Saintess Summons Skeletons

Karin adjusted her bangs that had fallen over her eyes while she was freaking out, she had short black hair that contrasted with her two curled white horns.

Sofia never took the time to observe her carefully, but she had to say… Karin was quite an attractive lady. For someone nearing a hundred years old, she looked no older than thirty. The small round glasses on her nose and her straight and sober-looking outfit gave her a mature look but no one would guess her age without looking at her level.

Will people start thinking I’m old like this too, with my level? How are you supposed to know, even? Kuli honestly looks like she is about the same age as Astelia, but one of them is fourteen and the other is like four-hundreds.

And then you have people like Agran who are above level three hundred and look like they’re forty or fifty.

It’s hard to navigate… In the end, levels are the only thing you can use to judge how you should act around someone.

Well, with skeletons at least I don’t need to worry about that. Let’s see what the Emperor got me, I asked for a magic class Hero.

Sofia picked up the skeleton book and under Karin’s watch, she opened it and willed for it to show the new page. The page showed a single skeleton, sitting in a field of flowers. The price was an impressive thirty-thousand, not quite as much as the High-Priest but still as much as all three templars. I’m starting to think mages cost more mana to summon. Kind of makes sense in a way. They do need to source their mana from somewhere. But also the Paladins have way more mana in total than what they cost to cast so… I wonder how that all works.

Karin had her piece to say when she saw the drawing on the page. “That’s meant to be the skeleton it just ate, right? I think I can guess whose bones those were.”

“Some kind of druid?” Sofia asked.

“Hmm, not quite, I don’t know the name of his class but it was a plant mage. He wiped out a village with poisonous flowers. Grew them by himself with his magic and threw them down the water well. You can guess the rest. He did it for the sake of testing the toxicity of his magic. Had no remorse. So we left him to rot in the prison. Interesting that Xeros would send you this one.”

“Some kind of plant mage who grows toxic flowers? Suddenly the flowers on the drawing look a lot less cute. Who was this guy’s summoner, he was a Hero like I requested, right?”

“He was, yes. That was a summon from a free Saint, we don’t know which, but he was alone doing his things.”

She has a habit of pulling on her horns when she tries to remember things. A free Saint then. Well, that works. A Hero is a Hero, now I want to know whether he still has his Hero blessing. Considering the other book skeletons all seem to have the same skills they had when alive, he should. But maybe it doesn’t work for blessings, I can’t check their full status page so…

“Alright, this is a nice addition, don’t know how or when I’ll use it but having variety is good. Is it time to go eat? I’m curious to see what kind of restaurant you will take me to, I’ve pretty much only picked at random last time I was here, some were better than others...”

“Yeah let’s go! I’ll show you a nice place.”

Sofia and Karin’s dinner lasted for three long hours. Karin was a regular at this restaurant run by a family of goatkins, and they freed a private room for them. The food was mostly salad, all featuring the same grilled fish, and with a variety of cheese and pickled vegetables. It was the local food of Karin’s birthplace, a small city-state of goatkins at the very southwest of the beastmen continent. Sofia thought the food was so good she had trouble keeping a proper conversation going. Nevertheless, she still managed to ask about that ‘barony of Sivius’ the Emperor had mentioned in passing before he left the throne room.

The barony of Sivius was a large estate on the southeast border of the Empire, it was on the edge of the black primus spirit forest, so not far from Vasperia. In Karin’s own words ‘it’s an abandoned manor and a shithole swamp’. That territory had been a part of whatever Kingdom used to exist there before the lightning-quick formation of the Empire around sixty years prior.

Nobody wanted to live there. There were quite a lot of dangerous monsters inhabiting the swamps, and mosquitos. Millions and millions of mosquitos. Big ones. So it had been left to rot. It was pretty clear what the Emperor meant now. Especially with still letting Sofia be a Baroness, it was an unoccupied place near Vasperia. The perfect place for Sofia to maybe live, with the only catch that no one would help her clear it of the nuisances there. I do the cleaning and I get land. Not a bad deal, I guess? I have no idea how much land costs in the Empire. Their social system is a lot more convoluted than the one in Skyreach…

Sofia said goodbye to Karin after the meal and spent the night exploring the city. In the morning she headed to the adventurers' guild. The receptionist wasn’t the same, it was a tall girl with dark skin today. They greeted each other.

“Hey, is it Jimmy’s day off?” Sofia asked casually.

“Tis, yep. Watchu need?”

That’s a thick accent.

“I want to buy information about dungeons, I need to find a place to train a particular skill.”

“Sure thang, wah’ kind o’ place?”

“It has to be a dark place, the darker the better, preferably unexplored and with monsters around level 200 but not above 250.”

“Ya can handle that? Well, dam’, lemme search, I’ll be righ’ back.”

The receptionist left empty-handed and returned with three small files a few minutes later.

“These three be whatchu need. Not allowed to giv’ much more info unless yu buy ‘em, fifty gold each, but they shud all fit yur asks.”

That’s very pricey. But sure. This is part of why the free access to these is worth paying the dungeon tax for.

“Can you just sell me the one closest to the spirit forest?”

“Yer in luck, one's inside, wud be this one,” she answered, holding out the thinnest of all three files.

“Here’s the money. Do I get to take the documents or do I need to read them here?”

“Can take, tis copy. But no resell.”

“Of course. Thanks, have a nice day.”

“Gud luck to ya’.”

Sofia left the guild with the two sheets of paper held in a folded leather file. One of them was a map pointing to a dungeon that was inside of the spirit forest, the other had a few lines of description written in mock system windows like someone’s status.

Dungeon Name : Buried Cathedral

Discovery :02.10.3152

System classification : ‘[You have entered the dungeon : Buried Cathedral - Lv. 200+]’

Discoverer : Xeros Drakron

Discoverer’s report:

I discovered this dungeon while exploring the Spirit forest. The entrance is a spatial anomaly at the bottom of a small Silverwater pond.

The spatial anomaly leads to a similar pond somewhere else. The pond on the other side is in complete darkness. I could not produce any light no matter what I did, my skills, fire, and lightstone all failed to dispel the darkness, forcing me to retreat despite the low level of the dungeon. The spatial anomaly in the pond can luckily be used both ways.

Exploration is not recommended without a very sharp mana sense or a way to dispel the darkness. The name implies possible connections with a God or Recessed. Proceed with caution, expected encounters for this dungeon: mind magic, ambush and traps, potentially shades, undead, or other typically low-light habitat monsters.

The pond itself can easily be located by following the Silversneers roaming the area as it is their main nest.

This part of the forest is home to many high-level spirit realm creatures, it is recommended not to use space magic in their vicinity. Most of them hover around the treetops. Do not fly or jump high, make minimal noise and light, do not use space magic. If you are spotted, flee as fast as you can, DO NOT USE SPACE MAGIC, do not attempt to fight. Some opponents above level 400.

By the emperor himself? The date is around the time of the Empire’s creation. That should be a perfect place to train the passive. And it’s close to the barony’s swamp too. My mana sensing should be good enough to maneuver the place I think, I’m only worried about the skeletons’ ability to fight in the dark. When inside the dungeon at least.

The high-level spirit creatures are a thing, no wings in the forest I suppose, but the way he wrote not to use space magic three times is a bit scary. Also, I need to research Silversneers and Silverwater. Never heard of those.

Good that I’m still near the guild, let’s buy these and start moving.

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