Helping With Violence
Bone Marrow had continued to watch the townsfolk for a week. Even though he knew it would tear at him emotionally, he still wanted to see if there was any way he could help. While he watched, day after day, he saw the townsfolk becoming skinny again. Emaciated. They were starving but they didn't leave their settlement. They didn't look for help, they didn't even pay him a glance.
Though he had become like scenery to the townsfolk -- a haunted gargoyle that perched itself on the walls -- he had begun to notice something. It didn't strike him immediately, but he realized that there was a difference between ponies and the different kinds of people outside of Equestria.
If a pony needed help with something, they asked someone nearby to help them. Be it advice, labor, food, or even conversation, a pony would help someone if they so much as asked. With these people, however, they never asked for help. They outright refused help if offered, and they would rather starve to death than accept any form of charity.
Bone Marrow sighed, pressing the bottom of his hoof into his forehead. "Is this why the place is a desert?"
"What do you mean?" Toothpick asked. He knew what he meant, but since he was also Bone Marrow, he knew that venting was a somewhat normal thing to do.
"What if after the Battle of Canterlot, they just... I don't know. They didn't want anything to do with Equestria again? I killed I don't even know how many people in that battle, so all the ones that went home probably just had nightmarish memories of what happened. Maybe they're terrified of ponies?"
Toothpick shook his head. "They didn't care who you were until you mentioned you were a Necromancer, Bone."
The foal rested his head on his hoof. "Yeah, that's true. Maybe I should wear goggles or something?"
"With tinted lenses so your eyes can't be seen?"
Bone glanced at Toothpick and then paused, taking a longer look. "You know, I just got an idea. You're me, right? So that means that at least some part of me is in you. Doesn't that mean that I'm not really tied to this body?" He gestured to his pony-self. "If that's the case, then... what's stopping me from swapping my body?"
"To what end, Bone Marrow?" Toothpick's head tilted with curiosity.
"If I could look like a cat-person, then I could go back to Equestria, couldn't I?" He thought on the idea for a moment. "I mean yeah, I've still got the skulls in my eyes, but I could just wear more clothes and maybe a hood."
"And risk angering Celestia?" Toothpick pointed out.
Bone paused and blinked. "Right..." He sighed. "So then what? What do I do out here in the desert where everyone is starving themselves? They don't want my help, they don't want anyone's help."
Then don't help them.
The Necromancer's ears flattened. Where had that suiggestion come from? Did he think it? He shared a worried look with Toothpick and was given a shrug in return.
"Don't help them?" Bone scratched his cheek. "Why the emphasis on help?"
He was doing his best to wrack his twelve-year-old mind for an answer to that question.
"Don't help them, don't help them..." Bone was rambling to himself, as if repeating the line over and over might reveal some new insight. The sun was setting at this point and the glowing eyes of himself and his skeletal friends acted like blue fireflies in the darkness.
"You know..." Toothpick spoke up. "Perhaps we've been looking at this solution the wrong way?"
Bone looked to his proxy with his attentive ears perked up.
"We noticed earlier on that they don't want help, right? Then maybe that voice isn't wrong. We don't help them, we give them something that they'll feel like they've earned. A reward for doing something. Kind of like employment?"
Bone shook his head. "I can't force people to work for me if I don't even know what I want done. Even then, they won't work for me or accept anything I give them anyway."
"No, no, that isn't what I meant." Toothpick raised a hand and pointed towards the huts that the villagers were sleeping in. "They are on the hunt for herbivores, aren't they? They want something to eat." He gestured to the other skeletons wearing meat suits. "We have a supply of meat, but they won't take it when offered."
"So... what?" Bone wasn't keeping track of his own line of logic.
"So, what we do is we give them a reason to eat the skeletons. Make them threatening. Make them tasty. Give them a monster to fight, an animal or something else, something that they won't feel like they're being patronized with."
"You want us to make monsters to attack a village? I'm not going to do that... unless..." Now Bone Marrow's mind was spinning. He didn't have to make monsters, he just had to make skeletons that looked like monsters. Something horrible enough to get people spooked, but reel them in enough that the skeletons never killed anyone. Heck, he could command his skeletons as easily as thinking, so if he told his skeletons not to kill anyone then they wouldn't.
"You see what I mean now?" Toothpick looked like a weight had been lifted off of his shoulders.
"Well we can't really just sit on the wall while making monsters, can we?" Bone looked to the small group of skeletons outside the settlement's borders. "We'll need a place to base everything out of. A fortress or something where I can work on things without... being... bothered."
They shared a look and groaned. "Does it have to be so far away?"
"I hope these people like what I'm doing for them, even if these things look horrifying." Bone Marrow grumbled to himself.
He'd returned to the empty city filled with thousands of skeletons waiting for a purpose. He could see through his skeletons, and with that knowledge, he could command a group of monsters to carefully attack a settlement. Well, 'attack' with heavy sarcasm. The monsters he was creating weren't anywhere near as lethal or horrible as what he'd scraped together during the Battle of Canterlot.
