The Skeleton Princess

Chapter 3 - Journey

Eight hours pass and Luna wakes up in her bed, she recalls what had happened and wonders if it was a dream, but when she looks to her bedside drawer she can tell instantly that it was real because her father's scythe was on the desk waiting for her and pulsating its dark glow.

Luna's eyes begin to tear up again but she holds them back this time by wiping them away, she grabs her father's scythe, it begins to glow red as if it were alive then it disperses into Luna's arm.

Luna gets out of her massive black bed and begins to weakly walk towards her bedroom's doors to get outside.

As she reaches towards it, Max opens the bone patterned door instead.

When he sees Luna up he quickly grabs her before she falls over herself.

He helps Luna out of the dark bedroom and through the hallway to the magically repaired throne room, Luna begins to break from her state of daze that was caused by the loss of her father.

She asks in an emotionless tone "Who attacked us?"

Maxilla's eyes changes to purple, he is surprised by how fast Luna has recovered but he feels something is.... wrong.

One of the skeletal knights answers her with their formal tone "The humans. We think they came from the overworld."

Luna then says with her emotionless face and tone "I thought humans can't enter the underworld unless they have permission from one of the inhabitants."

Max answers while looking at Luna's heterochromia eyes as if reading her very soul "It was Ragel, I saw him helping the humans but I and Lucy defeated him."

Luna just nods and says in a scary tone "Then we will launch a full-scale attack on the humans then and wipe all of them out."

Max looks at her with shock and then protests "Luna that is not a smart idea, after all, we have no idea where the humans came from. Also, shouldn't we warn the other city to the south of a probable attack!"

Luna gives Max an evil glare and warns him "If you EVER call me 'Luna' ever again I will turn you into a pile of worthless bones, after all, I am the mistress of this city now and I'm your leader. So NEVER protest against me again!"

Max doesn't listen and smacks her leaving a red mark with a bone hand imprint, Luna's eyes change from an empty emotionless void to a red and blue pool of water.

Max shouts "I may be a knight who must serve you but I am your friend first!"

Luna's eyes widen realizing what she had just said, she says in a voice breaking tone "I'm sorry...."

Max pats her head to try and  calm her down, then finally Luna gets herself together and says in a calm trusting tone "So Max, what is your plan?"

Max answers with his friendly tone "We should go to Underkeep city and warn them of a probable attack. They may have information on where the humans have come from, but we mustn't bring an army to their doorstep. So I think me and you should go."

Suddenly the doors to the throne room fly open and the person who appears falls onto the floor.

It is Lucy, who gets up, shakes the dust off her maid uniform and then shouts in her half scared, half brave voice "I'm coming too!"

Max asks "You were eavesdropping weren't you?"

Lucy starts to panic and does the only thing she is good at and that is to run, Luna giggles which are an improvement to her personality from just a few minutes ago, she agrees to Maxilla's plan, but she also agrees to take Lucy since the Underkeep is the city of zombies.

Maxilla and Lucy wait at the gate of the Lovic city border.
Lucy is going through her backpack saying "Cooking utensils, check. Healing potions, check."

Max interrupts Lucy as she is checking her list by saying "You forgot one thing."

Lucy looks towards Max with a curious face asking "What?"

Max does the closest thing a skeleton can do to a smirk "Your left arm."

Lucy looks at her left side and notices that Max was right, she starts to look around in the bag to see if it was there.

Luna then finally appears and approaches the panicked zombie with an arm in her hand, she says with a playful tone "You forgot this."

Lucy quickly takes her arm and attaches it to her left stump.
Max, Luna, and Lucy all look towards the doors of the city, it is a light blue door with a pentagram pattern etched into it.

The doors open with a fast swing, Luna, and her friends begin to walk out into the red grassed plains.

Luna takes one final look at the city before the doors slam shut blocking her from seeing her home, Max takes out a compass and he turns south and walks forward with Luna and Lucy in his follow.

They travel for what seems like hours until they reach a block in their path, it mountains too steep to climb.

Max looks at the map in his hand with confusion, he then says in a confused tone "These mountains are not meant to be here!"

Luna takes the map from Max and looks at it, she says "Hey there's a forest to the west of here, maybe we can go through there."

Max and Lucy look at each other with a bit of fright, Luna sees this and asks "What?"

Max replies with a frightened tone "Y..you do realize that's the never-ending forest."

Luna looks at the map and says "So? we're still going."

Lucy and Max just sigh and say at the same time "Fine."

Luna begins to walk west to the forest while Max and Lucy slug along, the flat plains with crimson grass and black roses scattered across it start to become more forest like.

The trees have the normal overworld leaves but red veins run through it, the wood of the trees are black and steel like.

It starts getting darker, not from the sun but from the number of trees blocking the purple sky, The group of friends keeps following the map and compass until Luna hears a familiar deep-toned voice "Luna, come find me."

Luna stops and looks around frantically shouting "Father! Where are you!?"

Luna begins to run in a random direction, Max and Lucy don't realize that Luna is gone until it's too late.

Luna sees an old ruined town, she carries on walking through following her father's voice until the voice stops.

Three dark shadowed wolfs jump down from the broken buildings, they start laughing at Luna in a voice mimicking her fathers.

One of them says mockingly "Did you guys hear her shout "father!"
What a child, but hate to break it to ya, your father is dead if you can hear his voice from us."

Luna's eyes start to tear up because the hope she was just given was smashed before her very eyes, the laugh of the evil wolfs ring inside her head no matter how much she covered her ears.

Then something broke inside of Luna and she points her hand forward causing a dark red glow to appear in her hand, it was her father's scythe but different, because it was no longer a full black handle but it had Lucy's style of skulls wrapped around it in a coil.

She swings the scythe with ease as if it was part of her, the wolf's sinister laughter become silence for a second.

The only sound left is the blood dripping from the dark beasts cold dead sliced up bodies, Luna walks slowly back to her friends.

Max and Lucy know instantly that something is different about her but they don't ask her, the three friends finally make it out of the forest easily as if the forest itself was scared of Luna's power.

Max finally asks Luna "What happened to you? You seem different."

Luna looks at Max with a smile and replies "I think I have finally come to terms that my father is no longer 'alive'."

Max and Lucy look down and don't talk the rest of the way to the city called Underkeep.