Mark the Skeleton

Mark stared at the wall and floor. It was a bloody fine mess. Quite literally, it was very bloody. The spikes protruding from the wall had done their job quite well. The gleaming silver spikes seemingly growing from the chest of the man stuck on the wall had gone cleanly through him. They were wet with his blood, a few bits of organs and bones, and they still seemed quite sharp. The blood was running down the spike panel and onto the floor, slowly flowing towards the drain on the floor at Mark’s feet. Most had finished dripping off the spikes and running down the wall. There was no sign of a struggle from the man, that was also great. Sometimes these heroes managed to get in a few last throes and would damage the spikes. As stiff that they were when piercing, a good blow to the side would knock the tips off many of them. And the Master required perfection. Almost like he wanted the heroes last thoughts to be about how pretty this particular trap was.

            Mark recalled having to fight to get this drain installed but it was a massive time save. For being undead, the zombie laborers sure had a lot of fight in them. But they finally gave in once he started leaving more obstacles on the floor during his cleaning. Strangely, as strong as the undead laborers were, they still tended to shuffle a lot. And any fool who didn’t pick up their feet would have a nice quick trip to the ground. Those groans were some of the best sounds I’ve heard in years Mark thought to himself, recalling the thuds and undead groans that echoed through dungeon’s halls during that particular “rebellion” of his. The Master never seemed to catch wind of what was going on, but then again, he had great faith in Mark. For Mark was his most trusted carpenter.

            While most of the resurrected skeletons seemed to almost trip over themselves to grab the nearest sword and shield to begin fighting again, Mark had gone for a nearby hammer. Not some great warhammer ready to crush the skulls of the enemies but a simple carpenter’s hammer. For the first thing he had noticed after being revived in the catacombs was that the door to his burial chamber had a doornail improperly bent inward. After fixing that, the Master could tell that something was different with reliable Mark. It would seem some of his humanity had clung to the bones. The resurrection magic normally animated the bones, filling their marrow with hatred and obedience. With Mark though, the hatred was towards poorly done carpentry. The Master saw him as a valuable variant and quickly set him to work fixing up his dungeon.

            Tragically for Mark, these duties also included clean-up. Hence the reason he stood here now. The Master had given him some undead laborers to help. As strong as a skeleton was from the magic, an undead laborer was fortunate to actually have some muscles left. It unfortunately didn’t translate to more brain power though, which was good and bad. What I would do to have an apprentice, someone to watch and learn and be more helpful than just grunting and following direct orders.

            He waved his had at the two undead at the side of the room, beckoning them over. Slowly they shuffled towards him, one tragically avoiding the board on the ground, depriving Mark of some humor for the day.

            “Get on it then, pull that body down and drag it to the experimentation room!” he commanded. Their only response was a slow, guttural uuuuuuhhhh as they moved towards the explorer’s body.

            As they pulled him off of the spikes, Mark took a moment to thoroughly examine the body. He looked like one of the hero types, probably an amateur based on his clearly non-magical sword and simple chain mail. There was one time they had a higher level hero come into the dungeon, that magical sword caused quite a ruckus. It had been a blessed blade and managed to unintentionally purify three undead before Mark finally stepped in to intervene. It was the last time he let those idiots handle a body without the Master, Mark, or another commander examine it first. While three undead were easy to replace, the Master was the only one able to cast that tier of magic so rebuilding the army could be a hassle, unless one of the less lethal traps managed to snare some people. Otherwise they couldn’t go around raiding villages too much, that always drew the attention of higher ranked heroes and knights. And at this point, the Master had been enjoying his time off lately.

            Mark witnessed in horror as his foolish laborers pulled the body sideways, snapping a couple of the spikes off. He facepalmed a bit too hard, popping his head off. Fortunately, as this level of facepalming was common (despite him not actually having a face), he’d made himself a hat that attached to his shirt so his head was each to grasp with his boney hands and place back at the top of his spinal column.  As replace his head he did, wishing it was worthwhile to scold the undead, but they didn’t seem to understand or remember any lesson he tried to teach them, so it was a fruitless endeavor.

            Replacing the spikes was always annoying. But he needed to have everything perfect, his will echoing Master’s. So he pulled the pad of paper he kept in his pants pocket along with a quill and a small bottle of ink to write himself a reminder. At one point he felt sure that he looked a little silly, a reanimated skeleton wearing overalls, a shirt, a hat, and even boots. But after years the dirty cotton shirt was just as much a part of him as his femur. The Master had even enchanted his clothes to aide in his escape, should it become necessary. For Mark was just that valuable, even for a skeleton. It was a feeling he appreciated, that small speck of humanity clinging to his bones would grow warm from the thought.

            The two undead threw the body onto an awaiting litter, picked up the handles, and took it away. It was frustrating how they could remember to do that but couldn’t remember to not pull the bodies off sideways. Or even just to be careful, for once in their afterlife. The body removed, Mark grabbed the bucket and mop and cleaned off the remaining blood on the spikes, spike plate, and floor. With the mop and water pleasantly red, he admired the now clean spikes and spike plate over the gleaming black stone floor. The smooth stones did an excellent job of directing the blood to the drain and were much easier to clean than the dirt that used to cover the floors.

            He stared at the plate and began to ponder… maybe there was some way to make the spikes easier to swap out… Right now it required removing the plate and using some blacksmithing knowhow to heat up the spike so it could be removed and replaced with another. But maybe he could rig up something that would let him insert the spikes from the back, lock them in place, but then let him unlock and remove them if they broke. My own brilliance amazes me sometimes, this will greatly please Master too! And since he had no worries about death, he could spend all the time in the world working on this, and the many other traps within the dungeon. He brought out the pad and quill and again hastily scribbled some notes down. Master’s only request was that Mark told him about any new ideas before implementing them. A simple matter, and Mark enjoyed watching the red of Master’s eyes glow in interest when he came up with a particularly clever or gruesome idea. This one was definitely more of the former than the latter, although the spike plate was Mark’s idea originally.

            With that he touched the enchanted stone on his wrist to contact this floor’s commander to ask him for a couple more undead to help remove the plate while another group was sent to grab the temporary replacement. Mark was always prepared for such a mistake and had a few store rooms that were full of replacement parts. Only a couple dungeon divers had ever managed to find them, comically one even met their end when they ran into a stack of crates that were improperly balanced. When they fell over and crushed him, Master had personally come to see it. While it wasn’t a true trap, it seemed to entertain him. Mark desired to make a trap similar to that one for the Master’s amusement, but the idea hadn’t quite reached fruition yet. One day though! In the meantime, this spike plate needed to get fixed soon, it seemed to be the season for extra explorers to wander into the dungeon looking for glory and treasure.

            But in this dungeon they would only find death at the hands of the master carpenter: Mark the Skeleton.