Saintess Summons Skeletons

Sofia recalled the details about space magic that Astelia had shared, she was a pure space mage so she knew a lot. Her explanation was that there were three main schools of space magic : Space distortion which was anything and everything from teleportation to spatial attacks or storage items; space control which focused on preventing things from moving; and gravity manipulation.

[Graveyard of the righteous] doesn’t fit anywhere in there so no space magic component. The graves and skeletons aren’t actually pulled from the ground, as far as I can tell they are all temporary mana constructs. So it should be fine to enter the pond from below, right?

There was no reason to fight if she could avoid it, can’t fly? No matter, dig instead. Or phase through the ground. The skeletons couldn’t take her too deep underground, and they struggled to drag Pareth. Still, they both entered the pond that way, from the side underground, bypassing all the monsters above.

Sofia didn’t even try to swim down, she latched onto Pareth and sank with him. She was probably immune to the soul-damaging effects of the Silverwater but she held her breath nonetheless. The skeleton ogre carried her, walking to the deepest spot of the thick and cold pond. Without any form of warning, they fell through an invisible hole. It felt like the world had gone upside down for a second. As if it had done a looping around her. She could no longer sense the Silversneers above.

That was the space anomaly! This is the linked underground pond then. I need to swim up. I’m almost out of air…

The pond wasn’t too deep, she emerged and swam to the shore, Pareth teleported to her and helped her out.

“There we are.”

[You have entered the dungeon : Buried Cathedral - Lv. 200+]

Exactly as advertised. It’s good to know the information was reliable and I didn’t do this trip through the hell forest for nothing.

“It's interesting how the Silverwater doesn’t stick; my hair is dry already. We should collect some. I have an empty barrel from the vampires…”

Now the proud owner of a barrel full of rare and toxic soul water, Sofia looked around. There wasn’t much to say about the place. The Siverwater pond provided some lighting around it, just enough to see a bit of the surrounding stone ground. Everything else was pitch black. She couldn’t see any wall or ceiling, only the pond, and some rough stone ground. Does definitely look like some kind of cave; it is named the Buried Cathedral after all, but I don’t think I am in the Cathedral quite yet.

The stats are looking decent considering most of the lost mana is due to the two runes… I guess the water did harm me a bit. It should be fine going forward like this.

Health : 5722 / 5900

Stamina : 1612 / 1900

Mana : 49040 / 79500

Just to check the veracity of the Emperor's report, Sofia tried to light the way forward. There was enough vertical space for [Heal Undead] but she couldn’t see it as she used it in the darkness. Pareth’s light, a torch, and the lightstones also all failed. She took some of the Silverwater out of the pond and threw it toward the darkness but it lost its shine as well. Is it even safe to walk in there?

Of course, she could fly, but this was underground and her wings needed a lot of space. In this chamber the pond was in she could still fly, but a narrow corridor would force her to land either way. Sofia switched her view to Pareth’s. He usually saw much better in the dark than she did, yet this time he did not. I should be safe from falling even if my mana sensing somehow misses a hole or obstacle though since I still have [Way of the fool], that does make going blind a bit better.

Alright, let’s do this, it’ll train both my mana sense and my new passive. But let’s have the birds scout ahead first, still. Sofia summoned her small swarm of skeletal Black Turvins, they were quickly becoming her favorite summons out of the book, they were cheap and efficient. And they had 180 health points each, which was already a lot for their size.

She had the small birds form a semi-circle ahead, at the limit of the distance her mana sensing had a clear reading of, which was something like ten meters before it became increasingly blurry. They were there to be the first to die in case there were hostiles or traps. An undead alarm system. Side to side with Pareth, she took her first steps into the darkness.

The walls and ground are uneven, all raw stone, littered with rocks. It looks like there’s an exit ahead but let’s do a round around the pond first. Sofia found out that the pond was in an almost circular cavern, and there was only one exit. So I was just lucky to find it right away.

She cautiously entered the tunnel, the ceiling was still too high for her to sense. This could actually be the bottom of a large canyon of some sort. She kept going forward, seeing nothing with her eyes was unnerving but not that much of a handicap, not with the mana senses.

Sofia’s steps echoed in the tunnel, the mana in the air was quite abundant, and it gave her a rather clear picture of her immediate surroundings. For things very close like Pareth, she could see most details from the interaction of his mana and the mana around him. For things further away like her birds, she could only see small blobs of mana around where they were.

One of the birds found something on the ground. Sofia concentrated her sense on that, coming a bit closer. It looked like a cut-up piece of something, judging from the curves, maybe a thin sheet of banged-up steel. She had the birds bring it back. There were a few more things nearby, littering the ground but it was hard to make sense of them.

Finally, Sofia grabbed the larger thin object. Leather? Oh, is that… A piece of a bag? And the junk on the ground would be whatever used to be inside? But why would a cut-up piece of bag be here? Someone got caught in a swordfight? There isn’t anything else around so they didn’t die here.

Sofia decided to take a few steps back and let the birds explore the area in more detail. With some of them flying up and searching for holes in the walls or things like that.

She learned that this was in fact not a canyon, or at least, there was a ceiling, a good fifty or so meters above. There didn’t seem to be any holes or tunnels coming out of the walls, not nearby at least.

Let’s reorganize. I was on a good track with the bird alarm, but a semicircle on the ground is a bit lacking. And I can’t be sure that monsters won't drop down behind me from holes I would have missed in the walls on the way. The birds can fly in place anyway and like all other skeletons, their stamina is purely decorative so I don’t need to worry about it. Let’s make it a bird dome. It needs to be a bit tighter though.

And so Sofia took some time to arrange the birds in a small dome formation around her and Pareth. It wasn’t perfect. The limited number of skeleton birds and their small size meant that someone slender enough could walk through the holes in the formation. Still, it was better than nothing. Feeling a bit better about her alarm system, which was her only way to detect things that her mana senses wouldn’t pick up, she resumed the exploration.

Then out of nowhere, three birds on the right of the dome died. Shit. Sofia took refuge under Pareth, pretty much standing with her back against his chestplate. She had her armor and runes but the Dungeon said level 200+, so she was expecting opponents that might be as strong as the level 249 Templar she had struggled against in the jungle.

Her mana sense gave her nothing in that direction. The birds had disappeared and died without a warning or a sound. That’s not good. How come I sense nothing? Pareth, grounds.

[Spine of the Black Sun]

She prepared her weapon and decided to wait, the birds spreading out a bit to fill the hole in their formation. Two more birds disappeared on her left, she still felt nothing but lashed out with her whip nonetheless. Sofia clearly heard the resulting Solar burst and something howled in pain as a result. There really is something there! She ordered for Pareth to use a lance to stab in that direction without moving. The creature howled again.

Sofia barely had the time to hear something moving on her right. Something broke, and Sofia recognized the telltale sound of Pareth’s [Flying shields of light] giving out. She only had time to think that the [Sanctified grounds] wasn’t up yet, she wanted to move but it was too late. She felt a weird sensation and pain around her neck, her senses spun around madly.

How?!

*thunk*

Health : -119 / 5900

Her head hit the floor.

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