Ealtz Castle - Infirmary

One look at the infirmary told Lord Pickle that this was no place for one such as he. However, he did wish to acquire more information about this place, and playing along with this little game was presently the best option he had at the moment. He stood in the center of the room, facing the door with arms crossed, awaiting further attention. If somebody didn't show up soon, he might just find himself wandering about the castle with a little more intrusion than he'd used to get to the tower. Perhaps he'd find and have words with the count directly, or perhaps he would find other points of interest and end this whole thing before it ever began.

The Golem watched Lord pickle go into the infirmary, a heavy frown on his face.  Oh how badly he wanted to get his hands around that tiny neck and squeeze but for some reason he couldn’t understand his leader Grim wanted to keep the little pyromaniac alive.

“Pickle man, bad.” said the Golem with a grunt as he lingered outside the door with his back to it, standing guard against any further funny business.  For a long moment it almost seemed like the room was empty except for the one guest but then the sound of clattering bones could be heard as the skeleton in the corner of room sprang to life.


“Yo ho ho ho. What do we have here?” asked the Skeleton as he climbed down from the rack he had been hanging from.  Putting on a top hat and a monocle he walked over to Zurai and began to examine him closely.  “Curious and curiouser.  You seem fit like a fettle to me.  What seems to be the problem good Sir?  I Doctor Bones shall endevor to find a cure for what ails you.”

Walking over the the counter the Skeleton pulled out a flask of whisky then turned toward the Jounin before taking a sip but without an esophagus to contain the liquid it simply spilled down his empty chest cavity and onto the floor.   “Care for a nip?” asked the Doctor as he held the flask out to Zurai.

"Son of a...!" Lord Dill very nearly jumped right out of his skin when he saw from the corner of his eye spring to life an object he'd so casually dismissed as nothing more than an inanimate model. The spry Lord spun about to face the skeleton, no longer placing even a modicum of thought into dispatching the unfortunate survivor of his earlier sneeze. Suddenly, all focus was on the bewildering scene before him. How many people could say they saw a living skeleton sipping liquor while wearing a top hat and monocle? Okay, fine, how many people that aren't drugged out? Wait, had the indomitable Lord of Pickles been drugged?

Dismissing against his best judgment the notion that he was on a wild acid trip, Lord Dill humored the situation a bit further, stressing a point that seemed to be of interest. "I bear an unusual allergy to my underling's unique brand of bees. One sting and my chakra acts untoward. This is a rare condition even in my land, but it is particularly troublesome with me. I have abnormally powerful chakra, you..." Lord Pickle considered the next choice of words but, seeing that the skeleton bore a monocle, he went with the initial phrasing. "...see, so when the allergy hits, my vast stores of energy become unstable and occasionally lash out. This was the unfortunate circumstance with your now ashen golem friend. Moe or Larry, I think his name was."

“Hmm, my apologizes young man, I hadn’t meant to startle you.” said the Doctor who realized how frightening his appearance could be which is why he went out of his way to wear a comical top hat. Levity after all went along way towards putting his patients at ease.  As if reading Zuriui’s face expression despite not having eyes Dr Bones gave him a grin thought it was hard to tell since without flesh his expression hardly seemed to change.

“I can assure you, you aren’t on any drugs yet. Thought that could be arranged if you’d like.” teased the good Doctor. “It seems to me that your allergy problem is not a physical issue but a spiritual one. The energy of your Anahata Chakra is not in balance to begin with thus when you are stung your control falls to pieces.    Sadly I’m a doctor not a psychologist so I can’t help walk you thought the issues that might be causing the unbalance, but I can proscribe you some medication that might help.” said the Skeleton.

Walking over to spot where he’d gotten his flask he pulled out a small bag full of joints then lightly tossed them towards Zurui.  “Smoke one of these a day for two weeks. It should put you in a more relaxed mood restoring the flow of energy to normal.” said the Doctor as he scribbled down a note and handed it towards Zurui. Instead of a prescription like the Doctor had said the note contained a warning. Something the Doctor couldn’t say out loud without the remaining pumpkin golem hearing.   The note read the following.  

