Saintess Summons Skeletons

In the center of the room throned an imposing mechanical pillar of gold and steel which held at its top a glass ball the size of a small hut, covered in golden tracks. The emissary of the Deep had been covering it with its body until now.

Inside was a presence that Sofia recognized. As the rune rebuilt her body, she observed the being through Pareth’s eyes.

An Archangel.

The blurry humanoid figure made of blue electricity floated inside of the sphere. Its appearance, riddled with bright points of light like pulsing stars, was shaking and twisting. It existed in many forms at once, as parts of its silhouette appeared and disappeared, not following any logic or reason.

The pressure and aura of power she felt from the being of light was one that she was familiar with, the exact same she had witnessed in the first tower of trials, upon its Archangel’s descent.

But this was a being supposedly older than the system, and it was made of pure electricity, not mana. Like a living bolt of lightning, staring back at Pareth.

The first thought going through Sofia’s mind as her brain reconstructed was to try [Identify]ing the thing. She half-expected not to get an answer, as the Scribe often gave no result from identifying the mechanical constructs of the temple, but contrary to her expectation, something appeared.

[False God]

Mr scribe… Are you saying that all Archangels are actually Gods and this is a fake one, or that all Archangels are fake Gods? Because this is undoubtedly an Archangel, no matter how you look at it!

Truth. I am artificial. The elven voice from before resonated in Sofia’s head. If more like me, all artificial. No essence. No God.

The way it talked was a bit clunky, Sofia wasn’t sure if that was the result of prolonged isolation, a general lack of knowledge from them, or just her own translation from Elvish to Common being lackluster.

Can I move? Oh I can, for once. Great!

“Hi?” She tried hesitantly. Not that she felt shy but her pronunciation of elvish was still pretty much all random guesswork as this ‘False God’ was the first ‘person’ she ever heard use it.

I greet you. Freed me. Heartfelt thanks.

“I had my own reasons, but you’re welcome. Care to explain how you ended how you did?”

My Birth, taboo. My domain, forbidden. After creation, imprisonment.

“So the Deep sent this thing to stop you? Did I make a mistake releasing you? And if you were imprisoned right after birth, how do you know these things?”

Born with understanding. Artificial essence, in temple everywhere, ripe with knowledge and energy of star.

Only you know what is mistake.

Deep? Mean jailer? Intercept my birth. Stopped me. Forbidden domain.

“What are you the god of for your domain to be ‘forbidden’?”

Connection. Link. Bridge.

A link? Links in general? Connecting what?

Connecting everywhere.

The being’s form turned pallid, its light shifting to a weak white, it phased through the glass ball that had contained it before recovering its colors.

Like you. Bridge. But everywhere.

Sofia’s eyes were glued to the shimmering form of the fake god. Like me. No longer pinned down by the creature of the deep, it had moved through the spiritual plane to exit its prison in the exact same way that Sofia moved through walls.

Everywhere… “So you can travel to the Deep and back?!”

Everywhere. But I know now. Forbidden. Yet, free, for now.

They come again, I will escape. Stand back. Help you, my turn.

They come again?!

Sofia felt a rising sense of urgency in the fake god’s thoughts. She wanted to prepare for the announced return of the Deep. Were they going to send another Urchin creature? She hoped not, because she was in no state to do anything. She was severely weakened as she recovered from her transformation, and stuck at zero mana. Pareth’s presence was the only thing making her stronger than a regular human at this time.

Rest. I will protect.

The fake God tried to reassure her, yet, in its words, she perceived uncertainty, she perceived fear.

The temple shook. It was permeated with a low, drawn out sound like the blaring of a war horn.

What’s going on? Sofia took a step back, inching closer to Pareth, she looked around but couldn’t understand the source of the sound. Truthfully, she already had an idea of what may be happening, but she still held hope that her gut feeling was wrong. She had only seen it for a second, after all, surely it had been the lonely and heavy atmosphere playing tricks on her psyche. It wouldn’t have been the first time, she had suffered hallucinations often when she was a child, before she ended up in the orphanage.

