The skeletal raccoon, comprised solely of well-polished bones etched with necrotic runes that pulsed in nonsensical rhythms to distract the observer, stood up on its hind legs as if it were a human. Its fingers clicked together, and it chittered at Dahlia. Its only non-bone adornment was an ancient, tattered bandana tied around its neck. A single gold tooth was its only remaining tooth.

  Despite being a skeletal creature, it moved with a nimbleness that shamed most living creatures.

  “Errm. Excuse me. Are you Bandit, the Gravebound Scoundrel?” Dahlia had asked.

  The tiny creature tilted its head as if contemplating a critical decision. Then, imperiously, it nodded in the affirmative at the fairy.

  “I see!” Dahlia squealed, her violet eyes sparkling with joy. “What kind of scoundrel are you? Assassin? Thief? Highwayman? I imagine you had quite the reputation in life.”

  In a flash of white, Bandit darted forward, and scampered straight up Tarik’s body. Before the druid could react, Bandit perched proudly on his shoulder. His skeletal fingers held Tarik’s money pouch, and two of his rings. Bandit offered the rings back to Tarik, but the gold pouch he tucked into his ribcage—where it vanished.

  “What—?” Tarik sputtered.

  “Oh, I like you,” Dahlia clapped her hands together.

  Trying to regain his breath, Tarik appeared indignant while he tried to put together the puzzle of what had happened. He gave up on decorum and allowed himself to laugh. Only when he could breathe easily again did he attempt to speak.

  “You’re pretty happy for someone who thought they were summoning a bandit and got an undead raccoon,” Tarik said. He struggled to maintain a straight face at the absurdity of the situation.

  Sablethistle flickered into view beside him, and she held her hands out. Bandit jumped into them, and hopped onto her shoulder.

  “No, let’s be fair—she summoned the Bandit. The true scoundrel of the highest order.” Sablethistle stared at the empty orbs of the animal, who chittered in smug agreement with her assessment. Bandit’s skeletal tail flicked happily.

  Dahlia reached over and petted Bandit on the skull. The polished bones, obviously well taken care of by someone at some point, lacked the satisfaction generated when she pet Mr. Disapoofer. She worked her lower lip between her teeth for a moment, then seemed to have an idea.

  “Well, Bandit, you’ve been given a second chance at mischief. You are clearly a master of grand larceny. How would you like to add battlefield sabotage to your resume?”

  Bandit seemed to think about it for a moment, before he slipped Tarik’s money pouch into Dahlia’s hands.

  “This is going to be a nightmare,” Tarik groaned.

  “No, Tarik, this is going to be glorious,” Dahlia disagreed. She tossed his money pouch back to him, albeit slightly lighter than it had been.

  “YAY!” Sablethistle shouted, then looked ashamed that she’d created such an outburst. “Can Bandit be my partner?”

  “Certainly, you two will make a formidable pair. But first, we must make our new friend less conspicuous. May I?” Dahlia held a hand towards Bandit, and potent magics swirled around her fingers as she gathered power to Soul Shape.

  Bandit looked at Sablethistle, who nodded, looked at Tarik, who seemed to be on the verge of tears, then chittered what Dahlia assumed was a yes.

  Dahlia burned a spell slot, and even more power flowed to her fingers, delicately grasping Bandit’s soul’s strands. She hummed but didn’t sing, as her fingers twisted through the air like an artist painting unseen patterns or a sculptor shaping the soul of a beast. The nonsensical, distracting rhythm of the runes on Bandit’s bones shifted into a new pattern, a deliberate pattern.

  Bandit twitched, and a subtle ripple of change coursed through his little body. The gold tooth in his mouth gleamed brighter, his old bandana regained a touch of color, and a faint miasma of dark, wispy energy coiled around his bones.

  Dahlia pulled her hands back to tap her lips, and Bandit flickered. One moment, there he was perched proudly on Sablethistle’s shoulder and then he was a mere shadow, a fleeting blur on the ground utterly indistinguishable from the shadows that danced around Sablethistle.

  “Oh no. Oh no, no, no. This is worse!” Tarik wasn’t laughing anymore.

  Dahlia beamed at her subtle changes.

  “I love it,” Sablethistle gasped.

  Bandit reappeared at Tarik’s feet, snatched all of his rings and money purse, and vanished again. Only the echo of his chittering laughter remained in the wind.

  “No!” Tarik threw his hands up. “It wasn’t enough that he was an undead raccoon, now he’s an invisible undead raccoon!?”

  “Invisible? Oh, no, not at all. He’s merely… indistinct.” Dahlia knelt down and held her hand out. “Come, Bandit.”

  A shadow peeled itself from the cobblestones, and formed into the twilight-hued skeletal raccoon. His bones were no longer pristine ivory, but lined with subtle, ethereal veins of dark energy. His tail flickered, his glowing runes blinking in a quite pattern only Dahlia understood.

  Dahlia scratched his skull fondly. “Who’s a good boy?”

