001 | Video

[skeletonenigma]

[To be honest, he would have preferred text, but this is a perfect opportunity to test out the console. The keyboard is self-explanatory. The video function isn't. One of the kedan had offered to show Skulduggery how it worked, but he’d politely declined. He didn’t particularly feel like being saddled with a guide for the entirety of his time here.]

Ah, there we go. Excellent.

[This does, of course, mean that he can now be seen. He was a little concerned about that when all of this was first being explained to him, but then he saw someone walking around in the city with blue skin and two heads. He’s rather less concerned now.

... He doesn't really have anything to ask, though, now that he’s thinking about it.]

Thank you. Carry on.

[Yes, that was a skull talking just then, Irish accent and moving jaw and all. Why do you ask?]

Comments

[skeletonenigma]

Why would I threaten bodily harm to people who have done me no harm?

[Seriously, that doesn't make a lick of sense.]

I've seen much stranger. I've even been trapped in an alternate dimension and tortured to within an inch of my life by mythical gods. In light of that, living on a giant turtle doesn't strike me as very strange.

[imaginate]

[Wryly:] That's a great attitude, but some of us were average Joes, minding our own business; living on a giant turtle wasn't exactly a life choice I thought I'd be making, y'know?

[A beat.]

So, what's your story? Why're you [he gestures, not realising at first that it's an audio feed. An awkward pause] a skeleton?

[skeletonenigma]

I can certainly understand. [It's not as though he was making the conscious choice, after all.]

I was killed and brought back by a necromancer who thought he was a god. And also didn't see fit to tell me what he'd done until... two years ago, actually. [How the time flies.]

[imaginate]

[Dryly:] Sounds like a real stand-up guy. Sorry about that, if you were expecting to stay dead n'all.

[skeletonenigma]

On the contrary, he only made it impossible for me to move on. I'm the one who managed to come back. I would have preferred to stay dead, but I can't put all of the blame on him.

[Just the grand majority of it. Stupid selfish necromancers.]

[imaginate]

[Stupid necromancers indeed.]

You're pretty chill about that whole thing. I dunno, I'd be pretty ticked if that happened to me.

[skeletonenigma]

It was over two centuries ago. There comes a point where it's impossible to hold on to rage any longer.

[He was more than 'pretty ticked,' after it happened. The rage led to something terrible, so he likes to think he's reached a sort of meditative zen nowadays. And most of the time, he's right.]

[imaginate]

[He stifles a low whistle. Two hundred years is a very long time.]

Friend of mine would say the same - Connor Hawke, he's around.

I'm Kyle, by the way. I've been here fourteen months. Nice to meet you.

[skeletonenigma]

Skulduggery Pleasant, and likewise. Discover anything new in those fourteen months?

[imaginate]

... Being grounded sucks?

[Easy, casual. He's not about to share his real lessons with a total stranger.]

Cool name.

[skeletonenigma]

Are you not used to being grounded?

[He's met captains of space ships already. Pilots of any kind wouldn't be completely outside the realm of possibility.]

Thank you. It's a name I took several years ago.

[imaginate]

Longest I've stayed in one place without a job.

[The numerous activities he has to occupy his time with in Keeliai don't count. There's nothing to punch and nobody to really rescue in the sense Kyle's used to. Ergo: no job.]

It gets samey. Dunno how other people do it.

[skeletonenigma]

A bit boring for you, then?

[He can see how it might be, for certain people. And he definitely sees how the same could be true for him, given a year. But at the moment, all Skulduggery knows is that he's woken up on the back of a giant turtle, and that's intriguing enough to put all else by the wayside.]

Have you explored out to the edges of the shell? There can't be much out there, if you're bored within fourteen months.

[imaginate]

If you want to win the award for understatement of the century, sure, it's boring.

[It isn't. He's seen his share of fighting, and there's always something happening, but at the same time he itches for adventure.]

I've explored everything there is to. Considering I used to live in outer space, this is like a goldfish bowl.

[skeletonenigma]

[Ah. Someone else from outer space. Human, though, so probably not from the same universe Amelia is, even if the laws of probability practically barred that from happening anyway.]

I take it we occasionally dock on a continent, a different one each time. How much of those have been explored?

[imaginate]

[Kyle hmms.]

We don't stay for long - we've stopped at four places so far. Either the place is closed off from the outside or it's a ruined civilisation with nobody there. This isn't a dead world, but it's a dying one.

[skeletonenigma]

I see.

[No doubt the work of Malicant - or at least what the kedan and the Emperor want them to believe is Malicant. Either way, Skulduggery definitely plans on exploring as far as he can the next time it happens.]

Maybe someone will discover a spaceship somewhere. [Muttered, and pobably a joke, but it's always so hard to tell when you can't see a person's face.]

[imaginate]

[Whether Skulduggery means it as one or not, Kyle chuckles anyway.]

I'm not holding my breath.

You can get more intel by reading the rest of the network. There's a lot, but it's worth it.