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]

[He tilts his head.] There are many different Underworlds in different forms of mythology, every single one as different from the next as night and day. 'The one under the world' is a tad unspecific, especially since we all come from a mixture of different universes.

[But alright, he takes the hint and drops the subject. It probably would be easier just to find and ask this 'Nico' fellow.]

[everylittlegirl]

Which Underworld do you come from?

[skeletonenigma]

None of them. There isn't an Underworld where I come from. At least, not in the traditional sense.

[everylittlegirl]

[She rolls her eyes to seem less impressed with him than she is.]

Are you going to explain or are you going for the brooding mysterious effect?

[skeletonenigma]

I'm... not trying for a brooding mysterious effect.

[But, not going to lie, the subtle compliment does intrigue him.]

Explain what? How Underworlds work, or how I work?

[everylittlegirl]

Like, what are you? How are you alive and dead at the same time? Do you think for yourself or is there someone commanding you? I don't know.

[skeletonenigma]

[He's smiling, and although you can't see it in the frozen grin of his skull, you can definitely hear it in his voice.]

I'm a detective. My name is Skulduggery Pleasant. About two hundred years ago, I was murdered, but something stopped my spirit from moving on. I managed to come back, just... obviously not right away. My consciousness is bound to my skeleton through magic, so yes, I very much think for myself. I'd be out of a job if I couldn't.

[everylittlegirl]

[And have some skepticism.]

You're a skeletal detective named Skulldougy Pleasant? Really?

[skeletonenigma]

Skulduggery Pleasant. [Yes, that is totally the most important thing to address first.] It's a name I chose for myself, long before I was killed. Fate, it seems, took a while to catch up.

[everylittlegirl]

Because Skeletor was already taken?

[skeletonenigma]

Skeletor didn't exist back in 1601.

He's also evil.

[everylittlegirl]

So you're a good detective, okay. What was your name before you chose the new one?

[skeletonenigma]

I'm an excellent detective.

[It takes him a moment. Not out of shame, or mistrust, but simply because it's been four hundred years and he doesn't readily remember.] Dillon Ó Fearghail.

[everylittlegirl]

Good versus evil, not good versus bad. Relax.

[She considers the name.] You had a cool name like that and you chose Skulduggeree? Why did you change it?

[skeletonenigma]

[He knows. He just chose not to acknowledge that distinction. A lot of people, after all, would probably argue the point.]

All sorcerers where I come from take a new name. It seals both those and our given names from controlling spells.

[everylittlegirl]

Wait. You're a skeleton detective sorcerer?

[She laughs. Partly because it's ridiculous and partly because it's awesome.]

[skeletonenigma]

[Oh, he's well aware of how ridiculous it sounds. It's just that most people don't get past their shock quickly enough to appreciate the ridiculousness. It's a nice change of pace.]

An Elemental, to be exact. [He snaps his fingers, and a flame flares in his palm.] Among other things.

[everylittlegirl]

[Ridiculous. But also really creepy.]

Yeah, okay. You can put it away there, champ.

Why did your spirit go back to your body- and why be a detective anyway? [She practically cuts off her first question with her second.] If you're all big, bad, and sorcery, why not be a superhero or a villain or something?

[skeletonenigma]

I know. [He doesn't put it away. What he actually does is start playing with it, almost like it's a baseball - throwing it into the air, then catching it again.]

I'm a detective because I'm very good at finding things, and because I enjoy the work.

[Also because he's tried both the superhero and the villain things. Neither of them worked out.]

I'm not much more powerful than any other competent sorcerer. [Which is one of the very few modest things he'll say, even knowing that it's... not exactly true.] If I became a villain, I'd only become one of the people I usually hunt down, and there would be others to take the 'hero' spot. A detective, in my world, is the closest sorcerers come to superheroes. As a good friend of mine once said, 'you've got to be one of the good guys, because there's way too many of the bad.'

[everylittlegirl]

[Huh. She considers for a moment.]

Can you die?

[skeletonenigma]

Leaping right to the existential questions now, are we?

[Far from sounding annoyed, he's actually amused. And a tad impressed. Most people don't reach that point right away.]

Well, I feel pain. I'm capable of losing consciousness. I've found certain powerful magics that can, at the very least, interrupt my existence. But otherwise? [He shrugs.] I don't know. I've never felt the inclination to test it.

[... Which is also a lie, but not very important at the moment.]

[everylittlegirl]

Maybe here is the perfect place to try. I mean, obviously it's still dying, but.. no one stays dead here. Either you come back as you or you come back as a clone of you. It would be pretty cool to know, wouldn't it?

[skeletonenigma]

[He inclines his head.] It would. And ordinarily, I wouldn't mind testing the waters, so to speak. But I don't know how to go about it. Pulling my skeleton apart seems to be the only effective thing, and even then, putting enough of the bones back together is enough for me to regain control of them.

[Necromancy would probably also work, and technically did once. But they arrested the offender, so Skulduggery counts that as a victory.]

Clones?

[everylittlegirl]

[Hayley adopts a temporarily expression of embarrassment.] I didn't think about that.

[Killing a skeleton. Some part of her hopes that if she ever makes it home, she forgets this whole damn place.]

And yeah. People here don't stay dead because there are clones of us or something? I don't really know the details.

[skeletonenigma]

That's all right. If everyone did, I'd have many more problems on my hands.

[He considers that, head tilted to the side and eyeless gaze on his console's keyboard rather than the screen.] The idea being that if we die, we're resurrected into clones of our original bodies?