《Dungeon Guardian》


 Chapter 1 - Whenever a Dungeon is born, so follows a Guardian

    The sound of dripping water was the first thing Liss noticed as she woke. She had beenhaving a weird dream, something about dogs sniffing around her soul in a brightly lit room. Not the weirdest dream she could remember,and thedream was already slipping away from her sluggish attempts to ponder them, fading as all such memories does.


    She kept her eyes closed and remained unmoving, just listening to the water dripping and letting her mind drift.


    Light rain is always so soothing. I can just stay in bed the whole day listening to this.


    A drop of water hit her on the forehead.


    It''s raining inside? Is the roof leaking?


    Liss moved a hand to wipe at her face. A clacking sound and the missing sensation of skin touching skin caused her eyes to snap open. What she saw was four fingers, one thumb, all bones.


    Clenching her hand into a fist, she stared as the bones in front of her moved. Her mind still felt slow and full of cotton as the bony hand moved to her will.


    Am I still dreaming? There is a distinct lack of skin, muscle and sinew on my hand.


    It fascinated her to watch the movement of the individual bones, all moving by themselves.


    Her mind started to clear, thoughts becoming more coherent, she raised herself up into a sitting position. Looking around she noted that this was clearly NOT her room. Gone was her desk where she had her computer and books.No more wall to wall carpet which kept her feet warm on cold mornings. The window which had provided a great view of the city with it''s skyscrapers was nowhere to be seen. Worst of all, her bed and favourite blanket was gone.


    She was sitting on the floor of what looked like a natural cave. However instead of an uneven rocky floor, it was completely flat. It was almost like someone has created a hole inside a mountain, and then put down a concrete floor. While the walls and ceiling were uneven and rocky, with cracks and large rocks which looked like they could fall at any moment, there were no large openings where one could enter or leave the cave.


    Another drop of water dropped on her head, and she took a closer look at the ceiling. There were no stalactites, and she couldn''t see any obvious flow of water from any cracks.


    How does the water keep hitting me in the head?


    A bony hand reaching up to brush off the water brought her attention back to her own body. She gingerly touched her own head, noting the hardness of her skull and the lack of feeling. Moving the hand down to her face, over empty eye sockets, a missing nose, and rows of teeth.


    This must be a dream,a nightmare.


    Looking down, she knew what she would see. A rib cage containing none of the vital organs it''s supposed to protect, followed by a bare pelvis and bony legs. Reaching up she ran her hand down along the rib cage. The clicking sound of bone hitting bone echoed around the cave. She tried to take in a breath, but nothing happened. No rib cage expanding to contain the lungs, no weight of breasts moving on her chest.


    Liss started shaking.


    Ican''t breathe.Her teeth clacked as she opened and closed her mouth.


    I can''t breathe.Hands moved to her throat, finding nothing but bone.


    I CAN''T BREATHE!She ripped at her chest, pushing and pulling, trying anything to get some air into non-existent lungs.


    Darkness grew at the edges of her vision. She rolled around on the floor, hitting the floor over and over with the skull in her macabre dance of flailing bones.


    <hr>


    A drop of water hit her head.


    Liss lay completely still, listening to the falling water. After a while another droplet hit her head, but she ignored it. Eyes closed she just lay there, trying not to think, trying not to move, and above all, trying not to breathe. Another droplet, she could feel it hit her head, but there was no sensation of water flowing over skin, not even flowing over bone. There was no sensation at all after the water hit.


    A bony hand reached over to where the water had hit her skull, and dabbed at it. Opening her eyes she looked at he her fingers, noting the moisture on the bone slowly gather into a droplet and fall.


    So I can feel the water hitting, but not the fact that I have water moving on my face?Watching the water droplet fall into and through here eye socket was disconcerting, and she felt a shiver run through her bones. She raised herself up on her elbows and back into a sitting position and looked around. Her surroundings were still that of the cave.


    There was no sensation of hot or cold, not even from the water. Either there was no wind flowing through the cave, or her body could not feel air moving over her bones, same as with water. She could feel the rocky ground beneath her, but it was not uncomfortable. She tried poking herself with a finger, and felt a slight pressure oricingsensation if she pushed hard enough. Itfelt almost like a toothache when she really tried to poke a finger into her bones. The sensation reminded her of dentists and another shiver went through her bones.


    While poking and prodding herself, she noticed something strange... stranger than her body having turned into a skeleton. On one of her arm bones, a piece of paper had been tied with a string. The paper was yellow and cracked at the edges, and the string ran completely around one of her arm bones before being tied with a nice bow.


    Picking up one edge of the string and dragging it, the bow was undone and the paper fell away. She caught the paper with her other hand, and freed the rest of the string from her bone and the paper. Unrolling the paper she looked at it, pieces at the edge of the paper crumbling off as she handled it. The paper was covered with glowing red symbols, which seemed to change shape as she was looking at them. They flowed into different shapes, combining and then later separating, creating a mesmerizingkaleidoscope.