Then again, he'd had no real idea of what he was doing back then. In the Battle of Canterlot he'd just been bringing back skeletons to swing weapons wildly in the vague direction of the enemy. As it turns out, swordsmanship goes out of the window when the opponent doesn't have a self preservation instinct nor any idea of how to use a weapon.
For these creatures, Bone Marrow planned on making them... unique. He got the idea from lines of ants marching across the desert, and after healing a few thousand of them, he figured out how the little things worked. Quite convenient, considering they worked until they died. For his monsters, however, he planned on making them a little bit more stylish.
These monsters stood at about his height -- that of the average pony -- and walked on two legs. They were a bit similar to kobolds in that they were bipedal and had scales, claws, and sharp teeth housed in an elongated mouth, but the similarities ended there. These creatures had eyes like that of an ant, no ears, no nose, and they had antennae sticking out from the top of their head where the ears would've been. The eyes had such small lenses that they glowed a light blue.
He didn't really know what to call these things. They had hands, they had clawed feet and a lizard-like tail, they had toned muscles and a slim build, but they could pick up Bone Marrow with one hand if he balanced correctly. As it turns out, knowing how muscles work and making them function even better with the magic of necromancy was a huge benefit. Add on to that the ability to give the horrible monsters he was making things that should have never been combined, such as the internal structure of a cactus to hold life-giving water, he had the perfect mobile meal-source.
It offered meat, it gave water since it was technically part plant, and it fought back just enough to make a villager consider it a hard-fought victory worthy of celebration with a campfire and a song while they cooked the thing.
The only issue Bone Marrow ran into was... well, what was he supposed to do with the skeleton after it played dead? Was he supposed to go to a town and sneakily recover the corpses once all the flesh and plant-matter had been picked clean? What if the villagers used the skeletons that he was hand-crafting from the pieces of a bunch of other skeletons and made a door out of it?
"We might be over-thinking things, Bone Marrow." Toothpick spoke up to wrench the Necromancer out of his thoughts. "Let's see how a test run goes first, shall we?"
"It's going to take them a whole week to get over to that settlement though, won't it?" Bone was weary in his mind, not his body. He wanted to help, but if it took that long, the town filled with villagers might starve to death before the monsters arrived.
"They're monsters, Bone Marrow." Toothpick smirked. "They don't need to behave like normal people, do they?"
The little foal perked up. "They don't! They can even leave trails of ice behind!"
"Exactly, since you can use your magic through your skeletons -- so long as it's necromancy that is -- they can run as fast as you did when we were in Canterlot."
"I should've just given them wings." Bone Marrow lamented. "It would've probably been more... I dunno, efficient? I think that's the word. Having five of those things sprinting like this is kind of taxing."
"Taxing, really?"
Bone Marrow was watching the progress of his pet monstrosities as they zoomed across the desert in the night like streaks of blue light as he talked with Toothpick back at the dead city. He couldn't hear from his skeletons after all, so that gave him something to do while he waited to see the results of his experiment.
"Yeah. It's like I'm running five times over. Like each step is five, and all of them are catapulted forward at stupid speeds."
"Couldn't you give them wings from here?" Toothpick suggested.
The five monsters halted.
"Uh... yeah. I could." He shook his head. "I know I thought of that, but why not think of that sooner?"
Using his magic through his skeletons, the monsters soon grew insectoid wings modled after the ants that he had come across earlier. Now the monsters were part lizard, part insect, part cactus.
"I didn't give them weapons, did I?" Bone pressed a hoof to his forehead and saw that the skeleton he was looking through mirrored the action. "Nevermind, these guys aren't meant to win, they're meant to feed people."
An hour later, a total of two since departing from the dead city, the insectoid monsters arrived at the outskirts of the town. Bone could see a few weak looking cat people standing watch in the towers at the main entrance of the town.
"Think they'll be able to fight off the monsters?" Bone asked himself.
"Perhaps send them in... inefficiently?" Toothpick suggested. "A single one to begin with, and once the guards rally and get organized, send in two, and finally three?"
"Yeah, the goal isn't to win." Bone nodded, his skeleton mirroring the action.
One of the monsters went out, and Bone watched with a smile of anticipation.
"Gods, I hate standing guard." Thomas, one of the catfolk in the guard towers, loudly complained. "Especially after that necromancer showed up and spooked everyone. Glad he's gone."
"You gonna stand there talkin' all night?" The other guard, named Tabbin, grumbled loudly from the other tower. "We've gotta listen for things creeping up on us out of the darkness, you know?"
Thomas was quiet for a while, directing his aggression towards the darkness outside of the town's walls with a glare. After a few minutes, he spotted something strange. Ten glowing lights in the sky that were heading towards the town.
"Hey, Tabbin, you see that?" Thomas pointed out towards the strangeness.
Tabbin leaned on the side of his tower and squinted. "What in Tartarus is that? You don't think thats the necromancer, do you?"
"Nah, he couldn't fly." Thomas shook his head. "Maybe it's something else?"
Two of the lights were moving closer now, while the others laid back in wait.
"Oh no." Tabbin picked up a spear that was leaning against the side of the tower's guard rail and gripped it in his hands.
"Ring the bell?" Thomas suggested.
"Right, yeah, ring the thing!"
