Saintess Summons Skeletons

“Good harvest,” Sonia commented, looking at the salvage papers. “The ingots should be worth a lot too. Hum, so. Loot distribution time?”

“Right, I’d say you have your veto but truthfully there’s nothing that I absolutely need to keep aside from the leyline seed, so… Anything you want to take? Ah right, those gems are good for healing enchantments apparently, what the Kleptra said.”

“Well… The elemental converter would allow me to drop a few situational skills, so I might actually be gaining some blueprint space. Aside from that, I’d be fine with selling and splitting the rest. What about you?”

“I’m still thinking about it. Pareth actually has a lot of free blueprint space so the aligner thingy might be a good pick. Just that we would have to sit on it until he’s level 400.”

Pareth seemed to also be thinking about it, skeletal fingers gliding across his short beard.

Sonia looked up, making a difficult expression. “I– I don’t know what’s best for you there, honestly. But anyway, you can keep it if you want, just that you owe me half its value.”

“Yeah of course, I guess if you take the converter it’ll offset it, though I feel like the aligner might be more expensive.”

Sonia shrugged, “you know what, let’s do that, if you’re both fine with it, we each take the one we want, and that’s settled for value calculations.”

“You might be losing out here, are sure?” Sofia asked.

“Yeah. First of all, you don’t know, maybe the converter is more expensive, the aligner does say it’s a standard module, for what it’s worth. And secondly, I’m fine with a small loss if it’s one, you killed it and you suffered for it. Heck, I know a lot of people who would have tried to claim the entire thing for themselves in your place.”

“Can’t say the thought didn’t cross my mind at some point, but that’s not what we agreed on, and that’s not how I want to act with a friend.”

Sonia smiled, “So… Do I get a friendly price on a Ser’Extra home?”

Sofia laughed. “Bahahah, do you really need that? They’re really not that expensive!”

“Huh huh, that was four months ago, how many central locations do you think are still free now?”

“... Four months… This is going to be painful… You know what, come in person, I’ll make you a place myself. It’s my own city anyway, I can do what I want. I can even extend the city center if I need to, it’s all on a bone slate after all. Anyway, we’re not done with the loot.”

“Right. I’ll take you up on that. For the rest, my side will deal with selling it all and splitting the profit, as we agreed at the start. They work fast so you can expect the proceeds in a few days. Unless you want to keep more?”

Sofia thought for a second, “Well, Pareth would probably want to keep the pendant, right? It’s just a good item. I think I could try to make something with those healing enchantment gems so I wouldn’t mind keeping those.”

“Fine by me, on my side I’ll probably take the Mithrium I think. Could use some of that. We’ll still need to take the pendant and gems to get them properly appraised, so I’ll send them back with the payment.”

“Ah right, I should take out the gold and stuff from the golden age ruins, right?”

“Right, yes, the old gold coins can be sold for more than their worth actually, to a point, some people like to collect those so yeah. All the uncut gems, also, we have a jeweller who can work them before selling, the commission is low so that’s a bit of extra profit for us.”

“Nice. Oh, and that reminds me, can we be the ones in charge of selling this?” Sofia asked, pointing at the black steel bludgeon Pareth still carried around.

“Already have a buyer in mind?”

“You know Valeure, saintess of Wind, right?”

“Think she’ll want that?” Sonia asked with a raised eyebrow.

Sofia nodded, “not even a question.”

“Alright then… Oh right in case you don’t remember half the value of the leyline seed will be taken from your side. Annnnnnnnd, I think that’s everything? Oh right you can keep the ant golem thingy. Hard to give it a value so we just won’t count it, like the… The three you know what. Speaking of, when can we come for the five free Odalite forge use?”

“As soon as your spies or whatever you want to call it leaves definitely.”

“Yeah, right. All done. Can Bookie hand over my thing and the artifact?”

The fairy skeleton on the side who had been silent until now suddenly interjected, “Uh- I– Excuse me but… What about me?”

Sofia looked at Elsep curiously, “What, do you want to be split as part of the loot too?” she asked with a chuckle.

The author’s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“A- Am I still a prisoner?” Elsep asked, uncertain.

Sofia looked around, “Well, I personally don’t trust you all that much yet, but the others do, so…”

“You’re free to go,” Sonia continued, “Just don’t go around sharing information that you shouldn’t, or bad things are going to happen to you. That’s it.”

Elspe bowed deeply in front of Sofia, Sonia and Pareth. “I am immensely grateful for your trust and benevolence. That– That being said, I presently have nowhere to go… Would it be–”

“Just come to Ser’Extra,” Sofia said, almost rolling her eyes, “I’ll give you a small house and exempt you of taxes for a year so you have time to figure things out.”

“Thank you! Thank you so much! I shall make sure to repay you. And you too, lady Sonia, I shall repay you all for the gift of freedom you have given me.”