    The symbols flashed a bright blue, and Liss heard a voice in her head.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.


    "First, we would like to apologize. Youhave probably just woken up in astrange place, with a new and scary body. We don''t know where you will end up, or even what shape you will take. You will probably hate us for what we have done, and in some ways you are right to do so." The voice sounded like a male and female speaking at the same time, giving Liss a slight headache as she continued to listen.


    "We..." The voice hesitated before continuing, "Made a mistake." Shame, anger, and fear. The emotions flowed into Liss through whatever link the voice used.


    "We thought we could protect her, give her a choice..." The voice trailed off. Then the voice changed, this time only the male voice spoke.


    "Whenever a Dungeon is born, so follows a Guardian!" He sounded tired, as if the words weighed on him greatly.


    Liss waited. The paper still glowed blue, and she still felt like there was a connection to her mind. She tried to speak back, but only succeeded in clacking her teeth. After a while, the voice spoke again, this time both the male and female.


    "She is young, newly born, she should not suffer for our mistake. Please don''t take out your anger on her, we are the ones responsible for you being brought here." The voice was hurried now, and Liss could feel the link weakening. The edges of the paper was blackening, flaking off pieces.


    "Please protect her, guide her. Please be there for her, be the Guardian of our Daughter." The last was spoken only by the female voice.


    The paper in her hand caught fire, and Liss let go of it with a clack of teeth. The link was instantly broken as her bony hand left the paper. On the ground the blue shapes flared once to red, and then went out as the paper crumbled into ash.


    <hr>


    What is a Dungeon?Was Liss'' first thought once she got over the shock.


    Isn''t that where they used to keep prisoners in castles and places like that?Shaking her head, she looked around.


    And where is this daughter they were speaking of? They made it sound like we would appear at the same placeShe looked around, but other than a few small rock laying around, there was no one else. A drop of water hit Liss in the head. Annoyed, she looked up at the ceiling, rubbing a hand over her skull.


    Where does that water keep hitting me from?


    She stood up. Then promptly fell back onto her bony butt. Losing a significant amount of weight apparently also changes your sense of balance. Especially the loss of her breasts, not that they had been THAT large, was affecting her balance. She spent some more time learning all over again to stay up on her feet, trying to balance on her feetconsisting only of bones was another challenge. It didn''t take too long, but she still had to keep it in mind when walking around. The perfectly flat ground also helped, she imagined a real uneven cave floor would have made things more challenging.


    Walking slowly around the cave, she looked at the walls and ceiling, trying to figure out if there was more to this cave, or a way out of it. She was also trying to find the source of those annoying water droplets which somehow kept hitting her on the head. Thinking about the water droplets she again notices the sound of water falling and hitting something. Since she is not currently feeling water hitting her head, there must be water here somewhere else in here.


    Even without ears, she still seems to have the ability to hear sound. She does however find that she has problems pinpointing the direction and distance to sound, it''s almost like those fleshy bits on our head actually serves a purpose for that. With a lot of turning her head back and forth, probably looking like an idiot, she moves towards where she thinks the sound of water is coming from.


    Eventually she reaches a part of the wall with a crack going down it towards the floor. The crack splits in two halfway down, and then meets again towards the bottom, leaving a piece of the wall disconnected from the rest. She hears the continue water dripping sound from somewhere behind this piece of the wall.


    As she prods the rock, trying to see if there is a way to loosen it, a water droplet the size of a nail slowly floats out from the crack in the wall. It slowly hovers up into the air above Liss, and then drops, straight onto her head. She rubs her head while thinking about what she saw.


    Floating water? Maybe there is some gravity fluctuations? Maybe it''s not water, but a gas which looks like water? Or, maybe I''m just crazy... seeing as I''m a moving skeleton...Another water droplet floats out while Liss is lost in her thoughts, and again water hits her head.


    Or, maybe I should just go all the way, and start believing in magic?She brushes her hand over her skull where the water hit, and looks at the now wet bones of her fingers. She does not feel anything from her fingers, no water, no air, no tingling of pumping blood. Her hand starts shaking, and she feels herself trying to take another breath... and failing.


    Before she can lose herself in another attempt at breathing without lungs, the rock in the wall topples out towards her, and falls onto her feet. She looks down at her leg bones sticking out from under the tire-sized rock.


    Well... that looks painful...There should be pain, she is pretty sure her feet are crushed into dust under that rock, but she feels nothing more than ice cold on her feet.


    Cold? Ah, so cold means damaged then I assume. Do I have nerves inside the bones?She tries to lift one of her feet, and the noise of cracking bones sends a shiver up her spine, worse than when someone draws their nails down a blackboard. With a final snap her leg is freed, and she is left with the stump of a bone just above her ankle. With only one of her legs keeping her upright, it too snapped as she falls backwards and onto the stone floor, now with only pointy bones for feet.


