Saintess Summons Skeletons

Nicet was strongly nodding, his eyes still wide open.

Alith pressed on, “Do you need more healing?”

“No really I’m fine, just a bit disoriented. The nest guard got me, I imagine?”

“More than got you! I thought you were dead!” Nicet exclaimed, still shaky and wiping off his sweat.

“Well. I didn’t think I could survive losing a head either, but it looks like it was fine? Pareth was the one who healed me, right?”

Alith confirmed that after the graveyard skeletons dropped the headless Sofia on the floor, as soon as she was fully corporeal again, Pareth had appeared inside of the tunnel and had used [Greater Heal] to re-head her.

He couldn’t get out before I was corporeal again. I need to think about that and let him out before using the graveyard to escape next time.

“So… I was likely saved by the one-hit-kill protection of the venerable physique.” And ghosts can’t bleed out so the graveyard skeletons took me all the way down here while I probably only had one percent health left. “And after that Pareth healed me.”

Thank you, Pareth, you’re a lifesaver once again. Maybe someday I’ll be strong enough to save you too…

Sofia couldn’t tell what the skeleton was thinking, but he was prone and constricted inside of the dwarf-sized tunnels, so he returned to her storage, silent as usual.Leaving the group in the dark. It wasn’t an issue for Sofia but she took out a lightstone anyway.

“Well, let’s n-”

Sofia was interrupted by a strong quake and a violent sound that came from above.

“Let’s not sweat the details, we should move…” she completed, looking up in the direction of the sound. “I think it’s digging.”

That seemed to shake Nicet out of his shocked state and he took the lead of the expedition again, he advanced and helped Sofia up as he passed by her, “Yes, I will go first to check for traps and spatial anomalies, we’re going in the direction away from the mountain, follow me. This thing was at least level 300 if not more, we need to go fast.”

The group started moving, eager to leave the giant monster behind, they were about twenty meters away from where they had landed when the tunnel collapsed behind them.

“Think it’ll keep following us?”

Nicet kept advancing as he answered, “Probably not, no matter the size it’s not immune to the Ebb.”

The tunnel was just like that one leading to Saria’s room, it looked like it turned to the right a few hundred meters ahead. Sofia was about to speak when her head was yanked back because of her crown scraping against the ceiling.

“Oh, your crown is back, Sof. And in one piece.”

“I was wondering how the system was going to deal with it being in a giant monster’s stomach. That’s convenient, because I wasn’t going to go back and fight that thing. I wonder if it’s even possible to get rid of the crown if I tried or if it’s just going to reappear on my head every time.”

Nicet turned back to look at the crown, he had the face of someone with many questions but he said nothing about it and started walking again. Instead, he decided to ask about the status of the expedition, “Did you find what you came here for? It might be hard to return to the mountain without alerting that bird now.”

“Alith found a few things and I found even more, even if you have nothing I have enough information. Thank you for helping us get here, Nicet. I can pay you if you want.”

“Great, I’m happy for you. It’s always nice to be reunited with your loved one, I hope you can find your sister soon. But to pay me? The boss might kill me if you do, just keep your money. And thank you too, if not for your weird burial skill I’d be dead up there. I couldn’t even teleport out of the base because of the enchantment protections, quite the design flaw, I need to bring this up to the R&D team…”

“You were ready to escape without us, snakeman?”

“One survivor is better than zero.”

He’s not wrong. “But did you find anything about Saria? Any detail could be interesting to know.”

“I found a few things. Things that identified as rain collection devices, carved in stone, wooden dummies full of holes and a bunch of wooden javelins. Essentially it looked like the part of the forest I was in was used for physical training. And that’s about it, besides that there was nothing but a lot of regular mountain forest. The side I was on had many monster nest entrances on the cliffs not far from the forest height so I had to move carefully.”

Alith and Sofia recounted their findings too as the group slowly made their way down the dwarven tunnels. Alith and Nicet weren’t especially surprised by anything until Sofia mentioned the Dragon and took out the bone-sculpted copy of the handprint.