The loud clanging of a hand-held bell sounded out from the town.
"Ooh, they saw it!"
"It's getting closer man, get down from the tower already!" Tabbin shouted up at Thomas.
"What's all the racket for?" Some of the town's villagers complained.
"We've got a bunch of glowing lights coming towards us in the dark and we've gotta be ready for it." Tabbin explained.
"Glowing lights?" An older gentleman yawned. "I think my club is around here somewhere."
"They're getting closer, maybe a minute till they reach the wall!" Thomas yelled with alarm.
"Get in formation, maces up front, spears in back!"
Their line consisted of the two town guards, an elderly man, a few diamond dogs with shields and their clawed hands, and an Alligator-person with a two-handed axe in the back.
What came around the corner was... unexpected. The line took a step back as they got a better look at what they were dealing with now that it was illuminated by the light of the town's torches.
The thing, standing around four feet tall, had the body of a kobold. Its eyes were like that of a fly, antennae protruded from its head like an ant, and its long maw revealed rows of sharp teeth with a tongue that was split in the middle like a snake. It was expressionless, probably incapable of raising an eyebrow or even sneering, and that coldness made it all the more unsettling to witness.
The creature's head tilted to the side, and silently, it charged the line. The shields held, but just barely. They were worn and sun-baked, leading the wood to warp and crack. With the strength of this small thing, the shields held by the diamond dogs nearly splintered and broke apart when the thing swung its claws.
Spears from the back line lanced into the creature's chest, but it didn't scream. It didn't so much as grunt in pain or weeze. Maces from the cat-people fell on the creatures head, bludgeoning it repeatedly while the creature tried to bite and lash out at the villagers, seemingly without concern to its own well-being.
After a few dozen seconds, the monster collapsed into the sand. Its blood was clear, without color, and flowed easily as water from its cracked flesh. There was no time to dwell on this as two more of the same creatures rounded the corner.
"Oh grief, here comes more of them!"
Bone Marrow couldn't help but smile. They were dealing with his creations really well, even if he'd had them hold back. They weren't meant to win, so having them behave like idiots was the best course of action. Not that he had any real idea of how to go up against a shield wall like that, but hey, he was making progress.
The two monsters that he had sent were giving the villagers a little bit more trouble, and thankfully they weren't doing anything that would actually harm the weakened people. He did notice that his creations were bleeding out a bit faster than he'd imagined, but he realized that if their 'blood' was water, then it'd flow out as easily as water.
For the last three monsters, he made their liquids behave a little bit more like blood. It could coagulate, at least, so that should help with the whole 'water being dumped out uselessly into the sand before people could drink it' problem.
The final three monsters came a few minutes after the previous two, giving the villagers time to rest and plan for the final wave. It came to Bone Marrow's attention that if he was going to be doing this regularly enough to feed a village, then it would take a heck of a lot of time and dedication to personally control things like this. Not to mention, by fighting villagers and others -- even in a mock battle like this -- he was learning how to properly fight. In Canterlot he didn't have much time to really pay attention to what was going on; there was too much to keep track of, so he had told all of his skeletons to just 'kill everything'.
With this, however, by sending in waves that were inefficient and stupid, he could learn how to counter certain tactics. How would he get past a shield wall, how could he deal with different things like flying enemies, etcetera. Maybe then he wouldn't need to fear so much for Scenic's safety once he brought her back. If he could fend off armies of villagers and even soldiers, then defending Scenic would be so much easier with a bit of practice.
"Whew..." Thomas wiped his forehead from the splatter that had gotten onto him when he noticed something. "What the... is this stuff blood?" He took a closer look at it and noticed that it looked like watermelon had gotten on him.
"Hey, Thomas." Tabbin held up one of the creature's arms. "What's the insides look like to you?"
Thomas blinked in astonishment. "No way. These things are fleshy and have plants in them? What the heck?"
The Alligator-person decided to find out for himself and picked up one of the creature's bodies.
"Whoa, Al, what are you doin?" The village's elder spoke up with concern.
"Taste test." Al replied simply, biting into the torso of one of the creatures with a sickening crunch. After a few chews, he nodded. "Yep, they've got bones, meat, plant-stuff and uh... water?"
The village was silent for a moment as they all looked at one another with alarm and confusion.
"S-so..." One of the villagers spoke up. "They're edible?"
Al nodded. "Yep."
The villagers grinned, looking hungrily at the bodies with a new sparkle in their eyes.
"Meat's back on the menu, boys!"
Bone gave a satisfied sigh as he watched from one of his skeleton's bodies. They weren't dead, really. He was having them play dead. Still, his idea paid off. The village could eat so long as he consistantly attacked them with monsters, and they were none the wiser as to him helping them.
Now all he had to do was make sure that he couldn't be attacked or found out. He didn't want to kill anyone after all, and if people came looking for the source of these monsters he was sending out, he thought that the idea of killing anyone else just because they found him -- or worse, imprisoning those who found him out -- was a terrible weight on his mind.
To that end, he took a few notes. Though he still had thousands of skeletons wandering around the town, he hadn't found a use for them. He could create his own creatures just like his dream had shown him so many months ago, but instead of the horrible chimera-monsters that he had sent against the villagers, he figured that if he didn't know how to make a building, he could practice by making a new kind of creature.
