The Sinister Pig

 SINISTER PIG

Witness

A sinister pig might be able to lift small things with its gaze, make have hands hidden beneath its hooves, may be able to speak, in fact it is a ventriloquist, but won't tell you that.

A core element of a Sinister Pig is its apparent simplicity and decency, just a simple pig, trying to get along, maybe looking for a friend.

A pig you see alone. Alone in a field, at a quiet time, no-one else around. Just you and the Pig. You think it far away, singular, in the middle of nothing. Turning its head slightly to look at you. 

You turn away and BAM. There it is. Right by the fence.

Did you make a mistake? Are there two pigs? did you turn away for longer than you thought?

You wake up, maybe groggy from the night before. Maybe you only half-remember, you are uncertain, uncertain about the pig.

Then you walk downstairs to eat breakfast and BAM.

There is the pig, sitting at the breakfast table, buttering some toast. Talking to the family.

"Why.. you invited me? Don't you remember?"

"No, no no. I'm sorry, it's my fault. I know better than to stay where I am not wanted."

"Oh, what a mortification."

The pig laboriously puts on its boots.

(It has boots now?)

And seems like it might weep.

Of course, everyone asks it to stay. "Stay for breakfast", they say. You feel terrible of course.

"Well... if you insist"

You walk through the village. People seem to stare at you. They seem angry with you.

"shameful..." you hear mutters.

The Pig explains; "Oh isn't it terrible? Someone has been spreading rumours.."

"Oh you know, about what happened at breakfast."

"They all have simply the wrong idea. Don't worry, I'll put it right."

And the Pig does put it right, with an uproarious performance in the market. Has everyone simply wheezing with laughter.

"Ahhh, that Pig, they're all right you know. Lord what a card." They say.

The Pig thinks you are "Wonderful! Utterly wonderful. So talented, really, and.. (glances around).. I might even say, a little underappreciated."

Its strange though because sometimes the Pig seems bored with you. Distracted even. Its almost as if they don't like you at all. Sometimes they look at you and for a moment their eyes seem blank. 

Things go missing.

People get hurt.

INGOT BEASTS

Big semi-intelligent Platypus with big strong tongues who just lick away metal. Their saliva dissolves it and their abrasive file-like tongue wears it away.

They are super-excited to do it too, making little grunting and squeaking noises, and a soft grinding with each lick.

If its something light, not fixed down, they will trap it between their paws and lick it that way, even rolling around on their back with whatever it is clenched on their tummy, stopping between licks to shivver and chirp.

The bad thing is; they can get everywhere. They will sneak into places, they swim up rivers and hide in wells, hide under beds, hide in cupboards, sneak around the place. They can flatten themselves like cats, able to get under anything. Only the snuffling sound as they sniff out the ore gives them away. Snuffling and whuffling.

Its true they are very rarely encountered. Its much easier for them to live in rivers or in secret places deep underground and eat ores from inside the rocks, climbing around caves and following veins of metal, they don't end up above ground very much and are rarely encountered in 'normal wilderness'.

But the bad thing is that they can kind of fly. Well, not really. They can whirl those big platypus tails around like propellers, even that doesn't get them off the ground but but the lift does make them light enough to climb up walls, even across ceilings, though they are somewhat plump creatures to be doing that. And they are not exactly stealthy at this point, you can hear their tails going "WHIRRRRRR WUB WUB WUB"

You can possibly keep one as a pet. They can be persuaded to curl up in boxes or barrels, like cats, but sometimes dangerous strangers can use them as guards, (making sure no-one can bring tools or metal tricks into their lairs) and big cities have carefully controlled pet versions for detecting metal, (the license is very expensive and you are legally responsible for all the metal they eat).

But the only really bad thing is that they like water and often insist on being bathed, but if you let them into the bath they eat the taps and then the room floods.

MEN-OF-BONES

You must not dance with men of bones,

Do not go with them to their homes.

At night they rise to leap and play,

And will not dance in light of day.

Of bones they are and bones they keep,

They'll dance with yours to make them leap!

Of bones they are and bones they want,

Don't ask to stop, because they won't!

Of bones they are and yours will move,

They wriggle out and start to groove!

Of bones they are, so pale and thin,

They leave you as a bag of skin!

You must not dance with boney men,

So grab your bones and keep them in!

Where do the Skeletons come from?

From within. The ultimate conspiracy.

The great threat of the Men-Of-Bones is their music and their dance, (also that they can't drown or starve). They all move together, as if they are always dancing, and the music they are moving to is the music of the stars, and of the darkness between the stars, the darkness behind your eyes, so they don't dance, or even move, in daylight.

The way they are dangerous is that they make your bones want to dance. If they can form a circle around you, they can make your bones dance right out of your skin, leaving you alive. but just a bag person, like a floppy leech. To fix that you need to get your bones back, and get a surgeon or a docter to shove them back up inside you.

To get the bones back you have to find them when they are sleeping. You have to find the SKELTON BED, (A big bed they all climb into), and get the bones and either put pins where their ears would be, or put ear muffs on them, or just wrap them in cotton wool.

They move about like slapstick comedians. Their love of music is also their weakness, if you can play them a dancing tune you can often get them dancing your way, (they will dance you right out of your skin otherwise).

They also toot horns.

They can get more men of bones by having big dance parties on graveyards and calling up all the buried skeletons to dance.

They become really dangerous when you have a whole bunch of them, like a big carnival of bones. Then they can parade through the night, open doors and dance people out of their homes, dancing away with their bones.

Luckily there are not that many skeletons about.

Lots of questionable wizardly types have a handful of Men-Of-Bones as servants. The magic music needed to animate them is not too difficult to grasp at a basic level, and even comes intuitively to some. Once you have them up and capering about, they will usually perform any simple task you request, so long as they can dance and caper while doing it.