Saintess Summons Skeletons

The group progressed deep inside of the dungeon. There were no more golems to be found; it seemed they had all crashed into them at once, leaving only empty streets to explore. Alith brought them to the large doors she had spotted the previous time, at the very end of a street was a long flight of stairs going straight down leading to them.

“And this has to be where it is, right? I couldn’t check last time because it was too far down, but I’m pretty sure. Actually, I should go check right now, don’t you think? Before we really enter.”

“Be careful,” Sofia said as she watched Alith already changed into her ghostly form.

Alith floated down toward the doors and phased her head through before coming back with a disgusted expression.

“Is something wrong?”

“I don’t want to fight anymore… You can go without me…”

Seriously? You don’t usually back off like that.

“Is it that bad?”

“It’s… Erhm. You remember those things you told me about, Thrombbers was it? Big worms with many legs?”

“Yeah?”

“It’s one of those but giant, like so big I don’t even know how it got in there. I’m not getting close to this thing.”

“Hmm. As long as it’s not over level 300 there shouldn’t be an issue.”

Ihuarah spoke up, “I have never heard of such an animal and I have no qualms fighting it. Though I would suggest a cautious approach. Monstrous size alone has no intrinsic merit, but one can never be too careful around large creatures.”

Cautious approach… “If the room is big enough I can probably send some rot in there.”

“That is an idea.”

“Let’s try it out, I still have the hand drill thing.”

Sofia pierced a small hole through the door, she could summon blood through walls but [Heal undead] was harder to do the same with for some reason. Through the hole, she could see what really looked like the skin of a big Thrombber, it wasn’t moving.

Maybe it’s already dead?

Sofia spread some rot over the monster, keeping it up for a few seconds to really layer it well. Her doubts about the liveliness of the monster were soon dispelled by the thrashing and screaming of the creature. Its hundreds of acid-covered arms battered the walls and the doors from the inside. The dungeon shook under the hits, debris and dust fell from the cavern ceiling, some of the old wall-houses collapsed, but overall the dungeon held.

“The potency of the rot is unsettling,” Ihuarah commented over the screams of the monster.

“I would tend to agree. But since the bolts are equally scary, I imagine all types of magic can eventually evolve into something just as bad.” But maybe that’s usually for the higher levels?

“All types? Perhaps…”

Alith was sitting on the stairs, “What about yours? Didn’t you say you used to be much stronger? What was your strongest spell like?”

“My strongest spell… It certainly was not quite as visually stunning as a giant explosion of lightning. But the relative power is incomparable. It would be fast and strong enough to crush Pareth to dust before he could even try to teleport away.”

“We’re still that weak. It’s really not reassuring.” But I already know. I’ve seen the Alphageid.

“We are strong. Already amongst the highest of the living. Very few people would push so far, at least in my time. Because there is still a long road ahead does not devalue what has been accomplished.”

“True that,” Alith approved, “in my old world I would already stand as the strongest human to have ever lived. I could unify the entire world through pure physical strength, what would anyone be able to do when they’re all level 1? Even a ballista wouldn’t get through Dopple.”

Their casual discussion lasted until the screams of the monster on the other side of the heavy stone doors died down.

‘You have defeated [Young Thrombber Hivelord - lv. 299]’

‘You gained a level!’

“Oh, it’s over. This took a while.” And another level. That takes us up to 225.

“I know I didn’t want to fight it, but this is still a bit underwhelming. At least we’re rid of that thing.” Alith stood up and tried to open the doors but she couldn’t, so she carved out an opening with her mithril weapons instead. Inside was relatively intact, the chamber’s interior was lined with a black stone that the rot did not touch for some reason. The corpse of the giant Thrombber Hivelord in the middle was completely covered in rot and actively being digested by it.

Curious, Sofia picked up a sample of the rot-impervious stone, she looked at it from up close and with her mana sense, but she couldn’t see anything special about it.

[Hardened Black Limestone]: A semi-precious stone which usually forms under the great pressures at the bottom of the black sea.

Grade : Valuable.

Interesting. I could use some of that if I want to make stuff that won’t break as soon as I use the rot near it. “I’m going to steal some of the walls’ stone, you should search for the magic item.”

“Yeah, Sofia, about that…”

“What?” Sofia turned around to see Alith holding a small chest made of the same black stone. There was an empty slot for a locking mechanism carved into it. Alith opened it, revealing a pile of black dust inside.

Oh. the rot got to it… “Well. My mistake. That’s all there was?”

“Yep.”

“Damn. I should have thought about that. We could have easily retrieved it beforehand too…”

“Don’t bash your head over it, probably wasn’t that good of an item if it disappeared that fast.”

“You may have a point… But can we really say that when we see what the rot did to that huge thing?”

“Not like we can go back anyway we got four levels out of the dungeon and that’s that.”

 

After the anticlimactic end of the dungeon incursion, the trio began a slow walk through the desert. They walked north-west, toward the Elven capital, Herzal. They could have gone there faster by letting Sofia run for all three of them, but they wanted to keep talking instead. Sofia and Alith shared with Ihuarah their impressions of the world and their adventures through it, while he mainly offered a different perspective on things. Where his knowledge shined the most was geographical information. For example, they learned that the black sea mentioned on the description of the dungeon’s stone was located at the very north of this continent.

He had never been to the Elven capital, but he knew it existed in the red desert. It was a city much older than the system, possibly one of the oldest standing and still active cities of the world.

They were walking through the cold air of the desert at night when the ground shook slightly.

“Ladies, we have company.”

“What is it?” Sofia asked as Pareth was already out, glowing like a small sun in the night.

“The growling of the desert, it can only be one thing. Sandworms. They will try to come from under and swallow us, don’t let them. Move fast, and target their feelers, it’s best if we each handle our own, we need to separate them as much as possible,” Ihuarah advised before he took some distance by fusing with their shadows on the sand.

Alright. Let’s just hope they’re not as big as the one we saw last time…

Heard him Pareth? If there’s more than three then don’t stick with me, I’ll try to hunt one alone. Bookie’s still out of fog so we can’t count on that.

Sofia’s armor grew out from her wings, covering her whole body, and the sword of bones appeared at the end of her staff. She dumped a bunch of bones in front of her and quickly manipulated them to form a large grid on which she stepped right as the sandworms finally attacked. They all sprung out of the sand at the same time, one of them came from under Sofia, but, unable to swallow the much too wide bone grid, it sent it flying and Sofia along with it, giving her an aerial view of the battlefield.

There’s at least twenty of them. But they’re not that big, only around fifty meters long for the largest.

The worms’ open maws were filled with countless concentric circles of teeth, and Sofia had a perfect view of the one right under her feet, her bone grid the only thing keeping her from falling inside before the worm hit the apex of its push and Sofia along with her bones were catapulted even higher into the sky.

Sofia felt her heartbeat accelerate, before she fell, she illuminated the whole Area with [Heal Undead]. The bunch of red sand that had been projected in every direction as the worms emerged, protecting them from much of the light, but some rot still grew on the monsters’ bodies. The worms’ mouths glew up in unison, white balls of light forming inside. Sofia wanted to check up on the others’ situation as she was the only one who had been launched up; but she had to focus, four of the worms were aiming at her.