Saintess Summons Skeletons

At Pestle’s remark, Sofia looked up from piles of gold and into the next room.

Pareth? she called out in her mind.

She could not see or hear him in the next room over, her link to him was still nearby, but in the forbidden layer, it was too blurry to pinpoint. What was really surprising was that there seemed to be no answer to her call, just silence.

A bad feeling in her heart, Sofia rushed over, jumping through the half-collapsed doorframe, she entered the next room, looked around, and saw Pareth’s back, out of the room in a short corridor. He looked perfectly fine, but was still like a statue, one foot still slightly above the ground, as if frozen mid-step in front of a strange white mushroom growing out of the ground.

“Pareth?!”

Sofia rushed to him, and the others, hearing the slight tremor in her voice, hurried to follow.

Sonia’s shocked voice came from behind, “Shit! Cover his eyes! Quick! Don’t look down!”

The instructions were strange, but Sofia followed. Reaching Pareth, she covered his face with her hands.

“Everyone, close your eyes!” Sonia continued, “Sofia, did you see it?”

Sofia closed her eyes, and only then did she notice the strange, faint outline of the weird mushroom still engraved in the middle of her vision. It looked more like a bunch of eyes of different shapes and sizes all stacked together into a gross ball, now that she was forced to give it more than a glance.

“I- I still see it even with my eyes closed!” Sofia said in a slight panic, whatever that was, the philosopher’s stone seemed to offer no protection.

“That’s fine! Just keep them closed!” Sonia ordered. Sofia heard her walk over, then heard a light clink, and Sonia let out a sigh of relief. “Thank fuck… We’re not too late. It’s going to be fine. Just keep your eyes closed until the image fully disappears,” Sonia told her.

“What is that thing?” Sofia asked, sensing that the image she was seeing indeed seemed to slowly fade.

“Evil eyes,” Sonia answered, “They’re unkillable and always try to enter your field of view. As long as you don’t look, they are harmless. If you look too long, first you’re paralyzed, then you start to melt, and your eyes join the pile.”

“What?!”

“That’s just how it is. When the vision disappears you can open your eyes.”

“Pesle is still see…”

“That was scary!” Bookie said from behind, “Is brother Pareth alright?”

“He’s not started to melt so it’s reversible. As long as he’s not looking. You can let his face go, by the way, I hid the eyes.”

Sofia heard her but did not move. Only when the white outline fully disappeared from view did she open her eyes, and look at Sonia who was crouching next to her, a hand on a small ceramic bowl that she had placed over the pile of eyes like one would catch a spider with a cup. She saw the other skeletons in the room behind, Pestle hiding her own eyes still, while Bookie held Crowie’s face. Only then did she let go of Pareth’s face. The holy flame in his eye sockets seemed to shimmer more weakly than usual.

“How long is he going to be like this?”

Sonia shook her head, “No idea. Depends on how long he looked at it for. But probably not more than a day. I never expected to find evil eyes here…” she muttered at the end of her explanation.

“Anything else about that thing? Evil eyes?”

“I told you almost everything I know already. It’s my first time encountering them too, so this is second-hand, but intel from my predecessors has never been faulty. They encountered them in a labyrinth-like structure that was full of them. Apparently these things like to stand in the middle of straight paths, on door handles, in the center of tables, and generally anywhere people are likely to look. They move by slowly crawling or rolling around, can stick to walls and ceilings, and do not react no matter what you do to them.”

“Related to the divine planes?”

“No clue,” Sonia said, “Though it’s hard not to make the connection with their appearance, what I told you now is everything I know. Ah, and supposedly you can even touch them without an issue, just don’t look. Not going to try, though.”

“That’s… Why does such a fucked thing exist?”

To this Sonia had no answer. Pestle came near, having let go of her face, the several rings she was wearing as armlets clinking together, she climbed on Pareth and seemed to examine his condition.

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“Not corruption,” she said after a bit, “it not fairy aura. There no eye fairy either.”

Sofia silently nodded. It reminds me more of Victory’s eye-spreading divine corruption. Even though those eyes looked quite different… Are the evil eyes remains of a god? Gluttony isn’t showing any reaction…

Looking at Pareth with a sour face, she started taking off her armguard, pulling out her glove, she turned it inside out, exposing the embedded philosopher’s stone, and pressed it against Pareth’s cold forehead.

Pareth, like pulled out of a trance, suddenly stumbled a few steps back, before steading himself and letting out a silent sigh. An awkward look on his skull, he bowed to Sofia and Sonia.

