Saintess Summons Skeletons

Sofia had to stop herself from phasing down into the unknown room.

Her blood boiled but her brain battered her with the image of the orphanage and the paladins. The murder list. The Templar dying at her hand in incomprehension.

The situation was different but the root of the problem was the same, she had to keep her calm in situations like these. Tone down her emotions not to make a fatal mistake. To avoid doing things she would regret, were she still able to.

She was going to avenge her dog for sure, but putting her own life at risk for that was not the way. Anywhere else and against a different enemy, she might have just activated her demon form and shredded everything around, then and there. She even had an unlife rune on, the risk would have been acceptable. But both the unstable nature of the temple and the danger the Deep Parasites posed couldn’t be underestimated.

This time, especially, the dog’s page had disappeared extremely fast, much too fast for it top be the regular parasites to send their swarm to corrupt it. Whatever was down there could do the same thing almost instantly.

That, and the trajectory corrector machine in the room where Sofia was standing was the only thing keeping the temple from going diving into the sun.

I’ll send one of the graveyard guys.

One of the graveyard skeletons made its way down the thick floor and pocket its skull out of the ceiling on the floor under. Sofia felt it get shattered not half a second later.

Physical attack. Couldn’t parasite the skeleton because it was entirely a mana construct, as expected.

Next two, different sides, synchronous timing.

The two skeletons were smashed at the same time.

Multiple targets, even far away. Can likely hit anywhere in the 20m sided cube the room is, could be multiple ennemies. Next, five of you, one each corner, one near the middle.

The graveyard skeletons were a renewable resource, as long as the graveyard stood and she had mana, Sofia could make as many as she wanted. They had no identity, no individuality, no fear. Their two main weaknesses were that they could never get out of the ground further than their torso, and couldn’t deal any damage.

Any ‘direct’ damage. Maybe it’s time to take advantage of that somehow.

The skeleton in the middle died first by a tenth of a second, the four in the corners died at the same time.

Attacks coming from the middle of the room. Could be physical projectile or extensible limbs; likely a single entity.

Fifty of you, all sides of the room at the same time.

Unsurprisingly, all skeletons died in a matter of seconds after poking their skulls out of the walls, but not quite all at the same time.

About fifteen concurrent targets, half a second delay, 100% accuracy.

Haven’t felt any kind of tremor, probably never hitting the walls themselves, safe to say it’s another Deep creature with the same pattern of thought as the parasites.

I can’t risk using the rot down there. Maybe it’s ac-

Sofia’s war plans were interrupted by a sudden tremor shaking the temple. The ‘trajectory corrector’ machine in the room she was in had suddenly stopped.

“Shit.”

She quickly canceled all her skills and used her ring’s [Collapse].

All the mana the use of the graveyard had spread around in the air was sucked into the ring. It was not very much, yet just the skeletons dying and releasing their mana in the air had been enough to mess with the machine. And that was despite Sofia’s [Heat Death]’s effect absorbing almost half of that mana back.

As if nothing had ever happened, the module restarted, its low humm breaking the silence.

I really understand the time limit now. If it’s this sensitive, it’s going to be a pain to deal with.

For now I'll set up the isolation field here with a radius of a few meters. As long as the machine is out of it everything should be alright.

After a bit more experimentation, Sofia moved away, setting up her isolation zone on the roof of the western pyramid. The only module nearby was the one for the doors and it was technically inside the range of the isolation zone, but that module could as well not exist for all she cared.

I’m not giving you any path to escape.

 

Sofia used Sun’s ritual. Its effects were lesser than usual since there was no ambient mana it could help her absorb, but any amount of regeneration helped.

The carbon powder cannot be used. Too flammable. Dried and powdered blood will work then.

This line of thought was what started the expedited setup of a bone-made alchemy lab, where Sofia handled the express boiling of blood with the heat of her bolts inside of a big bone balloon. She then used the very same bones, making the recipient crush the dried blood into a powder, which she mixed with what was left of her black shade dust.

This should be enough. Now I need to refill my bone storage. Time to shed a few armors.

What’s best? A cube? A Sphere? Maybe a something-hedron thing. The issue is I don’t know the shape or size of the thing. I’ll just make them all, I can mix and match at the last second anyway. I should make some three dimensional grids too. And balls. A few hundred balls can’t hurt. Or I could risk taking a look inside to see what fits better. Hmm, no, I might as well do everything, I still have more than half a month, and this will only take a few hours.

 

Sofia was still on the roof, observing the details of the contraption her Engineer skeleton had made according to her orders.

“Too much mana still escapes when it breaks… We can’t have that. Are you sure you can’t do any better with these materials?”

The skeleton looked around at all the things Sofia had put at its disposal, only to look back at her without a word. It’s a no then. I have to give up on the rot snares.

 

Sofia felt that she was about done with her preparations, with only a few details to go through, when she had a realization.

Wait. I could have done that from the beginning? I need to try.

Sofia jumped from the roof of the western pyramid to the central one. The gravity had become weaker after she reactivated the main power supply, likely due to the life support module, so she could now jump that far, even if she still couldn’t fly. Calling upon the powers of the righteous graveyard that was now more a wall-skip than anything else, she rushed to the trajectory module room.

Finding a good spot near the core of the machinery, she created a bone platforme and placed the engine for the mana isolation field there. She turned it on, adjusting the zone until it encompassed almost the entire module without spilling on the adjacent rooms. Then she jumped out of the zone and offloaded some of her mana at it.

It’s not going in!

This was no permanent solution, as maintaining the zone required mana, some of which would inevitably end up messing with the module, but it would probably be a few hours until it got to that point. Most importantly, it protected the module from any exterior bursts of mana she might use from, say for example, the room right under this one.

That’s it then, no more preparation. I use everything, then this fucker of the deep dies a painful death.

Pareth, you sit out of this one. Too dangerous. You can pop in and out to cast the chains or the shields if I’m in too much danger, but not if that takes you more than half a second total. And only appear in the corners of the room. We can’t risk you getting parasited, understood?

 

After the time required to inscribe the three runes, Sofia summoned her book. With the mana and space we’re working with… The high-priest and templars is the best I can summon for the highest returns. That’s only 80 000 out of my 180 000 mana, I’ll have to waste the rest with [Runeforged Overlord]. A true waste, but bookie only has so much fog…

The sacrificial skeletons appeared, ready to give up their mana.

I can still squeeze out a bit more. The plant mage hero has a nice mana pool that should be perfect with the fog that’s left. Nice to see him useful for once.

Some of Sofia’s remaining mana was used to take out a bunch of fake skeletons out of her storage, and the excess was dilapidated with the third tier of [Runeforged Overlord].

As her mana hit zero, she grasped onto that feeling, deep in her soul, itching her brain. Once again, her heart popped out of her chest, blackened and beating with an otherworldly force. She was not even slightly distressed by the process anymore, grabbing it, she took a hearty bite, and reveled in her regained power. The tail, the claws, the expanded vision, everything in place. She grabbed her staff with her left hand, and gave the order for all the fog skeletons to disappear.

[Heat death] made her absorb almost half of their mana. Her mana pool now unlocked, no longer stuck at zero, she took a deep breath, inhaling all that was left over still diluting in the air. She wouldn’t let any bit of her precious skeletons go to waste.

Health : 358 560 / 358 560

Stamina : 358 560 / 358 560

Mana : 180 478 / 358 560

She stretched, cracked her neck, and let her bone armor grow around her body.

Four minutes and forty-five seconds until the demon form runs out.