Meanwhile, in the cage, Ty was locked to the walls.
With a sly grin etched on his bony visage, Ty began to devise a cunning plan. "If only I had some flesh and blood, I could have been able to feign being unconscious," he muttered to himself while shaking his skull.
Nevertheless, he pondered whether his skeletal form could be used to deceive the dungeon keepers into thinking he was nothing more than a pile of old bones discarded in an old cell.
His bony fingers slowly moved, exploring his surroundings and the extent of his restraints. The cold silence of the dungeon was broken by the soft clattering sounds that his fingers made against the chains, reminiscent of the striking of a xylophone.
"I can't afford to waste any more time here. Elithira might be in trouble if the poison is still affecting her," Ty thought, diligently fiddling with the chains that were binding him.
A loud bang echoed through the corridor: a heavy metal door slamming open, followed by heavy footsteps approaching his cell.
Opting to feign being dead, Ty let his skeletal form slump, every bone on his being going slack as he attempted to embody the stillness of true death.
The relentless echo of footsteps abruptly came to a stop as they halted right outside the threshold of his imprisonment.
Claws tapped impatiently against the cell bars, breaking the stifling silence.
If Ty's heart had still been beating, that sound would have made it race. He pulled in a useless breath anyway.
From the shadows came a deep voice, thick with revulsion and amusement.
One nail dragged along the bar, slow enough to make the scrape crawl through Ty's ribs. He kept himself limp, counting the taps and waiting for the lock.
"Just a pathetic human skeleton," the voice drawled, stretching each word with disdain and boredom.
"Why, in all the realms, must I be tasked to watch over this inconsequential pile of bones?"
Hearing this, Ty dared to hope that his ruse might work.
An idea struck him, 'If I am not able to free my hands from the shackles, perhaps I can dislocate my wrist.'
With a painful motion, he tore the ulna from its joint. Bone shifted, chains rattled, and the guard jumped back as Ty's eyes flashed cold green before dimming again.
Recovering from the initial shock, the guard scoffed, "Rusty chains had no chance of holding a skeleton anymore."
Giving a snort and mocking in laughter he declared, "I could use a good toothpick anyway," he proceeded to unlock the cage.
The sound of keys jangling from the creature's waist and their subsequent insertion into the rusting door sent chills down Ty's spine. As the door opened, he got a full view of the monstrous guard.
The creature's green skin was pockmarked with pulsing scars. Its hands ended in bladed nails, each three or four inches long.
As it reached down to grab hold of him, realization dawned on Ty--this creature was a mutated Goblin known for torture and cruelty.
The goblin's hand hovered over the bone. Ty spoke, and the creature froze. Yellow eyes snapped wide, darting between the talking skeleton in front of him and the dark corners of the cell, searching for whoever had thrown the voice.
"You... You just spoke? Skeletons shouldn't speak!" The goblin's voice cracked with fear and astonishment.
"Well," Ty said, managing a skeletal grin, "It's been an unusual day for both of us, it seems. Before you do anything hasty, hear me out. I have an offer that might pique your interest."
The goblin remained motionless, clearly torn between curiosity and caution. "You're that warrior, aren't you? The one who faced the horde of samurai. The guards, they've been gossiping about you non-stop."
Ty inclined his head, "That was me, though, to be honest, I don't remember much of it. When I fought, I entered a sort of... zone. It was as if I blacked out, and by the time I snapped back to reality, the battle was over."
Intrigued, the goblin narrowed his eyes, "A trance? A battle trance?"
"Yes, maybe something like that. Now, consider this: with my combat abilities and your knowledge of this world, think of what we could achieve if we were to collaborate. We could be quite the pair."
"To be honest with you further, Mr. Goblin--"
However, before he could continue, Ty was cut off, as the goblin asked, "What did you call me?"
"What's a goblin?"
Confusion tugged at the goblin's voice, along with a flicker of interest.