    As she stares at her now useless feet, and wondering why she''s so calm about it all, a green crystal the size of her head floats from the hole in the wall, and hovers in front of her. She stares at it for a while, her jaw hanging open, before clacking her teeth together and reaching for the crystal.


    The crystal glows slight from the inside, making Liss wonder if the crystal itself is green, or it''s just a green glow. It''s a hexagon cylinder with two pointy ends, a perfect shape without any faults, nicks or misshaping. As her finger touches the crystal, she suddenly feels warmth enter through her hand. The warmth spreads through her body, her bones, and down into her feet. There the warmth turns into a tingle as the warmth clashes with the icy feeling of damaged bone, and the bone starts to grow.


    Within what seems like only a few seconds, both her feet are back to the full bone glory, and she looks back to the crystal. Dew gathers on the crystal surface and collects into a large droplet of water. The water droplet slowly lifts off from the crystal and hovers in the air, floating over to Liss.


    Liss watched the droplet, captivated. Slowly, ever so slowly, it moved above her head. The silence of the cave was broken by the sound of a single water droplet falling onto the bone of a skeleton skull. As more warmth flowed from the crystal and into Liss, she felt a link much like the one from the paper earlier. In her mind she heard a soft giggle, as if from a young childwho hadjust seen something very funny.

 Chapter 2 - What is a Dungeon?

    Another water droplet, now quite a bit larger than the first few, floats towards her head. Liss casually uses a bony hand to swat it out of the air, splashing water on the floor. The green crystal float around her, going up and down, left and right in an attempt to hit her with water from different directions. Her connection with the crystal seems to have gained some range, as she can now feel the crystals mirth even when it hovers outside her reach.


    You are an active one aren¡¯t you? Almost like a child, with the power to launch water from your body. Are you spitting at me? The last thought brought with it a memory of grossness, before her mind seeps back into calm.


    Liss swats another water droplet and tries to reach for the crystal, but it flies further out of her reach. Not that she puts much effort into catching the crystal, she feels no enmity against it. Just the thought of causing harm to the crystal makes her mind shift, like someone poking her to force her focus elsewhere. Putting together the information from the voices talking about a daughter, and the fact that there is nothing else but her and the magically floating crystal in this cave, she assumes the crystal must be this daughter they were talking about.


    I¡¯m a moving skeleton, who am I to judge whether a floating crystal can be a living, thinking being.


    She might be wrong of course. Maybe somewhere out there is a baby wailing for its chosen ¡°Guardian¡± to come find her. Maybe the daughter and dungeon are two different things? However, the child like emotions she feels from the crystal makes her think that very unlikely. Somewhere in her foggy memories she seem to remember hearing the term dungeon being mentioned in the context of games, like something to be conquered. Having never been interested in games during her childhood, and never having had the time for them as an adult, she can¡¯t really say she knows much about it.


    As if sensing her thoughts are elsewhere, the crystal ceases its water attacks and flies close, snuggling up to her rib cage. Liss looks down at the glowing green crystal, and puts a hand on it, carefully sliding her fingers along its faceted surface. Warmth flows in from every contact point, fixing small nicks and cracks in her skeletal body she hadn¡¯t even noticed.


    The warm sensation slowly fades, and she notices a new feeling from the crystal, almost like a hollowness in her now non-existent stomach. Liss wonders if it has maybe used up its energy by giving it to her, or by throwing so much water around. Hunger starts gnawing at her, and given she lacks anything to actually contain food, it is a peculiar sensation.


    What does a green glowing crystal eat anyway?


    Scraping together a few small rocks with one hand, not a simple task without skin to stop them falling between the bones, she tries putting them next to the crystal. For a while nothing happens, and she feels only curiosity from the crystal, but then a tendril of green smoke stretches out of the crystal and starts prodding the rocks in her hand. The rocks in her hand starts turning to dust, and then flowing back to the crystal, specks of white light mixed in with it.


    Growing hunger turns into something like satiation as more and more of the rock dust and white specks gets absorbed by the crystal. Once the rocks are completely gone, and the last of the dust has been absorbed, Liss opens her jaw and attempts to yawns.


    Wait, what? I don¡¯t have lungs, why am I yawning?


    She closes her jaw and looks down at the crystal, which slowly floats away from her chest and moves to the middle of the room, where it just floats in place. Walking up to it she gives it a few pokes, and only receives feelings of sleepiness and contentment in return.


    Ah, so it fell asleep after eating, cute.


    Her shoulder blades sink down a bit, releasing some tension she didn¡¯t know she had. Which is also a bit strange, seeing as she has no muscles to tense. Shaking her head and deciding to leave that conundrum for another time, she looks around at the now familiar cave.


    No motion can be detected from the crystal as she steps away from it, and starts leisurely walking around. It takes her only a few seconds to walk around the whole cave. One end to the other takes her around 10 steps, and reaching up with her hand she can just barely touch the cave roof with her finger tips.


