Saintess Summons Skeletons

Sofia and Alith exchanged about the contents of the letter. The story was interesting but their main takeaway was that they weren’t quite owners of a void castle just yet. Coming back here before they were high level enough to supply the place with mana was a dangerous bet.

Now they wanted to see these famous forbidden knowledge tablets. What could go wrong, they thought. Though a bit apprehensive, their curiosity took over.

The tiny mithril key slid into the box’s lock. Layers upon layers of magic protection that Sofia hadn't even noticed broke one by one as she turned the key, then finally, the lid popped open.

Inside, snugly stacked on their side like a deck of big stone cards were seven smooth Midenicite tablets the size of small books. Sofia carefully took them out of the box.

On the front of each tablet was an image sculpted directly into the crystal, the only color being the blue of the crystal. Each tablet had a number of dots inscribed on the top. They were already ordered starting from one, it seemed.

They had only seen the two first tablets for now. The first tablet, with a single dot on the top, depicted what looked like an elf or a vampire woman, faceless, and with a ring that had two opposite spikes over her head. That was it. The second tablet depicted the same long eared person, though she had a face this time, no ring over her head, she was depicted plowing a field.

“This is the dangerous forbidden knowledge?” Alith commented. It’s true that the first picture was a bit unsettling but…

“Let me identify it…”

[???] : This set of carvings detain great secrets and possibilities.

“Alright I said nothing,” Alith said, throwing her hands up, after reading the [Identify] prompt Sofia shared with her.

Sofia swallowed her saliva, and removed the second tablet from the stack, revealing the third.

This one was strange in that it only had two and a half dots on top. The picture was that of a slender hand that was lit on fire.

The fourth tablet had three dots on top, it featured the elven woman again, but she was blurry, vague, faint, as if behind a fogged window.

The fifth tablet, four dots, this is getting really weird… In this one, the woman was deformed, twisted, bloated, jagged. If not for the ears still being there, it would have been hard to understand it was still the same person being depicted. That was it, no scenery, no explanation. Only the disturbing image of a mutated and mutilated elven woman.

Sofia couldn’t stop her hands, she revealed the next tablet.

There was no image. Five dots stood eerily at the top, and where would usually be the carving of the elven woman was an empty space. All that could be carved out had been carved out. Leaving only a blank indent in the tablet. Someone removed the carving? It could have been the case but it didn’t look like it, the surface was smooth and clean, not what you’d expect of someone taking the time to erase an image from a crystal tablet. Maybe it’s by design? Looks like an empty food tray from the orphanage… Except it’s level 500 and made of fancy blue crystal.

“Only one left… I don’t feel like I’ve learned much," Alith said.

“Kind of feels like a story except we only get to see key moments? Maybe the last tablet will make it clear what happened to the woman or something like that?”

Saying this, she revealed the last tablet. Six dots on top. Sofia froze when she saw the carving. She had first seen the pointy elvish ears she had expected but they didn’t belong to a woman.

They belonged to an extremely familiar depiction of a lanky man. Tidy suit. Small flat hat. No facial expression. Blank eyes.

Sofia felt the world swirl around her.

In her peripheral vision, Alith seemed transfixed on the tablet’s image, eerily so. She didn’t even breathe.

Sofia looked up from the tablet at Alith, she was completely still. Behind her stood the same man that had appeared in the Church when she got her [Blessing of the Deep]. Exactly how he had been that day.

He was looking at her.

The deep is an ally.

Definitely an ally.

Absolutely an ally.

Sofia tried to convince herself.

Unlike the first time, she wasn’t unable to move. She could feel her heart beating madly in her chest. Yet she didn’t dare to even blink.

The man frowned. He disappeared.

Sofia was almost relieved that the experience was over. But she could no longer move.

The whole world was still. Even her thoughts became muddled.

She couldn’t even form complex thoughts. It felt like she had been there for a second and forever. Then the man appeared again. He was no longer frowning. Sofia’s mind became clear again. But she still couldn’t move. She couldn’t even bring herself to panic anymore. If it was her end then so be it. There was nothing she could do, not even close her eyes.

Jumbled system notifications flashed before her eyes. Twisting and turning. They were unreadable. They morphed until it became an odd system prompt.

It looked normal but also completely wrong.

[Please select a mark for : sofia]

‘mark of aPhenoreth’

the inquisitor

‘mark of ormoncleth’

the regulator

bg ‘Bssng B Y w nspeble hoors. Nohn n shke your sany.’ ‘Blessing he purifier S rank You are fated to cleanse this real. Daage to deons *100. Experience gains *1.5 until level 300.’ ‘Blessing of bloating A rank You are the ever growing. Gain bonus strength and health proportional to your body weight.’ [The baptized hero is currently unconscious, giving hero’s blessing draw privilege to the sumoner.]Lv.40 : Pareth’s movements are 43% (1*Skill Level) uieter.

What was that thing Alith said? Don’t ask too many questions when things make no sense?

I have a lot of questions right now… Too many!

At least I’m not dead yet.

Do I absolutely have to choose?

The man disappeared and reappeared closer to Sofia.

I think that means I do…

Do I really have a choice?

The deep. Aphenoreth. Ormoncleth.

This 'man' came last time and my name changed to Aphenoreth.

My next ‘contact’ with the deep was… When I passed out in the pyramid. That’s it? That thing was Ormoncleth? They’re asking me to choose one of them?

I’m not sure how I feel about a mark… A blessing is already something that’s weird enough.

Is weird godly entities fighting over me what's happening right now?!

The man appeared even closer.

Shit.

Sofia picked the mark of Aphenoreth. She didn’t even consider the other choice. It might have been because she would feel like she had betrayed her benefactor otherwise, she would probably delude herself in thinking that. But it actually likely had more to do with the fact that the supposed Aphenoreth’s 'face' was about five centimeters away from hers.

The lanky man disappeared.

Sofia and Alith fell to their knees. Alith was first to talk, “That was it! That was deep man! Wasn’t it?!”

“You saw?!”

“I saw the whole thing! I couldn’t move at all! That was fucking terrifying!”

“...”

“Oh. Sofia. My dear. Did you just sell our souls to the devil? Because that last line in my status is very ominous. Who knew I would become a witch for real…”

“Well… You saw it. Do you think I should have refused? Do you think I could?”

“... No. But do you at least have any idea what this [Mark of Aphenoreth] does? It doesn’t have a description.”

“I know as much as you… There was a single line coming with it, ‘the inquisitor’. I also had the choice to choose ‘Ormoncleth the regulator’...”

“Eh, you probably made the correct choice… I would have done the same at least, considering your name.”

“Yeah… Do we just act like nothing happened? The seventh tablet even disappeared…” Sofia told Alith, showing her the remaining tablets.

“No way in hell! If the system doesn’t want to tell us what this thing is, I’ll make it!” Alith exclaimed, saying so, a small scroll appeared in her hand, taken from the sand pendant. “I want to identify the [Mark of Aphenoreth] in my status!”

“Will that even work?” Sofia asked. She got her answer instantly as the scroll disintegrated in Alith’s hand. That sure is a way to use the ‘identify with system commentary’ scroll… I never guessed she would use it like that. “Any results?”

“Ascending request, tier four scribe action required, please wait.”

“Okay… Let’s store everything back in the ring until then… Except for the charging port thing, put your key-ring in there actually. Oh, we also need to go back and take the eyes of the spider thing, those were catalysts like the one we found before.”

The duo was busy cleaning the dead hero’s skeleton with sand and blood when Alith finally got the results for her scroll use.

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