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Yeoman wasn’t sure what he was doing. The undead had taken him away presumably because they thought he was one of them. Mr. Skelly, the leader of the undead, gave him a rotten Fruit of Knowledge in hopes he’d become smarter, so it seemed like the undead valued him a lot. Yeoman had no idea why that was the case, but he had no complaints about getting a free upgrade. However, he was a bit confused as to why there was a skeleton standing across from him, waiting for him to dance with it. No, it should’ve been a her. Probably? Yeoman couldn’t tell by the bones alone; he wasn’t a doctor.
“Are you sure he’s smart enough to learn how to dance?”
“He should be. Even plants can be trained to do things.”
“But is he as smart as a smart plant, or is he one of those dumb plants?”
“We’ll see in a bit.”
Right, the skeletons wanted Yeoman to learn how to dance. That’s what he thought he had heard them say, but he wasn’t quite sure. “Why do I have to learn this?”
Mr. Skelly chuckled. “You were personally created by Grimmoldesser. Do you know how many undead can make the same claim? All of them who can are officers within the legion, and for you to be an officer in our legion, you have to learn everything.”
“Everything?” Yeoman asked. “Everything about dancing?”
“Everything about everything,” Mr. Skelly said. “As the dead, we have all the time in the world. What better way to kill some time than by learning? But don’t you worry.” Mr. Skelly nodded. “You don’t have to be a master at everything, you just have to know a little bit about everything. I suspect you can claim an officer position within fifty years.”
“Fifty years? With his intelligence?”
Mr. Skelly smiled at Yeoman. “I suspect you can claim an officer position within five hundred years.”
Yeoman’s eye twitched. “Is dancing that important?”
“My friend,” Mr. Skelly said, placing his hand on Yeoman’s shoulder. “Everything in this world is fundamentally a dance.”
“Really?” Yeoman didn’t think that was quite true. “How so?”
“If I tried to explain it to you, you wouldn’t understand,” Mr. Skelly said. “Now that you mention it, teaching you dance probably isn’t the best option. Even if you learned, you wouldn’t be able to apply the fundamentals to your daily life.”
The skeleton had no face, but Yeoman could tell it was pitying him.
“In that case, let’s start with combat training,” Mr. Skelly said and drew his sword. “All officers of the legion must possess a certain amount of strength. I’ve clashed with you earlier, and I must say, you’re quite lacking in the power department.”
Yeoman couldn’t refute that. The skeleton had easily deflected his full power strike with the mace. “How do I get stronger?” Would the skeleton force him to kill monsters to gather gene fragments? That seemed to be the standard way of leveling up.
“Well,” Mr. Skelly said. “All of us are skeletons, but you’re a zombie. You’re quite lucky to still have flesh on your body. It’s a shame you’re not smart enough to understand what I’m about to say next, so I’ll summarize it for you. We’re going to beat you and heal you over and over.”
Yeoman’s eye twitched. How was being beaten going to make him stronger? He seriously considered using the teleportation ring to return back to the inn, but perhaps Mr. Skelly’s method might actually work? Before Yeoman could make a decision, the skeleton leader had already drawn and waved a sword, slapping the flat part against Yeoman’s shoulder. There was a cracking sound, and a burst of heat filled his arm. There was another cracking sound as the blade hit his other shoulder.
“There we go,” Mr. Skelly said. “Now, when we heal it, it’ll grow back stronger.”
Yeoman drew his attention away from his teleportation ring. If the skeleton had swung one more time, Yeoman would’ve transported himself out of there. However, after hearing Mr. Skelly’s words, he realized the skeleton really did mean to help him. Once upon a time, when Yeoman was younger, he had been interested in mixed martial arts. Who hadn’t? Like most people, he found it fascinating but never wanted to put in the work to become a fighter himself. He did read a lot about it though, and in his studies, he learned how some fighters strengthened their shin bones by kicking hard things. Doing that would create microscopic fractures in their bones, and when they were repaired, they’d grow back stronger. Was Mr. Skelly using the same concept here? Wasn’t it supposed to be a microfracture, not a complete shatter?
