Saintess Summons Skeletons

Heavy. Sofia thought as she picked up the contents of the small chest which turned out to not be a mimic.

[Unlabelled ritual book]: A book containing many antique ritual circles, there is no title, author or explanations. The cover and bindings are made of a mithril alloy.

These pages are all rituals? Sofia rhetorically asked, as she trusted Mr.Scribe but couldn’t actually see what she was holding. Just by feel, though, she estimated the thick and heavy metal-bound book to have at least five hundred pages.

Well. I guess I’m going right back to Zerei’s after we finish this.

Sofia finally left the mimic’s room, and made her way back to the sewing room, where the zombies were still silently sewing, and all turned around to stare at her.

“Just going through, guys,” Sofia announced as she walked to the door on her left.

She was once again faced with a dark corridor, the lit candle was on the other side. Sofia took her time to walk through the corridor, she was busy refreshing her lost unlife rune, and was going to channel a third one also since there was no additional downside.

Except for the annoyingly long channeling time…

In the next room, a single female human zombie was lethargically organizing the gray robes into piles of different sizes; she, of course, stopped to stare at Sofia instead as soon as she felt her presence in the room.

Oh, finally.

Sofia reached into her chest, a hole appearing in her armor, and she grabbed the dagger from her Apostle hollow heart cavity.

Now how do I do this? Kill fast to be safe and get the zombies’ level, or bait attacks to learn what they’re capable of?

If they have a level comparable to the mimic I’m in deep shit, but I can’t just hope that they’ll never attack me, so I need to learn more.

After some thinking, Sofia stored her scepter, and quickly sculpted a long bone spear shaft. She encased the dagger at the tip as the spearhead, feeling that the extra range would give her more time to react if the zombie was faster than expected.

With a swift strike, Sofia sliced through the zombie’s right arm. The dagger cut through the rotten flesh with no resistance whatsoever, and the dead arm fell on the floor, still holding a half-folded gray robe.

Sofia backed away as the zombie suddenly turned to face her, growling, no longer slow or lethargic. Sofia anticipated a physical attack of some sort, but instead, the flame of the candle the zombie was holding in its remaining hand swelled, and a scorching beam of fire pierced the darkness, aiming straight for Sofia’s head.

I see, Sofia thought as she spent a trifling amount of mana to negate the magic with [Heat Death].

“Do it again,” Sofia ordered.

The zombie wouldn’t understand, but it was already going to attack again anyway. The candle flame swelled again, but this time it had about sixty thousand mana behind it, so three times as much as before.

Sofia moved at the last second, letting the fire beam hit her shoulder.

It scorched the bone armor, and dug about one centimeter into it, failing to even reach her skin.

“Thank you for your help; now rest in peace,” Sofia thanked the zombie before she dashed forward, plunged her hand inside of the zombie’s throat, and turned its entire skeleton into an array of spinning bone blades.

The kill notification came before the shredded zombie parts could even hit the floor.

‘You have defeated [Sister of the candle - lv. 238]’

“Hmm… Honestly that’s an admirable level of power for that level. If enough of them attack me at once I could take some damage. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there were higher level ones. That would be dangerous. Pretty weak physical defense for zombies at that level, though.”

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Sofia then stole a few robes from the stockpile, and kept on exploring, as this room branched out into three different corridors. One of them held absolutely nothing of interest, while the rooms in the second one quickly became slightly unsettling, as Sofia realized that the things she had been looking at for the last three rooms were in fact torture devices. It hadn’t been too clear at first, as the strange rusty contraptions were otherwise quite clean, but in the room Sofia had just entered, they looked newer, and were covered in dried blood.

Another room, and the torture instruments started to be covered in fresh blood.

Pools of blood covered the ground, its metallic smell feeling very familiar to Sofia.

Could be human blood, somehow.

In the next room, the torture devices started to have pieces of gray skin and rotten flesh stuck on them, the entire floor was covered by a shallow layer of warm blood.

Are they torturing zombies here? But that other zombie didn’t bleed at all, so this…

Cautiously entering the following room, Sofia got to appreciate a collection of amputated arms and legs suspended to the ceiling with meat hooks. There had been so much blood in this room that it had flowed out into the corridor as soon as she had opened the doors. Judging by the wetness of the walls, it had reached about knee-deep.

At least the candles are not on a candelabra for once. Never thought I’d be so appreciative of wall-mounted candle holders, but it’s nice to see a change of scenery.

At a glance, the arms and legs displayed on the meat hooks were all chopped off zombie limbs, and they seemed to all come from the same zombie.

To be certain of that, Sofia grabbed two left arms, comparing the scars on them.

It’s actually the same.

Some zombie out here is being tortured and repeatedly amputated… I’m pretty sure all normally constituted zombies do not feel pain… But they shouldn’t bleed either. Not to mention bleed this much.

After Sofia walked through the hanging limbs to the exit, a piece of parchment appeared out of thin air, nailed on the door, glowing words etching themselves onto it one by one.

Second trial!

‘Here bleeds Swordsman Rekosi

He suffers in death what he inflicted in life

His vengeance enacted, he was left a hollow shell

All he knows is killing

This is your second of nine trials of might

Currently available helpers:

Pareth

Everelle

Velanihuarahton

Bookie

Cinthia’

Once again, illusory images of the others flashed before Sofia’s view. Pareth stood proud, his armor looking slightly different than what Sofia was used to, Everelle and Ihuarah both looked calm as they held a piece of parchment, and Bookie was sitting on the ground, the parchment paper rolled around one of his ribs, and gleefully playing with Crowie.

The vision of Cinthia came last, and she seemed a bit tired, breathing heavily, her clothes dripping with sweat.

The visions only lasted a second, and Sofia was back to reality.

Should I summon Cinthia? I don’t know how it is out there but she could stay back and rest for a bit… Hmm… I’ll see for the next trial, hopefully that will be alright.

Sofia stepped on the ‘Loneliness’ word that had appeared on the floor next to the others’ names, and the parchment disappeared. She brought out her mithril-core bone shield, and quickly transferred her one [Bone Dominus] blessing from her own bones to it, the other two being on Pareth and Bookie. She could always fuse her own bones back anyway if they got cut, but with the unlife runes active, her muscles would stay cut until she died, so against a swordsman the best course of action was to just use a shield.

When she felt fully prepared, she opened the door.

For once, the place was already fully lit by candles, in hanging lanterns attached to the ceiling by long, clanking chains. This dome-shaped room was the largest Sofia had found in Sorrow’s palace yet; its walls were covered in countless rusty blades like an inverted porcupine. The sole occupant was a zombie in rags, sitting cross-legged at the center of the room in a pool of blood, a long, thin and curved blade embedded guard-deep into his chest: Swordsman Rekosi.

This guy’s mana is weird. Spread too evenly. Sofia had time to think as the zombie pulled the blade out of its chest without even opening his eyes. Blood flowed profusely out of the wound as he stood up.

Sofia was holding up her shield, and she was not the kind to let enemies take a free shot at her if she didn’t need to. Before the swordsman could even fully stand up, the flying wall of Firebird skulls behind Sofia opened their beaks, and the swordsman was engulfed into a storm of magical fire.

She heard a whooshing sound.

Her head was then promptly liberated from her neck.