Doctor Bone's Note:

“Don’t worry about burning a few of those moronic Pumpkin heads my good sir. We can always grew new ones.   Not that they are worth much since their brains are made of mush, but what does that say about me when I don’t have a brain at all?”  said the Skeleton with light laugh.

As difficult as it was to believe, Zurui was starting to become accustomed to the strange circumstances of this place. A talking skeleton wearing accessories, drinking whiskey that literally went right through him and spilled onto the floor, and now weed. He took a swig from the Doc's whiskey and accepted the prescribed medicine and the note that came with them. The Jounin lit the paper and took a deep breath. As the smoke filled his lungs, Zurui read the paper and immediately began to cough. Perhaps it was due to this being his first experience inhaling smoke on purpose, or maybe the contents of the note. It could have been the information his clone had just relayed to him.

With several more coughs, Zurui glanced back at the pumpkin golem, who had chosen to stand with his back to the room. That was a mistake he wouldn't live to regret. Zurui set the cigarette in his mouth, inhaling and exhaling the smoke as if second nature, while his now-free hands weaved through a rather lengthy set of hand seals. The skeleton was the only one to see them, though with the contents of the note under consideration, the Jounin had made a snap judgement that this skinless person was perhaps his only ally here and, hopefully, would not alert the golem until after the Flame Bullet left the Kiri-nin's mouth and engulfed the golem in oil-fueled flame that would reduce him to ash in very much the same way as his companions earlier.

Assuming the golem guard now gone, with nothing more than scorch marks on the cobblestone denoting his finished existence, Zurui felt more confident in speaking freely with Doc Bones. He let out a long drag with a sigh, weighing his options. "Seems there's plenty going on here." He started. It seemed likely to him that Grim would have taken Akihiro to the red door, offering a chance to clear his supposed crimes by accomplishing for free a mission that the Count would otherwise have paid a large sum to complete. This could be dangerous, probably was, otherwise the Count would send his army of minions into that place. Then, there was the matter of revival. There were many resurrection techniques in this world, and none of them without cost. What sort of method involved three large chakra sources concerned him. Fortunately, he was not one of those people, despite his claims and implications, and nor was any that he had any personal interest in. What he feared, then, was what the Count intended to bring to life with such powerful energy.

"The Count may well have two of the three people he requires, as well as one or two people to go into a red door to retrieve some crown. Do you have any details on the ritual or the door? What he intends to bring to life, or what purpose that crown holds...even how dangerous the contents of that door." Normally he wouldn't care about the danger of a situation that he intended to stop from happening anyway, but he was concerned about Akihiro's safety, should he be forced to enter that place. He may have to go in after him, or choose between that and stopping the ritual, if the latter appeared to be as hazardous as he was beginning to assume.

The Doctor frowned in concern as his patient began to cough worried that perhaps he’d given the man a bad batch  More then likely though it was reading the contents of the note that had upset him.  The Skeleton would have liked to have given him a verbal warning but it was hard to speak openly about somethings when they where under surveillance.  

Realizing the problem the Jounin quickly too steps to remedy the situation, a fact the Doctor did nothing to intervene. He personally hated the the Pumpkin warriors himself and couldn’t care less if his new friend had decided to roast yet another one alive.

“Good job removing that imbecilic, with him gone I might be able to smuggle you out of here before the Count takes notice.”   said the Doctor as he walked over to the ashes and spat on them. “Brainless dullards, the lot of them. Well what can you expect when the souls used to animate them came from bandits.” said the Doctor, his voice weary from having to constantly put up with such inferior creatures.

Looking down he covered his eye sockets with the brim of his top hat and let out a sigh as he began to tell the Jounin everything he knew. “It’s a bit of a long story. You might want to sit down.” He warned before he began to regain his new friend.  

“It took the Count centuries to acquire a very rare crystal that he needs to preform the ritual that will awaken his latent power.  If completed successfully he shall gain full power over life and death, able to bring back the dead on a whim.  But the question remains in what state will they be?” asked the Skeleton.

“Look at me for example. I was one of his early experiments, in my past life I was a normal person named McCoy and I served as his doctor over a thousand years ago, back when the Count could still be considered human, before he ate the strange fruit that fell from the sky that gave him his powers and cursed him with immortality.

