An allegedly female manikin in white burial clothes with a neck-tight collar was sneaking through the graveyard. She had two large bronze plates in one hand and a sharp rock in another. Her destination was, unmistakenly, the little desolated shrine down the mound with coffins and statues. With a slow and awkward gait, she passed the fallen crucifix and, after a bit of delay, she entered the shrine.
That was Rhiannon, the only manikin in the city of walking skeletons. This time, with a plan.
On her mental map, the shrine was in the center and her group of coffins was 'north', or the upper side. She already knew there was a pair of skeletons in the crypt underground and another pair outside the shrine, behind its south wall. The skeletons generally ignored small sounds and aggroed on big noise, that much Rhi had grasped by now.
Firstly, she toured inside the shrine, keeping away from the holes on the floor. In the side room, she found it: stairs. Stone stairs, not the creaking stairs made of rotting wood she had feared to discover. It led her into a separate room underground, a quite empty one.
When Rhia sneaked a look inside the crypt, she noticed a sword wielder skeleton, turned away from her. It was standing motionlessly, ignoring her hateful stare attempts to drill a few holes in its bones.
The crypt was spacious. There were four large tombs along the south side of it and across them, four weapon sets were hanging on the north wall, including her shield and mace.
Jackpot!
Stopping herself from making a victory pose, Rhiannon searched for the spear-wilder and barely spotted its skull between the tombs.
Ok.
A minute later.
A bronze plate flew through the air, spinning. It left the shrine through the south wall and rammed into something out of sight. At the same moment, a shadow swooped on the sword-wielding bastard underground.
Crush! Rhiannon furiously drove the rock into its neck, adding to her manikin weight all the desperation and resentment she had saved up to this second. Its spine shattered and the woman landed awkwardly on its crumbling back and the stone floor. After a glance over the shoulder, Rhia threw the second bronze plate and then the rock at the second skeleton and dashed to the wall, she grabbed the mace and the shield from their hangers and then dashed to the side room without looking.
Another thing Rhiannon had noticed about skeletons was that they were relentless. Once spooked, they would rush out and attack her without doubts or pause. That meant that the skeletons outside the shrine would go after her little distraction immediately.
The third thing, the skeletons maintained a certain speed, always. So even she on her half-assed legs could put some distance between them momentarily.
Once in the small room, the woman hid behind a corner of the doorway and tossed the shield away: she had no time to tangle with the straps she had discovered on it. She turned around and lifted the mace in both hands.
The fire seed pulsed. Ashes danced through the wall and around her, feeding it. Unknowingly, Rhia changed her stance and the way she held the mace.
A spearhead showed up. Due to the limit of space, it was no angle the skeleton could attack her from.
The last thing? These bastards were dumb.
Calmly, Rhiannon let the mace drop, not applying much force beyond gravity at all. Its round iron head sank in the skeleton arm. It easily broke the forearm and struck the spear it was holding. The fire seed pulsed, birthing countless possibilities. Following one of them, Rhia grabbed the spear and pulled.
When its bony stupid head showed up in the doorway, a rising mace swing met its chin. The lower jaw shattered at once, showering the woman in teeth and she pulled again, overpowering the impulse of her own blow, her right hand already in a position to strike down again.
Shortly, this strike followed as the skeleton skull found just the right position to get smashed.
"Wow," staring blankly at a pile of bones under her feet, Rhiannon allowed herself to exhale and accepted the wind of ashes. She then kicked her ex-killer into dust, grabbed the shield, and proceeded to strap it to her left hand. It was straightforward enough. The fire seed from her third kill in this life formed and washed over her when she made a probing block. Rhia lifted it, swung left and right, deflected an imaginary spear thrust...
Only a little was left of the ashes in seconds, then she stopped. The woman didn't drop her guard, fully expecting an undead drop from the upper ground.
Which never followed.
A minute was passing after a minute and nothing was happening.
"Ha... ha-ha-ha..." like a crazy person, Rhiannon at one point bit her own sleeve and went into a laughing stroke. I am alive... I am alive! It is possible!
Never she felt so alive as at this moment. Relief, joy, hope, all at once indescribably mixed and broke the barricades of willpower she had fortified her mind and heart with. Rhia kneeled in a silent cry, so happy tears were almost spilling from her manikin eyes. All the despair she had been feeling since the close meeting with the emptiness and death, the despair she had been pushing, and pushing, and pushing back... it was finally being cleansed.
I am alive!..
Rhiannon came to her senses after a while.
"I am alive now," she whispered to herself. "Control breathing, rein the brain, suppress the animal. In, out, in, out..."
After a few breathes the woman pacified her heartbeat, refocused, and lowered her gaze.
The triangle shield, now hers, had a heraldic lion on it with a yellow-green background. Rhiannon wasn't sure why exactly the colors or leather straps survived the years, assuming years were passing in this place. Its size was enough to cover the woman's torso and a bit of a leg.
Moving the gaze to the mace, it was a rather simple one. A round ball with an iron belt on it to focus force, an iron shaft with a very small pommel on the other end. The total length was about half a meter.
Both had quite a weight, perfectly bearable though. About her proficiency with them... Rhiannon honestly didn't know, she would figure it out slowly.
Rhia entered the crypt. The remaining weapons on the wall were two shields, two swords, a spear, and a dagger. All were amazingly good against humans – after all, they were designed by humans to kill humans – and less so against their skeletons. At least, compared to the mace in her hand.
Four tombs were her neck-high and amazingly large overall. The woman instantly gave up trying to open them. In-between, she spotted something that made her raise her guard.
A dark passage, and a single dot of light on the ground.
A fireplace.
It was a neat circle of stones with half-burned pieces of firewood inside. A few cinders lay amongst, and through grey ashes, a single spark was glowing. Rhiannon closed in slowly, half-expecting for ashes to fly over, but it ended up being normal ashes.
When she finally walked over, the last vestiges of the fire seed in her chest reacted. Not really surprised, just spooked, Rhia still followed the instinct and reached with her hand.
Flames burst from her fingers. Playfully they covered the firewood and embers, breathing in new life, new vibrance.
Simply so, Rhiannon rekindled her first bonfire.
