Saintess Summons Skeletons

The tiny self built sculpture of a dwarf was unmoving, but it started emitting sound, a recording of a time long past.

2587… That’s six hundred years ago!

“If you found this message, that means you’re certainly a fellow Dwarf! How did you like my space magic?” So THIS is why my map made no sense! “I hope it didn’t age too badly, don’t shame me if it did, brother, different times. I built this room as a safe space in this kingdom of fools, so that no brother would die from my creation. Honestly, this isn’t my proudest work, the two beastman heroes I’m working with are a reprehensible bunch, but I couldn’t deny their offer.”

There was a moment of silence, then the dwarf spoke in a much more lively tone.

“They’re paying me with parts of Gadur’s armor! Can you believe that! Absolute bog Goblins! Imagine having Gadur’s masterpiece for yourself and trading the parts for a shoddy pile of Black Primus resin bricks! This is the biggest scam of my career! Ahahahahah!”

Guess we know what we’re looking for now. Never heard of Gadur. Some ancient Dwarven smith I guess.

“Oh, dear brother, back to the topic, if you find yourself in here, well, it means the so called ‘heroes’ failed, which they will, so you can’t leave until you finish them off. I made extra sure the ritual chamber would fuck up their ugly faces. That’s right, I know what they’re trying to do, not on my watch! The Demon King can go fuck himself for all I care! For disrespecting Gadur’s work like this, they’ll never become Apostles, not with me alive!”

Demons coming up again… I had a strong itch from the whole Domination thing, it’s confirmed now. So it’s two beastman heroes who failed at becoming Sons of Domination? Perhaps the pyramid and the black lances were parts of the ritual… What happens when you fail? And who the fuck is the Demon King?

“It pains me to leave the rest of Gadur’s masterpiece here but this is all I can manage, I’m barely able to go against them now, there is nothing I can do after they mutate. And there’s no way I’m tipping anyone off about this, lest they try taking possession of the parts I have… I’m never coming back to this awful desert, I’ve failed at the sixth, so I will never defeat these myself, especially with Domination’s mind goblineries. Truly leaves a taste of dirt in my mouth. But I’m leaving these relics for you to find, whose greed cannot reach me. Best of luck, brother.”

Sixth… 100,200,250…

The dwarf statuette crumbled at the end of the message, leaving behind a small shiny key in a pile of stone dust.

Wait, this dwarf was level 349 and he left a priceless relic here because the mutated heroes would be too strong?!

Gives ‘certain death’ a lot more credibility…

Alith grabbed the key and Pareth, putting the latter on her shoulder, and joined Sofia down the spiral staircase. She held up the small key, “What now?”

“We leave,” Sofia said decisively.

“I’m with you on this one, but how?”

“The sort of mind control effect that led us in here, don’t you think it’s weird how it stopped right after we entered? I’m thinking that maybe it’s pretty limited, might not be able to keep us from leaving if you carve out an exit through the walls,” Sofia theorized.

“Where do we dig then? Finding the place where we entered could take a while with the space magic shenanigans going on…”

“We try to go to the nearest edge on my mental map and go straight? We’re bound to hit the end eventually.”

“Don’t you remember how huge the pyramid looked? We could be here for weeks at this rate… Well… I don’t have anything better. I do that, let Pareth explore the place in the meantime then, kinda sad he can’t use the compass in my place or we could have just let him do all the exploration… Oh, and can you identify the key?”

“Nope, same as the tablet, doesn’t pick it up,” How does it work on an Archangel and not a dumb stone key exactly? Sometimes the system does actually not make so much sense…

Alith had to cut through six thick walls in a row before finding one that was even thicker. That was probably going to be their escape door, but Alith had been going at it for more than an hour already, and they still didn’t see the end.

Pareth had walked around the labyrinth all the while, not finding anything new, but making an interesting discovery. The space magic was actually merging different corridors, seemingly at random, so you could never know where you were. There wasn’t any way that Sofia could find to see it, the actual magic had to be very subtle because her mana perception hadn’t shown her anything. She only found out when her perception of Pareth’s localization compared to her zipped around to hundreds of meters away, then back where it had been when she made him immediately backtrack.

Sofia kept doing her part of the excavation job, carrying the rubble out of the several meters long tunnel.

[Black Primus resin] : A chunk of resin extracted from a giant Black Primus tree. Much like the tree itself, the resin has the property of existing in both the physical and the spiritual plane.

Item level : 0. Grade : Valuable.

She stored a tiny small sample in the sand pendant. Explains why Alith couldn’t get through… Why would anyone go out of their way to make such a big structure out of this?

She was dumping the broken pieces of black bricks when she heard Alith stop hitting.

“You made it?” she asked. She couldn’t see the end of the tunnel since Alith was in the way, judging by how her head was stuck against the wall, they probably found their way out.

“Yep, blue sky and red sand in sight, lots of it.”

“Alright, let’s get going,” Sofia held out her hand and Pareth appeared right on it, his new ability to teleport back to her found its first use. I better not try to have him land in my hand when it’s a human skeleton. Wait, actually I’m pretty sure I could lift a real human with one hand, let alone a skeleton…

It was hard to adjust to the knowledge that her body was several times stronger than it used to for her whole early life. Surely something that anyone passing through the filters had to struggle with at some point. What she could achieve still wasn’t inhuman by any means, but it didn’t match her physique in the slightest.

Alith kept enlarging the hole in the wall, until the daylight reached Sofia. It was still a small hole but they could fit through. I CAN fit through. Right?!

She could, barely, but she could, when Alith had slipped through without a problem. They were outside, still on the pyramid but outside. It turned out they weren’t actually in the base of the pyramid, but somewhere around halfway up. More space magic shenanigans. Explains the wall behind us when we entered…

There had been no sign of anything trying to stop them so far. But upon reaching the bottom of the pyramid, Sofia had a bad feeling.

She stepped down from the last row of bricks and onto the red sand.

[You have been affected by : Domination. But your skills negated the status]

Wait, what?

Seeing Sofia still normal, Alith stepped down too, and was assaulted by the same message. It repeated constantly.

They looked at each other, “You negated the domination too?” Sofia asked first.

“Yeah… Since when do you have a skill for that? You combined something new when I was digging?”

“Even if I did, my skills don’t extend to you except for [Blessing of the Deep].”

Sofia had to check.

[Blessing of the Deep] : The Saintomancer was granted a name.

They may see the inhabitants of the Deep.

Lv.1 : The Saintomancer and their summons are immune to the [Mind control], [Hypnosis], [Confusion], [Insanity], [Domination], [Soul Parasite] and [Instant Death] status effects.

(Next function unlocks at Skill Level 200)

She showed Alith the description window.

“So, you remember that hallucination I was talking about… I think… I feel very differently about it now…”

“So the Deep man had you faint, came in your dreams and upgraded your blessing?” Alith tried her best to understand. All the while the messages about resisting [Domination] kept ringing in their minds.

“I wish that was just that…”

“Yeah honestly that wouldn’t sound too bad. You know what does, though? [Soul Parasite].”

“One more thing to ask Kuli when we see her… I won’t complain about resisting it.”

“What worries me is that it looks like you got the immunity to [Domination] because that was used against you… If you see what I mean.”

Sofia shuddered, “Let’s get out of here. Fast.” If she couldn't know then it was better to forget about it for the time being. She really wished she could forget about it.

The messages kept ringing all the way until the giant black pyramid was no more than a black dot on the horizon. We’ll be back.