Saintess Summons Skeletons

“We’re lucky that the weather’s been so good, we haven’t had to fight a single mutated beast either, we rarely get such peaceful conditions even when Elder Orvod is with us.”

The flying monsters aren’t so bad either. Even if the long-distance bolt isn’t giving much experience anymore… But reducing the debt to only sixteen levels in such a short time, how is it that it takes other people so long to level up? Hmm, well, that fire seer dwarf or whatever she was did level up super fast when I trapped her in the Thrombber nest. I guess most people just aren’t that fond of taking risks when I was ready to summon the undead from the start.

At this rate my next skills will come faster than I thought.

Alith and Nicet were still talking but Sofia had lost track of the conversation, but something drop-kicked her out of her daylight reveries.

“IT’S HERE, THIS ONE!” Sofia inadvertently yelled, pointing at the emerging shape of a tall and flying mountain on the horizon.

“Are you sure? It’s quite far away to the northeast, and that's starting to be dangerous territory…”

“Not a shadow of a doubt. I’ve never been more certain of anything in my entire life, this is the mountain!”

“Alright, we’re going then, but the island is going to be teeming with monsters past our level, with maybe a handful above 300. So we might want to go for a stealthier approach.”

Alith progressively became more and more a complete ghost, “I can do this, but Sofia doesn’t really much going for her in terms of stealth. And you don’t look like it’s your specialty either.”

Nicet’s thin lips drew a wide smile, “Well, you see, I had an inkling this kind of situation might present itself,” he took three vials of a blue iridescent liquid out of his storage ring. “These are top-grade invisibility potions, ten thousand gold each. Extremely inconvenient to use, but also the safest.”

“Are you trying to scam us now?” Alith looked unimpressed, “That sounds really damn expensive for what it is, I’ve seen invisibility potions go for as low as fifty gold a vial. And also, who spends that kind of money for two strangers?”

“It’s company money, they value my skills much higher than a few thousand golds, there really aren’t many space mages willing to go out and explore this kingdom dungeon you know. And if you doubt the value, just identify them, though it won’t show much unless you do an advanced analysis.”

“Personally I trust you, I don’t really see why you would try to do anything funny right now. But I guess I’ll [Identify] them.” Sofia reached out to grab one of the vials.

[Fae wings dust extract] : A potion brewed around the natural powers of invisibility of an extinct species of magicless fae. It will make you almost impossible to detect.

Item level : 166.

Grade : Precious.

[Fae wings dust extract] : Advanced analysis = 33333 Mana.

Yeah, here goes, that much mana is nothing now.

[Fae wings dust extract] : A potion brewed around the natural powers of invisibility of an extinct species of magicless fae. It allows light to flow through you, and completely suppresses any sound, mana, heat, and particle emission.

Active skills will be unavailable.

May cause sensory deprivation, loss of balance and loss of own-body spatial perception.

Allows phasing through thin objects such as grass or pebbles.

Mana regeneration -75% while the effect is active.

Effect Duration : 6 hours.

Item level : 166.

Grade : Precious.

“Looks actually worth the price, what do you think, Alith?”

“Hmm, yeah I have to admit it’s not on the same level as the lower grade stuff… And you’ll just give it to us?”

“I told you I’m not the one paying,” Nicet answered with a shrug.

“Alright if you say so. When do we drink them?”

“Let’s go near the island while it’s still day, we should make it there if we speed up a bit and avoid the stray flyers, it might be an idea to start being a bit more silent now already. I’ll explain more when we’re there. Take one each for now and store them.”

Finally we’re going.

Sofia couldn’t stop looking at the floating mountain.

Saria… How did you even survive up there?

Could it be that she escaped the slavers’ camp before the tide, while I was digging? No, that's properly impossible.

But so is surviving on that mountain with fourteen million flying monsters around, so how?

 

The group had made it under the mountain by the time the sun started to set, there was still about twenty minutes before the monsters came out and all hell broke loose. So deep into the dungeon, the swarm would overwhelm Sofia long before she made it through the night if she tried her feat from the previous day again.

Standing on the dirt and stone at the bottom of the crater left by the mountain when it had left the ground, Nicet was swapping some of his travel equipment for battle gear, and started to explain the situation.

“Well. First of all, you are lucky, the island is quite high and hasn’t been overtaken by the Ebb yet. That means we might still find traces of your sister if she really spent a while there. The flyers also mostly live in caves they dig themselves, so the surface will probably be relatively untouched. The bad news: this mountain is deep into the second ring, and properly huge. This means there will almost certainly be a few monsters above level 300 in there.”

But… “Won’t they fly out like the rest?”

“Some will, but not all, someone has to stay back and guard the nest. That’s usually the role of the stronger ones. And as there are always multiple species living on the same island, that’s as many guards. Only the ‘Mountain tunnelers’ don’t have guards because they’re the ones who dig the nests for everyone and can live anywhere.”

Nicet explained the rest of the plan, he would set up the base right where they were now, and give a tracking artifact to each member of the expedition. They would wait for the vast majority of monsters to leave the island as they joined the night swarm and would rush up there after drinking the potion. They could then spend the next five-and-a-half hours spread out and searching, alerting each other with the tracking device if they made important discoveries or were somehow chased by a nest guard. When the timer was up, they would return to the base before the potion ran out and wait out the night there, sharing their findings.

If that wasn’t enough, they would plan out a second outing with the knowledge from the first. Nicet had a second set of potions, but he couldn’t give these for free, ‘Even my value has limits…’, he had confessed.

Sofia had suggested the idea of using her undead birds to scout out the terrain and help explore, but Nicet shut the idea down, explaining that it would rouse the nest guards which was a terrible idea.

 

Waiting in the base, Sofia couldn’t stand still. She couldn’t stop all kinds of intrusive thoughts that made her more nervous than they should. After what seemed like an eternity, the monsters started flying out. Endless streams of flying monsters gushed out of the mountain above. Sofia decided to prepare an immortality rune just in case, it would take a while for all the monsters to exit the mountain anyway, now that she could see the moment she needed to go approaching, she found it easier to focus.

After waiting until none of the monsters remained, they all gulped down their invisibility potions and disappeared.

Woah the description didn’t lie, this is disorienting.

Not being able to see your own limbs was a bit of a strange sensation, but that aside, Sofia was used to the much stranger perspective shift from her demon form, so this was nothing in comparison.

She tried to talk but no sound came out. Works as promised. Well, time to go, then.

Three invisible shadows left the steel base in the crater under the massive floating mountain. Sofia couldn’t perceive the other two at all, but she had seen the door swing open, someone else had left before her.

She looked up at the mountain, the underside was an inverse replica of the crater they were in and not much more. There were no apparent galleries from there. Sofia deployed her wings and carefully flew up.

First of all… I need to check the slavers’ camp.

Who knows, since she survived, maybe they all survived somehow. Did the slavers have anyone strong enough to survive the monsters though? No way, or they wouldn’t have needed kids to dig up an old ruin… I know she was doing something with the gruel to try to get out of the cage, but that seemed hopeless. So how did she survive?