[Mkguild] The Memories of Bone part 2

[Chris]

Here is part 2 where things get even stranger!

 

 

************

 

 

   The fight hadn’t gone as planned. He had managed to kill the man
swiftly enough but the female hadn’t dropped her bow when he had
attacked. Instead she had loosed two arrows at him and then bolted
moving with surprising speed.

 

   Morven found himself laying on the floor with an arrow in his left
hindquarter, ironically it was within inches of the old crescent shaped
scar. “Again a female,” growled the spirit. “Why is it always the
females that are the toughest?”

 

   The cat bent around and grasped the shaft of the arrow in his jaws. A
moment’s concentration and the application of some minor magic and the
damaged flesh shifted and the missile came free. He spat the arrow onto
the floor as more magic healed the damaged flesh easily, leaving only a
small scar.

 

   He looked to where the man he had killed lay sprawled on the floor. A
part of Morven was disgusted at the idea of eating a man but the feline
mind and his own growling stomach commanded otherwise. This new body was
still weak from the change and merging. It needed the strength. So he
dragged the still warm body off to a quiet corner far from the site of
the ambush and gorged himself.

 

   It seemed to take forever to clean the last bit of blood out but he
finally licked his fur back to a lustrous glow. With a full stomach he
would have preferred to find a nice warm spot to sleep and regain his
strength but there was no time for that.

 

   His first fight with these invaders had gone badly wrong. Even with
the powerful body and the deadly skills of a hunter he had been hurt
badly. Had there been three instead of just two he would have been
killed. Alone he couldn’t stop all these invaders.

 

   The scent of blood came to the feline’s sensitive nose. It told of a
fight and of something or someone being wounded or perhaps killed. He
slowly and methodically followed the smell through the rooms and
hallways until he found himself in a room on the first floor. Damaged
statues from long forgotten empires lined the walls but Morven paid them
little notice. Lying in the center if the room next to the statue of a
rearing centaur was the body of a large man. The man was bleeding from a
half a dozen wounds on his body and the blood was starting to pool
underneath him.

 

   Wary of an ambush the feline stood at the doorway for several minutes
listening, looking and sniffing the air. Only when he was sure that no
one lay in wait for him did Morven slowly pad into the room towards the
body.

 

   The figure was tall, over five and a half feet and although he was
heavily muscled there was the first signs of flabbiness that marked
advancing age. A careful look at the mans chest showed that he was still
breathing. The cat moved close to the still form and got a good look at
the face.

 

   “Let’s eat it!” the feline spirit in his head shouted.

 

   “We just ate and you’re still hungry? We can’t eat this one. This is
a friend! Besides we need his help.”

 

   Morven placed both front paws on the man’s chest and concentrated his
magic on the wounded fighter. Soon he was examining the fighter’s
battered body: four broken ribs, a broken left arm and no less then
seven deep cuts at least six inches or more long. The man was wounded
but not seriously. Nothing that a few moments work couldn’t repair.

 

   The man groaned. “This was supposed to be a nice, cushy job.” The man
let out a moan and opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the
massive sabertoothed cat hovering over him.

 

   “Argh!” he shouted and reached for his sword.

 

   “Relax. I’m not going to eat you,” Morven answered. “Yet. Even though
you are plump and look delicious."

 

   The guard peered at the cat, scrutinizing him carefully. “I recognize
the voice and the attitude but not the body. Morven? Is that you in
there?”

 

  “What gave me away, Albion? My new hair?”

 

   “You were the only person in the museum besides the guards,” Albion
answered. “How did you do it? I didn’t think you were able to change
into a shape that powerful.”

 

   “How does my new body look to you?” the feline asked. The sabertooth
walked slowly around the man, his body moving with the suppleness and
grace only a feline had. With each step his fur rippled with the
powerful muscles underneath. Here was a powerful hunting male in the
prime of life. “Pretty good for an overweight mage with a 30,000 year
old skeleton.”

 

   “What? What do you mean a 30,000 year old skeleton?”

 

   “It’s a spell I’ve been researching. I call it flesh melting,” the
large cat explained without stopping its circling. “My flesh and muscles
over one of the museums sabertooth skeletons.”

 

   “The best one,” the feline spirit in his mind added.

 

   “I . . . “ he paused in both his speech and movement. “Melted, for
the lack of a better description my own flesh, bone and muscles and used
the skeleton and the pattern within it to shape myself into this
magnificent body. It worked far better then I had expected!”

 

   “Impressive,” Albion said. Slowly the man reached out to the felines
shoulder. For someone so powerful and tough his touch on the cat’s
shoulder was surprisingly soft. “So much power. Could you do this for
me?” Albion asked quietly as he stroked the soft fur.

 

   “You mean change you the same way?” the feline asked, surprised. “Do
you understand what that means? I would merge your body with a millennia
old skeleton. A very dangerous thing to do.”

 

   The fighter nodded. “I understand that but I still want it. But I
don’t want the sabertooth. I want my flesh around that,” he said and
pointed to another feline skeleton. The skeleton was a feline one but
massive, fully twice the size of the sabertooth.

 

   “A plains lion! That has to be twice the size of a regular lion or a
striped tiger,” Morven commented.

 

   The fighter grinned fiercely. “Yup!”

 

   “Why?” Morven asked. “Why subject yourself to something so
dangerous?”

 

   "Why?” the old soldier countered. “Because I don’t feel like getting
stabbed again because of my old bones. And because he’s the toughest
badass of the bunch,” he said, pointing to the bones of the plains lion.

 

   Morven gave the equivalent of a feline shrug. “The teeth are too
short.”

 

   Albion laughed. “Now that’s the sabertooth speaking. Can you do it?
Will you do it?”

