Saintess Summons Skeletons

“Well it’s fine, not every skeleton can be Crowie. Let’s open the door, we’ll hear better,” Sofia told Bookie.

“Are we sure it’s safe on the other side?” Alith asked, her hands already on the door.

“I don’t feel anything weird directly behind the doors,” Sofia answered, “but my mana senses get all jumbled up when I try to push it further up the stairs. The result of the pockets of the light world overlaps, I imagine. The rat will scout ahead but we’ll have to be ready for whatever comes.”

Alith nodded, “Once we’re up there, do we aim for the palace, the dead god, or do we follow the voice?”

“Whatever is closest to us, assuming we even manage to move around on the surface at all.”

“Alright, opening now.”

Alith pushed on the heavy catacomb doors. The skeleton rat scurried through the gap as soon as it could, running up the spiraling stairs beyond the door.

Shit, lost contact already. Dead? Sofia mentally asked Bookie, who shook his head in response.

No? Oh, it’s back. Must have gone through the light world.

Just when Sofia thought the rat was safe, as Alith finished opening the door wide enough for Pareth to fit through, the connection to the rat disappeared again.

“Scout unsummoned himself,” Bookie announced before anyone could take a single step on the stairs, immediately resummoning the rat.

“There must be some obvious danger up there then,” Sofia said in a whisper, “worst case would be a parasite blocking the exit.”

“Can’t the rat communicate what it saw somehow?” Alith asked.

Sofia picked up Bookie’s book form and opened it, “No way, it’s still just a rat. Crowie or a human skeleton could maybe draw… This one.”

Sofia tore a page, summoning the elf caretaker skeleton she got from the sun temple. This skeleton was usually mostly used as a cleaning maid in Zangdar. She lacked much combat utility, but she was both smart and fast, making her perfect for the job here.

The caretaker with her broom ran up the stairs. It wasn’t long before she also unsummoned herself, and was resummoned next to the group. Sofia emptied a flask of rot dust on the floor and lightly spread it around. “What did you see? Draw,” she ordered the skeleton.

With a bone finger, the skeleton drew a few lines in the black powder.

“Oh… That looks like one of the bat-looking things hanging from the tethers… I guess they are down here too. Did it notice you?” The skeleton shook its skull. “Interesting… These things aren’t even creatures of the deep, I think. We might be able to kill it.”

“What if it’s a transformed person like the tethered?” Alith chimed in.

“I don’t think we can take the risk to try and find that out. Better to send an assassin skeleton and see if they can get rid of it.”

“You have that?”

Sofia pointed at the currently invisible fairy skeleton which had been following them all this while. “She’s our best bet. I have a few others but they can hardly compare. Go.” The fairy disappeared.

The group had to wait all of five seconds before the fairy returned from the stairwell.

“Did you kill it already?” Sofia asked the still-invisible fairy, surprised, a query to which said fairy gave an answer by dropping something on the ground in front of Sofia.

“Physikstone,” Alith immediately identified, “the bats are physical fighters.”

Having noted this, Sofia sent the caretaker skeleton back up, and she came back without unsummoning herself, which meant the stairs were now safe. The group and the skeletons thus proceeded further. The singing voice became clearer as the group climbed the stairs, and with it they started to hear the light sound of an instrument.

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“Is that a harp?” Sofia asked in a whisper as she noticed the sound of the music.

Alith listened for a few seconds before shaking her head, “Lyre. Smaller, lighter sound, fewer strings, makes sense that we only noticed now. First time I hear one since being summoned here.”

“I see… That singer has a great voice, it sounds like she’s singing some kind of lullaby… It’s just so out of place, it’s unsettling.”

“I think so too, but we’ll know who is singing soon,” Alith said with confidence, “even if we have very good hearing, we can’t be very far from the singer if we hear the lyre from here. It’s likely that she would hear us if we spoke louder.”

“We better stay silent until we know who we’re up against then. Anyone crazy enough to come here to sing can’t be normal.”

The group took a few more steps up, stopped when they suddenly entered the light world again. The stairs in the light world were pretty much the same, if a bit cleaner, but more importantly this allowed Sofia to see the original appearance of the Forgotten skeleton.

Old man. Maybe 60? Clear signs of wealth, golden chains and jewels, but all somewhat out of view… The clothes are of great quality but not too showy… Probably not any kind of noble. An old merchant, perhaps? Of course the face is also blurry…

“He’s still not smart,” Bookie commented from Sofia’s side.

“That’s a shame,” Sofia said, noticing that Bookie was quite right, as the old man was still just as wobbly and unresponsive as he was in his original skeleton form. “Still, if he was a merchant like I think, he might still have retained some knowledge and be useful if we ever try to open a shop. But for now, let’s not waste any more time on this.”

The group then continued up the stairs, reaching the corpse of the bat thing that the fairy had killed. The fairy had utterly destroyed the creature, leaving behind only lumps of dry dark flesh covered in tiny claw marks, and layer upon layers of crackled dead grey skin scattered everywhere.

No organs and no bones… What in the fuck are these things? Were they people like the tethered?

Alith collected a bit of dark flesh in a tiny sealed box and the group continued onward, as there was little more information to be gained from the scattered corpse.

Finally they reached the top of the stairs, entering a building that seemed to be entirely in the light world.

Some sort of funeral parlor? Sofia wondered, observing her surroundings. Can’t feel any creatures in the other rooms, but the outside is teeming… One on the roof as well, feels like a stalker. The windows, blinds and doors are all closed and barricaded from the inside. Someone tried to hide here, even in the light world… The bat thing might have really been a person…

The singer sounds to be about a few houses over in this direction. Sofia thought, looking at one of the windows blocked by a pile of empty coffins from behind which most of the sound came from.

That voice is definitely amplified by magic in some way or another. Doesn’t seem to carry any malignant effect at least.

Sofia dismissed the Forgotten skeleton, thinking that it was going to be a bother more than anything else now, but she let the caretaker and the fairy stay.

While Alith and Pareth double-checked every room of the funeral parlor to make sure it was safe, Sofia extended her mana senses to the surrounding houses, carefully taking note of all the blind spots indicating either zones that weren’t in the light world or creatures of the deep.

Out of eight surrounding houses, three seem to be home to Parasites, and three are more than halfway out of the light world, which I can’t scout from here… That leaves two choices, but both of them have some other things in there that I don’t recognize. Hopefully bats. Some of the deeplings are walking in and out of the light world zones so I can’t keep track of them… That’s going to be annoying.

The building in this corner takes us closer to the voice, Sofia thought, but we will have to cross the street to get there. The other to the back of the funeral parlor only has us cross a tiny alleyway, much safer but we would be going away from the singer.

Sofia compared her mental map of the trajectory she had taken until now with her initial view of the city. Since she had only seen it from afar, it was quite vague, but she could still more or less guess on what side of the city she was.

If I’m right the palace is almost in the same direction as the singer… Would be easier if I could take a real look outside, but the deep creatures are moving a lot.

And that other one seems to not want to leave the roof. It’s almost right above the entrance. It’ll definitely notice us if we cross the street.

After quickly discussing her findings with Alith and Pareth, they both agreed that they should go investigate the voice.

“Sounds like we can cross the street unseen if we just time it well,” Alith said after Sofia scribbled a map on the dusty floor, “but we need to get rid of the roof crawler first. Are you sure it’s a stalker?”

“About 90% sure, the general shape is similar, spider-y, but it’s hard to be certain when I’m essentially describing a hole in my mana senses… Either way, I have a plan, hear me out...”