“Don’t mention it. You helped plenty for the last three months already,” Sonia answered with a shrug.

“Right… You said she took care of everything except fighting?”

“She’s inherited Pestle’s skills but she really has no instinct for battle, it’s almost comical,” Sonia explained, “But decent skills for everything else, especially cooking.”

“Heh, Pestle is a decent cook too, I guess they’re not complete opposites after all.”

The relaxed discussion continued for a bit as everyone shared a meal just outside the forbidden layer’s gate, finally getting access to their storage items again, they spontaneously had a small celebratory feast.

The topic of Sofia’s new title came up during the meal, so after they were done eating, transferring the loot, and about ready to leave, Sofia grabbed the dagger and equipped her new ‘[REGRESSOR]’ title.

“Can you see more?” Sonia asked as Sofia switched.

“No. Look, I just got the same list and I need to pick one. Not a single word of extra information,” Sofia answered, sharing the new system window that just appeared in front of her.

“Huh. Let’s get to guessing, then,” Sonia said.

“We don’t need the pickaxe!” Bookie chimed in.

Sofia nodded, “I don’t know what the Knife is for but I can’t take it, pickaxe is useless, and so is axe, I’m not spending my time cutting wood.”

“Needle should be for a clothier, hammer for a smith, cleaver I’m guessing either butchering or cooking, chisel is sculpting, barrel sounds like winemaking, and lathe is for jewellers. By elimination I’d say cauldron is alchemy since cooking should be either cleaver or knife,” Sonia pointed out, “So do you need any of those?”

“Honestly? Not really? Don’t really have time for any of that. Also cleaver might get rejected too, so it’s not even really an option. That leaves the map, engraver… Rock… Smartphone, encyclopedia, and clock.”

“Rock not even leg, very bored.”

Sofia nodded at Pestle’s comment, “Could be that it’s one of those purity tests where the most normal thing is the most valuable. But it could also just be a rock. So I think I’ll pass on that one. Instinctively, the encyclopedia is probably what I would take, honestly, but it being ‘forgetfull’ makes me a bit apprehensive…”

“So… Engraver, smartphone, map or clock? We’re making progress.”

“Engraver might be fine,” Sofia said, “considering it says delicate, I’m imagining it’s for engraving enchantments or small scale rituals in general.”

“Either that or it’s an artistic tool. It being distinct from the chisel does give your guess some weight. I could see myself picking that if I had to pick one.”

“I still need to consider the other options. I didn’t get much information on smartphones, because of the censoring, but from what I’ve been told, it’s a long distance communication thing, mostly?”

Sonia shrugged, “No fucking idea what that thing is, can’t help you there, an item named ‘soul-eater’ would definitely not be my first choice, though.”

“I can’t really criticise soul-eating… But I have to agree. So really either engraver, or map, or clock.”

“Seeker the map might have something like tracking divination built-in? Could be nice.”

“Or it could just be a map, we already make those with bone!” Bookie commented.

“Hmmhmm… I still feel like the map might be a decent pick, just not very exciting I guess.”

“At least it has a slight chance of being useful. I don’t really get why you would ever want a clock as a ‘tool’. We have those already, like, maybe it’s… Super precise, to measure short times?” Sonia guessed.

“That might be it,” Sofia agreed, “but that’s not really what comes to mind from the name ‘loud’.”

“Right. Truthfully I’d probably reject it just from the name.”

“Engraver or map… The more I think about it, the more I am fine with both… Any opinions?”

Pareth signed negatively, Bookie just looked lost, and Pestle gave a short comment.

“Follow map why, just use eyes.”

Sonia shrugged, and Elsep said nothing, feeling that it was not her place to speak.

“One vote against the map and that’s it? Tssk tssk, I really can’t count on anyone for difficult decisions,” Sofia jokingly sniggered.

She closed her eyes, thought for a bit, and finally settled on the engraver, thinking that it was the opportunity to finally get into creating her own items herself, even if only a little bit. And if not, it could still be used to carve prettier ritual circles in Pareth’s bones.

Then… [Delicate the ENGRAVER].

Sofia made her choice, and there was no confirmation prompt, or anything else, the system window just closed, and what looked like a thin golden pen with a sharp tip popped out of thin air in front of her, falling to the stone ground with a pained yelp.

“Owowo… Ouch… You could have at least tried to catch… Uwwww…” a sweet and weak feminine voice complained from the ground.

“Oh– S- Sorry, that was unexpected…” Sofia apologized, picking up the thin golden pen. It was thin and felt fragile in her hand, with rows of minuscule runes perfectly aligned along its length, drawing in mana. Otherwise, it simply looked like a pen made of a single solid piece of gold, with six flat edges and a barely visible rounded tip.

Sofia brushed off some dirt from it, causing it to let out a surprised moan.

Bookie scratched his skull, turning to Pareth, “I’m noticing, it’s always humans who make the weird things.”