“Where’s the lich?” Mr. Skelly asked with a frown. “I should’ve called for him before I broke your arms. Well, sit tight for now. I’ll be right back.”
Yeoman blinked hard. Wasn’t he supposed to be the dumb one around here? What was he supposed to do now that his arms were broken? He looked around, but there really wasn’t anything there. He was in a swamp. He was surrounded by skeletons. All of them were looking at him. “What do you usually do around here?”
“Oh, we sing, dance, march, train, kill each other,” a skeleton said. “You know, the usual. Sometimes, humans will wander here, usually by accident. When that happens, we terrorize them for a bit before letting them go. Before, when times were rougher, less peaceful, humans and demons would bring armies over to fight us. Those were the days. Now, they just leave us alone, so we have to fill the time by ourselves. A lot of us have gone to rest, but your treasure woke us up.”
“Gone to rest?” Yeoman was pretty sure skeletons couldn’t sleep. Wasn’t that a theme in Virlyce’s stories? Weapon spirits couldn’t sleep. Zombies didn’t sleep. After reading so many of that author’s novels, Yeoman wasn’t sure if the skeletons from The Blue Mage Raised by Dragons followed the same rule.
“Given up the mana in their bodies,” the skeleton said. “They died again, and they’ll only wake up when the mistress or Grimmoldesser calls.”
“Hey, it sounds like he understands us.”
“It looks like he’s one of the smarter plant species.”
“Do you think we can teach him how to sing? With a voice as loud as his, he could match a whole platoon of us by himself.”
“Even if he can’t sing, he can at least shout offkey. The effect might even be better.”
In The Blue Mage Raised by Dragons, one of the siege tactics the skeletons deployed was nonstop singing. As undead, they didn’t have to sleep or eat, so they could bombard the enemy with noise twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Eventually, after weeks or even months of harassing their enemies with noise, they’d win the battle without lifting a single weapon once their enemies surrendered from lack of sleep. Yeoman could technically adopt their strategy, but he didn’t think he’d ever have to.
A skeletal horse rode into the swamp with Mr. Skelly sitting on top of it. “Alright, there’s some bad news and some good news,” he said. “Which one do you want to hear first, Yeoman?”
Yeoman wasn’t sure he’d like either of the pieces of information the skeleton brought back. “The good news first.”
Mr. Skelly nodded. “The good news is you’re already dead, so it doesn’t matter.”
Yeoman blinked. “What?”
“The bad news is I can’t find the lich, so your arms are going to stay that way for a while,” Mr. Skelly said. “You see, most people ask for the bad news first. It would’ve made more sense if I said it the other way around, but I figured it didn’t matter because you wouldn’t have understood it either way.”
Just a little, Yeoman was starting to understand how Lucia felt every time someone took a jab at her intelligence. Of course, he wasn’t going to let the skeletons’ comments get to him. He wasn’t as strong as Lucia; if he threw a temper tantrum, the skeletons could easily knock his head off. “Why can’t you find the lich?”
“Well, I don’t have any eyes,” Mr. Skelly said with a grin. “How am I supposed to find him? Anyway, there is another way to fix your arms. I happen to know someone who’s an expert at manipulating the dead.” He patted the skeletal horse’s rear. “Hop on. Let’s go for a ride.”
Yeoman had never ridden a horse before, but it wasn’t difficult for him to get on top of it. He also wasn’t afraid of falling off. It was easy to get a grip on the horse despite his broken arms since the horse was all bone. If Yeoman had known the skeleton leader was going to be so unreliable, he wouldn’t have stuck around in the first place, but now, he had to follow the skeleton to get his arms fixed. “Where are we going?”
“Maybe I should feed you another Fruit of Knowledge,” Mr. Skelly said and shook his head. The horse ran forward, its feet running atop the surface of the swamp with ease. “Didn’t I already tell you? We’re going to see someone who’s an expert at manipulating the dead.”
