Hero Quest, episode ten
The Final Hum Down
Character Sheet
Race: elf
Class: bard
Background: scholar/street urchin
The skeletons close in around you and your brother’s body with chattering teeth and grasping claws. Their time-yellowed bones rattle with every step. You and the body press close together, back to back, with blood oozing from many wounds. Your brother’s body’s trembling. You can only just make out his low, fearful humming beneath the incessant skeletal clamour. A frantic, melancholic tune.
You can’t help but crack a smile as you begin to hum a quiet harmony.
If you’re going to die, it may as well be how you lived: with music on your lips. Your hands itch for want of your lute.
The skeletons close in. You and your brother’s body slash wildly. Claws rend your flesh from every side. You hum through the pain in one final act of defiance.
Grabbing and clawing, they pull you down, clambering mindlessly over you. You hum. The body hums. Then your brother’s spectre begins to hum as well, a thin, wavering tune.
The skeletons hesitate for a moment, bones rattling with the low vibrations.
The three of you hum louder. The skeletons still claw at you, still holding you and your brother’s body down, but their swarming is weaker now, somehow less certain. Their sluggishness almost feels like a reprieve. You brace yourself beneath the onslaught, tensing, never for a moment letting your desperate humming falter. Then as a skeletal hand closes around your head, gouging deep, painful rents in your scalp, you burst up, your wordless cry a sudden crescendo in the music.
The skeletons stumble backwards, trembling as the vibrations ripple through them.
Relieved, your brother’s body straightens up and his humming strengthens. He begins tapping his foot, then in his deep baritone voice, begins a low acapella rhythm.
The spectre joins in with a wispy mid-range harmony. Then over the top, you sing a soaring melody to complete the trio.
The rising acappella fills the chamber, echoing off the walls, vibrating through the skeleton’s rattling bones. At first they waver uncertainly. A few make half-hearted attempts to claw you. You brush them aside with ease.
Then from the open gate of gold, comes another voice and the trio becomes a quartet. It is like the voices of the body and spectre, only warm and rich and full, singing a delightfully joyous melody.
Unable to resist, the skeletons dance.
At first, their movements are subtle: slight head bops and the shy tapping of feet. But the music has them now and they’re powerless to resist. As the acappella swells, the skeletons dance with more and more vigour. Some jump around wildly. Others thrash their heads up and down. A full pull elegant shapes with flowing arm movements. One dances a quick legged jig. A couple clasp one another, arm in arm, and dance with spiralling ballroom steps.
All the skeletons are dancing now. The whole chamber is full of joyous music. Your quartet sings louder and faster.
The skeletons cannot but follow, trapped as they are by the tune. They try to keep up, but it’s too much for their fragile bodies. One by one, they begin to crumble. Their rattling bones fly off their bodies to shatter into dust where they land. Soon femurs and ribs and jaws are soaring through the chamber and clouds of bone dust hang heavy in the air.
When the last skeleton finally collapses into a heap, your quartet goes quiet. Empty silence reigns.
You blink and your shoulders sag. Without the music flowing through you, you’re suddenly so tired. Your throat is dry. Your body throbs with the stings of a thousand shallow claw wounds, all oozing blood. You sway on your feet, dizzy and lightheaded.
Beside you, your brother’s body looks to be in no better shape.
Behind you the open gate of etched gold whispers indistinctly, calling to you.
From the corner of your eye, you catch the tantalising glint of the treasure piled around the chamber’s walls.
Thank you for joining me on this adventure.
And oh oh please keep this poll tied! Treasure and gate baby!!!!!!
Loved the skeletons dancing themselves to death.