They were making nightly plans on how to un-rockify their accidentally over hardened orc. Concrete can be a problem. They’d gotten stuck in a small meadow surrounded by trees. The mountains consisted of cliffsides in a matching shale color to Bodi’s body mud. Everywhere they looked it was an insult on how maybe being rock isn’t that movable.

  Reluctantly over dinner Day admitted, “I’ve heard of someone. They live in the burrows around these mountains. But you guys have to swear not to be mad.”

  Distantly by the cart they heard Bodi, “I swear. I swear! Can someone bring me dinner?”

  Her face clouded. “The rest of you swear it! You won’t freakout?”

  They reluctantly agreed. She pulled out her map and pointed to an odd area. It had a simple dandelion head ready to release its seeds beside it. Kriti mentally noted it. When she looked closer, the map had dandelions all over it. Either the mapmaker had a big problem, or the various states of the flower had meaning.

  Day rollup up the map. “We can go in the morning.”

  Laural already plopped onto the ground, too tired to even find bedding. Kriti dropped a blanket on her and set up her own bed. Tomorrow was sure to finally give her answers about Day. And she’d not be one to lose it no matter the reveal.

  #

  Fuck. She thought firmly. Fucking, fucking, undead. She called the dead. Not undead. Very important distinction. Kriti put on her golden hijab and chose a nicer lime blouse. Bodi could die today or he could be turned into useless rubble. Not a real clean proper death.

  The cavern had a graveyard in between it and them. No road to it. An extremely old one with wooden crosses and already they could see exposed bones lying around everywhere. Plants tried to crawl their way out of the wooden railings. They’d left the cart and horses back, now the graveyard that backed into a tiny cavern had morning mists over it. A stillness about the place made her skin crawl.

  Day wore a particularly attractive dress of muted greens. The rest of them had to follow her hauling an extremely heavy and unhappy rock. They wore their worst clothes since who knew when they’d next find a place to clean the mud off. It’s not like laundromats just appear everywhere or that you have infinite clothing while questing.

  “Dustarian needs a raise,” complained Spoon. But they’d hauled Bodi down to the graveyard and now were staring at Day. Surely, the other idiots really thought that they needed to keep walking. Kriti put it together already.

  Day hesitated then glanced down at Bodi’s unhappy face. She put her lips to her hands and made the most unusual sound. Kriti only heard it twice in her life and she knew a lot of things. A bone whistle note couldn’t be unheard, couldn’t be unknown.

  Nobody else recognized it but that wouldn’t have mattered.

  A man wearing a giant black robe rushed out, grinning from ear to ear. “Visitors! Not vicars, vittles, or victors. True visitors!”

  As he rushed over, the bones around the graveyard jumped up and clattered together. Making, a band out of bones and bobbins. It had quite a soothing tone if she didn’t know that dead bodies were making the ruckus. Truly a celebration to raise the dead. Kriti instantly realized it could also be a bone storm that killed enemies instead of a welcome to my graveyard band.

  “I’m just like you,” he pointed directly at Day. “I am,” he waved his hands wildly. “Another necromancer!”

  She flushed realized she’d been caught then suddenly blurted out. “Oh, a fellow Neckromancer. Which school do you follow into? Are you an upper, lower, or middle specialist? Which patients are your least favorite?” she glanced around at us all. “Sorry, we can talk about that last one in private.”

  “No, what?” the man in the dark hood actually paused to stare at her. “Upper, lower, and middle? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m a Neckromancer! Don’t you know? I’m saying I’m a fellow Chiropractor.”

  The thin man surrounded by dancing bones and gravestones drew back ever so slightly. “You are one of those people.” His eyes widened in alarm. “Why would you come here? Who sent you?”

  His voice bore a tinge of hysteria that bespoke anyone interacting with the truly terrifying.

  “Nobody sent me. We didn’t realize you were here.”

  He started shaking now. “And now that I’ve met you and your dark arts, you’re going to harm me? Force me to keep silent. Sow my other bones with my actual physical bones? Or just leave me partially alive to slowly die here by your knuckles and vertebrae? Is it because I didn’t take that last apprentice? He said they’d come after me, but he kept trying to raid a small village. He was a real weirdo. Wanted to kill teens and rule or whatever. He can’t have had real sinew connections, you know? A true necromancer prefers the dead, not uh,” he shook both hands in an ew-get-it-off way, “living beings. Not like those twisted chiropractors. One has come to kill me!”

  “Oh, no, no, no.” Day flushed. “I’m really not like that. I do see that the curvature of your spine is a bit rounded though. I could work on easing that pain in your left shoulder.”

  He drew himself up to his full height white as a recent ghost. “How do you know this you vile being? Who told you,” he turned accusingly at a none dancing pile of bones, “my secrets?”

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  She shook her head, annoyed. “It’s only when you stand like that, it’s pretty obvious you either had an old injury or repeated over extension. Repeated lifting while it goes unrepaired might cause functional damage.”

  He put up both hands. “Say no more. Your knowledge is sufficient, and I know of you, of you in the chiropractor business. Of humans and their strange, dangerous ways. I seek no quarrel with you. What must I do to help you leave my home without any bloodshed?” He shared his concerned expression with the others. “Surely you must keep her in check seeing how you’re not dead yet. A great mercy. I beseech you to keep her away from me! Do not let me die like this!”

  “Umn, yeah,” agreed Spoon for the rest of the stunned group. Other than Kriti, who did not care for dead bodies just as a chef views frozen leftovers for dinner, a vampire would be best at these things. “We can keep her from hurting you and at a distance. We’re here because our friend is stuck in concrete.”

  His face lit up. “Oh! There is something I can do for you. Yes, yes, yes. Let me. Please. Other necromancers. Er, sort of. As long as you keep her away, and watched, come in. Come in.”

