# Forum:Bones bemusement
&lt; Forum:Watercooler

playing locally, can see bones files in the NetHack folder. currently have bonD0.17, bonD0.22 and bonD0.28 (that last one was a bottomed out stash, can't wait to get back to its awesomeness.) get to level 10, it's a bones. where did this come from? still have three bones, none level 10. what's happening? --86.176.14.224 20:04, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

It's not a bones anymore.  Rather, the bones file changed to become the file for level 10 for your current character.  It's a little metagamey, but if you watch as nethack creates the level files, you can tell when a bones is loaded, since instead of creating a level file it renames the bones to the current level. -Ion frigate 23:42, 20 April 2011 (UTC)
Yeah. Bones are not actually set so they'll always load on the exact same dLevel they were created. Looking at the source code, there actually doesn't seem to be any restriction on when a bones level can be loaded, except if you're on a level that can't ever be a bones. So technically you could have gotten that bones file from level 28 as your level 10. This is one of the things that makes bones files quite dangerous, because you can encounter monsters that are massively out of depth that you wouldn't normally meet that early otherwise. --The Cheshire Cat 14:11, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Actually, the bones loading code does use the dlevel to decide which bones file to try to load (bones.c, line 391, which ultimately calls set_bonesfile_name in files.c).  The only case where you should be able to get out-of-depth bones is on special levels (like Oracle, Bigroom, Minetown, etc.) which can vary in depth.  Those have bones files named like "bonD0.O", "bonD0.B", "bonM0.T" etc.  I'm not sure what happened in your game; are you sure those were the only bones files present before you entered DL 10?  --Ilmari Karonen 19:13, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
i thought i was sure, but, well, maybe not. the file list on windows mobile (like windows) has new files at the end, no matter how it's sorted. so i could have missed it. --86.176.248.137 21:08, 29 April 2011 (UTC)