Saintess Summons Skeletons

Sofia had to use the graveyard skeletons to look through the stone walls of the cavern and find the collapsed remains of the path the Destroyer had taken through the moon’s underground.

I can try to dig that out, but if the tunnel collapses again on me… I’m not so confident about surviving that.

My best shot is still to graveyard out, but I’ve no clue how far this might be from the Kidjikkik city. Or if there’s even anything left there, it could just as well have collapsed too, so following the collapsed tunnel might be a bad idea.

Just going up can’t go wrong; I can’t be that deep underground… Is what Sofia thought, but she knew it took her something like three days to graveyard from the top to the bottom of the Veik hive. The transportation through the spiritual plane was practical but not fast by any means, and she needed to take a break every few hours to prevent the side effects.

Since she could go for about three hours without the side effects of staying in the spiritual plane becoming too bad, Sofia decided to go up for an hour and a half, if she failed to find another cavern as a rest point or the surface, she would come back down with the time she had left.

That was exactly what happened. Three hours later, she was back to square one in the cave with the Destroyer's corpse.

If only the sandworms were good at digging through stone… Actually, didn’t we get Kidjikkik Diggers?

Bookie?

Bookie came out with his lich form, looking almost embarrassed about the situation.

The small skeleton nodded and handed the already open book of skeletons to Sofia.

100 Digger Kidjikkik. Five thousand mana. So cheap.

A small army of pickaxe-wielding worm skeletons appeared for Sofia to command. She ordered them to excavate the collapsed tunnel, and they immediately got to work.

Sofia thought that she was going to be there for a long time, initially, but the excavation was actually quite fast-paced, and the newly created tunnel that started to take form after a few minutes of digging seemed safe enough. The Kidjikkiks were digging in a way that seemed pretty messy, the walls and floors weren’t straight, and it was not like they used support beams or anything like that. It felt more like they were actual insects digging a tunnel, except it was human-sized and they did it with real tools.

While the skeletons were digging, Sofia checked through the collapsed tunnels with the graveyard, and she actually made it to the other side before an hour and a half had gone by.

I guess the Destroyer couldn’t have gone that far between the moment I jumped into its mouth and the moment I broke its spine. Actually it did dig pretty far considering that was only a few seconds.

Sofia unsummoned the Diggers, which had turned out to be useless.

It wasn’t wrong to summon them…

The process was annoying, because a lot of the mines had collapsed, but Sofia managed to find her way back to the Kidjikkik city about an hour later, only to find it completely abandoned.

There were a few collapsed buildings from the Destroyer’s rampage, but more than ninety percent of the city was intact, yet there was no Kidjikkik to be seen anywhere.

The weird algae is not making any light anymore either. Maybe that’s why they left, more than the few destroyed buildings?

Sofia returned to the place where she had found the Algae nodule that she had identified before, and found that it was not that it was missing, but that this building in particular had been part of the buildings that had not survived her stunt.

Did the entire’s cavern’s algae die off because the nodule was crushed by a collapsed roof?

The Kidjikkik rely on sight a lot so they can’t go in the dark. I guess they moved to the hatchery since they had glowing algae too that was not connected to this one.

The hole linking to the undercity was nearby, so Sofia went to give it a glance, she was a loot fiend, and she had not forgotten that there were plenty of dead trial-takers’ things near one of the matriarchs.

Sofia almost jumped straight into the hole but her enthusiasm about fetching the loot was promptly extinguished. The undercity was extremely well-lit, in a worrying bright red.

I changed my mind. Screw that, let’s go for the stairs up…

The same spiral staircase which led to the undercity also went up, Sofia had no idea where it led to, but that was her best chance at regaining the surface, short of scouring the mines looking for the tunnel linking to the Veik hive.

About five hundred meters above the city was: another city.

It was, again, a perfect replica of the city below, except that it was missing the algae. This one was in perfect condition all around, and seemed unused. Sofia only spent a few minutes looking around before continuing to walk up the stairs.

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One more?!

Oh, this one is still under construction I think. No workers around, though. And the stairs keep going up… How many of the same city do you need? If I summon my digger and worker Kidjikkiks and ask them to build a city, is this also what they will build?

The next stop was not a city but an empty cavern the size of the city.

So they’re going to make at least one more.

I have to ask, now. Is this the only Kidjikkik settlement? This… pile of cities. Are there more, scattered all around the moon? That’s a crazy thought. At the very least they have more Destroyers than the one I killed, so it’s not impossible.

