Saintess Summons Skeletons

“You go ahead then…” Sonia told Pestle, as she slowly spun in the air, scanning the horizon, “I’ve got nothing this time. Best I can think of is waiting for night and hoping it’ll change something.”

“Pesle is go!” the fairy said, disappearing from view.

“Or we can find whatever is maintaining the loop, right?” Sofia asked Sonia, opening the visor of her helmet.

“Maybe…” Sonia said before falling silent for a few seconds as she thought of a proper answer, “Could just be a property of the zone. In that case no target to speak of. Maybe blowing it all up is an option? Big desert, though… Ah, something?” Sonia asked, seeing Sofia’s expression contort a little.

“Huh, you noticed that on my demon face? Yeah, Pestle just died.”

“Timed-out!” Bookie clarified, “Like the worms before…” he said, summoning her again.

Pestle appeared from a ball of golden mist in Bookie’s palm, she sat there, looking pensive, “Hmmmnnnn…”

“What happened?” Sofia asked her.

Looking up at Sofia, Pestle rubbed her tiny shoulders as she answered, “Pesle is try explore in sand, feel very frost all sudden, hear scream? Is you not hear scream?”

“Didn’t hear a thing,” Sonia answered first, the others shaking their heads.

“Hmmm… Very frost and scream, then Pesle am feel slow, like falling sleep, then am dead.”

“Weird…” Sofia said, “not hearing the screams reminds of sirens. Are there sand sirens?”

Sonia looked down, she was not seeing any disturbance in the sand, “Sand sirens… And frost? Did you have time to go far before that happened?”

“No no, Pesle is go down, right under,” the fairy pointed out, showing the sand below, “am go again, try thing,” she said as she jumped down.

This time instead of disappearing in the sand, Pestle landed on top of it. She jumped a few times, kicked the sand, ran around a bit, but nothing happened, so she looked at the others on top, and pointed at the sand again before digging down. Sofia carefully monitored her faint link to Pestle; she could just barely feel it through the thick ambient mana.

Everyone was completely silent, staring at the sand, waiting for something to happen. There was only hot wind and stressful silence, until some twenty seconds later, the link snapped.

“Ah. Again,” Sofia noted, while Bookie resummoned Pestle right away.

“Hear this time?” Pestle asked before she was even fully formed.

“Nothing,” Sofia and Sonia answered in unison.

“Was same same. Pesle not even know what hit me.”

“Hmm… Well, let me try something,” Sofia said, grabbing the bone book at her waist. She flipped the pages one by one, trying to think of a way to get back at the newly dubbed sand siren, maybe reflect the attack, or something in that realm. She flipped to a page she’d almost forgotten, the literal page of the forgotten skeleton.

Wait… Didn’t this guy have a negative lifetime? Since the thing down there is killing the skeletons by timeout… Worth a try, this.

She summoned the decrepit-looking human skeleton. It was too dumb to summon itself a bone exoskeleton with wings so it just plummeted from the sky into the sand. Sofia gave it as complex an order it could handle as it fell. Dig down.

Although it was weak and brainless, the forgotten skeleton was still level three hundred, so it buried itself in the sand with relative ease.

“And now we wait…”

“What’s this one supposed to do, does it

explode when it dies?” Sonia asked.

“It doesn’t but honestly that might be a good way to use it. This one has two properties, it won’t die even if it’s ground to dust and can’t regenerate, and it keeps enchantments and other temporary boosts even when it’s unsummoned. Never really got to use it much, but it’s got potential. I could totally try filling it with explosive powder and making it detonate on death. Or ideally inscribe the bones individually with break-trigger exploding enchantments, but then it might increase its mana cost a lot? So uh, ah right, yes, since it’s ‘immortal’ it doesn’t have a lifetime, might get a new reaction out of the sand siren, if nothing else.”

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Sonia gave Sofia a sideway glance before looking back down without a word.

Time passed and seemingly nothing happened, although Sofia’s link to the forgotten was too weak to really feel anything from it. It was Bookie who eventually noticed a change.

“It’s moving! It’s moving! Going that way, super fast!” he said, pointing in a random direction where there was nothing but more sand.

Sofia hurriedly grabbed Bookie and flew off in that direction, the others following, “How far? Are we getting closer?” she asked as she gradually picked up speed.

