Saintess Summons Skeletons

Sitting, her back against a cubic container full of water, Sofia observed the city from the roof of one of the buildings. She had landed there after taking the long way around, having the graveyard skeletons carry her through the cavern walls and ceiling, dropping down directly on top of one of the tallest buildings around.

This is beginning to feel like I might have to accept a beheading…

The city was silent, despite being underground, right now was clearly ‘night time’, through the paneless windows of the buildings, Sofia could spy on many Kidjikkiks. They were all in their own home, peacefully asleep.

The homes in question were a bit barren, and dreadfully impersonal. They were rectangular rooms, each floor of each building had four such identical rooms, each housing one worm-person. They each had a bed, a table, a shelf, and a weird pot which by elimination was probably some kind of toilet. Lastly, they had a working rack to hold onto their working tools. Spears for the guards, pickaxes for the miners, brooms for the cleaners...

It’s as if they lack any personality beyond their job. The miners will have bits of ore on their shelf, the guards have Veik parts… They’re all… The same?

The more I look at it, the more uneasy it makes me feel…

And also… I don’t see any children.

Come to think of it, I see no obvious signs that there would be male or female worms…

Their imprints all give either health or stamina. No skills and no mana. And I’ve yet to see a single one higher level than me. There must be stronger ones, though, or the Veik would have already destroyed this place, if they’re at war.

Without warning, the light in the city shifted from the soft yellowish white glow of the wall warts to an oppressive red.

Sofia was already tense, and surprised by the sudden change, she almost cursed out loud, but was saved by the lack of air to fill her lungs.

I need to watch my mouth. What is this light?

The light was coming from far behind her, since Sofia was sitting behind a container, she was actually now in its shadow.

The source of the light moved, shifting to the side.

What is-

Sofia stood up and instinctively circled around the container to stay out of the light as it. She didn’t know why, but she strongly felt that nothing good could come from stepping into the light.

Still wanting to understand what was going on, and failing to see anything with her mana senses, she brought up a bone token and had it levitate up until it allowed her to see above the container through the shared vision.

She had her answer, the light was coming from the four gigantic eyes of a gargantuan ‘worm-person’ crawling around the cavern’s ceiling. It was looking in her direction. The large red beams of light all came together to focus on the water container.

IT SAW THE TOKEN!

The creature moved, and Sofia moved as well. As the red-eyed worm rushed along the ceiling straight toward her, Sofia jumped off from the roof in the opposite direction and with clean acrobatics, used the upper ledge of the top floor’s window to swing around and throw herself inside, vaulting over a sleeping worm person, doing her best to land as softly as possible.

Sofia felt the bone token get destroyed. She quickly hid in a corner, sadly this was the best hiding spot the room had to offer. The giant worm was on the prowl. Outside, the light was shifting around a lot. Shining multiple times into the small apartment through its singular window, sweeping the inside.

Stolen story; please report.

The lack of sound on the moon was both a curse and a blessing at that moment, it allowed Sofia to not have to worry about the monster hearing her, but conversely, she couldn’t know if it was close or far without exposing herself to look. She did not dare to move at all.

Until something terrible happened. The apartment’s tenant was stirring in its sleep. Its many legs shivered, its body started to unfurl from the depths of dreams.

SHIT!!!

Waiting for the red lights to momentarily disappear, Sofia decisively jumped out of her corner and cut off the waking worm’s head. The key dagger had no issue piercing right through the shell, especially since Sofia aimed at the joint, in three lightning-quick deep cuts, she severed the shell, flesh and spine, Sofia ripped off the head thrice the size of her own and stored it in her eye. The body of the worm person was still moving.

There was no kill message.

The red light was approaching.

SPINE!

Sofia grabbed the spine inside of the shell, and messed up the thing’s bones from the inside, having them turn into blades and spin around, turning the creature’s flesh into worm-juice.

‘You have defeated [Cleaner Kidjikkik - Lv. 227 - Imprint Badly Damaged]’

She barely made it in time back to the corner of the room, her back pressed against the wall. The red light swept over the apartment. It stopped over the dead Kidjikkik for three seconds during which Sofia stood stiller than she had ever been.

The red light moved away.

The worm Sofia had killed had been sleeping with its head against the wall, from the start, it had always been barely out of sight of the red light. So it was not obvious now that it was missing and oozing worm fluids on the floor.

The light came again twice more, after which Sofia held her breath, figuratively, for half an hour, but the light never came again.

After she felt enough time had passed, Sofia produced another bone token and had it slide along the wall and out the window. She had it fly up to the roof and she surveyed the cavern as far as she could see. There was no sign of the red light or the giant Kidjikkik anywhere.

Finally assured that she was safe, Sofia fell to the floor.

Sitting in a puddle of cold worm blood, tears welled up in her eyes.

I have never been so scared in my entire life!

There was no need to even Identify the thing. Sofia could tell, this, whatever it was, could not possibly be under level 350 at the very least. Far beyond the realm of creatures she could hope to kill. And she could tell, this was a predator. There was no good outcome should she be caught. No negotiating, no getting quests, no getting revived by the unlife runes, no surviving long enough to find a way out.

Only a swift and gruesome death awaited if she were to be found, she was certain of that.

The teleportation to Zangdar would be her only saving grace, and even that might not activate fast enough to get her out of death’s grasp in time.

Sofia stood up, her legs still a bit shaky. Her bone armor shed a thin external layer to clean itself of the dark red worm blood.

Should I clean up the mess?

Sofia’s current safety within the city was riding on staying undetected. There was a good chance that by the time someone found out about the dead worm-person, she would already be long gone, but perhaps not.

If someone comes to check out on this guy for any reason… Like say, missing work… I can’t have the entire city go into high alert because of an unexplained murder…

Storing the dead body was the easy part of the cleanup, getting rid of the half-dried sticking dark blood was a bit trickier, but Sofia had no lack of rags to soak to up in her storage, and conveniently, that Kidjikkik had been a cleaner, so there were brooms and mops on his tool rack.

Sofia completely cleaned up the room, taking the bloodied mops with her. She also tried to absorb the dead worm’s imprint but it had been too long since its death, there was nothing left to collect.

Hopefully if someone comes to check on this guy they’ll first think he disappeared on his way off to work…

She was about to leave when the luminosity outside changed.

Feeling shivers running down her spine, Sofia jumped to the corner of the room.

But this time it was actually not the red light, it was a gradual brightening of the general luminosity of the cavern. In fact, the inside of the room was also getting brighter. The softly glowing warts which were everywhere on the sticky walls were inflating and growing brighter.

The inside of the room was as bright as a sunny day outside when the warts stopped growing.

This is how they can have a day and night underground. That means the city will be swarming with worm-people any moment now!

I need to get out of here!

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