The stone behind his back was cold. His helmet pressed awkwardly against the wall. The Bone Shield rested across his knees. Under his clothes, the hidden exoskeleton sat against his skin like a second body that did not belong to him. It did not hurt anymore, but he could still feel it when he breathed. Thin plates over his ribs. Strips over his arms. Something along his spine.
It was not comfortable. It was also twenty-five extra health. So he did not complain.
He opened one eye and looked at the mission window again.
[OBJECTIVE 1: Kill 20 Dark Crawlers - COMPLETE]
[OBJECTIVE 2: Kill 20 Gloomy Hunters]
[OBJECTIVE 3: Kill 20 Bone Walkers / Bone Archers - COMPLETE]
[OBJECTIVE 4: Eternal Guardian - Kill Mur-Azar]
Two objectives left.
Gloomy Hunters.
Mur-Azar.
Boran rubbed his face with one hand and immediately regretted it because the dented helmet shifted lower over his forehead. He pushed it back into place and listened to the dungeon.
Water dripped somewhere far away. The sound came thin and slow. Drip. Drip. Drip. The lantern hissed quietly between his boots. In the distance, something scraped stone once and then went still. Twilight Pit had too many sounds. Some were enemies. Some were water. Some were stones settling. Some were probably his own brain trying to make him afraid.
Boran checked his health and mana.
[HP: 47/85]
[Mana: 5/20]
He needed rest.
He did not know what a Gloomy Hunter looked like. That was the worst part. Dark Crawler sounded like a crawling thing, and it had been a crawling thing. Bone Walker sounded like a skeleton walking, and it had been a skeleton walking. Gloomy Hunter could be anything. A wolf. A shadow. A person. Something that crawled on the ceiling and waited for light to pass under it. The System did not care about making names helpful.
Then a sound echoed through the tunnel.
Boran's eyes opened.
It was distant, but clear. Metal hitting something hard. Then another sound followed, sharper this time, like stone cracking under a heavy hit.
Boran sat still.
A shout came after it.
Then something like an explosion, making dust fall from the ceiling in small gray threads.
Boran slowly stood up.
"What?"
Another shout came from the same direction.
"Watch the back!"
The words were faint, but he understood them. Someone was fighting. Not close, but not far either. Maybe two corridors away. Maybe more. Sound traveled strangely here.
He should not go.
He was alone. He had just finished two objectives by barely surviving. He had no reason to run toward other people fighting monsters. He did not know who they were. They might be stronger than him. They might be doing some trick. They might even be baiting monsters on purpose.
He remembered Lena's party.
"Not my problem," he said.
Then another shout followed, rough and panicked.
Boran closed his eyes.
If he stayed here and later found bodies, he would remember this moment. He knew that. He would remember sitting against the wall, hearing a fight and deciding to do nothing.
His hands curled into fists.
"Damn it."
He picked up the lantern with his right hand, kept the Bone Shield on his left, and started walking.
The battle sounds came again, louder now.
There were voices. More than one. A man shouted. A woman shouted a spell name Boran did not catch. Then metal hit metal. Then something cracked.
Boran reached an intersection and stopped.
The violet route mark on the wall pointed deeper, toward a narrow passage that sloped down. But the shouting came from the right, through a broken archway with no mark at all. The stones around it were carved with old patterns that had almost worn smooth. There were scratches on the floor too. Fresh ones.
He went right.
The tunnel opened into a wide corridor after a short descent. Blue crystal light glowed weakly from cracks in the walls. Bones covered the sides of the path, not in piles, but scattered like old trash. Some were human. Some were not. The air felt heavier here.
Boran slowed.
Ahead, around a bend, purple light flashed.
Then he saw them.
Five adventurers were fighting in a long hall with broken pillars and a half-collapsed ceiling. At first, Boran saw only movement. Spells. Arrows. Metal. Then his eyes adjusted.
A tall man in front used a long spear and a small round shield. Not a proper Tank shield, more like something to deflect. He was fast, stepping in and out, stabbing at skeletons and pulling back before they could surround him. His hair was tied behind his head and his armor looked clean once, but now it was cracked and dirty.
Behind him stood a woman with a blue cloak and a staff. Frost gathered around her hands every time she cast. Ice spikes formed in the air and shot forward, pinning Bone Walkers to the wall or breaking their joints.