    Trailing her finger bones along the rough surface of the wall, registering only the bumps of bone hitting stone but not the friction, she ends up where she found the crystal. The hole in the wall is still there, only going about a meter in before the regular cave wall continues. There is a imprint in the wall indicating where the crystal used to be, but nothing else stands out. No written manual, no more letters, no magical dust or water.


    Taking a step back she almost stumbles over a large rock on the floor, which used to be in the wall. Glaring with empty eye sockets at the piece of rock which crushed her feet when it first fell, a dull sense of irritation, more a memory of the feeling really, flows into her mind. She pulls back her foot and gives the rock a solid kick. The rock, which must have weighed more than her entire skeleton, lifts from the floor and ricochets off the wall with a loud thud. Rock splints and dust flies out in all directions from the impact point.


    Liss is frozen, completely, staring at her once again broken stump of a leg. Fragments of bone lay around her, and some are even stuck into the rock which continues to roll for a short distance on the floor. Wisps of green smoke seeps out from the break in her leg, fading into the air like food coloring into water.


    Am I bleeding? Is this green smoke what is keeping me moving? But I don¡¯t remember this happening when my feet got crushed by the rock, then there was no smoke or anything.


    The smoke stops after a few seconds, and the bone looks bare and jagged along the break. Thinking back there was green smoke also when the crystal grabbed the rocks and disintegrated them.


    So maybe the green smoke is some kind of force related to the crystal? But then why is my body releasing it? Maybe because I took in the warmth, energy from the crystal? Was the smoke trying to repair the broken bones, or was it simply my leaking out of a wound like blood would.


    Using one hand on the wall to keep herself upright while standing on only one rather bony foot, she turns around. Looking up from the broken leg she flinches away as she notices the crystal floating right in front of her face. Either the crystal doesn¡¯t need much sleep, her sense of time is out of whack, or it awoke when she kicked the rock. Her hand slips from the rock wall, and one foot is not enough to keep her standing without support, at least not yet.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.


    She falls down with a thump on the floor, feeling another icy sensation from her pelvis as brittle bone meets hard floor. It doesn¡¯t seem like she took much damage, but it is felt nonetheless. Her body really is very weak towards blunt force trauma, which kind of makes sense when there is no flesh, muscle or other tissue to dampen the impacts.


    The crystal follows her down, and she can almost hear giggling in her mind, a startled and falling one legged skeleton is apparently funny to watch. It floats over to her broken leg, and again the green smoke flows out of the crystal and into her leg. Her leg bones expands and grows, new bones grows out of nothing and moves to their expected locations to create a foot. After a few seconds she is whole again, with complete bones at her leg and foot beneath it. Her pelvis bone also receives some care, an interesting sensation as she feels the bones mend, before going back to dull and unfeeling.


    Curious how I can feel the most whenever my bones are healing.


    After that exertion of healing energy, some tinges of hunger flow from the crystal again, and Liss gets up and walks over to where the rock landed after her majestic kick. It¡¯s a wonder it didn¡¯t hit either herself or the crystal the way it bounces around in the confined space. She pauses in front of the rock and again do a quick look around, noting the wall where the rock ricocheted didn¡¯t really take much damage, nor did the rock aside from a few splinters. Shouldn¡¯t simple rocks break easier than this?


    While I¡¯m not claustrophobic, it is strange that such a small space with no exit or entry isn¡¯t freaking me out.


    She shrugs, and focuses her eyeless vision on the rock.


    If those small pebbles managed to fill the crystal earlier, then this huge one should last for a while.


    She bends down and grips the rock with both hands. Jaw set, and bones shaking with imagined strain, she puts her will into lifting the rock. The rock, encountering the unwavering will of this female human turned skeleton, does what only a rock of this size can. Remain completely unmoved.


    So a kick will pulverize my foot and send the rock flying, but I can¡¯t even move it using both arms? Did all the power bones go into my feet? Or is there something I¡¯m missing?


    She tries kicking the rock, with quite a bit less force than the first time, but other than small chips of bone breaking off her foot, the rock doesn¡¯t move at all.


    It should at least have wobbled if my feet had any strength. So that only leaves something else. Emotion? Mystical energy? Maybe my skeleton is made out of gunpowder?


    Thinking back, there was a memory of emotion, irritation or anger, at the moment when she kicked the rock. She tries to bring that to the forefront, to hate the rock on the ground. But all she feel is a dullness, a needle popping a hole in her mind to let all emotions drain away, leaving only placidity.


    While Liss is attempting to conjure emotions in her literally empty skull, the crystal floats over to the rock. More green energy flows out from the crystal and into the rock, starting to break down and absorb it. The flashing of white specks of light within the dust shakes Liss out of her highly non-emotional thoughts.


    In the short time it took Liss to turn her skull, the whole rock has been turned into dust and absorbed into the crystal. Quite a bit of white specks went along with it, and the crystal¡¯s glow is significantly more pronounced, even shading the cave walls green. This event brings to mind the question about how she is able to see. The cave has no light source other than the crystal, yet she can see the entire cave as if the rocks walls and ceiling are emitting their own light. Not even the cracks in the cave walls are hidden from her sight.


