Skeletime

Sitting at a bar, Ellen was  looking curiously at a skeleton sipping some kind of shimmering drink.
The dim purple light in the eyesocket swiveled to look in her direction, and the undead turned to face her, revealing that the right part of it's head was covered in partially mummified human skin, including a dessicated eyeball.
It started talking with a hoarse, but somewhat female-sounding voice
"oh-ho, what is the gore witch herself doing here."

Ellen stared back with her glass eyes.
"a little bit of people watching. Trying to see how the place is really like."
She kick her stool with a metal heel, animating the objet to make it skitter closer.
"indulge an old witch's curiosity..."

The half-face grin.

"... What *are* you exactly?"

A red glow light up behind Ellen's fake pupils, as she look deeper into what animate the undead.

"you're a basic undead, but too smart to be a spontaneous generation, yet you're also not keyed to anyone who could give you enough power for higher brain function."

She look lower, toward the ribcage where there's almost a beating heart of power.

"i can see you have some kind of mana collector, which explain how you're going around, but I don't recognize the array, and there's no signature either."

The skeleton cackle, an odd rattling sound that make some people look at her before going back to their own business.

"i made myself!"

Ellen arch an eyebrow, and the skeleton rattle her hyoid bone, like a dog wagging it's tail.

"you're not a lich."

"you know how necromancers sometimes have corpses rise nearby on accident right?"

Ellen nod, remembering how it happened to her once or twice before she got a better hold of her powers.

"well I'm one of those, wasn't really bright but one day I got these... *shapes* in my mind. Words. Descriptions. Materials. Kind of like how a necromancer give instructions, but from nowhereI don't know anything yet, I'm just basic grunt, so I do what I think's an order."

Ellen nod, listening with one ear as she keep looking through the magical forced animating the corpse in front of her.

" and I end up with this thingamabob!"

She lift her top and tuck it behind her clavicles, pulling on her ribs to show off some contraption held at the back of the ribcage with braces and wires.

Ellen lean in closely, one of the outstretched rib clinking against her glass eye.

"... This is... Familiar."

The thing was a piece of machinery taking about as much space as a lung, with a piston pump attached to a wheel. Tubes were connected to each sides of the pump, and some vials full of glowing liquid of various colors. Every part was covered in crude runes scratched into the material, and there were gems encrusted in some places.

Ellen got even closer, ignoring the yelp of protest from the corpse as she put her entire head in the ribcage.

"... What?"

The skeleton grabbed Ellen's shoulders and pulled her out.

"hey, don't do that! That feels weird!"

Ellen waved her concerns away, still staring at the machinery.

"and you made that?" Ellen could see the flow of power from one part to another, pulling ambiant mana out of the air, storing it, and pumping it directly into the skeleton's necromantic soul. "it's crude but, effective. This freed you from the necromancer's hold?"

The skeleton shook her head, and let her top fall back, hiding the thingamajig.

"nah. He didn't even notice me, too many goons. But one day he got killed, or left, or whatever. And other corps started dropping back dead again, running out of juice, but I didn't. I kept going around, animated by my pulsions, until I started getting smart. Actual thinking, self awareness, all that."

She grabbed her drink and downed it in one go, the necromantic glow of a pseudothroat guiding the fluid to the torso and as Ellen assumed, the pump where it'd be converted.

" but you're still a normal undead, just one who got wisdom over time." she rest an elbow on the countertop. "you're unclaimed. And you don't even have any of the protections against that most undead have here."

The corpse hunch over to lean closer to Ellen, eyes and joints glowing bright with unlight.
"I'm defective. I ain't got no name. You can't make a thrall out of me."

A newspaper swayed the skull.

"what the fuck dude!"

They both turn to look at the barman, a burly wolf-like thing with a bonny face wearing a suit and tie.
The wolf said something in sign language, and the skeleton looked at her hand on the counter. The power coursing through her joints had scorched the wood with deep purple marks.

"shit."