On the left, a young man with two short blades moved like he thought he was faster than he actually was. He cut at skeleton legs, dodged arrows, and nearly got stabbed twice while doing it.
Near the back, a healer held a brass symbol and kept making pale green light flow into the others. They looked exhausted. Their robe was torn at the sleeve, and one side of their face was bleeding.
The last member was an archer standing on a broken stone ledge. She fired fast, but her hands shook between shots. Two arrows were stuck in her shoulder armor. She had not had time to remove them.
And coming toward them were Bone Walkers and Bone Archers.
Too many.
Boran counted quickly and lost track around twelve.
The party had made a good position. That was obvious even to him. The spear user held the center. Frost Mage slowed the front line. Archer dealt with Bone Archers. Duel-blade guy cleaned the sides. Healer kept everyone alive.
It was working.
Then Boran saw why the shouting had sounded so panicked.
The hall had side holes. Small side passages, high cracks, gaps in the broken walls. Skeletons were not only coming from the front. Two Bone Archers had climbed onto a side ledge behind the party, and one was already drawing an arrow at the healer.
Boran moved before thinking.
The healer had not seen the arrow yet. The Bone Archer released.
Boran took two steps forward and raised the Bone Shield, but he was still too far away.
The archer on the broken ledge didn’t panic. She saw the arrow before it reached the healer. Her bow snapped up so fast Boran almost missed it. Her shot struck the incoming arrow midair, shattering it and destroying the skeleton’s head.
Boran stood there with his shield half raised.
"What a shot."
The second Bone Archer fired from the same ledge. Boran started forward again, but the Frost Mage was already moving. She did not even look fully back. She turned her staff with one hand, frost flashing along the stone wall. Ice climbed up the ledge and locked the Bone Archer's bow arm in place before it could release.
The dual-blade guy used that exact moment. He ran up a broken pillar, kicked off the side, and cut through the archer's spine before dropping back down.
The skeleton collapsed in pieces.
A Bone Walker swung at the dual-blade guy from behind.
The spear user saw it first.
"Low!"
The dual-blade guy dropped flat without asking why. The sword passed over his back. At the same time, the spear user thrust from the front and caught the Bone Walker in the skull. The Frost Mage froze its ankle. The archer fired into its elbow joint. The healer sent a small green pulse into the dual-blade guy before he even stood again.
The Bone Walker fell before Boran reached them.
More skeletons came from the side holes, but the party changed shape like they had practiced it a hundred times. The spear user did not chase anything. He stayed in the center and made the Bone Walkers face him. The Frost Mage slowed the floor on the left, so the skeletons there arrived late. The archer kept shooting hands, wrists, and bowstrings instead of trying to kill everything alone. The dual-blade guy looked reckless, but he was not random. He only jumped in after something was frozen, stabbed, or distracted. The healer’s small lights appeared at the right time, on the right person, before the wound became serious.
It felt weird.
He wanted to help. His whole body kept leaning forward every time an arrow moved toward the backline or a sword came from a side passage. Each time, someone from the party covered it before he could.
Boran watched and understood almost nothing and still learned something.
This was what a real party looked like.
After taking down nearly twenty Bone Walkers and Archers, they quickly gathered what they needed and left the hall in formation.
Then they were gone.
Boran stayed where he was until their footsteps faded.
"Good team," he muttered.
That was all he said at first, because there was nothing else to say. They had been good. The spear user held the middle. The Frost Mage did not waste spells. The archer watched the places others could not. The healer fixed problems before they became deaths. Even the dual-blade guy, who looked reckless, only jumped in when someone opened the way for him.
Boran looked at the empty hall and felt something tight in his chest.
That was what a party was supposed to look like.
He scratched the side of his crooked helmet.
"I need to learn that."
The party had moved fast after the fight. They had taken the obvious drops, the useful gear, and whatever the System showed clearly to them. But they had not picked everything clean. Broken skeleton pieces still lay across the floor. Ribs, fingers, cracked arms, pale arrow shafts, and shattered skull parts. Most of them were just dead bone.
Some still had faint System glow.
Boran stared at the glow for a second, then looked toward the tunnel where the party had left.
He crouched beside the nearest Bone Walker remains and touched a cracked rib.
[Bone Fragment x1 obtained]
Boran let out a small breath.
"Good."
He picked up another piece from a shattered forearm.
[Bone Fragment x1 obtained]
Then one from under a broken skull.