    The crystal, now giving off a bloated feeling, bumps into her in its uneven floating movement, and then does what Liss can only explain as throwing up. A large amount of green energy is expelled out from all over the crystal, merges into a point in the air above her hands. At that spot a spherical ball of rock is created, and expands as more and more green energy enters it, until the energy outburst ceases.


    Liss reaches up to the gravity-defying rock with both hands. From what she can tell with her skinless, and thus nerveless fingers, it is perfectly smooth. Trying to push it just makes it float slightly in the direction she pushed, before stopping and just hanging in the air. She cups the ball with both hands and tries to lift it up.


    Just as her hands starts attempting to lift it, gravity seems to remember the existence of the rock. The rocks falls like normal rocks are wont to do, and her hands stuck to it, follow down.


    Do the rocks in this cave have a vendetta against me? First the rock falls on my feet, crushing them. Then the rocks pulverizes my foot when I kick it. Now, what I assume is the rock reborn, decides to pulverize both my hands beneath it. If this goes on I will get a rock phobia.


    Down on her knees, both hands stuck under the rock, Liss tries to lift and pull. Nothing happens. The rock does not budge, and neither are her hands freed. It seems like this time the hands are still whole enough to be attached to her arms with whatever force binds the individual bones.


    She tries to gather some emotion, anger, fear, anything to get the power to lift the rock, with no success. At this rate she will be stuck beneath this rock for a long time. Maybe she could try to head bash the rock, but it seems like a bad idea to risk her head at this point, not knowing what will happen if it¡¯s destroyed.


    Having finished its version of projectile -literally- vomiting, the crystal hovers around Liss and the rock. Green tendrils of energy pokes at the rock and Liss, a sense of curiosity emits from it. Seeming to come to a conclusion, the crystal snuggles up to Liss, pushing its energy into her. She feel the energy go down into her hands to fix them, but the energy also do something else, pushing and pulling at something inside her. A strange feeling of something gathering, from all her bones, and flowing down into her hands, arms, and back.


    Some of her bones starts to glow with green lines, and suddenly the rock shifts. Putting some effort into lifting her hands, the green glow increases along her arms, going from her hands underneath the rock, and all the way up her arms and over her shoulders. Some of the glowing lines also seems to go down to her legs, but stay only as a soft glow.


    The rock raises up with her hands. Liss can feel the weight, but not nearly as much as what she expects with the trouble it has been giving her. Trying to stand up also causes the green lines in her feet to start glowing brighter. Then she is standing up straight, rock held in close to her chest. As the strain of moving the rock and standing up eases up, so does the glow of the lines. Dimming down to soft glow through the bones instead of blinding lightning.


    Deciding to give this new power a try, she puts everything into tossing the rock to the other side of the cave. The lines in her arms blazes up in a flash which momentarily turns the entire cave green as she throws it. The rock flies out of her hand like a cannonball, a soft thump vibrating the air. It hits the wall, and sticks, creating some new cracks in the cave wall. Had she been less nerve-deficient in her feet, she would probably have felt the floor shaking slightly at the impact.


    Liss takes a long look at her hands. No more glowing lines, but also no broken bones. For the first time, she had actually done something without breaking bones.


    Looking up, she notices the crystal is wobbling towards her in the air. She reaches forwards with her hands, thinking to catch the crystal. Suddenly it stops, and a flood of green bursts out towards her. At that point she notices the hole in the far wall, which just a moment ago held her improvised cannonball. A new rock forms, grows into a large ball, and promptly falls into her hands before she can react. Without the glowing green lines flowing through her bones, the rock hits her outstretched hands, and pull them down to the floor. For the second time in what could only have been minutes, she is stuck to the ground, rock over hands.


    The crystal flitters around in front of Liss, excitement flooding the link between them.


    Great, so now it wants to play catch.

 Chapter 3 - Crystal vs Cave

    The rock wouldn¡¯t move. Liss had been pulling, pushing, lifting, and even staring death at the rock. The rock did not move, and neither did her hands pinned beneath it. Seemingly having gotten bored by the lack of rock throwing by its pet skeleton, the crystal was off floating near one of the cave walls, green tendrils of power poking around.


    This was the closest she had gotten to feeling frustration since getting her new calcium abundant body, and yet the emotion would not stick. When the crystal helped her, she was able to increase her strength and lift the rock. It also seems like should work without the crystal giving her a constant stream of energy, seeing as it lasted for a long while after the crystal stopped touching her.


    Trying to replicate the feeling of energy gathering through her bones, she was able to feel something moving, like pulling water through a straw. However, no matter what she did, where she tried to move it, nothing happened. There was no glowing green lines on top of her bones, no sudden increase in her strength. It felt more like she was just moving the energy between her bones, not really using it for anything.


