Saintess Summons Skeletons

“Should you be fair in your judgement then I have no complaint,” the mirror fairy exclaimed.

“Well, you have Pestle’s memory, you should know that I always try to be fair. Respect me I respect you, that’s how it works. But all of that is for when we reach the surface. Until then…”

“Can you keep her permanently frozen or is that a burden?” Sonia asked.

“I can make myself useful! I- Though I dislike bloodshed, I can help you fight,” the fairy interjected.

Sofia ignored her and answered Sonia, “For a skeleton that small it’s not a big drain on my focus, that being said, a second Pestle would seriously increase our general power, assuming it doesn’t suddenly side with the enemies.”

“Not a risk we can take,” Sonia shut down the idea without hesitation, “if you could unsummon it like your own skeletons it might have been an idea, but as is, it’s not worth the risk.”

“Fair. Sorry, Elsep, we can call you that, right? You’re going to spend a good while in my care, it looks like.”

“I understand… Do not worry on my behalf, any name is fine, I have no identity of my own, after all… May I at least ask not to be imprisoned without the ability to look around? It… It feels truly awful to be restrained to this extent…”

“Sure, here, you can sit on my shoulder, I’ll keep your lower body stuck but moving your head and arms is fine.”

“I thank you a thousand times for your leniency.”

Sofia shook her head lightly. Truthfully she was not that wary of this tiny memory-stealer, if it was not for the possible leaking of information she would have just let it go. “Hmm, before we go I have a few questions for you.”

“Please go ahead, I shall answer to the best of my ability.”

“Hmmm. So, how much of Pestle’s magic do you have access to?”

“Everything. Although I have not inherited Sun’s blessing.”

“Of course not, that’s Bookie’s blessing. Then how is your mana? Can you even survive for long without Bookie’s help?”

“This… It is notably different from the memory I have of it. My hypothesis would be that fundamentally I have kept my ‘previous life’s attunement to mana. Unlike Lady Pestle I am fully capable of producing my own mana, although my bones are now similarly unable to hold it in place.”

“A regular undead manaless fae, then? Interesting. I have to wonder how much of all this was your own power and how much was the mirror’s effects.”

“Assuming she’s not lying, likely entirely the mirror,” Sonia deduced, “If she could freely copy people’s memory and magic, I don’t think she would still be our prisoner by now. Anyway, that’s that done… Let’s keep going, and just be grateful that it wasn’t anyone else who touched the mirror,” she said, looking back at the fairy on Sofia’s shoulder, “I wouldn’t have left a ‘second Sonia’ alive no matter how she begged for it.”

The skeleton fairy shivered at Sonia’s words, furiously nodding without a word.

Pestle landed next to Elsep, patting her shoulder, “You is be very luck copy Pesle. Pesle think it fun. And you is not even copy Pesle bad bad language. No Sofia lessons. Very luck.”

“Have the lessons even ever helped you improve at all? I can’t believe you learned to speak by yourself only to end up like this… Your brain must be seriously messed up,” Sofia snarked back.

It was ineffective, as Pestle readily agreed. “Pesle soul is be explode dead, and undead dead. Double dead but Pesle still is live? Is normal brain bad. Pesle head empty,” she said, knocking on her empty skull.

Sofia chuckled as she followed behind Pareth in the corridor out of the room, “That makes two of us.”

…

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The group advanced further into the underground, and soon the ruin changed to another style again, and again, and again. The zone’s underground seemed to be a complex patchwork of ruins from many different epochs, without any reason or logic to it. Doors and stairs could lead to stone walls, rooms could be abruptly cut in half by a natural cave wall with a small corridor passage from a different ruin. Sometimes the ruins were not even level or correctly oriented, some being flipped to the side, inclined, or even fully upside down, although the majority were still in the correct direction.

There was no major event for a while after finding the mirror room, most of the ruins were in quite a bad state, and it even seemed that most of them had already been ransacked, likely by the Fublins who used to live above.

