Saintess Summons Skeletons

After checking on Rem, Sofia brought Speed to her Sculptures storage room in Zangdar, previously the servants quarters on the first floor that had been renovated into a single large hall. She showed him a statue she had made recently of the fisherman who had shielded her from a barrage of arrows when she was a kid, and Speed agreed that it had a similar air to one of his paintings.

Sofia and Speed both had planned a few things they wanted to maybe do during the date, but somehow they ended up having a bit of an art duel. Speed painted Sofia’s sculptures and Sofia sculpted the people in his paintings. Before they realized it, the two days had already gone by. Speed carried Sofia back to her city, paintbrushes still in hand.

With a few last words and a promise to meet up again later, Speed grabbed a few letters from his post office in Ser’Extra, getting ready to depart.

“This is not over, Speed! I’ll be better at sculpting next time, you’ll see!”

“Can’t wait to see that, Sofia,” Speed answered with a big smile. He winked, and disappeared.

For a few seconds, Sofia stood there on the street, having a difficult time sorting through her emotions.

“I need a shower and a nap…”

After taking some time for herself and making sure that there were no urgent issues with the city, Sofia returned to Zangdar alone to finish learning the Archangel’s bolts. She had thought it wouldn’t take her much longer to fully replicate it, but in the end she needed ten more days and the help of the same bone guide technique she had used to learn Shaily’s sprite spell to only just manage to cast the explosive version.

The spell schematic was flat like a ritual circle, and despite this limitation, the circuits were quite complex. Even better, it was made to be modular, which was what controlled the different versions, and could be stacked on top of itself. If Sofia could manage to stack two of the explosive bolts together, it would result in a single bolt while channeling twice the mana per second.

That, however, was completely impossible for now. She already found it extremely hard to keep a single one stable with the tremendous mana consumption. If the mana wasn’t spread through the correct circuits at the correct flow rate, everything collapsed. If not for her scepter absorbing the backlash, Sofia felt like she might have actually died a few times from it, with how often she had failed the cast.

When she managed, though, the new bolt completely wrote itself over her old Angel’s bolt circuits, helping conserve some precious blueprint space.

She dispelled the barely forming bolt, and left Zangdar, flying straight to Erredis’ workshop.

“Grandma! Can I bother you for a few minutes? I need to go to space.”

“Space?”

“I want to try my improved angel bolts and my helmet’s skill.”

“Heh, I’ll do you one better, no need to go that far. Give me a minute to finish what I’m doing alright?”

“Thanks grandma!”

To avoid causing a big scene, Sofia flew south over the ocean together with Erredis in her usual rabbit form until they were well far out of sight of the city. Erredis took on her real form, and departed eastward through the sky with Sofia on her back.

The speed was too high for Sofia to be able to talk, so she just watched the world fly by beneath. In seconds the human and beastman continents were left behind.

Further east, everything was just wilderness, it seemed, natural landscapes as far as the eyes could see, some normal, some looking like they had been imported straight from an alien planet. They flew over forests of giant mushrooms, tall mountains full of holes, valleys covered by a thick purple mist, and a few oceans, until they reached the strangest place of all.

A grass continent. There was no other way to call it. Erredis started to slow down, already deep inside of the grassland, saying nothing. Sofia looked around, they were still quite high in the sky so she could see very far away, but there was only one thing, everywhere: grass.

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The terrain had minimal relief, even the rare hills were strangely round and smooth, covered in the same bright green, ankle-tall grass. There was absolutely nothing else. No other types of plants, no bushes, no trees, no rocks, no monsters, no insects, even. Just grass, gently rustled by the wind, and the occasional puddle of water in shallower spots.

Erredis landed, letting Sofia jump off of her back before transforming back.

“What… What is this place?” Sofia asked, baffled by the ridiculous scenery.

Under her feet, she felt the strange texture of the ground, unable to pinpoint why exactly it felt wrong.

“This is… Uh… The place people have been using to test their high-level spells,” Erredis answered, her eyes fleeing Sofia’s gaze. “There is nobody around here anymore, so you can feel free to try whatever…”

“Anymore?”

“Ahah…”

Seeing Erredis acting strangely uncomfortable, Sofia started to put everything together. Taking out her dagger, she crouched down, and carved a round hole in the dirt. The grass’ roots were densely packed, forming a sturdy layer of about fifty centimeters of roots and dirt, devoid of anything else. Under it was a thick black goo that loudly released gas bubbles as the layer of dirt was removed.

Jumping back out of the hole she had just dug, Sofia turned to Erredis, who was now just sitting in the grass, observing her.

“Well. I understand why you felt the need to go hide on the moon… How big is this… Grassland?”

Erreids scratched her head, “About… Two or three thousand human peninsulas…”

“Holy fuck…”

“I know… I told you I could cover the entire moon, didn’t I…” Erredis said with a long sigh. After a few seconds of silence she opened her mouth again, “Reconsidering our familial ties?” she asked, her tone wasn’t accusatory, but charged with emotion nonetheless.

“Of course not!” Sofia answered right away, walking up to Erredis’ side and sitting next to her. “Besides, with this one move you ended the global war, that’s not nothing.”

“It ended many more things than just the war… But yes.”

“Do you think it could have ended in a better way?” Sofia seriously asked, “Peace negotiations?”

“No. The stronger gods tried to mediate… Even Scripture. He was well respected and could stand shoulder to shoulder with the likes of Water and Life, back then. But no matter how many of them got involved, the grudges ran too deep. While the stronger people like me battled it out in the more dangerous parts of the world, turning them all into wastelands one after the other, the entire ecosystem started to degenerate. With all the mana we were using, the world’s reserves started to run dry. The weaker races had to pick sides just to receive protection from the aftermath of the larger conflict, the monsters everywhere went into a frenzy. In the end I couldn’t take it anymore. My allies managed to lure out those who had started the entire conflict here, with everyone reunited in one place, I did what I had to do… With those gone, and the promise that I would do it again if the war persisted, things finally calmed down. Some people still have it out for each other to this day… But nobody wants a repeat of the events from back then, so we have durable peace. On the surface, at least.”

Erredis and Sofia spent several minutes looking at the blue sky in silence.

“What was it, even? What started it?” Sofia asked without moving.

Erredis let out a pitiful laugh.

“That’s probably the funniest part… Nobody knows. We all know who started it, and when, and that everyone was forced to pick a side just to stay alive. But what, exactly started it? Everyone forgot. We collectively decided that it was you know who, who erased the reason after the fact. Who else could possibly have the power to so flawlessly delete such important information from every book, every record, every memory no matter the person or god? So after the initial surprise, we stopped digging. Perhaps it’s better that we don’t remember. It’s worked in our favor so far…”

Sofia silently opened her system logs, scrolling through the recent history.

She quickly found what she was looking for. Saria’s latest skill, from their recent family outing.

[Forget]: For you have chosen to never stop seeking truth.

Erase a memory for everyone but you.

WARNING: Essence of Edrazeketh required for safe use.

Using this skill without the required essence will instead cost mana.

In such cases, some of your own memories will be erased as well.

A higher number of your memories will be erased after each use.

If the system’s traitors managed to erase me from almost everybody’s memory, presumably without the essence…

With the essence, how strong would that spell be?

Cecless…