It didn’t seem like the skeleton was willing to give him any additional info, so Yeoman kept his mouth shut. Every time he spoke, he was treated as a fool, so it was better not to speak at all. It wasn’t like he didn’t have experience staying silent. Not too long ago, he had his tongue completely removed.
Time passed. Soon, the horse galloped out of the swamp into a rainforest. Yeoman had never been to a rainforest, but he had seen plenty of videos with them as the setting. Unlike the swamp, the forest was teeming with life, mostly bugs, and it might’ve been Yeoman’s imagination, but all of them were taking notice of him. Yeoman had thought smelling like flowers outweighed the negatives of attracting bugs, but after seeing some of the bugs here…. It was a good thing he was a zombie, or he’d have been terrified. They were huge.
After what felt like a few hours, the horse stopped in front of a cave on the face of a vertical cliff. It looked like the cliff had been created by a major earthquake, causing half of the earth to rise up. Yeoman’s brow furrowed. If he wasn’t mistaken, then Mr. Skelly had taken him to the Fountain of Youth. In The Blue Mage Raised by Dragons, that’s where Lindyss, the Corrupted One, lived. Although she seemed pretty nice and harmless in the book, that was only because she was doting on the main character. Yeoman knew he wasn’t a cute dragon-raised child; there was no chance he was going to be treated as nicely.
“We’re here,” Mr. Skelly said. “You have to be respectful. We’re going to meet our lord and savior, the master of all undead. If she tells you to do something, you do it. No matter what, you can’t defy or disrespect her. I’m warning you right now, your stupidity won’t be an excuse for any mistakes you make in front of her presence.”
Yeoman nodded. “I understand.”
Mr. Skelly nodded as well. “Alrighty then,” he said. “Follow me. When I tell you to close your eyes, you better close your eyes or you might turn to stone. A basilisk lives in this cave.”
Yeoman nodded. A basilisk. He had seen and killed a wyvern when he was with the goblins, but honestly, the creature reminded him of a lizard with wings instead of forelegs. Would the basilisk be a magical creature? Somehow, Yeoman didn’t think the basilisk would look that impressive either. It was described as an eight-legged lizard by Virlyce. As usual, the author was very lazy with descriptions, leaving lots of leeway for the creature to look like whatever the reader wished. It wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it couldn’t help Yeoman prepare in advance.
The cave was lit up by green ores, reminding Yeoman of glowing radioactive fluid portrayed in media. A strange thought came to Yeoman’s mind. What if magic was just radioactivity? However, that thought quickly went away. There was no way for regular people to harvest radioactive energy without the use of machinery. Other than the green ores, there wasn’t much to see. The cave looked like a tunnel, but there weren’t any stalactites or stalagmites. It seemed like the cave had been made artificially through magic.
“Ooh, visitors.”
“Walking skeletons?”
“One skeleton, one bird-human-plant thing.”
“You think they’re here to see Master?”
“Well, they’re certainly not here to see you.”
“Aww, don’t be like that. Didn’t I already apologize?”
“I haven’t forgiven you, so it doesn’t count.”
Yeoman raised his head. A bunch of bats were clinging to the ceiling, gazing at him from above. Lindyss raised bats, and they were generally harmless, used as comic relief. At least, Yeoman didn’t recall any instances of them attacking anyone before in the original plot. He made eye contact with a bat and nodded, prompting the bat to tilt its head.
“We’re getting close to the basilisk,” Mr. Skelly said after a few minutes of walking. Surprisingly, they hadn’t encountered any other creatures. Yeoman thought the Fountain of Youth was supposed to be filled with monsters that adventurers had to go through, but his memory might’ve been faulty. As the two turned a corner, Yeoman caught a glimpse of something rainbow and feathered.
“Close your eyes!”