The group continued trying to keep a general direction they had picked at random, finding that it was actually quite difficult to advance, not because of any monsters or obstacles. It was just that they had to always be on their guards, and that due to the nature of the place, there were dead-ends everywhere.

Eventually, however, Sonia feathers perked up as the group entered a new ruin.

“This! This might be it! This looks like a laboratory from the lost epoch!” she excitedly said, pointing at the perfectly average looking square grey slates that this ruin’s walls were made of.

“Progress?!” Sofia reacted, “It looks like there are some metallic things left in there,” she observed, looking at the dark room ahead, “the Fublins haven’t looted here, are you sure that’s it?”

“It could not be the lab we’re looking for, but it’s 100% from the lost epoch and the correct faction.”

“Alright, let’s carefully search the place. I don’t feel any bones nearby.”

Since everyone already knew what they were looking for, they all quickly got to work, examining every nook and cranny of this ruin. Sofia even summoned the rats and crows to help the search, and when nobody found the artefact after searching the entire place, which was only a handful of rooms sandwiched between two parallel corridors, Sonia even checked every wall, floor tile and ceiling, just in case there was a hidden passage hidden somewhere.

But forty minutes of intensive search gave almost nothing. They had found a few tiny contraptions that their Identifies couldn’t understand the use of, which ended in Pareth’s pack, and that was it.

“It’s all good,” Sonia said, “we’re on the right track. Let’s continue underground, the artifact must be near!”

“Not to diminish your excitement but we need to be out of here before nightfall or we’ll have to deal with the plants,” Sofia reminded her. “With how everything is covered in moss, weeds, and mushrooms…”

“Right, right… We should still have a good eight or nine hours in front of us… It’s fine if we take a few days anyway. You also still remember the way back, right?”

“My memory is obnoxiously good now, but if we go for the entire day I may have to start making a bone map.”

“Good enough, as long as everyone can find the way out if we get separated. Let’s keep going.”

The group thus continued, not finding more traces of the laboratory for a while, but notably finding another golden age ruin that seemed to be a jeweler’s workshop, and filling their pockets with a small mountain of gemstones, both rough and ready to use. Things went well, with still not the smallest trace of a monster in this endless maze of ruins, until the ways forward became fewer and fewer. It was like they had found the end of the ruin patchwork, finding dead end after dead end, barely able to move forward anymore, having to trace their steps back quite far many times. Until there was only one path left, that they had deliberately avoided until now despite finding it a whole three hours prior.

“Ooooooh… Fuck this…” Sonia hissed, their steps having taken the group back to that one passage, “It looks like we’ll have to find another way to the undergroud…”

Staring at the sturdy-looking metallic door in front of her, Sofia turned to Sonia, “Is it really that bad?”

“I already told you… We cannot enter Dark Epoch ruins, we just really can not…”

“... it might just be a tiny section like some of the other ruins here,” Sofia said, “I could send a few rats to investigate, we don’t have to take the risks ourselves.”

“No, no, no, you don’t get it. When these ruins are found outside of the forbidden layer, even the ascended don’t touch them. They seal them, even, to make sure nothing can get inside! There’s no guarantee at all that whatever’s in there won’t come out after we set it off!”

“Alright… it probably won’t be easy to find another opening that goes this deep under the glowing sea.”

“I know, but really, the artefact won’t even make it up if we all die here.”

“Pesle think… You is all leave, Pesle is go!” Pestle suggested, prompting a few worried glances in her direction.

“Trust Pesle! Go far far until safe! Leave outside. Pesle wait here, go alone. Enter danger place is Ravager One most best skill! Remember Pesle is steal from casino? Easy!”

After some discussion, everyone eventually agreed to let Pestle try, on the condition that she would immediately unsummon herself if something went wrong. Thus, the group backtracked until they were back to the Fublin island, while Pestle was left behind.

Right when night started to fall, and Pestle felt all of her powers come back, and saw the moss around her starting to grow like wild hair, she excitedly got up.

“Dark Epoch? Heh heh heh. They not met Ravager Ones.”

With an extended claw, she cut a small circular hole through the door, and entered the dimly lit ruins.