  “Arf!” Mr. Disapoofer barked from the waters edge, where he attempted to catch fish. Me! I’m a good boy!

  Bandit preened under the praise, then threw a gold coin at Tarik’s head.

  Tarik caught it, and shoved it into his pocket. “We are all going to die, aren’t we?”

  “No, Tarik,” Sablethistle corrected him. Her eyes gleamed with divine punishment. “They are.”

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Dahlia paid the other two no attention. The more she scratched Bandit’s skull, the more she felt she hadn’t done enough. “Still not there, friend.”

  “Lady Nyxaria used to sing a song to me.. I wonder…” Dahlia hummed a few notes, and magic coalesced around her fingers. She reached out and touched the raccoon’s soul once more. But this time, like all great works of magic should be, she sang.

  ?“Soft as shadow, swift as night,

  Hands like whispers, heart so light.

  Slips through keyholes, fades from sight,

  Moon-kissed paws and silver flight.

  He danced on rooftops, kissed the stars,

  Plucked gold from kings and keys from bars.

  No chain could bind, no gate withstand,

  A thief who laughed at mortal hands.

  A band of silk, a tooth of gold,

  A name unspoken, a story bold.

  A ghost of dusk, unseen, untamed,

  The night itself once spoke his name.

  He stole the fire from the sun,

  Drank starlight when the night was young.

  Took the best from a dragon’s hoard,

  And left the wyrm to rage and roar.

  One moonlit eve, he dared reach high,

  To snatch its light from out the sky.

  The river wept, the stars burned dim,

  Yet none could lay their hands on him.

  The gods grew wroth, the fates conspired,

  They set the stars and world afire,

  Yet not a cage, nor curse, nor blade,

  Could ever make the rogue afraid.

  So hush now, child, close your eyes,

  Dream of thieves and midnight skies,

  For when you wake and turn your head,

  You’ll find what’s lost—but never dead.” ?

  Magic and words reshaped the shadows around Bandit. More and more darkness slithered to encase the raccoon. His bones darkened—not with decay but with pure, shifting twilight. The gloam took on the illusion and texture of sleek fur. His bare skull reshaped itself, taking on the perfect structure of a raccoon’s face, alive with clever eyes that burned like stolen candlelight. His tattered bandana restored itself completely, morphing into a fine dark red fabric lined with silver thread that resembled the twinkling light of the stars themselves. The glow of his etched runes vanished, buried beneath layers of gloam—Bandit’s very own secret buried in shadow.

  Bandit stretched luxuriously as if nothing had ever changed, as if he had always appeared to be a raccoon composed of living darkness. Lazily, he blinked once, twice, then vanished altogether. He disappeared with the same ease that one forgets why they entered a room, present one moment and gone the next.

  “No…” Tarik gasped in horror. He pointed furiously at where the raccoon had been. “No, no, no! This is so much worse!”

  Dahlia couldn’t restrain her smirk, or the pure pleasure in her eyes at the transformation she had wrought.

  “Worse? I’ve made him better, Tarik. Weren’t you the one complaining about my lack of making things better?” Dahlia’s violet eyes dared Tarik to disagree.

  “I liked him more when he was an obvious abomination!” Tarik swiveled his eyes around, rapidly growing in frustration that he couldn’t quell, as panic rose in his heart. Then, there was a soft chittering directly behind him.

  Tarik swallowed and very slowly turned his head.

  Bandit sat on his shoulder, looking exactly like a perfectly ordinary raccoon—other than the shifting distortions of shadow that clung to his fur. Tarik stared at him, and Bandit grinned. Tarik would later swear the raccoon was mocking him.

  One of Bandit’s shadow furred paws reached out. The claws of darkness looked exceptionally sharp, and the blood drained from Tarik’s face, but Bandit only leaned forward and gently patted the druid’s cheek with tiny, deceptively soft paws—as if he were consoling him.

  Unlike the fairy, or Sablethistle, Tarik actually understood the raccoon when it chirped ‘there, there’ in a mocking tone.

  Tarik burst, the unholy sound of a druid forced to cope with the insanity of a necromantic fairy and her entourage of lunacy escaped his throat in a long, monotonous, groan.

  “Keeper, you have outdone yourself!” Sablethistle, wide-eyed, clapped her hands in delight.

  “I know. Just look at him!” Dahlia preened. “A master of deception, a thief reborn! A shadow that walks in the daylight!”

  Bandit hopped off Tarik’s shoulder, his tail flicking with supreme confidence. Somehow, the thief had stolen Tarik’s belt from his waist. By the time Bandit hit the ground, Tarik still hadn’t realized it. The raccoon looked up at him, chittered, then vanished into shadow.

  “No! Give that back!” Tarik bolted after the flickering shadow, but he only made it a few dozen steps before his pants fell, and he tripped face-first into the ground.

  Dahlia shook her head, and studied Bandit’s information.

  Traits

  Actions

  Keeper’s Decree

  Dahlia stared at the last entry. Keeper’s Decree was new. What were they?