Saintess Summons Skeletons

26 days remaining…

Sofia was having a hard time, forcing the monster out of the elf’s body had been a mistake. Before then, it was still quite slow when it walked, and predictable, it used to follow the rat Sofia used as a lure without fail. Now its behavior had completely changed. It had never stepped into the trapped room again, and didn’t follow the rat. Instead, it ran around the corridors, fleeting from hiding spot to hiding spot. It was impossible to keep track of it and it had just ambushed the rat.

Shit, I lost connection.

The book of skeletons shivered in her hand, it opened by itself, showing the page of the rat. The page burst up in smoky blue flames and burned down in an instant.

The rat’s page was gone.

No! My skeleton!

That’s not… They can do that?!

I was right to be wary from the start. What now? Does that mean the rat is a beehive thing too now? I hope it didn’t keep Sun’s blessing if it is.

Dealing with a single one is hard enough…

This better have been worth it.

The rat getting caught wasn’t a simple byproduct of Sofia inattention, it was actually another experiment of hers. The skeleton rats in general had no combat skills whatsoever, but they were very smart, fast, and uncannily aware of their surroundings. It was no coincidence it had managed to evade the Deep creature’s grasp until now.

Though I would have liked it better if I didn’t lose it.

The goal of the experiment was to try coating the monster with some of the black shade dust that had been in her storage ring for a while. It seemed attacks like the angel’s bolt went straight through the monster’s iridescent body, but the rot-spreading holy light had actually been reflected by its skin when it was in the trap room. So if Sofia could just cover its skin with something more conducive to the light, she might be able to cover the monster with rot.

In her downtime while the rat worked in tandem with the engineer skeleton to create powder splashing traps and spread them around, she had been practicing to get the spell version of [Heal Undead]. To have more control over the rot spread would allow her to avoid hitting the temple by accident, and might also allow her to use it in restricted spaces. It wasn’t quite there for now, but there was progress. In Sofia’s opinion, both her experience with tampering with skills and the effects of the Processing pills were helping her progress fast. Fast enough that she had good hopes to get this done in just a few more days instead of months.

It also helped that the magic behind [Heal Undead] was quite simple, but thinking about that would lower her sense of accomplishment.

So far the shade dust traps had all failed. At first she thought the monster was simply too fast to get hit, but by going herself and exploring from as far as she could stand, she had seen why her traps never worked. The powder simply flew through the monster like the angel bolt had. As if the creature was not of this world, a ghost, of sorts.

Sofia had missed it because until then, the elf had been actively interacting with the world around it, mostly by trying to grab the rat. For some reason it still walked on the ground and never tried to go through walls, but it certainly wasn’t a physical entity anymore.

Not entirely, at least.

To grab the rat, it would have to be somewhat physical, was Sofia’s hypothesis.

So she let the rat get caught. During the time that it touched the rat, it would have been sprayed by a nice rain of black shade dust. If that could actually stick to its skin, there were two possibilities. If it had brought the powder with it into its own dimension, which was probably the Deep, chances were that she could now touch that with the light and spread the rot. If not then maybe being covered in the powder would force it to stay fully in the physical plane in which case she could probably actually pierce it with a bolt now.

The worst case scenario would be if it shed the powder as soon as it stopped being a physical entity.

 

The next day, Sofia had confirmed that the rat had indeed become host of a small iridescent honeycomb. As luck would have it, skeletons weren’t great hosts for the monsters.

The rat was in fact exactly where the ambush had taken place. The creature was growing inside the skull, but the magic which kept the bones together had faded. So the actual host of this newborn Deep creature was not a rat skeleton but a rat skull. It looked like the small host prevented the creature from developing correctly, its many spider-like legs were weak and wobbly, unable to even lift it. It was also covered in sparse patches of black powder, just like the ground around it.

It grew small tentacular wings when Sofia approached, which seemed to come at a cost, as the honeycomb instantly shriveled to a size smaller than it already was. Pareth was quick to appear and used his [Chains of the four seals] to restrain it. The magical chains of light were one of the many things Sofia had tested for Rot-conductivity while she was stuck inside of her safe room. The conclusion was: the chains can spread the rot through direct contact.

The rot grew on the ground where the chains sprouted from, but that couldn't be avoided, more importantly, they were firmly grabbing the monster.

It works?

It works!

IT WORKS!

Sofia wanted to yell but her lungs were still desperately empty. She was enthralled by the cathartic sight of the tiny honeycomb monster shriveling under the attack of the rot. The monster contained no mana to feed the rot, so it was instantly getting consumed instead. Though the rot wouldn’t survive for long without a mana source to feed on, the monster was still small enough to get consumed entirely ten times over.

Soon, it popped like a bubble, weakly dumping its liquid contents all over the floor. Sofia jumped back to avoid being touched by the sudden splash, but the liquid did not look especially dangerous. It had the same iridescent property as the monster, and seemed a bit more viscous than water.

Deep blood?

Sofia was torn between taking a sample, trying to get rid of the liquid, or simply leaving it there. Pareth’s appearance and his skill as well as the rot had all used mana, the other monster knew their current location now, so they couldn’t dally. In the end, she left the blood as is and fled as fast as she could.

Sitting in a bone chair in the safe room once again, Sofia’s smile of victory did not last long. She was almost out of the black true shade dust. She re-read its description again.

[True Shade Dust]: The remains of a purified True Shade killed by holy light. Can be used to fuel rituals, brew potions, or dye clothing and armor. Does not reflect any light. Highly flammable while in powder form, store with caution!

I still have plenty of the white version, but it says that it scatters all light instead of not reflecting any. That’s the exact opposite of what I want to do. I just need them to absorb the light.

As it is, I can probably have engineer skeleton to make three more traps, maybe double that if I go around trying to sweep the remains of the previous traps.

Maybe I could use the carbon that’s left behind by the rot. It won’t consume the bones I’ve touched but I can still eat the blood from [Summon Blood], so I can technically get an infinite amount. It’s a black powder too, but it’s more shiny. Perhaps it would still work as a good replacement.

In fact maybe just covering the monsters in blood could work.

It’s kind of funny that I killed the shades by splashing them with silverwater, and used their remains to throw at other monsters to kill them. If I collect the Deep blood, can I throw it at something else to kill it? Keep the chain running?

Hmm…

Is that the kind of thing I find fun now? I used to be into reading books. The stress is getting to me I think…

I really, REALLY hate the damn silence of this place.

The sun is like a big giant explosion for hell's sake. It has no rights being so silent!

These last two years really did some damage to my personality, didn’t they?

Well… Actually it was weird from the start. I never exactly had what I’d call a normal life.

I should take a break after this.

If Saria is safe with a Dragon then she can wait a bit. If anything, she should be the one coming to help me. She's not the one who's gonna die in a few weeks.

She probably would come, if only she knew…

I hope the others are doing better.