A single candle was lit in my master's bedroom. I know, because my last memory as his minion was lighting that candle with my own, fleshless hands. I suppose I can't say that he is my master any longer. Though my exterior is very little, and my eyes do not exist, I see very well that I am a Freesoul in its true form: free, and with a soul. I wonder each morning how I can possibly open my eyes, and soon after, I wonder who I was in my past life. Whose thoughts do these belong to, and what business is yet to be finished? I seek my purpose, and I hope it's seeking me, too.
Excerpt from the diary of Beau Knee
Beau Knee, or simply Beau, awoke one fateful night, to the sound of a harsh thud against the floor of an upstairs chamber, followed by a series of swift footsteps and the sliding of a window. The thud came from something that was fleshy and heavy, with enough padding to suggest that it was not a
Freesoul. It was the trademark of a
Soulcage, one who had yet been freed of life and self-will.
The only person it could be was Nathaniel Blightcrow, Beau's master and a powerful, antisocial necromancer who lived alone. Perhaps he had fallen by accident? He was getting on in age, and he refused to use a cane to help him navigate through the house.
When Beau went to check on the noise, he found him sprawled on his bedroom floor, blood seeping quickly out from beneath his frail body. The crimson intermingled with the gray rug, creating a peachy, knotted concoction. A gash was in his belly, and a large rope had been left loosely around his neck. Beau dropped to his hands and knees, calling to see whether the man still had breath in him, but the old man lay silent.
It was then that a tingling sensation ran through Beau. Something that he had not felt in a very long time, and something that made him look down at his hands -- the bones that were there, grayish and clacking in places as he tried to flex his fingers.
He was a skeleton! The memories of the skeleton were becoming blurrier and blurrier, escaping him as if from a dream from which he was awakening. How was he able to see? He had no eyeballs! How was he able to feel? He had no flesh -- no muscles, no skin!
As such was the beginning of Beau's unexpected awakening, through the affliction of
Noumenatism, a condition in which a Freesoul is possessed and becomes home to a free-floating soul. He is one of two heroes in the story "The Daring Adventures of Beau Knee and Claude," set in this dark and silly world of Valleris.
Beau sets off on a mission to cure the world of the true plague that ails it: necromancy and its overextended power. Along the way, he allies with
Claude Garnier, and he unravels the secrets of who he was before he became one with this skeletal vessel.
I love him already!