[Bone Fragment x1 obtained]
Bone Archers gave fewer usable pieces. Mostly arrow bones and thin arm fragments. Bone Walkers were better. Their ribs, arms, and neck bones had more accepted parts, especially the ones broken cleanly by ice. Boran did not know if the Frost Mage had done that on purpose or if it was just lucky, but the result was useful.
He found two fragments under the broken ledge. Three more came from a pile near the wall. One skull looked useful but gave nothing, so he left it where it was and moved on.
The hall stayed quiet while he worked. That made every small sound worse. His own armor clinked when he bent down. Bone scraped stone when he moved pieces aside. The lantern hissed near his feet. Each time something clicked or shifted, Boran stopped and listened before continuing.
[Bone Fragment x2 obtained]
He checked the tunnel again.
Still nothing.
Boran kept going. His knees hurt from crouching. His back hurt because everything hurt. The exoskeleton under his clothes shifted with dry pressure against his ribs and arms, uncomfortable but still there.
After a few minutes, he stopped talking to the bones and started thinking about the shield.
The Bone Shield had cost fifteen fragments.
Fifteen had seemed like a lot before. Enough that when the System ate all of them, Boran had felt a little poor even though they were just pieces of dead skeleton. But the shield had been worth it. It gave less defense than Burrowguard by one point, but the exoskeleton made that trade easy.
So what happened if he fed the Bone Shield more?
Boran paused with one fragment in his hand.
"Can forms level up?"
Nothing happened.
He looked at the shield.
"Can you level up?" he asked to shield.
Still nothing.
"Do I need more material?"
A blue window appeared.
[Adaptive Shield upgrade path detected]
Boran stared.
"Oh, now you detected it..."
Another window opened under it.
[Bone Shield Form I can be upgraded]
[Required Material: Bone Fragment x30]
[Current Material: Bone Fragment x18]
[Upgrade unavailable]
"Thirty."
He looked around the hall again. There were still fragments left. Maybe enough. Maybe not. The party had killed almost twenty skeletons here, but not every bone counted. He started moving faster.
"Okay… I can do thirty. Maybe."
He searched under broken legs. He checked piles where ice had shattered bodies. He climbed onto the side of the collapsed ledge and found three fragments caught in a crack. He almost cut his finger on a broken arrowhead, then decided arrowheads were stupid and ignored them unless the System glowed.
More notifications appeared.
[Bone Fragment x1 obtained]
[Bone Fragment x2 obtained]
[Bone Fragment x1 obtained]
Boran kept counting in his head and lost count twice.
"Inventory."
The window opened.
[Bone Fragment: 30]
He sat on the floor and opened his upgrade screen. He selected Upgrade.
The skull in the center of the Bone Shield opened its jaw with a dry click.
Boran almost dropped it.
"You won't bite, right?"
The shield ignored him.
Boran opened his inventory and pulled the Bone Fragments out one by one. They appeared in his hand as small pale pieces, some thin like finger bones, some flat like broken rib shards. He placed them on the floor in front of him until a small ugly pile sat between his boots and the shield.
The skull in the center of the Bone Shield opened its mouth wider.
Boran looked at it.
"So I just..."
He picked up the first fragment and pushed it carefully into the skull's mouth.
Crunch.
Boran pulled his fingers back fast.
"Fuck—you scared the shit out of me! I was expecting something like that, too…"
The shield did not move after that. It only waited with its mouth open, like some dead thing asking to be fed. Boran stared at it for another second, then took the next Bone Fragment from the pile and put it between the teeth.
Crunch.
He fed it another one.
Crunch.
Then another.
Crack.
It was slow and disgusting. Boran had to sit there and push each piece into the skull's mouth himself. The shield chewed every fragment with a dry sound that made his shoulders tense. Some pieces went in easily. Some caught on the teeth, and he had to push them deeper with two fingers before the skull finally bit down.
"Don't take my fingers," Boran muttered.
The skull kept eating.
One by one, the pile became smaller. Pale lines spread from the skull after each bite, crawling through the shield surface like thin roots under skin. The ribbed edges thickened first, sharper than before, like broken ribs had grown into a double row. The center skull sank deeper into the shield. It looked less like a skull attached to a shield now and more like the shield had grown around a skull from the start.
Boran pushed the last fragment into its mouth.
Crunch.