“Come on, no need for that!” Sofia said happily, sliding her glove back on.

“So it has powers like this…” Sonia mumbled, hand still firmly pressed on the ceramic bowl.

“The description is immunity to all negative effects,” Sofia honestly revealed, “but we’ve seen it has its limits here… Most of the zone restrictions seem not to be negative effects… It did not prevent the image of those eyes from appearing in my vision either. I honestly thought it would not help with the paralysis either but I still had to try.”

“Such a powerful item… It might still not make you immune to the later transformation, just the paralysis. So let’s be careful,” Sonia said, “Can you imprison that thing in bone? It’ll probably break out eventually but we’ll be long gone.”

“Sure, good plan. Is that how your ‘predecessors’ dealt with it?”

“Hnn,” Sonia acquiesced, “they had a stone mage, so after they understood how these things worked, they sealed them all into the labyrinth’s walls.”

Listening to Sonia, Sofia pulled some bone out of her armor, having it pour down on the floor like a liquid, sliding under the ceramic bowl, and enveloping it as Sonia pulled her hand away. For good measure Sofia added some more bone, encasing the entire thing in a small bone boulder.

“That’s this one dealt with,” Sofia said, looking toward the door at the end of the corridor, “there might be more…”

“Likely,” Sonia agreed, “on the bright side, if there are, there should be no other monsters around. The evil eyes do not discriminate.”

“We really cannot relax even for a moment down here…”

“It’s just the nature of this place… And we still have yet to see the local ‘night’...”

“Fucking hell… Let’s at least make sure we fill our pockets for our troubles. Bookie, summon Goldie.”

“Yes, captain!”

Sofia looked at Bookie with a raised eyebrow, only now realising that her demon form had been cancelled at some point during her scare earlier. Both her forms now felt so natural that she had failed to even notice the change. Silently demonising herself back under her armor, she watched the gold dwarf skeleton materialise.

“You should be able to store all those gold pieces, right?” Sofia asked the skeleton, pointing at the square gold ‘coins’ that were spilled everywhere on the floor even in this room.

Although it sometimes seemed like Sofia had no time for herself back when she was managing her city, she had always managed to find some time here and there to focus on her magic, and Bookie’s skeletons weren’t excluded. Although it was rare, some of the solar skeletons did gain new abilities when Sofia advanced through the filters, like the high priest who had been continuously gaining new utility spells, and Pestle who progressively regained her racial abilities. This gold dwarf guy? He had developed an aura like Sofia’s old bone dominus, except with gold.

The dwarf showed no emotion as he diligently got to work absorbing the nearby gold coins, although the range was pitiful, they flew toward him when he got close, and assembled around his bones like a lamellar golden armor.

“That’s one way to transport them…” Sonia commented, watching the dwarf slowly becoming a bloated figure advancing with heavy steps under a mountain of square gold coins.

“It should be able to be ‘stored’ with him,” Sofia said, “and we can also have a few of the other skeletons hold some valuables too, but only a few of them are able to really use Bookie’s space.”

“I can hold more!” Bookie chimed in.

“Aren’t you already near maximum capacity with all your clothes?” Sofia asked.

“W- well… Now my shield is a big piece of trash so…”

It was unlikely that the baubles Bookie was going to pick up were worth more than the broken remains of his mithril shield, but Sofia decided not to point that out.

“So anyway, we do have some extra space for loot. Just not a ton.”

“... Good to know. You think you could store the relic like this when we find it?” Sonia asked.

“You would trust me and Bookie with it?”

“Are you going to try to steal it?”

“... No.”

“See. It’ll be safer than in my pack.”

Thinking about this, Sofia looked at the wooden ant still latched to her back. Why didn’t I entrust this to Bookie? She wondered for a second, but in the end, that unassuming wooden ant had even survived the Phoenix’s assault without showing any signs of burning, so it was probably fine to keep it as is.

The group still ended up giving Bookie all three ascended coins for safekeeping while they waited for the gold dwarf to finish absorbing all the gold. There was even more than they had initially thought, as most of the still unbroken ceramics around, like the pile Sonia had grabbed a bowl from, were hiding more gold coins inside.

A few minutes later, when they were ready to go, Sofia opened the door at the end of the corridor. She was the vanguard now, since she could resist the evil eyes’ paralysis.

It was like a flashbang, with a yelp, Sofia slammed the door and her eyes shut after just having a quick look inside.

Her entire vision was filled with eyes, coldly staring. Beyond the door, they covered everything.