Saintess Summons Skeletons

Sofia let Pareth slide down the wall, leaving behind small trails with his claws. Sofia and Alith would observe from a safe distance. The chicken skeleton was in serious combat mode, wearing his halo, an armor of light and his ‘weapon of light’ that had been morphed to… Chicken claws of light? If there was ever a dangerous chicken in the history of chickens, it was this one.

It touched ground on the paved road, between two mansions. Perhaps there had been gardens around the mansions originally, now those were nothing but five or six meters deep pits. Same thing for any fences that might have existed before, it was long gone.

Could the lesser Phageids even get in the mansions? Now that I think about it they weren’t good with stairs… There’s no way they could climb their way into the mansions. Where the hell have they gone then? The palace?

The skeleton flitted away on the straight road going straight for the palace. He got quite close until he ran into an invisible wall. So that explains why the palace has been preserved. One more point to my mana eater Phageids theory.

Alith also had something to say about it, “Think someone lives in there?”

“And they wouldn’t have come out when we were busy destroying the outer city? I’d be more inclined to say whoever locked themselves in there is long dead, just like the elf who had the ring.”

Only one way to find out.

Pareth attacked the invisible barrier, the zone near the impact rippled with blue light. That was it. It gave a few more attacks with the same result, the barrier was still there, invisible and undamaged.

“Maybe you should just bolt it.”

“That would be our last resort I guess, your mithril blades might work too? It would be nice if we could just get through without breaking it, if it can keep the Phageids away.”

“To the mansions then, I’d like a simultaneous description if you can please.”

“Sure.” Sofia ordered Pareth to enter one of the mansions. The skeleton ran there, jumped over the ‘garden’ pit and entered through a window on the ground floor. Then Sofia entered her narrator mode, “Empty, as usual, larger rooms than the outer city though. It’s not unlike a regular human mansion… I think. No traces of any Phageid yet. Entering the second floor through the main stairs.

“Still not much, smaller rooms, long corridors, all desperately empty. There’s round holes in some walls and floors, maybe they had water pipes or something like that.”

Alith interrupted her, “Water pipes?”

“I thought the nobles of your world had that like ours? It’s all in the name, pipes that bring fresh water to like cook and stuff. With servants pumping the water to fill the reserve every day. It’s the middle option for those not quite rich enough to get magic water taps but still rich enough for luxury. Most people only have their toilet with piping like that to prevent the smell. Did you not pay any attention when we were at the inn in Drakron?”

“I don’t spend much of my time marveling at toilets, no.”

“Anyway… Entering the third floor… Shit!”

All Alith could pick up was the sound of things breaking in the distance, before Pareth, half smashed to smithereens, appeared near Sofia and started regrowing from [Heal Undead].

“Phageid?”

“Yes, and a big one. It was alone, latching on a large glowing sphere of the blue stuff,” she took out the catalyst, “kinda like this but more than your height. Didn’t look like a wall but more like… a squid? Your world has squids right? Imagine a 3 meter tall one.”

“You mean the disgusting transparent red thing with a ton of tentacles and a long tube head? I’ve seen that once or twice, a friend of mine used to transport fish for the nobles, showed me a lot of horrendous stuff.”

“Your world’s squids have more than three tentacles? But yes it’s somewhat like that, except twice my size, only three tentacles, and looking like it’s carved out of the blue crystal. Its tentacles can stretch a lot, they reached through the whole empty floor to slam Pareth. He blocked a hit with one of his new skills, [Flying shields of light], and then a second tentacle moved and you see how it ended, so I had him teleport back.”

“Hmm… Do the glowing orbs not have a mana flow you can detect?”

“This place is so empty of mana I wasn’t really paying attention to the skill… I can’t see the mana unless it’s very obvious or I really focus…”

Let’s see then…

“So?” Alith pressed her.

“I don’t see the orbs… But almost. The orbs are linked to the palace, I can see it if I really focus on where the orb Pareth just found is. It’s subtle. And…“ Sofia looked around the whole inner city, “I think every mansion has one.”

Alith only thought about the situation for five seconds, “So we blow the whole place up, and when all the orbs are down, the palace’s shield probably goes down as well. Easy enough. Let us get to work, human trebuchet!”

“Trebuchet?”

“So you’re the one asking questions now? It’s a long distance wall destroyer. Fits you just right.”

Just sending an [Angel’s bolt] seemed like an easy enough solution but they felt it might be risky, if the thing survived it could spell trouble. They had no idea of the level of the crystal squid.

And as far as they knew, there was probably at least one of those in every other mansion, it would be best not to alert the others. There was some hope however that they might be safe from the top of the wall, as those things hadn’t climbed over to get them back when they rampaged through the outer city. That might mean they couldn’t climb. Sofia could also fly, but she couldn’t go very high up due to the void outside, and they feared the tentacles might be able to reach her from the ground.

So their plan was to take this squid out as quietly as they could, and learn from it to clear the rest. Before that, they had Pareth check every mansion’s third floor from afar through the windows.

As they feared every mansion had its own orb and Phageid squid. Besides one that had two squids. These Phageid squids weren’t all the same size, different levels guaranteed, so they decided to hunt the smallest of the bunch first. They would try to do it as quietly and cleanly as possible.

If all went to shit, they would turn back to the ‘fly around and blast everything with lightning plan’, in which Alith and Pareth would have to fend for themselves on the ground. Because they couldn’t stay near the forming [Angel’s bolt]s.

Looking over the mansion occupied by the weakest looking Phageid, they were about to start the attack. Only one detail was posing problems. They didn’t know how to get the thing to come out of the house. They had a lot of ideas they wanted to try out, but as it was they knew too little about their enemy to be sure of the best approach.

One thing was certain, they wanted to have access to Sofia’s [Heal undead], so they didn’t want to fight inside the mansion.

“Will it even come out though? The other one didn’t move after you teleported Pareth away.”

“Who knows, let’s try our ideas one by one.”

If the Phageid went out of their way to eat mana-rich items and people, as Sofia theorized, then they might be able to make it come out, maybe even lure it into a trap. But they could be wrong, and the thing also looked like it was protecting the big sphere… Maybe it’s trying to eat the sphere too? Wouldn’t that mean they’ve all been trying and failing at that for centuries?

Unless time flows differently here… Or the city wasn’t like that when the elf owned the ring… Whatever, time for action.

Sofia deployed her wings, the holy light lit up around the white bones, and she took flight. Hovering as far as she could from the windows on the top floor of the mansion, she summoned some blood inside.

It was instantly answered with the sound of something heavy slamming against the Midenicite floor. Sofia couldn’t see but some part of it had to have crumbled.

It attacked the blood? If we can make it destroy the ceiling like that then we could fight it in there.

Sofia flew higher up, as high as she could and over the mansion, then she summoned some blood mid-air. It fell and landed on the roof right above the creature.

No reaction this time. I guess since this crystal cannot hold mana it must insulate from it pretty well. It also can’t see it and probably not hear it…

That means the Phageid squids from the other mansions shouldn’t be too reactive to us fighting this one, if they have a similarly limited perception, that’s good news.

The next test was to do the same things with big chunks of crystal instead, to see if that was enough to prompt a reaction.

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