    As if to mock her attempts, the crystal again floats over to her, and drops another damn rock next to the current one. This new rock is only half the size of the existing one. Maybe the crystal is taking pity on her and giving her an easier rock to attempt lifting. Not that it matters, as she can¡¯t even activate the power, let alone control it enough to have an easier time with a smaller rock.


    Again green tendrils flows out of the crystal and starts poking at the energy flowing in her. This time however, it doesn¡¯t simply activate the power for her. She can feel the way it¡¯s trying to move her energy. Not simply moving it to the bones which need strength, but moving it up to the surface of the bones. Strengthening not only the bones, but also whatever invisible force is binding them together. The green lines starts to glow again, showing a path along the bones from her arms and down to the hands.


    So it¡¯s like pieces of thread binding the bones together, providing them with extra strength when moving. Am I a puppet on strings then? Oh, or maybe it¡¯s like a powered exoskeleton suit.


    As the crystal releases its hold on the energy, it starts to fade away. Liss picks up the threads of energy, and tries reproducing what the crystal did, moving the energy into lines roughly emulating where muscles and tendons would normally be. Forcing the energy into the shape she wants takes a lot of her focus and time, but once there they almost seem to settle into place. Once settled, maintaining the energy lines becomes much easier, keeping themselves locked into the pattern.


    Wishing to be rid of the clingy rock, she gives a heave with her powered arms. Instead of the rock flying up into the ceiling as she expected, her skull smashes face first into the rock. Force, meet equal but opposing force. All she accomplished by pulling with powered arms on the dense and heavy rock, was to pull herself towards it.


    Of course, I probably should put some muscle on other parts of my body too, like my spine. Her thoughts are accompanied by a wage memory of shame.


    Putting most of her focus on creating some muscles for her back, her arms loose their glow, the pattern winking out completely.


    This is more difficult that I expected. The arms were easy as I could see them both, and just mirror them. I can¡¯t see my spine. Well, I can look at it through my own rib cage. But even my skeleton head has limits to how much it can tu-


    Liss is surprised when the expected resistance doesn¡¯t appear at her neck, bending her head down to look through her rib cage. She can turn her head completely upside down. She can even turn it around 180 degrees and look behind her. Apparently the force keeping her bones together is very flexible.


    In the end she ends up in a position which would make most yoga masters envy or fear her flexibility, and putting down green threads of power through her spine and back. With that in place, she tries to keep it going while also putting back the empowering green threads on her arms.


    It¡¯s almost like it is taking the power from my back to create the threads on my arms. However I was able to empower both arms, feet and back earlier with the help of the crystal. Is it a power limit, or maybe I¡¯m just trying to do too much at once?


    After spending a while experimenting, Liss finds a method that works. Setting up the pattern first on her hands with a small amount of power, she moves on to her back and feet and puts down a pattern there. Once the patterns are locked into place, she then pulls the energy from her bones and into the threads. The key is to create the patterns first with a small amount of power, then empower them afterward.


    Much more cautiously this time, she tries to lift the rock. She can feel the power adjusting itself throughout her empowering patterns, flexing around her bones to accomplish the movement she requested. The rock lifts from the ground, freeing her glowing hands to shift their grip around it. She can feel its weight in her arms.


    Liss stands up, still holding the rock, and tries putting more energy into the pattern on her arms. The load there lessens, while the one in her back remains. Shifting even more power into her back and feet, the rock starts feeling light as a feather. If she wanted to, she could throw it with the same amount of power as earlier, creating another dent in the wall. However, she also feel a potential drain, like doing so would cost her a lot.


    Locking on to that feeling, she tries to wave the rock about a bit. Shaking it up and down, left and right, but not letting go of it. There is a distinct drain of power. A slow trickle of energy flows out of the bones just to keep the rock afloat, but actually moving it around causes it to feel more like a fully open tap. She would eventually run out.


    Conservation of energy? I wonder if my bones are heating up. Hot female skeleton, coming through. Right.


    If she wants to continue experimenting with her newfound power, she would need to find a power source. Looking up, she tries to find out where the crystal ran off to, this skeleton needs a recharge.


    Looking around, Liss finds the entire cave floor covered in rocks. Many of them are of the same size as she lifted, but a few are also larger. The pile grows as an additional rocks are created out of mid-air and plops down to the floor. Along the cave wall, the crystal is happily consuming a large part of the wall, absorbing it into itself, and then creating another rock.


    So, the crystal consumes rock, and shits out a smaller but more dense rock. Conservation of matter I assume. It also seems to have a limited amount it can have absorbed at any time, or maybe it just likes to create rocks.


    Another chunk of cave wall disappears, another rock falls onto the floor. The cave has actually been enlarged by quite a bit while Liss was testing out her power. Even the ceiling seems to be higher, not escaping the gluttony of the glowing floating crystal.


    At this rate it will consume the entire mountain, or wherever we are. Maybe we¡¯re just underground somewhere?