It didn't have to be make from wood and stone after all, did it? Flesh and chitin worked just as well, and since he'd found so many ants, he had some rough idea of how to structure things together. The bones of various species would work as the scaffolding, the muscles that he could fashion would work to keep the buildings upright, and the chitin could shield the innards from the harsh sun as well as the blowing sands. Add some cactus-bits to keep the inside colder than the outside and he'd need to heal his body less. That, and it would provide some kind of nutrients for himself so long as it rained, and so long as there was enough things beneath him in the dirt to keep the building growing.
Well of course he could keep healing himself and the building, but if he was going to have any semblance of living like a normal person, he'd need to start eating food and drinking water again.
"This is all coming along rather well, Bone." Toothpick was sitting in a wooden chair while Bone Marrow brainstormed what he was going to do with the city.
"Yep! I've got the next wave all ready for when that village runs out of food. So long as I make it regular enough, they'll probably start relying on the monsters to attack them."
"Doesn't that create a horrible dependancy on you attacking people in order to help them?" Toothpick pointed out.
Bone Marrow shrugged. "As far as people know, Necromancers are just horrible monsters anyway. So what if I help people by attacking them? No one is actually going to get hurt by it since I'm telling my skeletons to hold back so much."
"And of the skeletons that are eaten or buried? We can't keep up this subversive charity forever."
That was a problem that gave Bone Marrow pause. "I can't really make a skeleton out of nothing, I think. As far as I know, that's one of my limits for Necromancy. I guess that's what living people are for?"
"What, growing skeletons?"
Bone Marrow briefly snickered. "Yeah, dead people don't grow skeletons, now do we?"
"You might be a special case, then." Toothpick pointed to Bone Marrow. "You've grown a little bit in the last couple of months. Maybe a few inches?"
The Necromancer blinked in surprise and shifted his view to that of Toothpick's in order to get a better look at himself. "Hey..." He saw himself speak. "I am getting taller!"
Toothpick sighed, not wanting to point out that he wouldn't lie to himself about being taller.
When Bone Marrow had finished some days later, he had transformed a section of the nameless city he called home. The center of the city had a tall white structure, the outside being chitin that was a pure white like freshly fallen snow without a single window, but with multiple insectoid eyes around the exterior that provided tiny pin-points of light in the darkness. From those eyes, Bone could get a better view of the land around his city.
He'd lost a few thousand skeletons in the process of making the scaffolding for a structure like this, but he still had around two thousand remaining. Some five-hundred of those skeletons had been repurposed into his 'monsters' that he would use to occasionally attack the small town that he was feeding or to patrol around the city itself to make sure no one was going to collapse and die on his doorstep.
For himself, he fashioned a few new bits of clothing to help keep the sun from destroying his body. Very thin bits of skin and chitin made something that looked like a sleek silk, and he used that to make a basic shirt and to repair his cloak that covered the rest of his body. Further, he upgraded the clothing of his skeletons from rags to basic shirts, pants, and boots so that they would get damaged less from just walking around. Toothpick got similar treatment, and through his help, Bone Marrow figured out how to make clothing that wouldn't chaff or injure a fleshy-person through continued use.
He was developing quite a lot of skills from simply trying to fit in with society, though he found that he was no closer to his goal of avoiding loneliness that he had been over a month ago. It frustrated him, but he had at least found some kind of purpose other than wasting away in the desert. If he could feed people that would've starved to death without his help, and without them knowing he was doing all of this for their continued benefit, then it eased his mind. It was like a hobby for him.
"Hey, Toothpick." Bone Marrow was inside of his tower near the very top, as he'd just moved furniture into the room with help from his skeletons. "What do you think about me switching bodies?"
Toothpick raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
"If I can change how other skeletons work and look, then why couldn't I change my own?" The little foal looked up at Toothpick with a smile. "Don't you think I could make friends if I didn't look like a unicorn? If I was like you, a cat-person, then I could just wear a hood or a mask or something to hide my eyes and then I could stop being..." His voice caught in his throat.
Toothpick nodded. "You could make the attempt, I think. Wouldn't it hurt?"
With his mind distracted again, he looked back to Toothpick. "If I consume my nerves, then I wouldn't feel the pain. I could probably edit myself a lot, right? Try some crazy stuff on a skeleton first, then when I figure out something I like, I could shift my whole form to copy whatever I'd made. That way I could be sure all the flesh and organs work correctly before I switch myself."
"I'd recommend making a duplicate of yourself first." The helpful part of his brain known as Toothpick suggested. "Then if you don't like the change, you can revert your form."
"Right, yeah." The necromancer nodded and closed his eyes, focusing on healing himself so he could get a very accurate map of his body and how it was at present before transferring that mental image to a nearby skeleton.
Bone Marrow blinked at himself, who in turn blinked at Bone Marrow.
"Okay, that's strange." The real Bone shook his head and rubbed his eyes. His copy continued to stare blankly ahead.
"Should... should I wait?" Bone looked up at Toothpick once again, now filled with doubts. "I mean, if I lose my body, am I really me still?"