 

   Slowly the feline stalked around the man, carefully examining every
inch of his body. “You have the muscle tone and size for it. I might
need to add several hundred pounds.”

 

   “We should eat him,” the feline mind commented.

 

   “We can’t. Besides being my friend we need him to kill the other
invaders,” Morven shot back. “Even we can’t kill all twenty of them by
ourselves.” He looked up into he man’s eyes. “All right, first I need
you to strip.”

 

   The warrior stripped out of his clothing and armor revealing a
heavily muscled body that was covered with countless scars. What caught
the cats attention was a beautiful and complex tattoo full of swirls and
designs that covered his chest. In the center was the image of a rearing
lion, its claws and fangs bared. Morven recognized the emblem of a
famous army regiment but the exact name and number escaped his memory.

 

   “Place your sword between the skeletons legs. I have an idea for
using that metal. Then I need you to stand astride the skeleton with one
leg on either side and your arms at your side.”

 

   He waited patiently as the warrior climbed onto the display and made
his way to the skeleton of the plains lion. With a swift flip of his leg
he straddled the bones like he intended to ride it, except that he
remained standing. The flesh on his legs were barely touching the stone
like bones of the animal’s ribs.

 

   “Are you sure of this?” the mage asked. “Your last chance to change
your mind.”

 

   “It’s far too late for that now Morven. Go ahead,” Albion answered
firmly.

 

   Casting the spell the first time had been difficult in some ways and
yet surprisingly easy in others. He had expected more difficulty for
something so drastic and yet it had gone off with no problems. Casting
it this time would be different from the first time. Not easier or
harder, just different. As he was not the object of the spell there
would be no distractions of feeling his body melt, but he had only done
the spell once - on himself. He was not sure of its effects upon another
person. A memory came to him from his younger days. A student had tried
a similar spell without proper supervision, and the young adept had
turned himself into a blob of goo that had to be carried out of the room
in buckets. It was not a pleasant memory. The man had spent a month that
way until they were able to restore him. He had been lucky to survive at
all. Even now, twenty years later he was still known as Blobby.

 

   This brought up an important problem for Morven; hands. Being a
sabertooth cat had many advantages like power, speed and the massive
saber-like teeth, but the cat was missing one thing – hands. And to cast
the spell Morven needed arms and hands for the complex gestures. He
could use his front legs and paws but that would mean balancing on his
hind legs while trying to cast the spell. The sabertooth cast his eyes
about the room looking for something he could use. "Where in the Great
Fires is a bench when I need one?" the wizard remarked. Finally he
spotted something he could use.

 

   Morven leapt onto the platform and carefully walked around the
fighter and the skeleton three times speaking the needed incantation in
a low growl. As he moved he cleared his mind of all his doubts and
worries and concentrated on the spell itself.

 

   The feline mage sat with his back to the skeleton of a tall elk that
stood next to the plains lion. He reared up on his hind legs and leaned
back onto a massive trunk-like leg until he balanced, not an easy feat
to do while he continued to chant. Thankfully he had some experience
casting spells while in animal form and it paid off now. With his front
legs off the ground Morven started moving them in the complex patterns
needed to shape and channel the power he was summoning.

 

   Slowly he felt the power gather and build up within himself. With his
mind he stroked it and shaped it to the form he wanted. When the spell
had matured to the level he needed the feline leaned forward and planted
both front paws on Albion’s left leg. He pronounced the words of release
and the magic raced down his legs and out his paws and into the man’s
body.

 

   Moving quickly the magic raced through the man’s body filling it down
to the last cell. It began to reshape the flesh removing the old form it
had. Without a form to hold to the body began to slowly melt into a
gelatinous goo that was still very much alive and healthy. This living
mass slowly seeped downward onto the skeleton, tendrils moving onto the
bones of their own accord covering them with the mans flesh. Albion’s
arms melted into the mass that had been his chest as that itself slowly
flowed down into the skeleton.

 

   The mass of flesh flowed downward over bones that had not felt living
flesh in millennia. Soon the hips and lower torso were gone and the
man’s chest started to follow downward as well, losing shape and form as
it dripped and flowed onto the very old bones, covering them.

 

   Morven waited until a critical amount of the mans muscles, flesh and
bone was on the ancient skeleton before speaking. “Pull your legs up,”
Morven ordered. “There is enough of your mass on the skeleton to support
you both.”

 

   Two limbs of melted, flowing goo came off the floor and were
instantly absorbed when they came into contact with the fleshy mass.
Quickly the spell continued its work, breaking down the flesh, bones and
muscles and converting it into a fleshy mass. This mass continued to
cover the skeleton until the thing on the display no longer resembled a
man or a lion. It was just a large mound of flesh that oozed and moved
without any muscles and bones.

 

   Morven couldn’t help but shiver at the sight in front of him. “Was I
that ugly during the change?” He felt a faint laugh come from the feline
in his mind. Then he returned his mind to the task at hand.

 

   The living flesh seeped into the bones and both absorbed them and was
absorbed by them. Flesh replaced stone and bone too decayed to be useful
until it found the last remaining bits of the animal. The magic sought
deeply into every bone looking for the pattern it needed, but most of
the bones had changed to stone long ago and all it found were scattered
fragments. “The pattern isn’t complete!” Morven shouted as the magic
surged, bucked and twisted threatening to destroy them both. The feline
spirit in him wailed in terror and started to panic. Morven worked fast,
trying to keep the spell and the spirit under control. He pulled the
scattered pieces together trying to create one whole pattern from all of
the fragments, but still several parts were missing.


 

   “Not complete! Not complete!” the cat in his mind wailed.

 

 

****************

 

 

End part 2


No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG. 
Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 270.9.4/1793 - Release Date:
11/16/2008 7:58 PM