Saintess Summons Skeletons

“Pack the tools and get moving, it’s going to rain again!” a disheveled middle-aged man yelled at the group of kids inside the cave, yanking on their chains which were hooked to his leather belt. His expression looked grim as he observed the clouds gathering in the sky.

“Fucking storms, never stops, this kingdom is really going to shit…” he complained, waiting for the kids to get out of the hole. The entrance was too narrow for him to go catch them, so all he could do was to yell louder.

“Ah… We’re going to have to drain the damn hole again tomorrow aren’t we? Well, that’ll be the second group’s problem, I just hope the dirt we just removed doesn’t flow back in… FASTER, YOU DIMWITS, DO YOU WANT TO DROWN DOWN THERE?!”

As he kept yanking on the long chains, a boy carrying a shovel almost as tall as himself was first to come out of the small entrance of the underground tunnels. Before long, more children came out crawling one by one, all tied at the neck to their own chain like a pack of dogs. They were dirty and silent, wearing rags, their hair cut short, each carrying different mining tools like small picks and buckets filled with dirt.

“So much trouble for these fucking dwarven ruins… Come on, throw the tools in the lockbox, we’re climbing back up to camp, it’s going to be a big one today, we’ll be fucking drenched if you’re too slow.”

The children obediently followed the orders, they had been there for weeks, they knew not to talk if they wanted to avoid getting hit. This man wasn’t the worst of the slavers, but he wasn’t the kindest either. The wooden stick in his right hand wasn’t strictly to help him thread the sloped paths up the mountain.

After the man made sure the tools were all properly secure inside of the steel box, he locked it, and placed a few planks and bags full of sand in front of the ruins’ narrow entrance. The group started walking toward the mountain. It would take them a good hour to reach the mountain, and one more to climb all the way up to the slavers’ camp, but they were all walking forward no matter how exhausted. Their lives depended on it. Soon, the storm would get worse, and the entire valley would be underwater for a bit until the excess water drained out through the only ways down, the three narrow rivers.

As expected, it soon started raining, the slaver cursed as the rain hit his face, but he kept walking. Until something unexpected happened that stopped him dead in his tracks.

The wildlife of the mountains was thrown into a frenzy. All at once, the silent valley was filled with the cries of countless panicked animals. Thousands of birds flew up, leaving the safe haven of their nests in the trees.

“What in God’s name…”

The mountains shook, violent tremors caused instantaneous landslides and destruction.

The children panicked and cried, some were yelling, some were trying to flee only to be cruelly reminded of the presence of a chain around their neck. The man yelled, ordering them to calm down, but the quakes didn’t stop, and chaos overtook the small group of children.

Only one girl was still calm among them, hoping for an even bigger quake to come. When the time was right, she locked her feet against a protruding rock, grabbed her chain and threw herself back. She was the one to yank on her chain this time. It wasn’t much, but the slaver had already been having a hard time standing through the event, he fell flat on his back, throwing more of his usual angry curses.

Before the man could stand up from the mud, the girl had jumped on him and stabbed his eye with a sharpened animal bone she took out of a fold in her clothes. Who knew where she had found that thing? The children screamed in panic, the man screamed in pain. While he was still trying to understand what had happened to him, the girl unhooked her chain from his belt.

Trying her best not to fall from the incessant quakes, the girl gathered her chain as she ran away through the bushes.

*Ding!* ‘[Shenanigans] reached level 23’

The girl ran toward the direction of the closest river, she knew the terrain well, observing it from afar every time it was her turn to go down the mountain and into the excavation site. Following that river was the second fastest way up the mountain, and she still needed to get there. For one thing, she had to escape the incoming flood, but also, her older sister was still in the slavers’ camp. She had to find her. Her sister was much more intelligent than she was, the girl had no doubt in her mind that she would have also found a way to use the natural disaster to escape.

The girl reached the river, the rain wasn’t letting on, giving the water the appearance of a wild torrent. She had to stop running, the seismic activity was too much to stand, the mountains shook so violently that they looked like they were about to explode.

It got stronger and stronger, until the world gave out. Cracks opened in the ground, bright rays of purple light streaming out from underground, painting the sky in their sickly hues. The mountain left the ground in a deafening rumble.

Like grasped by the omnipotent hands of an invisible titan, the mountain on which the girl’s sister was still a prisoner got lifted up into the sky in one big piece. Everywhere around the girl, many bits of land suffered the same fate, rising to the skies above. Large chunks of the mountain fell down like many meteorites in a cataclysmic display of destruction, crushing the forest and nature underneath in a rain of stone and rubble.

The sudden cataclysmic changes in the landscape transformed the river, it swole up, picking up even more speed as the water hurled itself downstream.

The girl was helpless to fight against the surging wave; she tumbled in the water, struggling not to drown. During her fight for survival, she glimpsed at the unfolding horror. Countless flying monsters escaped from underground. Following the purple light, they covered the cloudy sky like a blanket, their large wings almost stopping the rain.

The torrent carried the girl away from the mountain that kept rising, entering the clouds, completely detached from the ground. From under the mountain more monsters were escaping, so much that their movements formed a hypnotic tide. There were thousands, millions of them.

She had fought all she could, but her body was too weak, she had been pushing it far past the limits of her stamina.

Her hand hopelessly reaching for the mountain, her consciousness faded, stolen by the current.

 

Pareth, cradling the unconscious Sofia like she was fragile glasswork, appeared inside an unknown tavern outside of the tower, amidst a lively group of two women and a small Vampire.

Panic ensued, some of the tavern’s guests drew their weapons, and others fled, as Mornn did her best to calm everyone down. Eventually, things calmed down, there was no fighting as everyone saw the Skeleton did not attack anyone and was carrying a passed out girl.

Pareth disappeared after Alith grabbed Sofia, and the group did their best to explain the situation to the city guards who came running before they left to carry Sofia to a calmer place.

 

Sofia woke up feeling a wet sensation on her lips. She reflexively ‘counterattacked’ as she regained consciousness, headbutting Alith away.

Ouch! “What was that for!” Sofia cried out, rubbing her forehead.

“I should be the one asking that! Look at what I get for healing you!”

Mornn was on the side, leaning against a tree and heartedly laughing her ass off while Astelia was red like a ripe Apra, covering her eyes, but still looking through her fingers anyway.

Alith stood up from the ground, dusting herself off as she mumbled an explanation laced with more pouting complaints “I didn’t want to do that shit either alright? But you didn’t wake up, and since my skill got more effects at level 200 I couldn’t stand there and just not heal you, even Pareth’s heal didn’t work so it’s not like…”

What the…

What… Where…?

“I’m relieved you actually woke up though…”

Sofia was confusedly trying to piece her memory together as she couldn’t stop herself from speed reading the system window Alith had just opened for her to see.

[Maiden’s kiss] : The love of a beautiful maiden is an universal cure, old as time itself. You can heal someone else by kissing them. Efficiency proportional to your attraction and affection towards them.

The maiden’s kiss is no small deal, a great pain calls for an appropriate treatment, now has double efficiency on poisoned or near death targets.

A true kiss is a proof of love, the true maiden’s kiss is capable of curing all ailments no matter how dire, only death may separate the lips of two beings linked by fate.

Mana cost proportional to the required healing.

(Next function unlocks at Skill Level 400)

Oh that does explai-

“Holy shit; SARIA!” Sofia yelled, drawing the attention of the few nearby passersby.