Yet, Sofia’s luck was rotten, the sound was exactly what she feared. It gained in intensity, came closer.

Sofia heard the temple break. Layer after layer, its outside peeled away, in a cacophony of broken steel and stone, by a force beyond her comprehension, until the wall on the other side of the room disappeared, sucked in by the open maw of an absurdly gigantic iridescent whale that Sofia could only see the gullet of. Pareth had tried to grab Sofia and run, to no avail.

They were stuck inside of a bubble of layered space that had suddenly and silently appeared around them. The fake god’s doing. As everything around them was sucked in the whale’s gaping mouth, the bubble kept them in place. Sofia could only helplessly watch the being of lightning doing its best to resist the pull.

The walls around Sofia were falling one by one, sucked in by the hungering beast. A large chunk of wall hit the bubble she was stuck in. Sofia braced for impact as she saw the huge piece of debris actually entering her bubble, but the impact never came, she saw it go through her and out the other side. She was temporarily safe, locked away in the fake god’s bubble of protection while it itself was busy fighting back against the whale with attacks through the planes that Sofia pained to even notice

The whale looked like it was winning. Sofia’s mind stirred in search of a way to escape, but nothing she could think of had any chance of getting her out. Especially without any mana.

At this rate it’s going to swallow the whole temple!

Sofia saw the machinery of the level above being gripped out and swallowed by the whale’s incessant suction. It was bound to happen considering half the temple had already been swallowed before she even caught a glimpse of the whale, but the loss of the trajectory correction module was a death sentence. It meant that even if she somehow survived this, the remnants of the temple would be lost inside the sun before she could even complete the teleportation process to go back. And that was if the transmission module was even still functional in the first place.

I’m dead.

The blue shine of the fake god was visibly fading as it resisted the unending assault of the whale.

Didn’t it say that its artificial essence was everywhere in the temple? With the temple getting destroyed…

It was in moments like these that Sofia found herself the calmest.

The bubble protected her, Pareth, and the small chunk of floor they stood up, but the entirety of the temple was disappearing. Already, Sofia could see the sun shining below, ready to swallow her whole if the whale didn’t manage it first.

Her mind was going through all the possibilities she had to maybe survive this. She even took out the ‘Scroll of assisted inspiration’ she had gotten from her gachapon boxes and quickly wrote on it her query ‘How do I survive my current situation’. The scroll had no answer.

Sofia could only watch, defeated, as the last remnants of the temple fell into the abyss of the whale’s maw. Even the side pyramids were swallowed whole, nothing was left now, except for Sofia’s bubble, the fake god, and the titan of the Deep.

Sofia sighed.

So much effort for it all to end like that?

I haven’t even found Saria yet…

Sitting on her little bit of floor she stopped paying attention to the invisible struggle of the fake god and the whale. She took out the midenicite tablet Aphenoreth had gifted her.

If you ever wanted to help, now’s a good time…

I couldn’t do it, sorry. This is just too much.

Please…

Her prayers were answered by another entity.

Be fine. May we meet again.

The fake god’s silhouette expanded. Sofia saw the ethereal form of its many arms come together in a point. Its blue shine, its form of lightning which had been constantly weakening, suddenly flared up. It grew bright. Brighter and brighter, until it outshone the very sun above which it fought.

Sofia’s senses were numb, all she could see was white light, all she could feel was Pareth’s protective embrace.

When the light faded there was no more fake god, no more sun, no more whale.

Sofia and Pareth were in a small room of the temple. One full of familiar-looking machinery, yet somehow in an unfamiliar arrangement.

She spotted a glass case in the middle of the chaos of tubes and gears, engraved with the elvish words for ‘do not open without permission’ , it contained the an unassuming book:

‘Defense system module models’.

The southern pyramid!