Yeoman’s eyes snapped shut. Evidently, the basilisk was covered in rainbow feathers. It made sense. It wanted things to look at it to petrify them. However, did the basilisk eat the petrified people? Maybe it was like a spider. It could bite the statues and inject them with some kind of digestive juice before sucking the slurry out through a hole. Yeoman was a bit disappointed he couldn’t observe the creature more, but he wasn’t curious to the point of risking his life.
“Hey there, big fella,” Mr. Skelly said. “This is a visitor for the mistress. You can go back to sleep, alright?”
There was a muffled snort.
“Alright, you can look now,” Mr. Skelly said.
Yeoman opened his eyes. The basilisk was about the size of a delivery truck. It had feathers jutting out of its head in a fanlike array, much like a peacock’s tailfeathers. The rest of its body was green and brown, but it may have just been a trick of the light. There were four clawed legs on either side of its body, and Yeoman wasn’t quite sure why it had the ability to turn people to stone. Its body was large and sturdy; it didn’t seem like it needed any help in killing things. Behind the basilisk, there was a flight of stairs heading down.
“The mistress is just beyond those flight of stairs,” Mr. Skelly said and pointed. “Remember what I said. You have to be completely obedient and show no disrespect.”
Yeoman nodded. His broken arms weren’t painful, but they bothered him. He didn’t realize how much he gestured while speaking until his arms no longer worked. The skeleton walked past the basilisk, and Yeoman followed close behind. The flight of steps wasn’t too long, just long enough for one not to see the wall and door at the bottom until they were halfway down. Once they arrived in front of the door, Mr. Skelly knocked four times in a short pattern.
“Come in,” a scratchy voice said. It sounded like the owner of it had a cold.
Mr. Skelly pushed open the door but not before giving Yeoman a stern glance. At least, Yeoman thought it was a stern glance. It was hard to tell what the skeleton was thinking since it didn’t have any eyeballs or eyebrows. “Mistress,” Mr. Skelly said. “I’ve brought you one of Grimmoldesser’s creations. Its arms were severely injured through a terrible accident, and I was hoping you could fix it.”
“One of Grimmoldesser’s creations?”
Yeoman walked past the doorway. There was a beautiful lady sitting on a rocking chair with a pair of crocheting needles in her hands. There was a ball of black yarn beside her. It was huge, taller and wider than the lady and the chair combined. Behind the chair and yarn, there was a pond, which Yeoman assumed to be the Fountain of Youth. If he could get a cupful of that liquid, his whole party would get ten thousand points each.
“One of Grimmy’s creations indeed,” the lady said and put away her knitting project. “I’m Lindyss, the Corrupted One. You are?”
“Mistress,” Mr. Skelly said, lowering his head. “The creation is a bit”—he pointed at his own skull and knocked on it—“empty up there if you know what I mean.”
Yeoman cleared his throat. Before Mr. Skelly could poison Lindyss’ first impression of him any further, he had to do something. “My name is Yeoman.”
“Yeoman,” Lindyss said, her eyes narrowing. “What an apt name. It seems like Grimmy hasn’t forgotten about my plight despite the countless years of abandonment. He actually sent me a servant suited for my condition.” She gestured with her finger, telling Yeoman to come closer. Once he did, she looked him up and down. “Interesting. To think he balanced out the vitality of a plant and the corruption of an undead by using a fungus as an intermediary.” Lindyss held out her palm, and a black mist swirled up from her shadow, condensing into a ball of darkness. She blew on it, and it entered Yeoman’s body. Heat flooded his shoulders, and there were cracking sounds as his bones reconnected. “Alright, Servant Yeoman. Your mission is to infiltrate the dryads and bring back a basin of soul water for me.”
Yeoman blinked. Mr. Skelly nudged his arm and cleared his nonexistent throat. Yeoman bobbed his head up and down, remembering the skeleton’s advice. “Yes, of course. Infiltrate the dryads and obtain their soul water. I can do that.” Yeoman had a few questions though. Where were the dryads, and what the hell was soul water?