.” Pandora said simply.

She hefted the saddle, saddlebags and all up with just one hand and as Joy and moglin watched, they shrunk until they were perfectly palm-sized.

“Goodbye.” Pandora nodded curtly in farewell before starting off down the hill into the village.

“G-Goodbye.” Cleric Joy blurted.

“Scary.” Twilly muttered from the safety of Joy’s arms.