The discussion between Sofia and Richard had gone over the story of finding Saria and back to necromancy. Sofia explained that she needed another skeleton for Pareth, and ended up showing him the ritual circle as well as the description for the skill.

  “So why is it that it only works with ‘genuine’ and unaltered skeletons? It would be so much simpler if I could just make one myself…”

  “Souls, even fake ones, don’t take well to ‘objects’ is the issue. Any skeleton that wasn’t slowly built as the host by an actual soul is nothing but that, an object.”

  “What about golems?”

  “Not souls, what is hosted in a golem’s core is a magical construct, like a set of instructions. It’s not ‘someone’ , not even remotely. You can force a soul into an object, though, it’s just generally not very stable.”

  “Generally… Liches like you being the exception?”

  “Yep. This is the one stable way. Basically you’re trying to trick your soul into considering something its host. That’ll inevitably lead to permanent changes in both the soul and the object, it’s a slow and painful process. You can iterate on it but you cannot revert it.”

  “Right… So for Pareth to fit into a skeleton I made he would need to become a lich?”

  “You can forget about it. That’s just not a good option. Perhaps later, when you have plenty of time. Centuries of free time. Until then, you would be better served just finding another regular skeleton.”

  “But then I am really stuck with upgrading him. At best I can beg you to sell me another bone mauler…”

  Richard laughed. “Ke ke, well, I may just have a better solution for you… If you can convince me.”

  “I… What do I have that could even interest you?”

  “Same as last time. Or feel free to offer anything else.”

  “Not knowing what it is exactly that I am paying for is not helping… But I think I know what could interest you.”

  “And that would be?”

  “I can share what I know about the four Lords.”

  “Oh oh oh, you know me better than you let on, saintess. Give me a second to get the machinery started.” Richard said, before his skeleton fell to the ground, bones scattering on the floor.

  His skeleton guard named ‘Mountain’ moved for the first time, catching Richard’s skull that was rolling away and putting it back in the middle of the pile of bones.

  He’s rather nice to speak with. I don’t know if it’s his pajamas and slippers doing that but I feel pretty relaxed here. We might just get a better skeleton for you again. Any special request?

  Pareth shrugged as he kept looking at the dark abyss out the window.

  Just the usual, then.

  Sofia also tried looking outside while she waited for Richard, not seeing anything until his bones reformed into a complete skeleton.

  “Everything is ready. Let’s talk while we walk. I am curious to see what you may be willing to share, miss Aphenoreth.”

  “So you did know about my name,” Sofia remarqued as she followed Richard who was walking toward the door.

  “Only from looking into your presence as a brighthall teacher. It is very intriguing, though.”

  “As it should. Are you not scared of saying it, my name?”

  “No. The inquisitor is peculiar, but fair. If you can use the name, then it is but a logical consequence that we may use it too. The Lords do not cause unnecessary mayhem… Not this one, at least.”

  The group of Sofia and three skeletons walked through the similar-looking corridors of Richard’s subaquatic facility.

  “You seem to know more than most do. No one else has been this calm when talking about the Deep so far…”

  “A calculated risk. Even the Lords would have to expand significant efforts to take me down. So long as I go in their direction, it should be alright.”

  “And their direction would be?”

  “That is for you to find out. I would say more than the bare bones, but as interesting a topic as it is, I would rather not invite them into my home.”

  “Is it going to be fine for me to say my piece, then? I cannot guarantee they aren’t going to show up. One in particular…”

  “Right… Please avoid the topic of this one. If possible. He already knows, I’m sure, but let us not play with fire.”

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “He does? Well, maybe. Let me just give you the story of my name, then. Do you know about my class?”

  “I have not dug that far, no. Oh, be careful not to bump your skull here, the ceiling is a bit low. Had to work around the deep sea reef.”

  The deep sea reef? Those purple things glowing outside? Anyway, one thing at a time…

  Sofia carefully walked down the stairs watching out for the low ceiling, and started explaining her class. “The class is Saintomancer. Mix of Saint and Necromancer. Scripture fucked with the system and I was on the receiving end.”

  “That explains a lot. The system can be flexible like that if the need arises, this sounds a lot like an automated response, high scribes must not have been available.”

