Chapter 1
Marty the Skull
Raising a skeleton from the dead had been a harder task than Borgon ‘The Evil Necromancer’ had anticipated. Borgon had been only been practicing evil magic for a few weeks now, but he was confident in abilities… he was far less confident in that eye of newt he bought from that shady peddler in the woods last week.
“Does this look like the eye of a newt to you?” Borgon asked Aiselda, his half-troll assistant.
Aiselda was knee-deep, squashing insects in a bucket for a stew she was going to prepare that night, “Looks more like the eye of salamander to me.”
“I didn’t know there was a difference,” Borgon said adding a few Hildaberries to the resurrection potion.
“There’s not a huge difference, that is unless you’re trying to make a magic potion to resurrect the dead… and then it makes ALL the difference,” Aiselda said as she scooped a half of a centipede from her big toenail and promptly ate it.
“Well, it will just have to do. I’ve already started the potion. Hopefully, it will still work,” Borgon said hoping he didn’t have to shell out any more coin for ingredients. He had saved for three months for this potion. If it failed he would be another season before he would get to try again.
“Can I ask you a question?” proposed Aiselda.
This gave Borgon the chance to fire back, what he thought, was his most witty retort“ Was
that the question?”
“No,” Aiselda said playing along “Why do we want to resurrect something anyway?”
“I don’t understand the question,” Borgan really didn’t.
“I mean, why don’t we just kidnap a hero… turn him into our slave, make him do our bidding for all eternity,” Aiselda said as she began to start a fire.
“Eternity is only so long my friend. A hero would only last us, what? A few decades at most. A skeleton would outlive us both! And besides, I’m a Necromancer, it’s kinda my thing. I’m not a Kidnapmance.r”
“Why not a zombie then?” Aiselda added some water to a pot and placed it over the fire.
The mere thought made Borgon start to dry heave, “Yhuck, blah. Have you ever seen a zombie? They smell TERRIBLE, they can’t walk without sticking their hands straight out in the air,’ which Borgon mimed to perfection ‘and they are the worst conversationalist. Try talking to a zombie sometimes. It’s all brains this and brains that, always wanting to eat ‘the brains. A skeleton doesn’t eat, it doesn’t smell, it doesn’t constantly wake you up in the middle of the night with it’s moaning. It’s the perfect undead creature.’”
“Better than vampires?” Aiselda said adding the paprika. An insect stew really wasn’t even worth making if you didn’t have paprika.
Borgon took a moment to muddle this “Yes. I’m going yes. Vampires are pretty cool, definitely better than zombies and I’d put them above skeletons if it wasn’t for one fatal flaw.”
“What’s that.” Aiselda’s stew was really building up its pungency, if you were within a mile of it know it: your nose would start to crawl off your face.
“It’s so dang hard to get blood stains out of carpeting. I tried for weeks after that Nosfer’whateverhisface’ stopped by for lunch. Great guy, though, hell of a pike maker. I’ve got more pikes than I could ever have heroes heads for,” Borgon knew that these were 1st world Necromancer problems, but a pantry only has so much space. He started giving away pikes as Christmas gift: The Giants were the only ones that appreciated them.
‘Best toothpick I ever had.’ They wrote back in their Thank You note.
“What do you think?” Aiselda said waving a spoon full of stew in front Borgon.
“Needs more ladybugs.”
“Really?” Aiselda took a taste for herself. He was right.
“The potion of resurrection is ready!” exclaimed Borgon “wheel in the bones of the fallen hero.”
“The bones in the garden outside, perhaps we just go to them? I would hate to get the living room messy” posited Aiselda.
“We shall go to the bones!” Borgon affirmed.
The bones of the fallen hero lay haphazardly scattered on the front lawn. Aiselda began gathering the, up “We should probably put them in a pile, yes?”
“Hmm, it doesn’t say,” Borgon flipped the resurrection scroll backwards and forwards looking for any sort of specificity on the matter. He found none. “I grow impatient, I’m just going to pour on the skull.”
“I’m not going to argue against doing less work,” Aiselda said throwing a femur bone over her shoulder.
“Hizzgan morragga hipppee yeeeaaaaa,” Borgon shouted before spilling the potion on the skull the of the fallen hero.
“How do we know if it works?” Aiselda questioned.
“I do not know. This is my first time trying to reanimate anything. I thought maybe lightning or at least thunder might occur,” Borgon said looking to the sky, perfectly blue and calm.
Just then the bones began to rattle on the ground. Slowly they lifted off the ground and began to twirl in a bony maelstrom. The bones of the skeleton plugging themselves into their proper places. And suddenly falling to stillness.
“What happened?” said Aiselda.
“I do not know... It looked as if things were going right and then BOOF, nothing,’ Borgon said as he investigated the bones ‘I knew that wasn’t a newt, I just knew it,’ Borgon was now juggling the skull in his hands ‘we shall try again in another month or two.’”
“Stop it will ya, I’m getting sick!” said a grumbling voice.
Aiselda began looking around the garden for the source of the grumble, “Who said that? Come out or I’ll murder you.”
Borgon now had the skull in his hands “You can’t murder me I’m already dead,” chattered the skull.
Borgon dropped the skull and began to dance “It worked? It worked it worked it worked.”
“Well it mostly worked,” chimed in Aiselda “the rest of the bones remain still.”
“At least I got the skull become animate, that ain’t’ bad for a first time necromancer. What is your name my skeleton cohort?”
“Marty,” said Marty.
“Marty can I ask you a question?” inquired Aiselda.
“Was that the question?” fired back Marty.
“Oooooo… howdy…I like this guy,” said Borgon
“Do you like stew?” Aiselda asked with hope… for she had made WAY too much.