The skull closed its jaw with a sharp click, and the whole shield shivered on his arm. Thin white lines crawled from the skull to the edges, filling small cracks with dull bone light.
The shield grew heavier and larger, now covering his entire torso.
Boran lifted it once and felt the pull in his wrist.
[Bone Shield Form I upgraded to Bone Shield Form II]
Boran held his breath.
The next panel appeared.
[Bone Shield Form II]
[Durability: 35/35]
[Physical Defense Bonus: +5]
[Shield Edge Damage Bonus: +2]
[Passive Effect: Bone Exoskeleton II]
[Effect: While Bone Shield Form II is active, grants a hidden bone exoskeleton under clothing and equipment. Damage is applied to Exoskeleton HP before HP. Changing the Adaptive Shield to another form dismisses the active exoskeleton.]
[Exoskeleton HP: 50/50]
[Weakness: Bludgeoning damage deals 2x damage to Exoskeleton HP.]
[Recovery: If destroyed, the exoskeleton regenerates after 24 hours. Milk and calcium-based items accelerate regeneration.]
He wanted to say right away that it was a good upgrade. It was—objectively, the shield was better now. But one part mattered more than the numbers, and he didn’t want to call it good until he’d checked it.
"Wait," he muttered. "I need to see something first."
The old exoskeleton was still under his clothes, but it had not changed yet. It sat there in thin uncomfortable strips over his arms, legs, chest, and back. Useful, but weak. If the shield had changed, maybe the hidden bones would change too.
A prompt opened.
[Activate Bone Exoskeleton II?]
"Activate."
The skull's eye sockets glowed faintly. Cold moved from the handle into his palm, then up his arm. The old hidden plates under his clothes cracked softly. New bone pressure spread under his sleeves, thicker than before. It wrapped his forearms first, then his upper arms, then crawled across his ribs and back. More formed around his thighs and lower legs.
Then the feeling moved somewhere new.
Boran stiffened.
Thin plates slid over his hips and lower stomach, linking the chest and leg sections together. It was not a full suit. Nothing covered his head, face, hands, or feet. Nothing showed outside his clothes. But the empty gap around his waist, the place the first version had barely protected, now had bone there too.
It felt better connected.
Boran stood very still until the crawling stopped.
[Bone Exoskeleton II activated]
Boran pressed one hand against his side, then against his stomach. He could feel the new bone under the fabric.
A small smile pulled at his mouth before he could stop it.
"Yeah," Boran said. "That's a good upgrade."
He liked that part more than he expected. The shield did not just show bigger numbers. It changed. It grew. And the thing under his clothes changed with it. It made the upgrade feel real, not just like the System had edited a line in a menu.
Boran sat there a little longer after the upgrade.
If fifteen fragments made the first form, and thirty more made the second form, then there had to be another step. The System had not shown it yet, but that did not mean it was not there. It liked hiding things until he asked in exactly the right way. It had done that before. It had done that too many times, actually.
"Form III," he muttered.
No window appeared.
He tapped the shield with two fingers.
"Bone Shield Form Three?"
Still nothing.
He looked at the empty hall again. The other party had left him enough to upgrade once, but not enough for whatever came next. If Form II needed thirty, then Form III would probably need more. Forty-five. Sixty. Maybe some special bone.
Boran rubbed his face and stopped when the dented helmet shifted again.
He could go deeper now. He should go deeper now. The next objective was Gloomy Hunters, and after that Mur-Azar. The mission did not care that he wanted to sit down for an hour and stare at the ceiling. It would stay there until he completed it or died.
But the Bone Shield had changed everything twice now.
A better shield meant safer fighting. More exoskeleton HP meant more mistakes before death. And if there was a third form, it might be more than numbers. The first form had given him the exoskeleton. The second form had made it stronger and covered his waist. The next one might give something even better.
Boran looked at the corridor where the skeletal enemies had come from.
Bone Walkers and Bone Archers were complete for the mission. Killing more would not help the objective, but objectives were not everything. Materials mattered. He had entered Twilight Pit for materials in the first place, before the System turned the simple job into this mess.
And unlike before, he was not completely helpless against skeletons anymore.
Bone Archers were not scary if he kept the shield up. Their arrows broke against it. Bone Walkers were dangerous with swords, but they were not new now. He knew their reach. He knew how they stepped before a slash. He knew how the shoulder turned before a thrust. He watched the hips, the elbow, the angle of the blade, and moved before the strike finished.
