Saintess Summons Skeletons

Sofia’s muscles ached as she climbed over the dragon’s shoulder, one scale scaled after the other, while the massive creature chased Pestle all around the city.

Pareth was right above her, finding the easiest way up, and constantly looking down to make sure she was holding on. About halfway up to reaching the Dragon’s back, Sofia had to stop for a moment. Her breathing was heavy and the whistling cold winds at this altitude helped her cool down as much as they hindered her progress.

I didn’t…

Remember my arms being so weak…

“Almost there…”

Sofia couldn’t stop for too long, Pestle would eventually start to tire as well, and the crown wouldn’t work on someone who was currently dead in the fake world, so the fairy had to survive.

After climbing up another meter, Sofia’s hands slipped. She fell half a meter down before the rope loop she had tied up became taught, stopping her. She dangled in the void for a second before she managed to catch herself, the rope having almost slipped off of the uneven part of the scale it was latched onto.

Close call.

Sofia took off her leather gloves one by one with her mouth. The cold got worse, but it gave her a slightly better grip. Scale after scale, she climbed, cursing the weakness of her limbs. And as she was starting to wonder whether she was even going to make it, a golden light started illuminating the horizon.

Thank you.

The rest of the climb was much easier, bolstered by the godly music. Pareth made it to the back of the dragon first, and after securing his footing, he extended a hand to help Sofia up.

“No time to lose! Find the broken scale!”

Sofia and Pareth started running toward the nape of the dragon. According to the goddess’ information, there was a cracked scaled there which could be broken with some effort, giving an almost direct access to the creature’s spine.

They did not find it immediately, because the back of the creature was so large, but it was Sofia who finally found it. “Here! I’ll mix the potions, break it!”

Pareth unlatched a short mace from his side, and he started methodically banging on the weakest point of the already damaged scale in rhythm with Remia’s music. Meanwhile, Sofia first sat down and latched her rope loop to a scale under her to get some stability, and she grabbed a different potion from both sides of her belt. She popped the cork of the two flasks, and looked inside.

Three drops of the red into the green to start the reaction…

Sofia waited until right after the Dragon took a step, as this was the most stable of times, in between two steps.

She counted, One. Two. Three drops!

Quickly she closed the flask of green liquid, shook it forcefully, then opened it again.

How is Pareth?

She looked up, the scale was starting to truly break, it looked like it would open up any moment but it was not quite there yet.

Close enough.

Sofia undid her rope and carefully came closer, still holding a flask in each hand. Pareth gave a final mace strike, opening a large, almost round hole in the cracked scale with a sound like bone breaking, a foul rotten stench escaped from within. The scale had been this hard despite being rotten from the inside, and thin like a sheet of paper. Sofia held her breath, and quickly dumped the contents of the two flasks inside of the hole.

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According to Alith, this was one of the deadliest magicless potions, the flesh eating concoction.

Remia’s original strategy was to manually cut through the rotten flesh with daggers, this was much faster. The dark flesh beneath the scale was getting gnawed away by the liquid mix, releasing thick clouds of putrid yellow smoke.

I can see the bone! Sofia handed her rope loop to Pareth, “I’m going in, hold this.”

She jumped down. The potion mix started to eat away at her leather shoes, the yellow smoke was hurting her eyes, but the faster she was done with this, the better chances Pestle had to survive the Dragon’s prolonged chase.

Sofia put her hands on the bone. Her target was the Dragon’s spinal cord. It would be beyond useless to target a real dragon’s fleshy organs, but for one devoid of any mana, its body was entirely reliant on these vestigial biological systems.

Shit, it’s too thick! I can’t reshape this at all!

The potion was about all consumed already, it had eaten its fill, and all disappeared into smoke. It had cleared up a lot of rotten flesh exposing the bones, but not enough. Back to the original plan. Sofia took out her second dagger and started to dig, clearing the side of the spine. According to Remia, there would be an opening in there just wide enough to insert an arm, about knee deep into the flesh.

Sofia’s carved away at the flesh, but her hand slipped, her dagger stabbing the dragon’s spine.

The creature roared. It started thrashing around, it had finally realised someone was somewhere they weren’t supposed to. Sofia was safe, she bumped her head against the scale, but was at no risk of falling. Pareth, on the other hand, had to hang to the scale for dear life as the Dragon rose up to stand on its hind legs.

“Stay strong, Pareth! Don’t let go!” Sofia encouraged him while she started hacking away at the rotten flesh again, as fast as she could.

She found the opening, and immediately planted the dagger inside.

The dragon shook and roared as Sofia violently moved the dagger around, scraping the inside of the dragon’s spine.

Finally it stopped. Sofia had severed the mindless beast’s spinal cord. The dragon started falling.

Sofia let the dagger inside, and turned around, grabbing Pareth’s arms, she helped him hoist himself up inside of the hole under the scale. She felt gravity start to disappear. Once Pareth was securely inside with her, he hugged her to protect her with his body.

Brace for impact!

The Dragon hit the ground like a dead mass as the goddess’ music concluded, the impact of his gigantic body causing a shock wave as it slid down the side of the city toward the lake.

We got it! Sofia rejoiced internally, but she then noticed Pareth wasn’t moving.

“Pareth! Are you alright? Hey!”

She gave him a few taps on the face, but he was unresponsive.

SHIT! Pareth!

No!

Sofia put a hand on his chest. His heart was still beating.

Potion!

Sofia reached out for the potions attached to her belt, the flasks were all in separate leather sockets, she should have had two healing potions left. She touched one, it was broken, the potion had been crushed during the fall and had all leaked out. The second one was also broken, but the leather pouch it was in was still closed. It will do. I can filter the glass.

She ripped the pouch off of her belt, opened it, and plugged the opening with her shirt, before emptying the liquid that filtered through her shirt down Pareth’s mouth, which was hard to aim for as his face was completely blurry. Drop of healing potion fell one by one.

Pareth woke up midway through, grabbing Sofia’s wrist.

“You’re up! How do you feel, can you move?”

Pareth nodded, though quite weakly, Sofia helped him out of the scale’s hole first, and she quickly followed.

The city outside was in ruins, only the Palace and its near vicinity had been saved from the Dragon’s rampage, all thanks to Pestle’s calculated but reckless baiting. The fairy in question landed from a long jump, right in front of Sofia and Pareth, she looked a bit worse for wear, covered in her own blue blood, but also quite joyful.

“Dragon down! Very kill!” she happily announced, her hands on her hips.

“Very kill!” Sofia repeated, “You did well! Now quick, we’re sinking!”

The dragon’s corpse was slowly falling head first into the lake, and not only that, Sofia knew from Remia that no matter how severe the injuries, the creature would stand back up in a short while, they had ten to fifteen minutes at most. With this in mind, they all started running in the direction of the palace.