“Faster! It’s getting away!” Bookie yelped, pointing straight ahead, “I’m losing it!”

Cranking [Runeforged Overlord] to the max, Sofia went on ahead, hoping the others would manage to follow.

“Are we catching up?” Sofia asked.

“Barely!”

Something can move that fast IN the sand?

Slowly a large rocky outcrop appeared over the horizon, like a small mountain in the middle of the sand. Bookie, intently looked ahead, and suddenly pointed to another direction, “Left, left! That way!”

Sofia took a sharp turn, intently observing the sand as she flew. Not understanding what could possibly move that fast and not leave the slightest disturbance in the sand. At this point her best guess was some kind of half-ghost like her graveyard skeletons, it had to exist physically or it couldn’t have grabbed the forgotten like this.

Sand elemental? She wondered, but already knew from Pestle’s experience that it was a bad guess.

Out of nowhere, [Heat Death] reacted, screaming that an attack way beyond what Sofia could negate was imminent. She barely had any time to react. All she knew was that billions of mana was coming her way. Sofia had a very bad feeling. Sonia!

The beastkin was flying just a few hundred meters behind her, at the speed they were going, if an attack missed Sofia… She acted on instinct. Her target was the light behind her stopped by Sonia.

The quantic transposition occurred, Sofia reappearing right in front of Sonia, the two colliding with a deafening bang. It was a violent crash that left Sonia confused for an instant, until finally she understood.

A pillar of purple ice erupted from the sand just in front of them, like a gigantic spike of ice, bent on piercing the heavens, it kept going up and up, until the tip disappeared in the sky. As it was larger near the base, Pareth had to swoop in, grabbing the two dazed women and backing off before they got impaled against the protrusions on the pillar’s side.

Even Pestle looked a little stunned as she looked up at the ever growing pillar. “Why it always levatan… Never leg…” she mumbled.

Pareth held Sofia and Sonia who were both mangled and bloody, but alive.

“Frick… Fanks…” Sonia thanked Sofia and Pareth while spitting out blood and broken teeth. She looked awfully like a pigeon caught flying by the blades of a windmill on a stormy day.

Sofia fixed herself in an instant, and grabbed Sonia’s wrist. “Might hurt a lot,” she warned too late, repairing all of Sonia’s skeleton in one go.

“GAH! Holy hell, mate, does it hurt like this every time you heal yourself?!” Sonia cried out as all her bones were snapped back in place.

“Used to it,” Sofia answered with a small shrug, looking back at the mind-bending pillar of ice behind them that was just now starting to slow down in its ascension, the base already several kilometers large. It had displaced so much sand that it had even created a somewhat flat but wide crater it was now in the center of.

“Well, thanks again…” Sonia said with a sigh, “Let’s hope whatever cast that isn’t actually maintaining the loop, or I don’t think we’re ever getting out.”

“You’re still bleeding…” Sofia noted.

“I’m healing up nicely, don’t worry, your help sped that up a lot. Might still be spitting blood for a while though. Unlike you. Must be nice.”

Paradoxically, despite the overwhelming attack that had just come, now that they had escaped and felt no urge to follow the sand siren anymore, the group had instantly relaxed. The nearby ice provided some fresh air, and the desert had returned to its usual silence and calm in an instant once the pillar had stopped growing.

“Bloodlight’s not a skill that can be shared, sorry. But it is pretty nice, yeah. My brain is made of light too, but believe it or not that does not in fact help much against blunt shock.”

Going off on her own, Pestle had flown up to the side of the purple ice pillar, and was biting into it. Sofia curiously observed her from afar. At first Pestle seemed excited for the snack, then disappointed after having a bite, then after deliberation she gave it a few more bites, carving out a hole bigger than herself.

“Tasty?” Sofia asked, prompting the fairy to stop and come back.

“Is ice. No mana. Bit salt.”

“No mana?” Sofia repeated.

“Is real ice,” Pestle confirmed with a nod.

Matter creation spell? I know water is the easiest to create so ice should be… But on this scale?!

Sofia was shocked, having fully believed that the pillar was a mana construct, yet there it stood, slowly starting to melt from the desert’s intense heat, creating waterfalls, small clouds and fog.

“I have a guess,” Sonia said out of nowhere, still resting on Pareth’s arm. Everyone turned to look at her.

“I think this is a prison.”