Nothing happened for a moment, then the air shimmered slightly off to the right. Stepping out of the long shadows of dusk was a scarecrow like figure in a dark black robe. Its features were totally obscured by its long hood and sleeves, and it glided ghostlike towards Tim until he held up his sword in clear warning. Adama was reminded of the legend of the Shinigami Lilli had told him about and decided that even Death himself wouldn’t take him without a fight. As he considered his next move, a voice echoed eerily out from underneath that hood:

  “You are just as skilled as the rumors say, possibly even better. Noticing my presence while invisible was also quite impressive.”

  Of all the things Adama had expected from a god of Death, he hadn’t anticipated a compliment. Tim still didn’t let his surprise show as he responded:

  “I don’t talk to people with no name and no face. You take off your hood and introduce yourself like a real person, or I show you just how skilled I am.”

  The figure hesitated, before saying:

  “My name is Fels. I was once known as ‘The Sage’ but now I refer to myself as ‘Fels the Fool’.”

  Adama couldn’t help his eyes widening slightly in recognition. This was the mage that Arles had mentioned to him in the Dungeon. He had done his research on his conversation with the Almiraj but come back with nearly as many questions as he had answers. Ouranos was indeed a god, but he didn’t have a Familia. He was in charge of the Guild and was actually banned from creating a Familia or blessing anyone with Falna, due to the obvious conflict of interest that would arise from heading both the Guild and a Familia that the Guild was supposed to regulate. Adama had come up with nothing in his research of Fels the Mage. No such person came up in the Guild records, and if it had any records on him or her in the past then they had been expunged. Tim didn’t have the time to do further research, so he was left with unanswered questions. Had Ouranos covertly given Fels Falna, in violation of his agreements, or was there something else at play? Who exactly was Fels, and why would he work for Ouranos? Why were he and Ouranos interested in the Xenos? Tim had conjecture for each of these questions, but nothing concrete. First things came first, however:

  “So, you’ve got a name and a title. Cheers and celebrations for you. But what about your face?”

  “…You don’t want to see my face.”

  Now Tim was starting to get a little annoyed:

  “Being ugly isn’t a crime. Not in my book, anyhow. Now show yourself.”

  Fels reached up, and Adama noticed with barely concealed shock that their hands were bony. So bony, in fact, that they didn’t have an ounce of flesh on them. Fels pulled back their hood and showed Adama their bare skull, attached to a similarly exposed spine. The mage looked like an animated skeleton wearing a robe, and Adama couldn’t help but ask:

  “Your whole body like that?”

  The skeleton nodded wordlessly, looking at Adama as if daring him to laugh or recoil in disgust. The swordsman had never seen anything quite like Fels, but he had seen some strange things in his long life. If he squinted hard enough, Fels was kind of like a very intelligent death madra remnant. A hyper intelligent, non-hostile one that wouldn’t kill him by standing next to him. Probably. Adama held his composure and remarked:

  “That’s rough, buddy.”

  The conversation paused, the silence stretching onward for a handful of seconds. Then the skeleton began to laugh. It was an uncanny sight, watching the bag of bones burst into a rather high-pitched belly laugh, bones and teeth clattering as it did. Adama couldn’t see what was so funny, and he tightened his grip on his sword, anticipating some kind of retaliation. But Fels eventually regained their composure, and the laughter petered off before they stood up straight once again and looked Adama in the eye:

  “Your frankness is more charming than you understand, mighty swordsman.”

  “Heard that before, but it was more convincing coming from her than it was you.”

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  “Hmmm, indeed. Well, you must have questions of me. Now that you have me captive, why not ask away?”

  Adama frowned slightly in thought, before responding:

  “How about this: I tell you what I think is happening here, and you stop me if I go down a bad road. Deal?”

  Fels nodded, so Adama continued:

  “You work for Ouranos.”

  Another nod:

  “He didn’t actually give you any Falna. He’s too clever to breach his agreements like that. You were already a mage, and he secured your services another way. Maybe by cursing you to be a skeleton and offering you a cure? Or you were already a skeleton, and he offered you the cure as payment.”