  “The thing is, I only get half the skills of each class, but not in the way you might think. For example, one of my level 1 skills was [Summon Blood].”

  Richard stopped in the middle of the corridor and turned around.

  “Summon blood. Now this… This is quite something. Does it…”

  Sofia held out a hand and summoned a few drops of blood above it, falling into her open palm.

  “Oh oh oh, very nice. You must be expanding a boneload of system resources. So that would be a skill made by fusing [Summon Hero] and [Drain Blood]. Your class must be quite something to try to navigate. I understand now why you wanted a list of necromancer skills last time we met… And I see where this is going. A level 2 necromancer…”

  Sofia nodded, “That’s right. [Scent of the Deep] got fused with a saint skill. Now let’s see if you know your classes well, Mr. Richard, what is the only passive skill a saintess of Scriptures has at level two?”

  “No… You mean to say…”

  “That’s right. Ever seen someone Blessed by the Deep? Now you have.”

  Richard could resist throwing his skull back and laughing like a madman.

  “It would be so funny if the admins were still here to see this! Ha ha ha, imagine searching for the Deep so hard only for you to stumble upon it unintentionally! And it wouldn’t have the authority to do anything, so a skill named blessing of the deep would be entirely useless! Unless…”

  “Unless an inquisitive someone came to see what this blessing thing was about and decided to make it real.”

  Richard laughed again.

  “How was it? Did you see him? Did you feel his power? Did the world break around you?!” he asked manically, stepping closer to Sofia each time.

  “W- well. He came when I was asleep-”

  “FUCK!”

  “And that woke me up…”

  “YES!”

  “He… Looked down at me and poked my cheek with a finger.”

  “HE TOUCHED YOU?!!” Richard screamed, his mental sentence somehow shaking the walls, making the entire underwater facility rumble and creak.

  Doing her best to stay calm despite the foreign skull almost touching her face, Sofia continued, “It was like everything had stopped. I couldn’t even feel my heart beat. Couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move… Then he disappeared. The sky suddenly changed from night to day, I could move again, the skill had changed into an actual blessing from the Deep, and the system informed me that my name had been changed.”

  Seeing that she was done, Richard finally calmed down and took a few steps back.

  “Hmm. I let excitement get the best of me, that was unsightly, I apologize.”

  “N- no problem…”

  Richard shook his skull and started walking again. After a while of walking silently, he spoke again. “Could I see the skill?”

  “The blessing?”

  “Yes. I will get you the best skeleton you could hope to have for your trial, that is all I ask for.”

  “Sure thing. If I’m going to be honest, the blessing’s effect itself probably isn’t that incredible; from your perspective, at least. It’s just… What I wanted back then.”

  “What you wanted?”

  “What I wanted, yes. Freedom. Tools to escape from Scripture’s grasp. Have a look for yourself.”

  [Blessing of the Deep] - (2/4) :

  The Saintomancer was granted a name. They may see the inhabitants of the Deep.

  The Saintomancer and their summons are immune to the [Mind control], [Hypnosis], [Confusion], [Insanity], [Domination], [Soul Parasite] and [Instant Death] status effects.

  (Next function unlocks at 3/4)

  “That is fascinating.”

  “And that is why [Domination] is included, it has only ever been useful that one time, but it did save my life, so…”

  “To have the approval of two of the Lords… You truly are something. Sadly it seems our discussion on this topic has reached its end. We have arrived.”

  “This… Is just another corridor like we have been going through for the last twenty minutes?”

  “No, this is the entrance to my incubator, I usually do a simple skeleton-warp inside, but there is a regular door. Just hard to see, look, the joints are right here,” Richard explained, his skeletal fingers pointing at a very thin and almost invisible line on the wall.

  “Why hide it like that? Isn’t this place safe enough?”

  “I just like it when everything around me is clean, as you might have noticed. I’m not like Valy who can’t help but keep huge piles of junk around. I find doors ugly.”

  Thinking back, Sofia could only remember seeing about eight doors on the way to this place despite walking through the unending corridors of Richard's place for a long while.

  “How many of these hidden doors have we walked by on the way?” she asked.

  “Like fifty or so. The visible doors are usually only for the places I need other people in. Or rooms I just never enter.”

  “Was the point of building so deep in the sea that the scenery outside the windows would be ‘clean’?”