  The band had settled back into being femurs and tibias, but they walked over the dead bodies hesitantly all the same. Not a very even ground.

  “Oh, I’m being so rude. My name is Sturt! Let me help you with your golem.”

  Skeletons poured out of the cave in various states of disrepair, but they hefted up Bodi. It was a relief not to carry him.

  “So how do you want me to kill him?”

  Small skeletons were lighting torched and generally rushing to straighten up the large cavern before them. Two got so excited, dashing around, that they ran into each other, disarticulating with an enormous clatter. Other skeletons rushed over to pick up the bone pile and move it out of the way. They rolled out a motheaten red carpet. With a great clatter of hammering kneecaps, seven skellies put together a wooden table from crate parts. Others rushed into pushing the enormous fifteen-foot table into the corner, while those hammering with their kneecaps started making chairs.

  Over thirty undead all focused on one task. Making the giant cavern homely. One knitted a red doily, using it fingerbones, the three sets of phalanges, as the hooks. Another fluffed a trash pile, like clearly the trash needed to have the right shape. Two hopped on one leg, going too slow to reach tasks in time before another skeleton completed the job.

  A maelstrom of bone warriors had descended upon them, and their necromancer wanted to know only one thing, “Do you have any food allergies? Dietary needs? Cheffy can make anything accept bone broth. Maybe fingerling sandwiches. I also have cake and bone bread.”

  Who would eat cake from a necromancer and a skeleton chef?

  “That sounds delightful,” Nettle got to the enormous table and thanked a carpenter bone for the chair. He sat down with his back to the chaos.

  Kriti decided he might be an idiot genius because that was the only place safe to sit. The now created table was no longer crawling with skeletons on the critical tasks of hospitality.

  The necromancer, Sturt, plopped onto the head chair, ignoring that a wall sat on the other side of the table and turned to Nettle. “Don’t get much Fae down here. Usually, you lot are squeamish about death or after death or undead or the great after. Whatever you call it.”

  “Immortals have only a few fears. But presently, I’m most interested in if you have a take on how to get that rock stuff off? We don’t want him killed.”

  The skeletons brought in Bodi and placed him on a second table that had been made in the fuss. This one had only two feet off the ground, and roughly Bodi-golem sized dimensions.

  “That’s easy enough.” The necromancer waved away the concern. “Easier than my initial plan.”

  Kriti joined them standing beside the table but still giving room to see in the dim late. She squinted through the oily smoke. “Those torches can they-“

  Before she could finish, they flared up all the way, making the cavern brighter than the outside.

  “Sorry, I forget to turn off the dimmable lights. All fixed. Who would want to work in a dark, hard to see cave all the time? Doesn’t bother the eyeball free groups, but it’s a terrible strain on my eyes.”

  “Who indeed?” muttered Laural squinting into the lower passages.

  Kriti crossed her arms. “How do you intend to get blockhead out?”

  “Chisels.” The necromancer answered and then continued. “Now about those food preferences?”

  Laural took one disgusted look around before taking a hardline. “In here? I’m vegan.”

  “Fish allergy,” Nettle pointed at Spoon, “the rest are good.”

  “Perfect! Cheffy, make us a delightful repast.”

  A skeleton wearing a huge bear claw necklace clinked away. As did various other arms, legless, ribless, skeletons. Nothing that looked like a kitchen was in the first room. Nobody wore a white chef since it would not take long to turn the dark dirt brown of the cavern.

  Laural asked, “What about our horses?”

  “I can take care of that with bone labor too. Now what were you saying?”

  Day shuffled over and the man grew very still.

  “I thought you were wanting to see another necromancer? I can help with that shoulder.”

  He scowled. All the skeletons froze. Their heads turned slowly, all to point at Day.

  Spoon took her by the elbow. “Why don’t we go sit on the other side of the table?”

  Very quietly, Sturt said, “Chiropractors are the lowest form of necromancy.”

  As she walked away, she leaned her head out, trying to get around Spoon for her final shot. “But still a form of necromancy!”

  Nettle moved himself to block Day’s eyeline to the necromancer with his body. Once he did, the bones moved around again, but more slowly dusting away cobwebs with ancient shirts, sweeping up the dirt along the floors to hard stone, and scrubbing off bat guano with a chunk of chainmail armor. Five skellies appeared to be scrubbing the same clean spot in circles, rotating with one another.

  “Quite the labor force.” Nettle watched the skeletons pleased.

  Kriti wondered if he needed recalibrated with a hard slap. Did he seriously trust everyone he met? Necromancy this close to Adville and not a single necromancer had ever signed up to help assassins remove their dead bodies. So rude. Where was their professional pride?

  “Indeed. Whenever a manufacturer is running late, he sends for a night crew. That’s how they get all these skills. They save their deadlines, I get gold. Very effective.”

  Nettle squinted. “Labor is usually a massive cost. Is that what you do then? Manufacturing?”

  “It pays the bills. I have my passions naturally. My true calling is mining for Osmium. Then processing it for usage. My hope is to one day create a bone paint that can keep a body preserved far superior to normal embalming methods. It revolutionized the funerary industry and reshape taxidermy everywhere!”

  “Wow, that’s, umn,” Spoon noticed Kriti’s shake of his head and Spoon trailed off, “a goal.”

  As they talked, a new group of skeletons arrived. These had a different appearance. Most had smashed skulls already, a few missing digits. All seven had a chisels in hand. As one they swarmed over Bodi and ever so delicately “tick, ticked” into it.

  “Will they hurt him?” Kriti asked then wished she hadn’t.

  “Those lot are archologists and miners. They’ll get him out without any issue. It will just take a lot of hands a lot of time.” He turned his smile on, “Which means you all get to spend a delightful day in my company!”