Saintess Summons Skeletons

The tunnel of the Kidjikkiks pierced through the walls of an underground facility long before they could reach the city.

Catacombs.

Everyone was on high alert. Sofia ordered a single Kidjikkik to step forward into the grim-looking subterranean gallery. The catacombs, or this section, at least, was in the real world.

No sign of a deep creature yet.

Sofia held a brittle bone flask full of rot dust. She had prepared dozens of them while the Kidjikkiks dug, and distributed them across the group along with bone bandoliers to keep them at hand’s reach. Unfortunately, they did not exist in the light world, so they would have to find another way to attack the deep creatures there.

The scouting-duty Kidjikkik soon came back unharmed.

“This room should be safe,” Sofia told the others, “let’s see if we can reach the surface through the catacombs. I’m getting a bit worried that the digging is too noisy, it could be disastrous if something was waiting for us at our exit point.”

“I approve, also look at these tombs, this is too luxurious to be commoner graves. These could lead us directly to the palace if we’re lucky.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Sofia agreed, “These seem to be mostly empty though, I can’t feel any bones from here, at least.”

From up close, it was easy for Sofia to check inside of the coffins with her mana senses.

“There’s only dust in there…”

“I’d rather that than something else,” Alith commented, a hand on her rapier’s pommel.

Finding a skeleton to feed Bookie could help us navigate the place. These coffins are all cracked. Maybe if there's one in better condition somewhere?

The stone doors that closed this room of the catacombs were barely holding on, breaking apart with loud noises when Pareth tried to open them. Thankfully, there were no creatures in the corridor.

“The entire catacombs are outside of the light world, it looks like,” Sofia said, scouting ahead with a vision token on her skeleton rat. She could not maintain the connection at a very long distance compared to usual, but it was enough to scout the surrounding rooms and make sure she was not missing anything with her mana senses. “There’s at least one floor below, but I don’t feel a way up from here. We’ll have to explore a bit.”

The underground tunnels of the catacombs were dry and dusty, yet the complete darkness and silence outside of the group’s presence made them feel strangely safe. The group explored several rooms, finding nothing of interest as all burial relics and other such decorations had long rotted or rusted away. They found inscriptions, in a language they couldn’t read, and Sofia found some spare brittle bone bits in the most expensive-looking, better-sealed marble coffins, but nothing close to a single full bone, let alone a skeleton.

“I wonder why there are no monsters here,” Alith said as she opened another room, “Maybe the catacombs were condemned because of that plague they went through, so nothing can come in?”

“Perhaps. It’s curious that we’ve gone this far and not found a way up yet.”

“It’s not too late to start digging up again.”

“Let’s search a bit more…”

The group let itself be guided by the catacombs’ twists and turns.

At the turn of a corridor, Alith suddenly jumped back and drew her sword.

The others instantly fell into formation, Pareth stepping in front of her, summoning two shields of Light, Sofia instinctively starting to channel a piercing bolt, and Bookie hiding behind her.

Nothing happened. The corridor was empty.

Alith blinked a few times. “I could swear I saw something move in the dark…”

Sofia extended her mana senses into the nearby rooms, as far as she could keep a detailed perception of things, but she did not see much. The catacombs were a relatively low mana environment, limiting her visibility. “No mana movements,” she said after a few seconds, “maybe just a trick of the light? Let’s proceed even more carefully. I’ll send a rat to scout the turns ahead of us.”

Some time later, it was Sofia who stopped the march.

“I feel something! Bones!” She excitedly whispered to the others. A skeleton from the lost epoch!

Following her senses, Sofia entered one of the catacombs’ chambers after removing the stone door. To cover their back, she plugged the door frame with a door made from her bone armor before turning to her prize. There was a single coffin in the room, on a large central pedestal. The coffin was made of thick marble-like stone with a tarnished golden hue, and was decorated with masterful carvings of jewels and coins, as if to expose the wealth of the owner even in death.

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“Must’ve been a rich noble with bad taste,” Alith commented, “Doubt the skeleton’ll very be useful even if you can use it.”

“As long as it can guide us through the catacombs and the city it will be more than enough,” Sofia answered, already forcing the lid of the coffin open. The skeleton inside was in a bad state of advanced decomposition, she could tell with a glance that the bones were terribly brittle, several of them already broken under their own weight, but despite that, the bones were still mostly there.

“Bookie, can you work with that?”

Bookie stood on his tiptoes to look inside of the coffin, holding onto the edge of it.

“I… I’m not sure, Sofia…”

“But there’s a chance?”

Bookie nodded, “A chance. But even if it works, it will probably be very not smart… It’s too old and decrepit…”

“Well, let’s try, we just need to dismiss another page first… Probably that page with a single stone-ogre.”