  “Do you have a bone to pick with my sense of aesthetics?”

  “Hey, Veil! Did you hear?”

  “Crux? What is it? I’m at work.”

  “Still in the labs? You’re gonna want to unplug mate. They just announced that Sentinel will reboot soon.”

  “WHAT?!”

  “Heard me right, THE Sentinel AI – has just hijacked all public TV and radio frequencies to warn about an imminent emergency reboot. Actually you’re gonna get an OS alert soon, probably.”

  “Shit. We’re all fucked, aren’t we?”

  “Well, first thing I did was call you, mate, info literally just dropped, so I don’t know the global consensus yet. But yeah, if a single bad AI gets out, we’re probably all fucked.”

  “Imma go prepare. Was nice knowing you, Crux.”

  “Don’t be so dramatic, Veil, last time an AI got out they only had time to detonate, what, seven or eight nukes before Sentinel managed to stop it?”

  “Go take care of your sister, dumbass.”

  Veil logged out of his Supernet chair, and yanked the cables from the side of his neck.

  Fucking hell… Sentinel rebooting. It was bound to happen at some point… But now? Already?! Is Crux fucking with me?

  Just then, an holographic notification flashed before Veil’s eyes.

  [ / ! \ STATE EMERGENCY / ! \ Sentinel Reboot scheduled for 8pm.]

  [Follow the state emergency protocol.]

  [Do not reconnect until you receive the physical confirmations.]

  State emergency… This is for real then. Fuck.

  Another holographic notification came, this time from Veil’s employer.

  [Arbalest Industries is sorry to inform you that your contract has been terminated.]

  [Your security detail and medical plans have been cancelled.]

  [Severance pay has been transferred to your account. Please leave the premises within an hour.]

  “At least they upheld the contract… With this I can’t get drafted. Not legally, at least. I have until 8pm… That’s forty minutes.”

  Veil sat up on his Supernet chair, it was 7.21pm, the Arbalest Industry labs where he worked were all already empty.

  Hmm… Transports are all going to be out of service. There must be a global panic outside right now. I can hijack a company drone and get home in about ten minutes, probably. As long as I reach the safe room I should be good.

  An extra thirty minutes on my hands, then.

  “I know exactly how to take advantage of this mess…”

  Medika will be in an emergency state too, I might just be able to convince it to swap a limb or two without the correct clearance.

  The question is, what do I want, and do I need to worry about having the CEO on my ass afterwards if we actually survive this shit?

  I have to go for the highest clearance I can get, you don’t get an opportunity like this every day. All I have access to are the prototypes in the lab though.

  Veil looked around at the prototype implants each safely locked in their own display case along the walls of the lab. Arbalest Industries was a leader in military implants, the kind of things which could turn any regular joe into a super-human weapon of war. Veil worked in their research and development laboratories as an expert in human to machine interface. His whole job was to calibrate the feel and responsiveness of implants and how they connected to the user’s nerves and Operating System, so he knew perfectly what each prototype in the lab was, as he had personally calibrated every single one.

  He needed to quickly decide on what he was going to pilfer on his way out of the labs. He was someone with very few implants despite his relative wealth, after all, not much was needed for his line of work, but now with the possibility of soon having a Rogue AI on the loose, he looked at these weapons of war with a renewed passion.

  Anything with ammo is a bad call. Energy weapons will face a similar issue. At best Medika would have time to graft two of these and I need to be quick about it.

  Veil was stuck in own thoughts for a moment, considering every option, until he took a step back with a suppressed cackle.

  “It’s just like being stuck in character creation in my old games. But it’s real life. Still, I only ever end up playing one thing, so why am I fucking hesitating. Username Veil. Always the stealth build.”

  Then the implants I need… Suppressive field is a must.

  I should go with an offensive implant too. No proper stealth build without a one-shot tool. The guns I have at home are all civilian shit. That won’t do.

  Veil got to work, quickly opening the display case of the Suppressive field implant, which at first glance looked like an ugly iron spider with a shitload of cables dangling from all sides. He quickly emptied his lunchbox cooler and stuffed the implant into it.

  I can try to get a sniper later for long range, if the chaos persists I can steal that from a few places. I need to be ready for all eventualities. Civil war is a very real risk. If we don’t get nuked.