He had learned it the hard way.
Now he would use it.
Boran stood slowly. The exoskeleton moved under his clothes with him. It still felt strange around his waist, like a hard belt that was not a belt. He rolled his shoulders once and lifted the Bone Shield.
"Sixty more," he said, though he did not know why he chose that number.
Maybe because thirty had not shown the next upgrade, so double sounded right. Maybe because the System liked numbers like that. Maybe because if he said a number out loud, it became a plan instead of a stupid idea.
"Sixty Bone Fragments. Then we check."
He took the lantern, raised the shield, and moved back through the hall.
The first skeleton came from a side crack ten minutes later.
A Bone Archer climbed out of the wall like the stone had decided to spit it out. Its skull turned toward him, green-blue light burning in the eye sockets. The bow formed in its hand from pale dust and old bone. Before, Boran would have frozen for half a second. Before, he would have waited for the arrow and hoped the rule still worked.
Now he was already walking.
The archer drew.
Boran angled the Bone Shield, covering his face and chest.
The arrow snapped against the shield and broke into dust.
[Blocked]
Boran did not stop.
The Bone Archer stepped back. He stepped forward. It tried to make space, but the corridor behind it was narrow and broken. Its foot caught on a rib pile. Boran saw the balance shift.
He struck with his sword.
[Bone Archer HP: 30/35]
The archer raised its bow again. Boran did not rush. He kept the shield up, let the next arrow break, then hit again. The fight still took time, but not the same kind of time. There was no panic in it now.
Block. Step. Hit.
Block. Step. Hit.
[BONE ARCHER DEFEATED]
[+35 XP]
A small window opened.
[Bone Fragment x2 obtained]
Boran picked them up.
He moved on.
Time passed.
Boran did not go deeper toward the violet mark yet. He stayed around the skeletal passages, moving between halls he had already checked and side rooms with enough space to retreat.
The first hour gave him twelve fragments.
The second gave him more.
He rested twice, short rests only. He sat with his back to stone, ate the last badly cooked Dark Crawler meat from his inventory. The meat was still terrible and chewing it made him miss the Tavern porridge, which was an impressive achievement.
Nothing big went wrong.
He found a side chamber with one entrance and no ceiling cracks. He checked it twice anyway. The floor was flat enough. The walls were solid. There were no wet drag marks, no loose holes, no faint bone movement under the stone. It was about as safe as Twilight Pit gave him.
Boran sat with his back to the wall and placed Bone Shield Form II in front of him.
The skull stared up from the center.
Boran opened the upgrade screen.
He looked at the shield.
"I have sixty."
Still nothing.
Boran frowned.
"Bone Shield Form Three."
The shield pulsed once.
A blue window opened.
[Adaptive Shield upgrade path detected]
[Bone Shield Form II can be upgraded]
[Required Material: Bone Fragment x60]
[Current Material: Bone Fragment x60]
[Upgrade available]
Boran stared at the last line.
"Of course it waited until exactly sixty. I’m going to need that skill that lets me see the materials required for my shield…"
Boran selected the upgrade.
The skull opened its mouth.
This time Boran was ready for it.
"Yeah, yeah."
He opened his inventory and pulled the fragments out in batches. They appeared in his hands and dropped onto the stone with small dry taps.
Boran picked up the first piece.
"Here."
He pushed it into the skull's mouth.
Crunch.
The shield ate.
Boran fed it another.
Crunch.
Then another.
Crack.
It took time. More time than he wanted. His fingers got tired from picking up small pieces.
The last fragment was a piece of curved rib. Boran held it for a second, then pushed it between the teeth.
Crunch.
The skull closed its jaw.
Then a new line appeared under the upgrade window.
[Material Required: User Blood]
Boran stared at it.
"What?
The shield's skull opened its mouth again, slower this time. It did not look hungry for bone now. It waited.
Boran looked at his hand, then at the skull.
"Why do you need my blood for?"
He had the small knife. The same one he had used for mushrooms, meat, and too many disgusting things already. He pulled it from his inventory and wiped the edge on his sleeve, then held his left hand over the shield.
He did not want to cut himself. That was normal. Cutting himself on purpose felt worse than getting cut in a fight, because at least in a fight he could blame the monster.
Boran clenched his jaw.
