Saintess Summons Skeletons

Sofia wiped her tears again, alone in a changing room her smile wouldn’t leave her face as she struggled to get in the stretchy black combination.

Zephir had explained that due to the caster’s limitations, she would only be able to take one item with her inside the simulation, and storage items wouldn’t work. Sofia could actually take off the crown of victory as long as it was kept no more than a few meters away. She chose to take her scepter, as it was her most versatile item. The ring of Zar was also a good option but in the end the scepter just offered too much. She felt uneasy leaving her things somewhere she couldn’t see them, but with Erredis being there, there was no real way she could lose them even if a God decided to come in person to steal her stuff.

Finally managing to close all the weird straps of the black suit, she let the staff flow from the wall to her hand, and walked out of the changing room.

This stretchy armor is seriously embarrassing to wear… And I’m glowing through…

Zephir called out to Sofia from the other side of the room, he was preparing the column for her, the one facing Saria’s. “Your chamber is ready!”

Sofia walked up to the group, Erredis was curiously watching the people in white coats fiddling with the machinery around the empty column.

“Good, now you can walk in through the door and close it behind you, the fluid will fill up to your neck, then we will connect you to the skill. Try to relax and let the magic do its thing, if you resist against it even slightly it won’t be able to pull you in. The rest of the chamber will fill up after you fall asleep,” Zephir explained.

“How do I get out after I leave the skill?”

“We will be there to drain the fluid and let you out, depending on how long you were inside you might feel a bit weak for an hour or two, but that’s completely normal.”

“Alright… All these people in the other columns are inside too, right?”

“Yes, these five are all inner disciples with special classes like your sister, if you meet them they might be able to help direct you toward Saria, just tell them that you’re a new inner disciple.”

“Will they just believe that?”

“They should, it’s not like anyone can get in without my permission and the entire crew helping to sync them with the skill. They’ll probably assume that you’re a new member before you can even tell them.”

“I see. Can I know their names?”

“Just ask them when you’re there,” Zephir answered with a gentle smile, “go on, get in, I can tell you’re impatient. Don’t make Saria wait more, she’s been training to avenge you all this time. Finally she can move on to focus on herself, so bring her the good news yourself.”

Sofia nodded, and she walked over the small ledge to enter her open column. She passed her scepter to her left hand to grab the glass handle of the door, only then realizing how hard she had been squeezing her weapon, so much that her fingers were sore.

Right before she closed the door, she stopped, “Right, Sir Zephir, could you somehow send a message to my friends in Herzal?”

 

After giving her hastily scribbled bone-paper letter to Zephir and explaining the situation to him, Sofia finally closed the column’s door, locking herself inside.

Now relax, right… Not easy.

Stop worrying and have fun in there, girl. No matter what you do, the worst possible outcome is having to wait a few days. It’s only happy endings. And grandma nine-angels is there to make sure nothing happens outside. I’ll even start working on your scale armor, so who knows, it could be done when you come out.

When Sofia stopped focusing on Erredis’ cheerful rant, the warm fluid was already reaching Sofia’s chest.

After all this time… I’m coming for you, big sis!

A soft flow of mana rising up from the floor enveloped Sofia’s body. She closed her eyes and let the magic take over her.

 

[You have entered the dungeon : Submerged metropolis - Lv. 200-249]

Sofia opened her eyes in a dark room, sitting on a soft chair, everything around her was old and dusty, but still in decent shape.

A bedroom? What are all these things?

[Mural telephone] : A device once used to communicate with other people inside the city, it looks broken.

Oh, I didn’t expect to actually get something out of that [Identify] after how useless it was in the solar temple. Looking forward to your good work, Sir Scribe. Thanks in advance.

Maybe I could get in touch with the other people if I find a functioning one of those. No idea of how it works but I should be able to figure it out.

And what’s this ribcage thing?

[Steam radiator] : A device used to heat-up cold places thanks to the steam circulating inside. It also looks broken.

Heating with steam? That’s some rich people stuff. Guess I’m in some kind of manor? It’s weird that this bedroom has no window.