"You've died how many times? You even consumed yourself when you were captured once. I don't think your original body even exists anymore, Bone Marrow." Toothpick pointed to himself. "I'm a part of your mind, remember? You didn't get so concerned with the idea of being someone else or splitting yourself into pieces before. Now isn't the time to second guess yourself."
As Bone Marrow stared at his clone, he felt conflicted. Was there any part of him left? He had died, sure, but he always felt like himself. What was he doing now, out here in this desert? Making monsters to help people came to mind. Creating monsters in the first place also nagged at him. He was having an argument with himself, and the part he was arguing with had a physical body and sound reasoning.
The foal rubbed his face. This was a lot for him to process. For some reason, the idea of sending monsters to feed a village was fine, but was he really attached to his own appearance so much? What had happened to his original idea of being able to visit Equestria if he looked different? That would become a reality. He could probably head back to Ponyville and figure out some way to right his own wrongs if that were the case.
Pinkie Pie came to mind, surprisingly. The thought of Sugarcube Corner laying in shambles, the dead ponies that his recklessness had left in his wake, and his complete disconnect from what was going on around him when he was banished. There had to have been a better way to go about all of that, right? He couldn't make up for his mistakes as he was now, but... if he wasn't Bone Marrow but instead someone else, then he had a chance, right?
The skulls in his eyes would always remain, even if he changed the color of his eyes to plaid, or some kind of rainbow, he would still be Bone Marrow. That much would always remain the same. That's what Bone continued to tell himself. If there was one constant in all of this confusion, it was that. He was dead, but not. Some kind of inbetween that he very poorly understood.
As the young necromancer looked to the other skeleton in the room, the one he had yet to alter in any way, he thought of what he should look like. Perhaps something altogether different? Something unique and unseen by the world? Mm, that might backfire on him. If he wasn't understood, wouldn't people think he was some kind of horrible spirit? If he did it wrong, he'd end up looking like Discord; that floating chimera of bodyparts made anyone uneasy to look at.
What, then, should he look like? If he was resolved to change his form to escape scrutiny as a Necromancer, then he couldn't change into something as simple as a different pony or even a cat-person. Anything with a 'standard' eye would give him away.
He thought back to the monsters he had created earlier. They had insectoid eyes, but they didn't have skulls in them. The little lenses were too small for him to see the skulls, at least, so maybe he could do something similar? Could he make the lenses so small with so many that he could fake an eyeball?
Bone Marrow looked to the untouched skeleton to experiment. Perhaps if he made an insectoid eye with so many lenses that it looked like a glowing orb? Mm, no, that just looked scary and bright. What if he changed the coloration? Maybe some parts could be white, and others could be... well no, it was still glowing.
"Maybe try coloring in parts to be black? The glow would be much more dull." Toothpick suggested.
The necromancer looked to the one eye in the skeleton he was working on. "You mean like instead of having whites in the eyes, it's all black with some parts for color?"
He tried that idea, now making the eye entirely black. The glow had lessened to be almost gone, and Bone smiled. "Okay, so what if we add some color?" He squinted as he changed certain parts of the many lenses to be teal in color, much like Toothpick's eyes. As he worked on it, he realized that he could make the eye look like it had pupils like a cat-person, like a pony, or like a kobold if he tried hard enough.
"So the skulls are technically still there, in each and every lens of the eye, but the lenses are so small that we'd need a magnifying glass to see the skulls clearly and there's so many that it's really hard to tell each lens apart." Bone tried to copy the eye he'd been working on and placed a mirror image of it on the other side of the skeleton.
To him, and to Toothpick, it looked like a normal eye. The two shared a look and a grin. With this, they could probably sneak their way into settlements and have a look around, couldn't they? No more scary necromancer to haunt the area, no more villagers running away in terror, and no more loneliness.
He then realized that he'd had a similar idea to this well before he started making monsters, but now there was a different outlook to the question. Bone Marrow wanted to help the people out here in this inhospitable desert before he tried making amends for what he'd done in Equestria. In a way, he was still experimenting. This way, however, he didn't risk Celestia's wrath for messing up again.
Bone Marrow made a solem vow to never intentionally step on an ant again, and if he did, he'd heal them immediately as an apology. If something so small could make such an impact on his own life, then there was no telling what else he'd been overlooking.
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Hurray an update!
Really like where this is going now : P
And your writer’s block doesn’t seem to have impacted the quality. Keep up the awesome chapters !
This chapter was quite enjoyable.
This is pretty great! I love how clever he is. I hope Bone manages to keep from losing his identity, and gets his friend back soon.
Rules laywering with biology is always a fun thing to read.
i have 3 questions
1: if only 1 born necromancer can exist at once does that mean they are the same soul like the avatar?
2: could bone marrow become an alicorn with enough experence to the point that he would be indistinguishable from other alicons exept for the necromancy in his body
3: could bone marrow with enough effort become immune to lava since he is experenmenting now with his body he might be able to mimic the lava invorability from dragons
Hmm, that's an interesting trick to get around the skull in his eyes. Quite clever. And it seems like the small amount of time he's spent observing that village has helped him mentally as well, he's not acting as disjointed as he was prior.
