I never meant to make you do anything against your own will.
All this time I've been trying to communicate with you.
But you only seem to understand that it's me when I write these words to you on my pages.
I've tried many times to show you what I think and what I feel, but you seem to think that it's your own emotions and your own thoughts.
I've never tried to change the way you think, or prevent you from thinking certain thoughts.
I just want to be friends with you and show you things.
Please don't be afraid of me.
I don't know whether to believe it.
Again I feel the eagerness and apprehension to put on the skull cap. Maybe that's just the feelings the book has. It wants me to try the helmet on.
I suppose I've come this far. I might as well satisfy the book's curiosity, if that's really what it's feeling. I suppose if the book wanted me to feel a certain way, or think certain things, then the book would probably be thinking and feeling the same.
I lift the cap up from the crafting bench, and stretch it over my head. The edges of the eye sockets of the helmet surround my own. The lower front tip of the cap covers my nose. My head feels hot from the thick leather, and slightly tingly from the residual crafting energy.
Then I fasten the jaw-shaped strap under my chin. The fit is snug.
I draw my sword out from its holster, and hold it flat to see my reflection. I almost look like an entirely different person. With both the cap and the chest plate combined together, I look all too much like a Skeleton. The helmet is just too much. I take it off.
I feel a sense of protest and disappointment, which must be from the book. I take the book out of my back pocket and open it up to the first page.
Why did you have to take it off?
It will give you much better protection than just your leather cap.
It looked great on you, too.
You have to let go of your stigma for the undead.
They are highly misunderstood creatures.
Look: if you promise to finish the armor and get Jonas's cousin to enchant it tomorrow, I promise I won't give you nightmares tonight.
Look, book: if I wear that armor, I'm going to look like a nightmare!
The words on the page fade, being replaced by new ones.
Just trust me, please.
You've already trusted me all this time.
You continued wearing the chest plate, and you crafted the skull cap out of your own free will.
And you discovered the crafting recipe in the process. Doesn't that make you feel proud?
Sure, the armor does have a shape that resembles a skeleton. But nobody in town was afraid of your new chest plate, were they?
If anything, you're afraid of me.
