This is a serial, the first part is HERE

Chapter 24: Doctor Bones’ Stealth Technique

Most people never see death coming. It doesn’t matter if it’s on a battlefield or bed. Sure, there’s loads of people throughout the dimensions who can see some other poor sap’s end, but seeing your own? Not many can pull that off, and once you do… well then you’ve other problems to deal with.

Problems and worries of choice and knowledge.

Doctor Bones, had the sensation of many deaths in his mind, his very being. Even the best of doctors will have someone die under their hands. Not only this, but there was a heavy shadow of death over what little memories Dr. Bones had recovered.

A life lived on the edge, pulling lives from the edge… staring at death like that, even in a magically inert dimension you’d pick up something of death itself.

On top of this, Dr. Bones was by all appearances an undead skeleton, a being that has experienced one part of death.

So, what is the point of all this? Given the people who don’t see death coming, clearly a good way to sneak around people is to be like death. Miss Fern however didn’t have anything as extravagant as this in her being. She wasn’t tied to such an overwhelming concept as the edge of life and death is. She’d be more connected to something like consumption.

In other words, quite apart from curses, Miss Fern is a glutton. She’s fortunate that as a plant it’d be hard for her to get fat.

Getting back on track, Dr. Bones was of course going to imitate death and thus sneak into the ruined lab. There was however, the issue of Miss Fern.

-I’m afraid I’ll have to behead you for a bit Miss Fern-

“Wuh?”

Swiftly Dr. Bones fingers pressed several points on the posthetic body and then he wrenched Miss Fern from it. He stuffed the body, while it was still twitching into his spacial darkness.

“That felt horrible, couldn’t you have done it slower?” Miss Fern asked.

-If I had done it faster, you’d have screamed in pain- Dr. Bones replied.

Miss Fern almost wilted a bit.

-Now then, keep quiet and we’ll get through without any trouble.-

Miss Fern felt a chill right down to her very roots, as if some ghastly grub was eyeing them and twitching its mouthparts in glee. The chill of death! She silently gazed upwards at Dr. Bones who was holding her pot tightly.

A skeleton, or at that particular time, a link of sausages in the shape of a winged humanoid, isn’t a thing that lends itself to anything other than grinning. Though, it has to be said that grinning sausage links are a good deal more disturbing than skeletons.

Yet, Miss Fern could see it in his eyes, a glimpse of things to come. A sight beyond. A sight on the edge. A pair of eyes that could see the last drop of blood, the snapping of a life’s thread, and the crawl from the brink of the cliff.

-You must stay silent and utterly still, otherwise we’ll have to deal with these tribals. No matter how weak a dimensional native seems to be, the safest course is to go about your business without a conflict. That way neither hero, villain nor guardian will know of you, and thus you’ll be free to do as you will-

The words didn’t seem his own, but rather something he had been told, just as he was telling Miss Fern. Being a blithe sort, She didn’t notice this, but kept silent and still all the same.

-Good, just like that. Now we’ll pass right by them. Don’t be surprised-

Doctor Bones did as he said, he didn’t stick to shadows, he didn’t walk into blindspots. Instead he walked forward, completely straight.

The jelly tot tribals were out of their warrens, right in front of the towers, they appeared to be performing some manner of ritual. Most of them wore strange pale green hats and a kind of pale green mask of the same material. They waved around toffee knives as they danced around a table that was probably just a fallen piece of the towers.

“Pass, Pass, Pass!” They chanted.

Still, many such rituals were taking place around the towers, and those that weren’t performing were guarding the towers and the warrens. They seemed a sour and grimfaced lot. In moments Doctor Bones stood before them.

The sentries were unmoved. They did not touch the wafer horns at their sides. One swept his eyes over where Dr. Bones was. He saw nothing, but he remembered when his father was trampled by a hulking bullseye, and wondered when his own end would be.

In some more steps, Dr. Bones was amongst the savages.

They were disquieted, but they did not stop their ritual.

“Woah, what a chill” One cried out, who had been taking a rest from dancing.

“I felt it too, maybe there’ll be a lollystorm?”

“Feels a bit too ominous for such a bounty, might just be a screamer”

The tots shivered further at the idea of a passing icy screamer and the destruction it would leave in its wake. Lumps of flavoured ice were a dangerous thing when they fell from the sky, as they do in a lollystorm.

Icy Screamers though…

Well, nobody wanted to become a frozen dessert!

Not one jelly tot saw Dr. Bones and Miss Fern.

Miss Fern, by the way, was trying very hard to keep in her shock at how effective Dr. Bones’ method was. All the while, Dr. Bones himself kept moving. Causing existential crisis in his wake, he arrived at one of the towers. The main entrance was heavily guarded by jelly tots, each wearing two white sheets tied together with string, and each with some manner of strange staff with wheels on one end.

Even with his stealth technique he’d not be able to get past them, so he circled around, guided by memories that were rising in the moment.

A secret door.

Everything should have secret doors. A firm belief of many people throughout the dimensions.

Dr. Bones checked that nobody was looking and he placed a bony hand on a part of the tower that seemed no different than any other, however with just a little bit of a crackle sound as the frosting on the tower broke, the section moved inward.

He moved through, and the secret hatch closed behind him.