Trying to understand her situation better, Sofia focused on her mana senses to get a feeling for the layout of the place. With the eleven essences she had [Quintessential] had boosted them to unprecedented levels, she could already get a good grasp of her surroundings just by feeling the mana bouncing against walls and items. With a bit more precision it would almost be like being able to see through walls. The furthest she tried to scan, the blurrier everything was, but she could already feel enough to tell that this was no manor, the many bedrooms along a corridor was more reminiscent of an inn, except the levels below and above her were the same too.

Sofia punched a hole through the wall opposite the door in her room, revealing a similar dusty bedroom on the other side.

“Strange layout. Is this fake world based on a real place? The dungeon name seemed to indicate that I’m underwater. I’ll find out about that soon I suppose. Pareth, Bookie, everything is alright?”

Both skeletons appeared at Sofia’s command.

Now that’s some great news!

“Ambient mana seems fine, the corridors are too tight to fly through but I can punch or phase my ways through all these walls easily. This is actually going to be fun.”

But how do I find Saria is the question. The rats will probably not be so good here seeing how there seems to be hundreds of rooms everywhere….

Actually I can stop being so careful here, no? If no monster is above level 249? Let’s just explore!

Sofia let her bone armor grow around her body, she dispelled Bookie and left the room, with Pareth teleporting to her to avoid having to crouch through the door frame.

“Damn these corridors go far. How many people do you need to fill all these bedrooms? Do you want to walk in front, Pareth?”

Pareth chose to walk next to Sofia, the corridors were barely large enough. His halo, sword and armor were the only lights illuminating the dead corridors. They walked in random directions until finally they heard some noise.

I can feel something moving, seems slow. It’s right after the right turn, you go.

Pareth ran forward, taking a sharp turn, he spun and his sword slashed in a wide arc just past the turn where Sofia couldn’t see. She heard whistling noises and metallic bangs as if Pareth’s sword had crashed into a smith’s workshop.

One hit!

‘You have defeated [Murderous carpet cleaner robot - lv. 212]’

Carpet cleaner? No wonder it died so fast. But what’s a robot?

Sofia walked to examine the thing’s corpse, finding only a pile of mechanical scrap and gears. So some kind of living machine like Zangdar’s hero? I won’t be shocked if this is an ancient elven city then. What’s with their obsession with metal contraptions?

Bringing out Bookie, Sofia summoned the engineer elf skeleton.

“Can you repair that thing?” Sofia asked it, pointing at the pile of smoking and dented scrap.

The skeleton shook his head.

“Go figure… Well, make yourself a weapon out of the body I guess, you’ll be the rear-guard.”

The skeleton disassembled the thing into neatly arranged scrap metal, and proceeded to make himself a weird bow with gears all over it and a bunch of steel arrows. The whole process took about fifteen seconds. That works. Let’s get going.

Since anything she could pick up here would disappear after she left, Sofia wasn’t too interested in all the weird contraptions she discovered, until she found one which seemed to have food inside right at the T junction of two corridors.

Ah! It’s really written in elven! Kind of strange though. Feels a bit like ancient human. Ancient elven? Well, I don’t need to actually read.

[Vending machine] : Insert gold and turn the corresponding handle to get an item!

“I don’t have any gold.”

Sofia made a coin out of bone and inserted it in the hole clearly made for it. The coin slid right out of the machine by a slot a bit lower. Is that supposed to happen? Can’t trick it with a fake coin I guess? Well.

Sofia lightly punched the glass casing of the machine, completely shattering it. She grabbed one of the bright blue square packages inside. Opening it, she found it filled with a bunch of floury white rectangles.

Is this actually food? The drawings on the machine were clearly all food…

This place is so full of random stuff it’s hard not to get sidetracked. A part of me wants to just destroy everything and get to Saria quickly, but I also don’t mind the relaxing dungeon outing for once… I understand why they all train there. Let’s just finish with this and start searching seriously.

[Chewing gum] : It’s for chewing. I think… It’s probably best not to swallow it.

You think? Hey sir Scribe. Isn’t this the first time you ever referenced yourself?

Sofia awaited some sort of answer, which wasn’t coming, instead, she heard mechanical clangs coming from two directions.

The noise attracted some company!