Eventually the pile madness stopped, and the stairs simply ended at the surface of the moon, completely unguarded.

I guess it being a small hole in the ground in the middle of absolutely nowhere on a moon makes it pretty safe.

Let’s not interact with this moon’s underground races anymore…

Now, where is Everelle’s dungeon?

Sofia felt a light tap on her shoulder. That was Bookie trying to gently nudge her awake.

What is it? Is the horse running out agai-

No way!

As Sofia opened her eyes, she had a hard time believing what she was seeing. She had been searching for the supposed ‘dungeon’ for about a week now, and running around the monotone gray surface of the moon for days on end made for one hell of a drab adventure. She had resorted to going to sleep to make time go faster, while her War horse skeleton dragged her around, and Bookie monitored his rats to explore in all directions.

But finally, she had found something. A huge fortress, sticking out like a sore thumb, with thick walls and high crooked spires.

This better be it!

If that was the dungeon, great, if not, Sofia would explore the fortress and try to leave the moon right after, as she was starting to seriously dread the barren and dusty place.

Do I enter from the front?

Thinking it would be the polite thing to do in case this was not actually a dungeon, Sofia had the war horse skeleton bring her to the massive wooden drawbridge, which was closed, but came down on its own as she approached. The sight almost made her forget she was stranded on a moon.

Looks like I am welcome. I guess using the entrance instead of phasing through the walls has its perks.

My mana senses cannot reach past the drawbridge at all… Curious.

The instant the skeleton horse’s hooves touched the drawbridge, a bunch of system notifications assaulted Sofia’s vision.

[You have discovered the dungeon : Sunless Castle]

[Detected players : 2 - Please wait during calibration]

That line in particular disappeared almost as soon as it appeared. And was replaced by a similar one.

[Detected players : 2.5 - Please wait during calibration]

Is it that Bookie counts as half?

[Calibration successful - Difficulty : Hell]

[The following restrictions apply -]

[Flying : forbidden]

[Planar transfer : forbidden]

[Teleportation : forbidden]

[Wall destruction : forbidden]

[The dungeon has been successfully calibrated according to your skills]

[Reward : Heart Catalyser series choice box]

[You will be given 60 seconds to use your storage items before the dungeon starts]

[Hi, you made me wait :) ]

Sofia wanted to answer but with no air she couldn’t speak, and since she was on a timer, that and all of her usual internal banter were to be skipped.

One by one she made sure to have everything she needed out of her storage.

Pareth and Bookie already out. Bookie, take your book form out too, just in case.

Saint set and crown all here, scepter good, dagger good. I need my shield too.

Armor up. No planar transfer might mean it won’t repair with my stocked bones…

Sofia brought about a ton worth of bone slates out of her storage that appeared neatly piled up beside her. She quickly transferred them to her eye then used it to make them reappear inside the castle walls past the drawbridge while she went through the rest of her things.

Water and lightstones always good to have.

A mana pearl.

Let’s take the [Lead the Dead] ring just in case.

And… I think I’m good. Ah! Let’s grab the [Skill Capture™ - 042]. Never know when I might want to use it. Alright that’s all I need… Let’s take a pouch and a backpack to put all this stuff in too.

Sofia stuck the mana pearl inside of her armor just like she usually hid the dagger, and gave the backpack with the stones to Bookie. Just like that, the time was out, and the drawbridge started to close back up with them still on it, prompting them to hurry and move.

[Is that all you need? Quickly come inside so we can talk!]

Inside the walls was the actual castle, surrounded by a courtyard which surprisingly had some strange vegetation growing, but which Sofia couldn’t admire, as gray brick walls rose from the ground, transforming the open courtyard into a narrow corridor leading from where Sofia was to the castle gate.

Moving walls… Will there be a lesser stone drake too?

Sofia let Pareth take the lead while she followed with Bookie on one side and the war horse on the other. The bone slates were slowly following behind one by one like ten square bone shields, made to move by [Bone Dominus].

Quickly walking the fifty or so meters to the castle gates, Pareth opened the way, pushing the open.

Sofia felt fresh air fill her lungs as soon as she walked past the gates. The mana density inside was also pretty high, making it a lot more comfortable than the harsh dusty void of the moon.

Music?

Everelle’s voice rang in Sofia’s ears.

“Welcome to my castle, adventurers! Now prepare to face death! HUAHAHAHAHA”

Her sinister laughter stopped after a second or two, and before Sofia could even say anything, Everelle spoke again.

“How was the trip? Do you like the background music? I can change it if you want.”

This is going to be an interesting dungeon.

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