    That thought also sparked another, more important one. What the crystal was doing was essentially mining, and she had heard of caves collapsing as part of mining operations. Would she suddenly find herself buried under the cave ceiling if the crystal continued like this?


    As if her thought had reminded physics to do its job, a sudden crack resounds through the cave. A piece of the ceiling, close to where the crystal had absorbed part of the ceiling, falls down next to the crystal. It shatters into smaller rocks and mixes with the existing collection of rocks on the ground. Liss feels a lurch in her mind as she considers the crystal might be damaged by the falling ceiling.


    The crystal stop its enlarging of the cave, and curiously poke at the newly fallen ceiling pieces. Then it flies up to the ceiling and prods around with a few tendrils. Pulling back it seems to consider the situation, giving no clue to what it¡¯s thinking through the link to Liss. Having reached a conclusion, the crystal flies to spot in the middle of the cave, absorbing rocks from the ground as it goes.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    Liss walks toward the crystal as it reaches its destination. Getting a closer look, she can see the crystal is focusing its tendrils on the ground. Slowly, much more so than when it creates rocks, a part of the floor start flowing upwards towards the cave ceiling. After about a minute, a very rough approximation of a pillar stands in the middle of the cave. It looks more like a stalagmite has grown up to reach the ceiling, rather than an artificial construction.


    A sense of accomplishments flows through their link, and the crystal starts flying around picking up more rocks, and creating additional pillars at seemingly random locations around the cave.


    Liss lightly hits the pillar, and she can feel it is just as dense as the rocks lying around on the ground. She could probably break it if she put all her power into it, but there is no fear of it breaking by itself any time soon.


    Is the crystal intelligent enough to realize it needs to build supports, or is this some kind of instinct? There probably isn¡¯t many living crystals in the world if they all go around causing cave-ins.


    Done with putting up pillars, the crystal floats up to the ceiling, and starts creating a kind of reinforcing grid between the pillars, holding the ceiling up. Then it floats down to the floor and starts working around the sections where the cave have expanded.


    Where the crystal has dug into the wall and expanded the cave, there is an uneven flooring of rock. The initial section of the cave however, has a completely flat floor. The old floor doesn¡¯t even seem to have a dent, scratch or crack anywhere, even with all the rocks landing on it. It almost looks like the floor is created of the same dense reinforced material the crystal creates its rocks with.


    Liss bends down and brushes her hand along the floor where the old blends into the new floor which the crystal is creating. It looks and feels identical. Same color, same toughness, same perfection.


    Noticing her presence, the crystal breaks off from its work and floats over to her. It goes straight up to her rib cage and snuggles into her chest and under her bony chin. Liss puts her hands around the crystal, and feel the warmth flow into her, filling up the energy she spent with her experiments. A strong sense of happiness flows through the bond from the crystal and into her, proximity and touch apparently strengthening it. If she wasn¡¯t already a grinning skull, she would have smiled.


    The crystal seems content to stay with Liss for now, even though she is already full of energy. The feeling of warmth is still there, but no longer flows into her bones. She decides that this might be a good time to experiment some more with her power, seeing as her power source is just snuggling into her without a care in the world.


    Is it resting? Maybe it got tired of eating and shitting rocks. I wonder if skeletons need to sleep.


    Liss had no idea how long it had been since she first woke up as a skeleton. In some ways it just feels like an hour had passed by, but in others it feels like days. So much had happened, and yet she is totally awake and rested, especially after the recharge of energy.


    Standing up with the crystal still snuggled up to her chest, she moves over to one of the walls. Creating the pattern of muscles on one of her arms, she pushes some power into it. Immediately she feel the crystal top up her energy, a sense of curiosity seeping from the it, watching what Liss is doing.


    Liss tries to take the energy back from her arm, and for the first time since she awoke as a skeleton, she feels pain. A slight pinching pain as she tries to push more energy into her bones than they can contain. A spike of worry from the crystal makes her end that experiment for now, putting the energy back into her arm pattern instead.


    Punching the wall in front of her, she burrows her arm into the stone up to her elbow. More energy is needed just to get her hand back out. Putting double the energy into the pattern, which now blazes green around her arm, she punches another part of the wall. This time she also tries to stop her punch before it goes too deep into the rock.


    Like last time, her hand continues into the rock like a hot knife through butter, but when she stops her hand the excess green energy continues, and seems to blast into the rock. The rock around her hand begins to glow, and she has just enough time to pull out, turn around, and shield the crystal before the wall explodes outwards in a burst of green energy.


    Well, I did not expect that. I need to be more careful with my experiments I think, that could have damaged the crystal. I have no idea how fragile it is.


    That thought sends an shiver down her spine. Having the crystal damaged would be bad, as in REALLY bad. Liss releases the crystal from her grip, and starts checking out its surface for scratches or indications of having been hit by splinters of rock. The crystal just floats around her, enjoying the attention.


    Suddenly the crystal freezes in place, and its attention focuses behind Liss. Turning around she sees something crawl out of the hole in the wall.


