Saintess Summons Skeletons

To Sofia’s great relief, she regained control of her body after entering the pyramid, and so did Alith. But when she turned back, there was no more entrance. Of course. I don’t know what I expected. It was the same black brick wall that extended on both sides forming a small corridor. The place was well lit, owing to wall mounted torches burning with the same blue fire that had been in the brasero outside.

Sofia tried to identify the fire but all that came back was the description of a regular torch.

“Wait… we’re inside?” Alith asked in dismay.

“Yes, some kind of hypnosis, I half resisted so I could still see what happened but I couldn’t move. Or rather my body moved by itself, like yours. Effect’s name is [Domination].”

“Hmm… You think we could’ve avoided that by not touching the spears?”

“Maybe. Too late for that though, it might be better to throw it away now in case it could do that again.”

“Don’t, it’s still better than being bare-handed, and [Identify] didn’t say anything about an effect like that so… Also you were the one holding it but I’ve still been affected, so I think it might not be from that.”

“Alright. Can you transform?”

“Hmm feels like I can,” Alith assumed her banshee spirit form. She moved around a bit only to find out she couldn’t go through the black brick walls. They weren’t physically blocking her, rather rejecting her entry and pushing her back, “My skills still as useless as ever.” She turned back to her human form and asked the sentient armor for his opinion, “Hey clothing stuff, any feedback?”

Sofia broke the silence, “It’s probably sleeping, I guess.”

“... Right, well, we should at least finish what we came here for. Compass? ... Says to go left.”

“We follow then, let me take the lead, since I have higher health, in fights focus on killing the things, Pareth and me will be the bait.”

“The hell do you mean take the lead and be bait? You good Sofia? You can’t even use your bone armor! Pareth is going first, you’re behind.”

“I-... Can I rest for a minute? I don’t really feel so good actually…”

“Take your time, seems like we’re relatively safe for now. Need healing?”

“I don’t think that would help… It’s not like my health is doing bad or anything…” Sofia explained as she weakly sat on the sandy floor. The world started spinning around her.

Alith kept talking, not realizing what was going on, fooled by the effects of [Poker Face], “And you know what, get rid of the spear. I changed my mind. Also screw the armor, if we find a way to escape, we do, we can always come back later…”

I feel… faint… what…

The world turned white, then gray, then black, in sudden shifts, then it all died down. Sofia saw but she didn’t think. She could only experience, not understand.

Something appeared, more vivid than the world, larger than the universe. It had always been there, she just couldn’t see it.

Words couldn’t describe it.

She felt it. It had no eyes, but watched everything.

For the briefest of moments, it looked at her.

The thing didn’t talk but Sofia felt its message.

FREEDOM

Something had changed.

“Wake up! Hey! Oh thank god. You okay? You passed out for a second,” Alith was on her knees in front of Sofia, holding her shoulders.

“I’m fine. I don’t know what happened, really, I felt like I had a weird hallucination, but I'm better now.”

“Maybe it’s your demon skill reacting to the whole [Domination] thing and making a mess out of you?”

“No idea. Could be. But I don’t think so.”

“Ready to go then? We need to find a way out.”

“I still think we should follow the compass, unless you have a better idea…” Sofia said as Alith helped her back up.

“Let’s do it, but first we clean out the sand in this area. I’ll make a circle for Zangdar, if shit goes wrong we rush here and teleport.”

“Sounds like a plan, then Pareth will scout ahead for traps while we search for the armor…”

There weren’t any traps to be found. What was the point of building such a mess of corridors with no rooms and no traps? In fact, what is the point of this whole place? It was weird enough to be forcing people in, especially when they would have entered anyway, but now all there was inside was a big fuck-off labyrinth. Why? Do you want people in or not?

Lost and confused, they followed the compass, which had been doing weird things too. It had them going in circles, backtracking through corridors they’d already gone through, taking long routes to somewhere they could have reached by taking another turn before. Sofia had been trying to keep a mental map of the place but the more they walked, the less sense it made. If she believed her own ‘map’ they had walked through walls several times, and some corridors with no intersection passed through each other.

I must be shit at cartography. Maybe I should get a classless skill for that.

Somehow they ended up facing a wall. That was where the compass pointed.

“The compass must be broken…” Alith said as she observed the wall. It was the same bumpy black bricks every other wall was made out of.

Sofia touched the dark bricks, searching for something out of place, “It’s from the system, no way it's broken, this has to be the right way, somehow.”

“You really trust the system to a fault even with your broken class and all uh?”

“It’s just common sense? Do you not expect the sun to go up every morning?”

“Ah yes, the breathing argument from back at the towers… The sun isn’t throwing error messages at anyone’s face though.”

Their banter was interrupted by a certain piece of clothing, “I wouldn’t be so sure about that. Anyway, there’s been this really nice smell around for a while, I’m getting very hungry. And you should absolutely check behind this wall, I wouldn’t doubt sir compass’ integrity.”

Alith looked down at the thing she was actually wearing, “Any idea how to open the wall then? Seems like solid bricks.”

“Why? You breathers think in weird ways... You have blasted mithril blades! Cut through the damn thing already!”

“That works?” Sofia and Alith answered in sync.

“Now that I think about it, I only used them on the Siren… Here goes nothing.” She struck the wall with her weapon. The blade effortlessly sunk in the black bricks.

Dumbfounded, Alith carved out a path in the wall, one chunk at a time. It was all very real solid bricks of the same hard material that made up the the whole pyramid, but it stood no chance against the mithril coated blades.

What in the world… Mithril is absurd. How is it so cheap?

“Wait, can’t we just dig our way out of this place then?” Sofia asked the cloth.

“Sure thing you can, if whatever that brought you in lets you leave. I’m going back to sleep now, don’t bother me until you find my food.”

“...”

“Sof! I see the other side. Dark corridor.”

It turned out this wall was some sort of secret passage meant to be used from the other side only, that would retract the bricks using a large mechanical contraption built into the walls. Despite Alith pulling the lever that was meant to activate the whole thing, nothing happened. Maybe it was too old, or maybe the machine couldn’t work without the parts she had slashed through to carve a path. Either way, it was underwhelming.

Past the wall was a short dark tunnel, ending in a spiral staircase leading up. This narrow pathway felt out of place in this environment otherwise designed for tall people. They went up the stairs, which spanned multiple floors without a single exit, and led to a rectangular room. It was made of the same dark stone bricks but felt vastly different.

Alith walked up to a narrow bed tucked in a corner, “A secret bedroom?”

“Looks like it. No one’s been around for a very long time I would say.”

The small room wasn’t much of anything, there was a bed and a desk, nothing else, not even a window. A flat stone tablet sat on the desk, with the finest most intricate ritual circle Sofia had ever seen engraved on it.

Sofia asked for Alith’s opinion, “Do we activate that?”

“Can we?”

“There’s a mana entry engraving in there. I don't know much else but I can recognize this one. So if we just push some mana into it… Also, [Identify] isn’t reacting to the tablet, no idea why,” Sofia explained.

“Alright, I’ll do it, go back down, just in case it’s dangerous,” Alith said as she approached the tablet.

Sofia climbed all the way down the stairs, she could still see inside the room through Pareth. As Alith sent more and more mana into the tablet, the ritual circle filled with blue light. It activated fully, the tablet split in small chunks which flew around and rearranged themselves, stacking up to take the shape of a short legged chunky dwarf with a short stubble beard.

“That’s it? Some kind of toy sculpture that builds itself?” Alith mumbled to herself.

“My name is… I shouldn’t say, actually, the current year is 2587, if you found this message…”

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