  “Right on the first part but wrong on the second. I cursed myself to be like this, by granting myself immortality of body but failing to give myself incorruptibility of body. Ouranos doesn’t offer me a cure, but a purpose, so I serve him. There isn’t much else a freak like me can do otherwise. Who else would work with an undead monstrosity? Even most gods shun me.”

  Tim immediately thought of Hestia:“I might know another divinity or two who could look past appearances.”

  “Regardless, Ouranos is my chosen master. His work is good and needed, even as the other gods shackle him.”

  Adama noticed a hint of bitterness there, which he filed away before continuing:

  “So, you work for him. But you also work with the Xenos. At his direction.”

  A nod.

  “Because Ouranos wants an enforcement arm of his own.”

  “That is half of the truth, at the very least. The Master benefits from a group that can move in the shadows and take care of looming threats. But the ordinary monsters of the Dungeon are hostile to the Xenos, to say nothing of your fellow humans. Left alone, they will perish. We organize them and help them keep themselves alive. Our efforts are, at least partly, humanitarian.”

  "But they do you bidding in exchange for all of that humanitarianism.”

  “That’s a crude way of putting it, but yes.”

  “And you’ve figured out that that I know too much. You’re here to keep me silent about your Xenos.”

  “Arles, while very cute, is terrible at keeping secrets. From me or others. But I mean you no harm if that’s what you are asking. You are a rising star of the Guild, and a possible future asset to Orario. Not to mention that neither I nor my Master are the type to kill others to keep our secrets. But we would appreciate your discretion, yes.”

  “…What’s in it for me?”

  Adama liked Arles, and he wasn’t planning on blabbing about this whole affair. But this was the head of the Guild they was talking about here. He’d be a fool to let this opportunity go to waste. He could taste notes of wry cynicism in Fels’ voice as they responded:

  “Ah, the self-interested type, are you?”

  “Who isn’t?”

  “Fair enough. But I cannot give what I haven’t been asked for. What do you want?”

  “I want special treatment from the Guild. Valuations of my spoils at-no, above market price. By 25%.”

  Fels hesitated:

  “That’s a big commitment, especially since there is no telling how strong you will get.”

  “You want ongoing silence; I want ongoing benefits. Seems fair to me. Look at it this way, I have every incentive to keep your secrets for as long as I live. If I ever double cross you, just cut off the benefits.”

  “…10% above market rate.”

  They haggled a bit, and Adama eventually got Fels to agree to 20%, plus an upfront payment of 30 million vals. It was an eyepopping figure to Adama, but he didn’t want it in cash. He wasn’t concerned about sword or house payments anymore. He had another idea:

  “Can you make magic items?”

  “Indeed, I can.”

  Adama turned and rifled through a small pack. He almost always carried a backpack around with him with some of his most precious items and emergency resources in it. It rarely hurt to be too prepared. He withdrew from it the Black Dragon’s claw, the White Tiger’s purple gem, and the Sanguine Crystal from the Bloody Hive, as well as some of the choice rubies from the Green Dragon’s tree he hadn’t exchanged. He handed them all to Fels, saying:

  “Sell some of these if you like. Never been into mind control myself, so you can sell that purple gem in particular. But use those funds, some of these materials, and my down payment to make me a magic sword. Not one meant to break, but a bona fide magic item that’s also a sword.”

  Magic swords like Lilli’s were expendable, consumable weapons. They allowed the user to create powerful offensive magic effects with no expenditure of Mind. Magic items were tools that had utility effects and fueled those effects with the user’s Mind. They typically had no direct offensive power. But now, Adama was asking Fels to make him a sword with one of those utility abilities. The process to create such an item was both extremely difficult and of only limited value since the magic couldn’t boost the weapon’s offensive power directly. It wasn’t as though it had never been done before, however, and Fels accepted the items with interest:

  “Interesting. What effect would you like me to create? Keep in mind that I don’t have perfect control over the final product.”

  Adama gave Fels a tight grin, and told the mage what he had in mind, prompting the skeleton to react with mild shock. As much as a bag of bones could react like that, at least:

  “…Yes, that could work. It’s possible in theory, at least. But it has never been done before, to my knowledge.”

  The deal done, Adama and the skeleton said farewell and went their separate ways. The future unspooled out before the swordsman, and he nodded a little as he contemplated it. Things were looking good.