    Two large pincers in front, a body covered in dark chitin reflecting the green glow of the crystal, and at least a hundred disgustingly crawling legs. The largest fucking insect she has ever seen in her life, crawls into the cave. Two antenna as long has her arm wave about the air in their direction, and Liss takes a step back away from it. The feeling of pure disgust is fighting a valiant battle with whatever force is constantly emptying her mind of emotions.


    Finding this new moving creature interesting, the curious crystal floats over to it. The insect, its head as large as a medium sized dog, open it¡¯s pincers and stretches towards the glowing crystal. Only as it stretches does the other end of the long insect leave the hole in the wall.


    Liss¡¯ yaw is stretched open as far as it can go, the still air conveying an unheard scream. The feeling of a thousand ants crawling inside her bones, urging her.


    Move.


    Green energy bursting out in wild untethered patterns, constantly shifting along her bones.


    Move!


    Her body falls down to hands and knees on the floor. The raw feeling running through her almost unbearable.


    MOVE!


    The patterns solidify into their customary muscle patterns along her feet and arms, the green energy like a living flame around her. Her hands and feet dig furrows into the floor which was previously unmarred by anything. Then she kicks off towards the insect threatening her crystal.


    She flies, literally, towards the insect. Her kick having contained enough energy that she doesn¡¯t touch the ground even once before reaching it, and flies straight past it. Crashing into the wall next to the hole, she ignored her many cracked and broken bones, and puts more energy into empowering her them. The horrible feeling of crawling in her bones is still there, still urging her, commanding her to move.


    Another leap, this time a little better aimed, puts her on top of the disgusting thing, its many legs wriggling between her bones as they tangle. It¡¯s utterly disgusting, but nothing compared to the force urging her on. Her first flight was enough to initially distract the insect, and the crystal had thankfully pulled away a bit from the insect. Noticing this, Liss felt the force urging her on subside quite a bit, allowing her to think.


    Two pincers wrap around her chest and one arm, pinning it to her. Lifting her free hand, and thinking only of getting rid of this disgusting thing, she puts all her energy into her remaining arm and fist, and punches into the insects head.


    With a disgusting crack, the insects chitin buckles and her fist goes through its head, spurting fluid and whatever passes for brains in insects around her hand. Her punch is only stopped as it reached the floor beneath. Then the remaining energy in her hand moves down and into the insects body, which starts to glow.


    Uh oh.


    This time Liss doesn¡¯t have the time to turn away after realizing what is about to happen. One second she is arms deep in insect brains, then next she is covered in a fluid mix of brains, chitin and other things which should be on the inside. A shock-wave of green force flashes out from the spot she punched, ripping and splatting the insect guts all over as it goes.


    In the floor, an indent after her fist is still glowing green. Around it patterns of green energy weave all over the floor surface like veins, having become visible as the shock-wave passed through them. As Liss just sits there, enjoying the sudden stillness and lack of sensation, the glow fades and finally disappears, leaving only the indent in the floor from her punch.


    Liss feels exhausted, another first since becoming a skeleton. She tries to lift her hand, and almost fail, feeling as if shes trying to lift a thousands rocks. Looking around for the crystal she sees it in a corner of the cave. She reaches her hand in its direction, she doesn¡¯t have any chance of reaching it, or even standing up.


    The crystal flinches, moving away from her. A feeling of uncertainty, of fear, creeps through their link. Liss freezes in place, hand outstretched. She can feel a cold creeping out from her chest, moving out towards her limbs, it is a frightening sensation. She is so tired, she lets her hand drop. The cold sensation continues to spread.


    Then the crystal is next to her, a tentative tendril of energy connecting to her, warmth flowing back into her body. As she is filled with energy, she once again raises her hand, touching the crystal. It doesn¡¯t flinch away, but moves towards her, snuggling into her chest.


    What she feels though the link is a mix of confusion and fear. And as she feeds on its energy, hunger. As that hunger grows, the crystal eventually starts moving away, looking for something to absorb. Liss figured it would absorb one of the rocks it created earlier.


    Wait, how would that work? Energy is used to create the rock, can that be absorbed back?


    That, or go absorb more of the cave. Instead the crystal heads over to one of the larger pieces left from the insect.


    No, it can¡¯t possibly¡­


    And starts absorbing it. Once one of its green tendrils touches the insect, there is a sudden flash of white light. It flows, bursts more like, from the insect and into the crystal.


    As the white light finally dies down, the insect remains are gone, and the crystal is glowing like a flashlight. It¡¯s almost painful to look at it, and Liss feels like she could reach out and gain more energy from it even at this distance, without touching.


    A surge of pleasure flows through their link, and the crystal practically bounces in the air with energy, sparks of green flying out from its surface. Noticing another large piece of the insect, it flies over to it and starts absorbing.


    Another surge of white light, another burst of green energy, and then there echoes a crack, as the crystal literally gains a large crack down its side.