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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Eluvan" data-source="post: 2726512" data-attributes="member: 24812">The skeleton is like any other. Slightly cracked and chipped in places, yellowed slightly in the time since the death of the man it used to be so integral to. It is largely covered by a voluminous robe, only the skull revealed as the hood of the robe lies flat underneath it. The robe signifies little. It is merely a draping over an inert object, like a sheet over a bed. The skeleton moves, lifting itself form the table and collecting a bag from underneath it. Still, this is of little real significance. The thing moves, but it does so mindlessly, along preprogrammed lines like a train running on its tracks. It is merely a mockery, a vulgar parody of life.  And then something changes. From void, awareness somehow begins to bud and blossom. Tentative at first; the thing gains awareness of its senses. And then, suddenly, explosively, there is sentience. There is knowledge, and self-knowledge, and identity, and critical thought, and desire and will. In an instant the bud of awareness has blossomed into a rose - a black rose, ripe with decay and stinking of putrescence. The skeleton's dead, empty eye sockets come alive in a gout of purple fire that quickly dies down to two steady flames, and the skeleton that now identifies itself as Ilsthyr looks briefly about itself and then pulls the deep hood of its robe over its skull and walks regally over to the central table.  Calmly, critically, he takes in the sight that greets him. Clearly at least one other of the skeletons in the room has, like him, attained sentience. No, he thinks instinctively, Not like me. My sentience is superior. If he had lips to smile with, he would smile - a cold, ironic, humourless smile. He writes the other skeleton off as a curiosity that there will be time to examine later, and in the meantime turns his attention to the body. Somehow he knows that it is his master, the one who made him. Something plucks at his consciousness, and he turns his faculties to the task of analyzing the alien influence. Anger. Envy. Anger at the death of his creator, envy that the honour and pleasure of the act went to another. Suspiciously he eyes the other skeleton, wondering if it could be the perpetrator, but quickly he knows that it could not be so. The body has been dead for some time, and it seems that this other skeleton has arisen barely sooner than himself or the others that are now beginning to move. Unless this other skeleton is tricking him - and that is impossible. He would have seen through it.  Putting aside his feelings on his creator's death for now - another thing to think about later - he casts an eye over the things on the table, and his eye settles on the books. Knowledge. Power. Acting with utter self-assurance, he calmly begins to pick up the books one by one and drops them into his bag with a proprietary air. It is unfeigned; these things are his right, as he sees it.OOC:[sblock]Woah! That was a longer post than I thought it would be.  <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/nervous.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":heh:" title="Nervous Laugh    :heh:" data-shortname=":heh:" />  Oh well. First post after all. I'll be briefer in future. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" />[/sblock]</blockquote>

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