"Just a little."
He pressed the knife against the side of his palm and made a short cut.
Pain flashed sharp and hot.
[HP: 49/85]
Blood welled up fast, dark red in the lantern light. Boran hissed through his teeth and turned his hand over the skull's open mouth. A few drops fell between the teeth.
The blood vanished the moment it touched the pale bone, sinking into the skull like water into dry soil. Red lines spread from the mouth to the eye sockets, then into the ribbed edges. The whole shield pulsed once, hard enough that Boran felt it in his wrist.
[User Blood accepted]
Boran pulled his hand back and wrapped it quickly with a strip of cloth.
The skull closed its jaw with a sharp click.
Then the shield shuddered so hard Boran almost dropped it.
Pale light burst from the skull's eyes and ran across the shield in thick lines. The rib edges pulled inward first, then split, then spread again. New bone grew between the old layers, locking them together. The shield widened slightly, not as much as before, but enough that it felt more complete. The skull in the center changed most. The jaw became sharper. The brow thickened. Two short horn-like bone ridges formed over the top.
Then the back of the shield opened.
Boran froze.
The inside surface, the part against his arm, cracked with a sound like knuckles popping. Pale mist leaked from it, but it was not the same as the shield glow. This mist was purple-white and dry, carrying tiny bone sparks. It poured down to the floor in front of him and began to gather.
Boran slowly stood.
"What is this?"
The mist thickened. First it made a spine. Then ribs. Then arms. Long finger bones stretched out and clicked against each other. Legs formed beneath the rib cage, knees bending the wrong way for a second before snapping into proper place. A skull appeared last, rising from the mist like something being pulled out of water. Blue fire lit in the eye sockets.
A bow formed across its back.
Boran immediately raised his shield and took a defensive position.
The skeleton stood in front of him. It was slightly shorter than Boran, thin and pale, with a simple bone bow and a quiver made from curved ribs. It had no flesh, no clothes, no expression. But the blue fire in its eyes turned toward Boran and stayed there.
A notification appeared.
[Bone Fragment x60 consumed]
[Bone Shield Form II upgraded to Bone Shield Form III]
[New feature unlocked: Bound Skeleton Companion]
[Bone Shield Form III]
[Durability: 45/45]
[Physical Defense Bonus: +6]
[Shield Edge Damage Bonus: +3]
[Linked Feature: Bone Exoskeleton III / Bound Skeleton Companion]
[Rule: Only one linked feature may be active at a time.]
[Option 1: Bone Exoskeleton III - Grants a hidden protective bone frame under clothing and equipment. Exoskeleton HP: 75/75.]
[Option 2: Bound Skeleton Companion - Summons a skeleton archer from Bone Shield Form III. While the companion is active, Bone Exoskeleton III is unavailable.]
[Warning: Dismissing Bone Shield Form III dismisses the active linked feature.]
"What?"
The skeleton tilted its head.
Boran pointed at it. "Did you came from the shield?"
The skeleton said nothing.
Boran swallowed.
"Are you... mine?"
The skeleton placed one bony hand over its rib cage and bowed slightly.
"Okay! Ha-ha! Cool!"
A new panel opened.
[Bound Skeleton Companion awaiting designation]
[Current Level: 1]
[Role: Ranged Damage Dealer]
[Primary Weapon: Bone Bow]
[Current Damage: Low]
[Current Accuracy: Poor]
[Growth: Linked to Skill Points and combat experience]
[Name companion?]
The skeleton obviously couldn't speak, but Boran felt like it understood him.
"Well," Boran said, still looking at the blue fire in its eyes. "What should I name you?"
The skeleton tilted its head slightly.
Boran thought for a while. He did not want to make it too complicated. It was a skeleton archer. There was no need to act like he was naming some legendary king or ancient demon.
"Bone..."
The skeleton waited.
"Bone... Bone..."
Boran frowned a little. Just Bone sounded too plain. It was like naming a dog Dog. It was correct, but also stupid.
"Boney?"
The skeleton's blue eye fire flickered slightly.
Boran looked at it.
"Boney Stark?"
The skeleton nodded in approval.
Boran stared for a second, then gave a small tired smile.
"Then your name is Boney Stark."
The skeleton's blue eye fire flickered brighter.
[Companion named: Boney Stark]
"Yeah," he said. "That works."
Boney Stark bowed again.