UPD: Chapter 1 is now edited and is in a new online-reading friendly format.
Next thing I did was to wake up in a completely stereotypical way. That is, in completely unfamiliar surroundings.
The lack of headache, nausea or pain in my appendages was welcome, but somewhat worrying was the fact that I actually could not feel any bodily discomfort.
Having an out-of-body experience? Some fight with cosplaying pensioner? Man, I used to have really good medication back when I was in spinal ward after that case with crowbar-wielding junkie, but even then I did not have such crazy hallucinations.
So, yeah, I was not stoned, my body felt OK (even worryingly close to perfect), and it seems my fantasy encounter was real.
Oh, and there is some mummified body hanging above me.
—
“WHAA!” I tried to jerk away on pure reflex. That made me push harder into my rock-solid resting place and simultaneously forced me to admit, that my voice sounded hollow.
Well, I never had a voice comparable to Shakespearean actors like Sir Ian McKellen, really, but I rather liked it. It was my own voice, and I was used to it.
Back to the body above, it seemed to be stuck standing next to the platform I was on, slightly slumped over me.
As to why it was upright, it seemed to have been pierced by some long rod coming from above my right, piercing the middle of the corpse’s back and continuing past my head towards the ground on my left.
A small, metal-bound book chained to the corpse’s clothes caught my eye and I reached up for it – and stopped.
—
My hand was skeletal. Not emaciated, thin or something like that, but one belonging to a well-cleaned skeleton. Perfect specimen for anatomy model, I dared to admit.
On a positive side, it was moving and responding to my commands naturally. Felt like my own hand too, although I was ready to bet that trying to gather water with my palms would be a hassle now.
I put my hand down, and laid still. My hand did not shake not because of the lack of stress, or even a hint of growing panic. I simply lacked muscles, tendons and other parts usually needed for movement and actual trembling to happen.
I tried to calm down my heartbeat by holding my breath for several seconds, but I noticed I did not have anything to calm. I was lacking heartbeat.
And I did not feel any muscle or tissue response while breathing either. I somewhat understood the situation, and resolved myself for final verification.
I wriggled out from under the standing corpse installation, and awkwardly sat on the edge of my resting place.
I could now see it properly, it was a fairly nice platform, some sort of pedestal made of small-grained grey stone similar to basalt.
I could also see my body, and my suspicions were proven to be correct – I was now a skeleton.
That would have been a nice opportunity to lose consciousness due to shock, but it seemed that that particular sanity-saving feature of human mind was removed from by body 2.0.
So instead, I sat there and stared.
You do not often get a chance to sit and have a look at your own pelvis, femur, patella, tibia, fibula and a choice of metatarsals.
Stop. Now, since when I knew the correct naming of bones?
I strained my memory and found out that I could actually remember all correct terms for all bones. And muscles, even though I did not have even one at the moment.
After some thinking, I determined, that I had read all that information back in middle school from Human Health textbook, later read again when preparing for group work in high school and a few times skimmed over during university times.
Shockingly, it seems that I had acquired perfect memory.
After spending quite some time, I could determine that I was capable of recalling anything I have read, heard or done from early childhood.
At least that was something useful in the current completely unknown situation.
—
Having calmed down while performing my memory checks and coming up with some utterly useless data like “total number of PK kills I had got in all MMOs I have played”, I stood up on my not-so-reliable looking legs and decided to actually check my surroundings.
I was in a brightly lit room of hexadecagonal shape with four opposite sides showing closed dark doors and twelve other sides containing bookshelves up to the ceiling somewhere at the height of a five-storey building.
The span of the room was also surprising – my estimations deemed it to be at least 40 meters across, making it quite a feat of architectural challenge.
Everything, from floor to shelves and doors seemed to be made of various types of stone, showing great skill of the stonemasons.
The light came from the ceiling itself, as it had quite strong fluorescent properties, which made a damaged portion of the ceiling to stand out even more, highlighting shadows and revealing a deep hole going somewhere upwards.
By the position of the hole, it was likely caused by a huge, monumental spear, its shaft being the rod that pierced the mummy I noticed after waking up.
Now I noticed, that the mummified corpse was wearing familiar clothes and accessories – it was the mage that actually got me into that mess!
—
The books chained to his belts, tattered armor, everything was there.
Although nothing could explain why it looked like it had been centuries – his equipment was in tatters, the corpse itself a dried-up husk, jaws locked by drying tendons into everlasting sneer.
Only his books looked fine, withstanding whatever conditions they had to face.
There was little dust, but considering the surroundings, it likely lacked the greatest share of basic component – flaked-off epithelium cells, skin flakes that is. That made it close to impossible to even guess how long my dead acquaintance has been standing vigil over me.
And how long I was out and getting funky body upgrades.
—
Following some old military rule I vaguely remembered having read it somewhere – Secure, Assess, Respond, I decided to verify my security.
As I approached one of the doors, I could see the truth that made me run to check the rest of the exits – somehow, the dark material of the doors was merging with the frame and walls, turning the whole structure monolithic.
It looked as if everything was molten and then solidified, leaving no cracks or moving parts.
“Well, it seems, that at least I won’t be having any heroes charging in and trampling over me in search for XP and loot.” – I grumbled to noone in particular – “Actually, what am I now? Skeleton, Skeleton Warrior? I really hope I am not in Heroes of Might and Magic, being a level 1 fodder for Necropolis. Well, I am surely not on graveyard, and I doubt that would be a Skeleton Transformer either…”
Finding solace in one of my favourite old games helped me to settle my mind.
Then I approached the bookshelves. Quietly praying to a wide variety of mythical, biblical and pop-referenced divine benefactors so that I would not have ended up in Discworld either, I stretched out my hand to pick up a book.
I guessed, that if I was locked in, I would be a fool to try to bust out before learning everything I could about my current situation and immediate surroundings.
Circle of Shards 