He was a kind an loving man, but he had trouble with his new ability unwittingly killing many of those around him by sucking the lifespan right out of them without meaning to.  One day a sage from across the seas came by in his travels, the sage taught the Count how to control his ability then left saying he would seek a way to break the Count’s curse.

Things returned to normal for a few years until war came to ravage the land. While the Count was away defending his country an invading force snuck past him and ravaged the castle killing everyone inside including me and the Count’s beloved wife and daughter.  I’m told the Count went mad with grief, using his powers to unleash hell upon the perpetrators and He returned peace to the realm using an iron fist.

He was about to be coronated as king when the sage returned. Unhappy with what he saw he took the crown and placed the enchantment that would break the curse upon it before tossing it into the pocket dimension telling the Count he could only have it back once he learned not to abuse his power.  

Clearly he has not learned any such thing, bringing someone like me back in such a state.  My nickname was bones, but I never expected to literally become that and do you know what the Count did when he say what he had done to me? He laughed as if it was the most hilarious joke in the world.” said the Skeleton bitterly.

“The Pocket dimension the sage placed the crown in is very dangerous.  Everything you think is normal is strange there.  Up becomes down, left becomes right.  It’s very easy to become lost inside.  The count can’t enter himself but every once and a while we send men in to try and retrieve the crown, very few of them ever return.” warned the Skeleton.

“As for the ritual we might already be too late.  It needs at least three people to be stable but it can be preformed with less if one is willing to take the risk.  The biggest issue is that while the Count seizes his power the gate to the abyss will be open. The Grim Reaper heavily dislikes those that try to snatch things from his grasp,  lord knows what he will send crawling out from the other side in order to claim retribution…” The Doctor shivered at what unknown horrors might come their way.

“You could go to the throne room and try to interrupt the ritual but in doing so you might hand the Count the final key to his victory.  Or you could go to save the people who entered the other dimension. If we had the crown we could end this madness once and for all.” advised the Skeleton.

Zurui sat quietly and listened in earnest to the entire story. It was...familiar, somehow, and he found himself wondering if the Count could swim, for some reason. Regardless, he weighed his options, as he so often was forced to do. Were this one of their other missions, he Akihiro would've already acquired this information and acted accordingly. They'd foolishly walked into a situation completely blind and only now that it was quite possibly too late were they able to ascertain the details. The Uchiha would no doubt be aware of the door, its dimension, and the crown's existence. What Akihiro wouldn't know, though, is the importance of that crown. They needed it, desperately. It was only key to stopping any of this. Given how dangerous the ritual would be if completed, however, Zurui would not have the time to spare in searching for Akihiro and ensuring the retrieval of the crown. He would have to hope that Grim did, in fact, take Akihiro to that door and that Akihiro, in return, elected to go inside the door, rather than killing Grim and going on about his day. Beyond that, Zurui would need to reunite with him and notify him of the actual importance of the crown before he handed it to Grim, who, the Jounin presumed, would seek to destroy it in order to retain the Count's immortality. A man with the ability to drain life was a problem. A man with powers over life and death on top of draining life was a nightmare. An immortal with powers of life, death, and life force draining was the worst possible case scenario.

"Fortunately, my power isn't as great as I have led you all to believe. It may help, but I doubt it would be sufficient to fulfill the ritual with any amount of ease. That should give me time even if I lose the advantage." Zurui began to contemplate the actual scenario. The entire premise of this gathering has thus far been to convince people to help, rather than force them. The Count would likely be attempting to convince people to help him in that ritual. Dealing with the Count alone would be problematic, but to also fight against powerful guests? That would be most unwise. His best chance was to reunite with Akihiro beforehand, which would also increase their chances of getting a hold on that crown, but in doing so, they greatly risked having the ritual completed by the time they acquired the crown.

"The crown is paramount in all of this, I'll have to go there first." He started, finishing off the joint, "Unfortunately, the best I can do for you is to lay you to rest when this is all over. I could..." He stopped himself, considering the implications of using *that* technique, "Mm, nevermind, I should go." The Jounin secured his bundle of weed and left the room in a hurry, waving a thank-you to the skeleton for its incredible help in all of this. He'd have been so lost without dem bones.

[Exit]