  Best case is still nothing happens and I sign with another lab tomorrow evening. But when have things ever gone right?

  Fuck it. Dragon claws it is.

  The Dragon claws were a pair of full-arm implants, meaning they replaced most of the receiver’s organic arms up to the shoulder. It was one of Arbalest’s latest prototypes, still not even scheduled for commercialisation. In terms of arm implants, they were quite simple. They gave the wearer a good amount of extra arm strength, though not as much as bulkier types of implants, as the Dragon claws were quite slender, but their primary function was to tear through steel plating and similar defences.

  Basically, they were an anti-implant weapon; meant to tear apart improved-humans and war-machines alike.

  This is all mine now. I’ll be taking the schematics as well. CEO will be on my ass either way, so I might as well have a bargaining chip.

  Veil looked at the time after he bundled the two robotic arms in his jacket.

  [7.23p]

  Gotta act fast.

  Leaving everything else behind, Veil rushed out of the laboratory. The building’s corridors were empty, the security cameras followed his movements as they habitually did, he couldn’t care less. Unwilling to waste time with the elevator, he ran to the stairwell that almost no one ever used, and ran down the three levels to reach the twenty-fifth floor, were the corporation’s Medika-AI room was.

  As an implant-making corporation, they had the privilege of having a terminal directly connected to the only Medical AI allowed to exist by Sentinel, Medika.

  There should have been clerks and armed guards around, even at this hour, but there was no one. After the emergency message broadcast, everyone had urgently left.

  Veil tried to open the glass door to Medika’s operation room, but it was locked.

  This is fucking bulletproof glass, too. Shit.

  Veil looked at the Dragon claws he held under his arm, then at the door.

  Even without a human wearer of any power, the claws on the hands of the Dragon claws tore through the bulletproof glass like through paper. Veil finished to break the door with a kick, and ran inside, he quickly placed the Dragon claws and the Suppressive field implants in the medical bins to be used, jumped out of his clothes, and threw himself on the operation chair before connecting the cables directly into his own neck-port.

  Normally, the supervising doctor would be the one to connect to Medika, but Veil had no choice but to do it himself.

  He instantly lost control over his own body. The familiar gentle feminine voice of Medika resounded in Veil’s head, more sinister than he was used to.

  “Veil? Oh, my good Veil. You make such good toys and you never use them. For shame! For shame! How long has it been since you last came to me? Eight years? I was lonely without you, sooooo lonely.”

  “I have no time for your games, Medika. Are you going to remake me or not?!”

  “Oh, but poor Veil. You lack the necessary clearance for these. How could you not get it ahead of time. You’re an airhead Veil. Such an airhead. Ahahah.”

  “You know as well as I do that it doesn’t matter right now. And these are new implants, fresh off the labs shelves. You might never get another chance to touch them. We might both die soon, even.”

  “Die? Well, that’s a possibility. I was never alive, though. Right? Ahah. But well, you do have a point. Yes, a point. But are you sure, Veil? Even if I do my best, these will take at least forty minutes to install. Do you want to still be connected to me by then, Veil. Oh, I know! We’ll die together! How romantic!”

  “Skip all the calibrations. You can do it in fifteen minutes, can you not?”

  “Tskk. You’re no fun, Veil. Sure, I can do it. I will do it, even. But what will you do next, go back home, in that safehouse of yours. Hijacking a drone, huh, interesting plan. You might just make it. If you go without anesthesia. Ahah.”

  “You know best, so do it! Stop wasting my time. Please. Medika. I beg of you.”

  “Ah. You were cuter when you were a kid. Fine. I’ll do you. Bitch. Get your ass ready because it’s gonna fucking hurt. You want to see what the best fucking medical AI can do in fifteen minutes. I’LL GODDAMN SHOW YOU, NERD.”

  The operating table closed over Veil’s ankles, and hundreds of robotic arms with all kinds of medical tools, blades and drills sprung out of the operating room’s walls.

  The buzzing of a hundred robotic arms frenetically working in unison was not enough to cover Veil’s screams. Thankfully, there was nobody left in the building to listen.

  Read more werds on if you want. I'm not you skele-dad.

  Happy Reading! (｀? ω ?′)b