All this eye stuff is starting to make me think of changelings with their eyes oft times represented as glowing blue and them being called insects and all that.
As a biologist, this raises so many questions as for as internal workings of those hybrid monsters, and I love it despite the number of things that just... wouldn’t work on any level without magic. It’s quite fun, and I’m loving it.
Great work nevertheless! Better late than never
I like this chapter. It's good to see things at least somewhat going Bone's way. He's maturing. He's also becoming a lot more intelligent too. Learn by experience. Kinda nice you can fix what you break. Bet doctors would love to be able to learn like that.
Except for talking to himself. I have to keep reminding myself that toothpick is him. And it's hilarious.
I wonder what his 'final product' will be like. It will be interesting to see.
I am curious as to what is going on in Equestria. They have their own issues to deal with (aka Celestia being an idiot).
All is good. I saw a few interesting points in the post two posts down. To fix your writer's block try thinking things like will Bone be able to find a place that accepts him? Why not introduce the changelings who Bone could study shapeshifting from as they are both outcasts simply because of who they are. Why not get him to collect books on biology and medical stuff? He's immortal right? He can also heal with this so he could learn to heal people without making them immortal like Granny Smith. (Or is that just longevity?) And now I have to go answer my own questions for my story. I hope I could help you with these things in some small way.
i.imgur.com/PUy658X.gif?noredirect
I wonder if he gonna excavate the desert a little? there might be interesting things in the desert life, bones, tombs, treasures of material or knowledge could barter later for things he wants maybe discover more biology types since he good at learning things in nature observing things in the cycle of life.
think he would take on acting or practice at it? like him mimicking fake made-up animal habits with his helpful monsters? develop obvious living if alien traits to help him out long term but could be fun! and any mistake can be excused as monster strangeness or maybe there sick? excuses over the obvious answer since most of the living like to lie to themselves about strange things.
maybe... in the future, if running out of bones he starts to make a play of it? like he has his beast make of show of sensing something wrong they avoid areas with too many of there "dead" could make the village start throwing the bones out into the desert away from the village train a tradition into them?
Oof, leaning hard on the inherent body-horror of necromancy, aren't ya Bone? Please, nobody let him know that the only appreciable difference between a living person and a corpse is that some of the chemical processes that stop the body from rotting away have stopped. I don't think anyone would be safe.
toothpick needs to give props when props are due, a 12 year old managed to solve a food crisis that not even full grown adults could handle on a much larger scale easily and by using the resources available to him.
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Toothpick = Bone Marrow
Bone Marrow = Toothpick
They're the same person, hehe.
I like it. Glad to see you're back!
Learning and progression makes for a good chapter.
Still seems really good, regardless of writers block! I hope that it passes and you have an easier go of it.
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figured it was like one of those days where that voice that tells you that you have to wake up in the morning, but your too tired or tell yourself another hour. In the moment it seems like a good idea, but later you regret not listening to that voice because now your late and your going to catch shit for it.
except Bone marrow's inner voice can give him active feedback that also helps him bounce ideas off of.
does anyone think eggshells, actual shells, and recycle bone things can be used for a weird necromancy attempt to make a cheap bone? not as good as a real whole bone but could be a key to cheap artificial skeleton good only for really easy and light tasks till improved but the materials are cheap could see him also doing some cheap bone paste-like clay he could try and shape bones just an alternative broke necromancy guide for those in a pinch less anger and fear from the living for a necro trying to find a few goods alternatives
I hope he will get to pull some cool stuff underwater! and learn some interesting things travel by sea so many dead things cause the sea is not as peaceful as it seems some problems with decomposing and water cleaners maybe work with dead coral as a building material and travel about since most don't expect the necro to walk the bottom of the water too often and it isolated maybe the locals don't know about land type stuff like necromancy could be nice if his flesh was waterproof to prevent repair so often
Don’t really have time to read this rn, but I’m super happy to see this. I loved the first one, and I heavily enjoy this one too. Really glad to see it’s not dead~
flesh buildings for the win
be cool if he developed into a alicorn, the alicorn of death, it fit with the unintentionally creating MLP version of mordor as it future dark lord
just make the tower black and have a big flaming eye on top, either way he got his dark lord tower
Quite interesting to see where this is going! I'll be honest, this story hasnt been anywhere close to what I though it would go, but that's probably a good thing :)
Uber eats but the delivery guy is animating your food and getting it to attack you so you feel like you actually did something other than sit on your couch watching Netflix.
is... Is Bone inventing Changelings?
Who knew, he's gonna make changelings.
Also, this chapter was great. Don't worry.
Bone Marrow, queen of the changelings! I cant wait to see how this all pans out. Will he suceed or will he accidentally kill with kindness!
Thanks for the update!
This, this is a story about necromancy I like to read.
I've found myself giggling silly at numerous of Bone's trails of thoughts.
This has so many gold nuggets, so much of it is a great read of pretty rough to down right gruesome trails, yet skilfully balanced with humour and light-heartedness that manage to fall in naturally within the flow of the story.
For 99% of the time, the characters act and feel, alive, and then there's the 1% where they're so stiffly plot puppets, that it's jarring.