"In my world, creatures with green skin are called goblins. I don't mean it as an insult. If anything, it usually means strong and hard to kill," Ty said, then tilted his skull. "Wait. So what do you call yourself?"
The creature appeared even more bewildered as he straightforwardly stated, "Everyone just calls me Todd. I've been stuck with guard duty for about 10 years now since Yami took over."
Curious, Ty questioned, "And why did you choose to be a guard? You don't seem to be enjoying it."
"It was the only way to protect my family. Anyone who resisted Yami became a braindead zombie or was turned into a tortured rabbit for his amusement.
Personally, this was the best job because we rarely got prisoners, just people to torture and dead people to watch," Todd explained.
Understanding Todd's predicament, Ty asked, "I see. Do you know if he has any relics in his possession?"
The goblin turned with confusion and thought for a moment before responding, "He does carry a Bansho Fan from time to time, but generally, he just had a dark blade attached to his hip."
Ty nodded, "I see. I guessed I would need a one-on-one conversation with this man."
However, hearing Ty's words, Todd shook his head and warned, "I highly recommend you not do that. Not to mention, you are a prisoner, and if I were to let you go, my family would be at risk."
"That's true, but for a skeleton like myself, it will be easy to replace myself with some old bones that are already lying around. However, we could be of use to each other, Gobl--I mean Todd."
"And how do you think that, Mr. Skeleton?" Todd asked.
"I won't be able to promise to fix this world or the other issues it is facing, but I can bargain to allow you to come with me once I have found the item I was looking for.
This way you and your family would be safe from this menacing Yami,'' Ty explained with a pause and continued.
"It is up to you. Regardless of what you decide, I will break out and confront Yami and reunite with Elithira."
Skeptical, Todd inquired, "And how do you plan to break out anyway?"
"As a skeleton, I can't die; I will simply need to rearrange myself and eventually, I will be able to escape through the bars, or by using any other means of escape. I could just attack and kill you just like how I killed those samurais.
After all, I even killed one with these bony fists.
I saw your kind heart and took pity on you, Todd," after saying that to Todd, Ty thought to himself, 'This farce should work, and I won't be getting used as a toothpick.'
If there was a way for Ty to sweat, one would have been able to see it running down him while Todd stared at him blankly, trying to come to a conclusion after hearing all this information.
"Sure," Todd stated blankly after a moment of contemplation as he towered around a 7ft wall with his back hunched towards Ty, lifting him off the ground.
"I will keep you to your word, but don't leave for another 3 hours, that will be the time when my shift ends. That way, I won't get in trouble either," saying that, he slammed the door shut and locked it.
"I assume you can figure out a way to get yourself out anyway," Todd said before rummaging through a box across the hall and throwing a short blade to Ty. "This might be helpful."
CLINKK. Hitting the floor, the blade made a crisp metallic ring.
"Thank you for the dagger. I will try to get some use out of it," Ty thanked while Todd headed off towards the door before saying, "It's called a tanto."
With that, his figure disappeared from Ty's sight.
"Well, at least he bought my story," Ty muttered to himself, slowly standing up and pulling cobwebs off his bony feet. Taking the dagger in his hand, "Now time to break out of this place."
"But did I actually kill all those samurai? I honestly thought that I was daydreaming. I hadn't been so dazed out since a middle school fight and even when being murdered by Erebos."
"Guess there's nothing I can do about that for the time being, though," Ty continued as he examined the tanto blade, he noticed that it had a wiry wooden handle with a dull blade at the end.
"The jail door is pretty loose but it's not loose enough to be easily knocked down."
Ty brainstormed for a solution for a moment before he slowly began dislocating all of his body parts and squeezed them through the door.
As he did it, he muttered, "At least this hurts less than the constant flaming pain running along my back."
To his surprise, whatever was the magic that connected his body together, it allowed him to easily click the bones back into their place, albeit the fact that it came with the surreal sensation of dislocating and reconnecting his body parts.