“No wonder your sister managed to get away… A Dragon would have no trouble flying straight through any monsters and spatial anomalies here. I can’t say anything about that sculpture of yours, but you’re in luck, the boss knows quite a few Dragons personally, he might just know who that’s from. Not many of them would roam the human continent anyway. That’s the kind of move that gets the angels on their backs.”

“The angels prevent Dragons from coming here?” Alith asked.

“Prevention is a big word, it’s more a certain form of deterrence. Dragons are like… Flying disasters, most of them. The system doesn’t want them interfering with the development of the weaker races too much.”

Even Sofia was intrigued now, “You seem to know a lot about angels.”

“The boss knows a lot, and he’s not trying to hide it, just being around him long enough will make you learn things that will change the way you see the world.”

“Like what?”

Good question.

“Like the fact that humans used to occupy roughly 30% of the planet’s surface tens of thousands of years ago. Who knows how they ever achieved that. Now you’re confined to a single small peninsula and so are all the beastkin like me. Just look at these ruins, this is clearly of dwarven origin, but the dwarves have been mainly living on their archipelago for thousands of years, so who can tell how this place came to be and how old it must be.”

“Interesting, can you tell us more about the angels and archangels then?”

“Hmm, well, from what I’ve gathered, angels are dead people given an opportunity to serve the system. They protect the weaker races like us from external influence. Their autonomy is limited and they cannot leave their designated areas, but they receive immense power to be able to do their job well.”

Wait… “The Angels are undead?”

“Uh. I never thought of them like that, but I guess, in a way, you could say they are? You’d be better off asking the boss, I’m not too sure. Studying undeath and unlife isn’t really my thing.”

Why did I delete [Lead the Dead] again? “What about the Archangels?”

“Sapient mana golems. They defend the system itself. Or so the boss says, never heard of one leaving its tower. And that’s about all I know about them, never seen one either.”

“And Seraphs like Sen are kind of like Angels but to interact with us?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. The scribes are a big mystery to me as well, I have my theories, but it’s the kind of subject one’s better off avoiding. If not you’ll find your own inner monologue censored before you know it, and that’s really infuriating.”

The group kept walking along the tunnel, they turned a few times before stumbling upon a dead end. The path ahead had completely collapsed. Considering how much the land had moved during the tide, it was almost impressive that they had been able to walk along this tunnel for so long. Nicet teleported up to check the situation outside. The nest guard was nowhere to be seen, but it was still night. The swarm of monsters in the sky had immediately noticed him and swooped down, so he teleported back to the group.

They needed to wait until morning in the suffocating dwarven tunnels. The trio sat down and enjoyed some small talk until the subject of leveling came to the table.

“I think I should do another few night cleanups while we’re here, probably around the spot where I did it last time. It’s a low effort way to get some levels. Do you both not mind spending a few more days in Sovuln?”

“I’m still leeching off of your experience, won’t complain about it. But you’ll have to come with me to make the candies.”

“Deal. What about you, Nicet? You can go without us if you don’t want to wait, we should still be able to make it out…”

“As long as it’s just ‘a few days’ I am fine with it. I can keep studying the Ebb in the meantime even without my tools. Why the rush to level up though? You’re plenty powerful already, this is around the level where most people stop and enjoy a wealthy retirement, only pushing further when their three or four hundred years of lifespan runs out. You’re both pretty young, right?”

“Aren’t you too?” Alith asked without thinking. It’s true that he doesn”t sound that old.

“Am I? It depends, I will be fifty-eight next month. Not really old if we consider how long I still have to live and how old some people around us are, but… Most beastmen my age are grandparents… Seeing your childhood friends lose their hair and have grandchildren… Sure doesn’t make one feel young.”

I never thought about this too much. Maybe because I don’t really have many friends.

Or they’re already dead.

“Sof… Why are you staring at me?”