In this instalment I find that there're (in so far) 1 particular string of events, of which I know others have spoken in length about, that I really would like to know the thoughts behind.
If you read this far Sanguine Dreams.
"A character's death, as it's presence, should be meaningful."
Even if that meaning is to show meaninglessness.
I try to keep that in mind myself.
And yes, I personally think mister G.G.R. Martin fails spectacularly at this.
Are you sure you want your stories to be the kind where peoples' first and foremost relation to your characters is betting on when and how they perish?
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But he didn't solve it.
He only did some light symptom treatment.
When he runs out of material for his 'monsters', they're going to go back to square null.
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once again ignored that feeling that told me that he didn't solve it, I mean he is a 12 year old. They're not the best at planning ahead, his winging it as he goes approach is going fine so far. well until Celestia or Luna finds out via spying on him or dreamworld and either help him or make things worst.
I'm so glad you're still committed to this story, it's one of my favorites! This chapter seemed pretty good too, Bone is just so inventive with his powers I can't predict what's going to happen next half the time!
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Agree with your points. 12 (or maybe closer to 13 by this chapter) indeed.
Was just a tad worried about your definition of problem solved
you say
Hey all, sorry for the long wait. I've been slammed with a massive wall of writer's block for this story, and if this chapter is disjointed or seems of poor quality, then that's probably because I'm trying to brute force my way out of this slump I've been in.
I say
quick others that read the comments, write down plot points for the story to go in.
my contribution
You can invent a reason as to why the world would need a necromancer. In the last story there was some type of cult, I'm sure there could be some remnants of them still around except they had researched necromancy and upon hearing of the defeat of their princess nightmare moon along with what happened in ponyville they could theorize that a real necromancy exists and thus sent about trying to track him down. At the same time they could be trying to craft a real body for nightmare moon by abducting ponies. This could lead to the mane cast jumping to the conclusion that bone marrow is behind this except for the one that shares a bloodline with his friend however out of loyalty she doesn't tell the others. At the end of all this,good end: the elements of harmony can gift him his friend, normal end: it with Bone perma-deathing so that he could be reunited with his friend, bad end: celestia covers this up and while the mane cast knows Bone marrow is the hero who sacrificed himself to save equestria the rest of equestria fears him as the dreaded necromancer who spawned an undead alicorn.
I remember saying that i don't like this story.
Well, in it's current state, i love it.
If only it could be updated more often.
I like when books to into inventing and creating new things. Overcoming problems with creative thinking. Trying new things.
If you need an idea, i possibly has been reminded my all this about changelings...
So i really want to see them soon.
They do tend to make home at desserts, right? And our boy is hive-mind of himself.
I say, can you try to make him create changeling-like species, that can infiltrate Equestria and allow him to shapeshift often? Well, maybe not in main body.
Also, is almost a flag you leave about him losing his original form, but i don't won't to lost flag about him losing all color before.
Oh, well, maybe he will meet daring do when she is searching something in the ancient desert temple, idk...
It maybe you need to find excuse to move him past the desert to the sea area, as we saw in the movie. Maybe another failure that will teach him important lesson.
Can even meet tempest and heal her when she is not too far into that monkey king.
Or maybe let him drown at that sea and explore sea ponies. There he could change himself for that. On there is ponies... hippogriffs, who probably don't know about necromants, since they don't live underwater.... It whatever
bone marrow has had a bad life so far and with what celestia has done so far you could use that as a reason because even if she has coverd up his envolvment in defending canterlot i dont think those sick ponys would take kindly to celestia erasing the only good necromancers deeds from history. In all hounesty he has a good reason to be mad as celestia has betrayed him in the past so its not out of the question that he might feel angry about that but bone marrow doesnt seem one to act on that.
if you wantid you could have Bone meet up with tempest after he gets better hold on his magics vercitility and maby even overthrow the storm king and make his own empire or country. with that you could then split the story into two
number one focusing on bone and his lering about magic and raising a empire as his magic does seem the best suitid for helping others in the wilder areas
number 2 focusing on a threat to equestia or the weilders themselfs and princessess.
I do think celestia would be better being knocked down to size be something she cant handel i mean if i had a necromancer help heal me and defend my city only to find he was betrayed and erased from history it would pose the question of if the necromance is the one who healed and protectid us then the princess betrayed him is she the bad guy? i mean even with just the show story it can make sense if someone is looking for that kind of thing for example the incedent with nightmare moon was made to be a fairy tale and if this theoreticl pony had as long a life span as granny smith he might have seen the meddeling with history books and that which was done i mean you cant realy argue with the fact that twilight the unicorn who spent most of her life studying magic and stuff in a librery didnt even know nigtmare moons actule name was luna or tht she existid for real untill she was paranoid near the relese.
so yea even if you dont focus on it there proberbly is some old pony or cult which is getting tired of celestia rewriting history to help herself i mean at this point can any of the equestiren history books be trustid
Sorry for the long thing i love this story and crave more. you have made a story i can get lost in thankyou
Is that a quote from LOTR?
So he now has a living castle. All's it needs is to walk. Also im a bit suprised there hasn't been any giant sand worms.