Bookie accepted the suggestion with a nod, and Sofia herself felt a slight mental tear as the page disappeared. Bookie’s book form then flew out and threw itself into the coffin. It opened up, gobbled up the skeleton in an instant, and closed back up before flying right into Sofia’s hand.

“So?”

“I think it’s very very not smart,” Bookie answered.

“But it worked?” Sofia said, opening the book.

There it was, a new page with a skeleton that looked to be in bad shape even in the drawing. It was drawn leaning back into a pile of coins, and could be summoned for the stupendous price of 30 mana.

“It’s worth three skeleton rats,” Alith deadpanned.

“That… Crowie is the smartest behind the engineer and he’s only worth 10 mana, you know. It doesn’t mean much…” Sofia tried to rationalize, tearing off the page to summon it, but she knew even her most basic archer skeleton was more expensive, this was the cheapest human skeleton to date.

The skeleton’s form condensed from the book’s mist, managing the feat of looking just as rotten and decrepit as it did prior to becoming one of Bookie’s summons. It stood there without a sound, its skull bobbing back and forth.

Sofia fired an Identify at the skeleton.

[Solar Forgotten - Lv. 299]

Health : 3/3

Stamina : 8/8

Mana : 0/0

Lifetime : 17 935s/17 940s

Sofia lightly poked the skeleton in the skull with one finger, causing it to crumble to dust. “It might have been better to keep the ogre after all…”

“Sofia,” Bookie called out, pulling on her hand, “Sofia, it’s not dead!”

“Not… Wait you’re right…” Sofia finally realized, as the bone shards and dust remaining of the skeleton on the floor were not turning back to mana. She identified it again, to perplexing results.

[Solar Reforgotten - Lv. 299]

Health : 0/3

Stamina : 0/8

Mana : 0/0

Lifetime : -1s/17 940s

“The name changed. I don’t even know what to make of this… The lifetime is stuck at minus one. It’s not even getting healed by [Bone Dominus]’s blessing so it doesn’t look like it’s going to stand back up anytime soon…”

“It’s not even permanent bone dust, is it?” Alith asked, “This thing is useless like this. But maybe it’ll be able to guide us in the light world anyway?”

“There’s a chance. Maybe he would even be able to speak. Or maybe not. We’ll see. It’s not like there’s a reason to get rid of the page now anyway.”

“Do you think it’ll still be like this next time you summon it?”

“Probably not,” Sofia answered with a shrug, “But it’s a weird case so I can’t say for sure. Let’s try.”

Bookie nodded, dismissed the Forgotten and summoned it back. It was restored to its pristine 3 Health point self. Sofia was about to call it quits and resume the catacombs’ slow and careful exploration, but she suddenly had an idea. She could give [Bone Dominus]’s construct blessing to just about any coherent set of bones now, be it her own skeleton, armor, Pareth, Bookie, or even the Solar Skeletons. She rarely gave it to the Solar Skeletons, as they would lose the blessing when they died, which meant a loss of passive healing, hence why the constructs were usually Pareth, herself, and a bone ring she wore under her armguard. Since this skeleton seemed to refuse to die when it was killed, Sofia sensed an opportunity for shenanigans.

As the skeleton was so brittle and weak, it was extremely fast to bless. It immediately made it much sturdier, but he still only had three health points nonetheless.

Sofia lightly punched the blessed skeleton, and it crumbled again.

It kept the blessing.

“I might be able to extend the blessing’s range by just spreading this bone dust,” Sofia muttered, “It’s also indestructible in sunlight as are all of Bookie’s skeletons, so I can find a few uses for this…”

“Not so useless after all, I guess,” Alith commented, “not helping us right now, though.”

“Right, right, sorry, I just had to experiment a bit…” Sofia apologized, unsummoning and resummoning the skeleton again. It was still blessed by [Bone Dominus]. Sofia blinked a few times, not believing her eyes. I see. I see. The forgotten will not be forgotten anytime soon. “Can you lead us out of these catacombs?” she asked the blessed skeleton.

Slowly, the skeleton started walking out of the room, and started going down the catacomb’s main corridor in the same direction the group had already been heading toward before.

It only took a few minutes and two turns through the corridors before it led them to a closed door that Sofia’s mana senses peered through. “Stairs,” she told the others.

“Damn, it actually led us to the exit.”

“Sofia!” Bookie exclaimed out of nowhere, “I can hear it!”

Hear?

Thanks to Bookie, Sofia also noticed it, the singing voice from before, its faint vibrations coming from the stairwell behind the doors.

“Oh wow, I hear it too now. There’s really someone singing out there,” Alith said, “I can’t understand a single word.”

“Was this your old language?” Sofia asked the Forgotten skeleton.

Since it did not answer, Bookie felt pressured to explain, looking down at his feet, “I told you, it’s not very smart…”