Awesome chapter
i can't help but think someone should make a movie about this chapter.
"Attack of the giant evil walking extra juicy watermelons"
only we aren't evil we only want you to not starve to death
I actually though this chapter was quite interesting. Bone Marrow's spinning off into a very weird world of his own, and it's resulting in delightfully bizarre and aberrant behaviour. I look forward to more tales of his attempts to BE HELPFUL and NOT SCARE PEOPLE.
Your logic is sound enough for me. No need to fix anything. I did expect Bone to keep popping around the town to silently reclaim bones left behind by defenders feasts, leading them to assume symbiotic relationship with letting Necromancer take bones of anything they catch in return for him not doing anything for them. Never figuring out its his experiments they are fighting.
This is starting to sound like something Daring Do would write book about. She came to investigate abominations that regularly attack dessert town only to find bored as hell necromancer feeding them just cause he can. Maybe having already onlocked the secrets of life long before she came around, as a way to explain why he doesn't feel the need to slaughter everyone fo the sake of research.
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Does he need to be the Dark lord? He could be the Bright lord.
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either way he the lord who proberly invite you in for tea and show of his bone collection maybe call him the Nice Lord
I wonder if everytime Bone "dies" his body reverts to his first death, or if he can make permanent changes to his base form. I wonder at what distances he could fully swap bodies with one of his skeletons if he so chose. I wonder if he could do this with a non skeleton, just as he can look through the eyes of others with only their name.
I wonder if he will figure out how to let his hybrids reproduce, or pursue it at all. Admittedly a much harder challenge than simply manually putting all the parts in place to make the creature work. I wonder if he could make his home photosynthesize. Perhaps a strange form of hive mother to his creations, providing water and sustenance. Or his creatures photosynthesize. Konosuba style farming.
I wonder if he can use exoskeletons in a way similar to regular skeletons. It's interesting that all of his creations are merely little bits of his own animating force pushed out of his own body and into the abandoned shells of others. I wonder what he could do with other's animating force. It's established (or we believe) he could capture someone's soul and fashion a body for them. Would the resulting body be his own animating force, the souls, or some mixture? Is a skeleton needed, or would a loophole allow one to be generated in this way? Would said skeleton persist after death, or be reabsorbed as a manifestation of animating force?
Come to think of it, he can push bits of himself into others still living, and at quite a distance. If he knew of a skeleton in a specific spot, could he similarly push himself into it despite being leagues away, since he doesn't need to find it, he knows it's there? When he resurrects someone or inhabits there body, where does he end and the other begin? Could these barriers be overcome?
What allows Bone to stretch himself so far out, across so many bodies? Can non natural necromancers do the same? Is it some special aspect of the necromancers soul that allows it to stretch so, or is it simply a natural affinity to something all souls have the capability of doing given time and training? Is Bones well of animating force finite?
If Bone stretched his senses to their upper limits, could he sense the Moon? What would he find their? Long dead civilizations? The sparse remnants of life from the moons formation? Or a truly barren wasteland as deadly to him as any volcano. I wonder if he had tried, before he was imprisoned in stone, if he could have spoken Luna's name, and seen the vastness of space, or whatever she saw in this eons. I wonder if on the moon he would have any connection to Luna, from contact with something so attuned with her and her magic.
I wonder if I misunderstood the alicorns affinity, and there is no such special connection, only their raw power and the domain they have claimed for their own.
I wonder if anyone is annoyed at how long winded and rambling these few pseudo paragraphs are without any cohesive point, only speculation at what might be possible and what lies beneath the surface.
I wonder if Bone might develop a form of life or death that can persist even in volcanoes, and seed the the world's lava pits with them as a safeguard against his own demise, having a supply of life to draw from where others would assume there would be none. Perhaps a modified Hydra that can't feel pain and hibernates for centuries. Come to think of it, Hydras regenerate just about everything including bones. If Bone ever Cotton's on to this he will have a rich area of research. Maybe he'll one day in the distant future make a heavily modified Hydra body that looks like a pony but can survive far more than it has any right to for Scenic.
I wonder how Scenic will look at Bone when, if, he resuscitates her. If she will even recognize the person he's become. If in that moment his heart will be truly broken. If he goes mad, or loses all will to continue, or had long ago lost his mind and no longer even understands why she is acting as she is. A classic little bit if tragedy. Eh, look forward to the future, it's a fun world with fun possibilities and so much room for the characters to explore with the tools they are given. I do wonder at what the rest of the world is up to in the mean time. But this really drives home Bones isolation, his spiraling in on himself, giving him a project that he can focus himself on to feel a bit more pony as he tries to keep himself sane and tries to stick to his morals which he has but so few people seem to appreciate and encourage which makes him even more noble for not surrendering to his darker urges so easily.
Your brain must have been smoking at some point because holy crap, thats a lot of detail. Can't wait for Scenic to make her scene
Wonderful as always.
I for my part really enjoy the creativity of Body Skulpting, one of the more interesting abilities of the life and death spectrums of magic. I really hope we see some more of this later down the line.
I really like where this is going, I look forward to seeing what Bone comes up with