Saintess Summons Skeletons

As Sofia turned around to tell Crowie to go do something else, a certain blue-haired fairy crashed into Sofia’s chest out of nowhere.

“Pesle is want bath too!”

“... Someone’s been listening in on my thoughts when I wasn’t paying attention, huh. Sure…”

Meanwhile Crowie had already shrunken down and left, flying in Pareth’s general direction.

Sofia entered the bathhouse with Pestle, and right away the insides weren’t quite what she was expecting, the entrance room was a rather wide room with nothing there but a teleportation circle and a mage hugging a short staff, dozing off on a chair in a corner.

“Humm… Hello?” Sofia called.

The mage woke up with a jump, “Ah! This- I- Welcome to koko… The city lord?!”

“That is what people call me around these parts… Am I not allowed to take a bath?”

“You– Uh, aherm, my apologies. Welcome to Kokola’s bathhouse… The women’s section is on the underground floor, if you would kindly stand in the center of the teleportation array…”

In an instant Sofia and Pestle were teleported to a different space quite a bit deeper underground, with an entirely different atmosphere. Thick but clean vines and vegetation hung down from large marble pillars, creating a relatively enclosed space lit by candlelight. A green-feathered avian sat behind a polished yellow marble counter, snacking on some kind of nuts that her beak loudly crushed open. She stood up, gulping down her snack when she noticed Sofia and Pestle had appeared in the room.

“Oooh! Hello hello! I’m Kokola yes, welcome to my bathhouse! It’s your first time here, yes yes?”

“It is… We kind of walked in on a whim.”

“That’s just as well, yes. There is no better bathing experience than at Kokola’s bathhouse no. Here, you can read the rules here, since it’s your first time, I recommend the basic package, yes!” The avian explained, handing out two enchanted paper sheets covered in text, one of them already in fairy-size.

Sofia’s eyes almost popped out of her skull at the prices.

‘Common bath access’ was already at a hundred gold, with a multitude of expensive options available, some really extravagant, up to the ‘Supreme Avian full care bath’ at the ridiculous price of a small stone, or in common terms, one million gold coins.

The basic package Kokola recommended was priced at 150 gold, including the common bath access, an ‘elven massage’ and ‘premium tea and snacks’.

“Snacks in a bath?” Sofia asked, looking up at the Avian woman who was eagerly waiting for her decision.

“Oh! You can’t eat in the bath, no, it is for the relaxation area after the bath hmmhmm.”

“... Frankly speaking… Isn’t this all a bit expensive?”

Pestle nodded along, “Very not free, why so greed?”

Sofia glanced at Pestle, the words were blunt but she did have to agree. However, Kokola did not take offense to that, and in fact, looked quite proud of herself.

“It is very much worth the price, yes? If you really doubt then take the Extra basic package! If you two still think it was not worth the price when you’re out, I give the money back, all thousand gold, yes! Promise guaranteed!”

“... You know what, alright, we’ll do this, two extra basic packages then…”

Sofia could clearly see the smile in the avian’s eyes when she received the ten tiny Mithril ingots worth a hundred gold each.

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The avian did not strike Sofia as being a scammer, and she had arrived there by following an ascended in the first place, so it stood to reason that the bath would probably be worth that kind of money, even if she had a hard time imagining how that could be possible.

“Alright yes, it’s about time we closed entries for the day… Hmmhmmhmm… Come, come, follow me,” Kokola said, leaving her counter after storing the ingots in a golden storage ring.

Sofia was a bit stunned when the Avian started undressing in front of her in the next room over, but Pestle wasn’t, and followed suit. She soon discovered that there was some very strong illusion magic around that covered her private parts with cloud-like steam, that even herself couldn’t see through.

I should have known when it said common bath…

A large panel on the wall was inscribed with detailed rules, including the details for clothing. Essentially everything except for storage rings or necklaces had to go.

Kokola was waiting for them next to the door, almost jumping in fright when she saw Sofia rip her left arm off.

“Ah- Ah- You- You can keep that on if you want…”

Sofia shrugged, storing the fake arm away, “It’s just a lump of bone.”

After that Kokola led them to a shower room where hot water constantly poured down from the ceiling. Sprite-like motes of mana gathered around the three women, washing any impurities away as they walked through the corridor-like shower room.

There were very few people inside of the bathhouse proper, a few employees wearing feathered aprons were silently tending to various tasks, while about a dozen women relaxed in a huge pool-like bath that spanned more than half of the room, and a few more were spread around different areas. Nobody paid the new arrivants any attention.

Sofia and Pestle ended up following Kokola into the main bath, both of them quite surprised at the strange water they had entered. The temperature was just right, but the feeling was a bit strange, the water was softer than regular water, somehow.

Noticing Pestle and Sofia’s confusion, Kokola scooted closer to them, “How do you like the water? It’s nice, yes?”

“It nice, but why it alive?” Pestle asked.

Alive?!

Kokola chuckled, a hand in front of her beak. “It’s a water elemental.”

“Pesle am bath in leg?! Am die. Uek.”

Under the avian’s curious eyes, Pestle let herself sink in the water.

“Is… Is she going to be alright, yes?” Kokola asked Sofia, being the one who was surprised for the first time.

“Don’t worry about her… A water elemental… Just how’d you convince one of those to become bathwater?”

“Not telling! But you’ll see it’s very relaxing, hmmhmm.”

Sofia casually chatted with Kokola asking how the Avian had ended up in this city, and mainly relaxing in the bath while Pestle explored the rest of the place. She completely lost track of time and of her original objective as she followed the owner out of the bath to a massage table, where a bathhouse employee also took care of her hair and other things. She left the bathhouse alone when it was already night, feeling like a different person and having completely forgotten just how much she had paid. The craziest part of it all was how the ‘tea and snacks’ were actually prepared by a level 400 cook which had actually given her a few permanent charisma points.

Pestle was still inside, but Sofia needed to leave, Leverle would arrive soon if he was not already there, and it would be bad manners to make him wait.

She was completely oblivious when someone followed her out of the bathhouse and all the way back to the city hall, entering her office through the ceiling alongside her.

Of course when said person tagged along using the graveyard nymphs to phase through the ceiling, it was hard not to notice anymore.

“Eltiel, I imagine?” Sofia asked the cloaked person standing behind her.

“It’s Professor Eltiel to you, junior. It’s not the first time someone has followed me to a bath but it’s the first time I let them live,” a rather suave voice whispered in Sofia’s ears.

“... Sorry, but I am into men.”

“Pahahah! Is that so? I could have sworn rumors were you were more into disturbing balls of purple-ish eyes, but I might have misheard,” Eltiel answered, laughing by herself, and sitting into the guest chair in front of the desk. “Are you not sitting? It’s your office, after all.”

Sofia took a few steps around her desk, and sat in her seat, finally getting a glance at the hooded person in front of her. It had been impossible to tell who was who inside of the bathhouse with through the sheer amount of privacy magic around that completely blinded the mana senses, but it was in fact the person Sofia had guessed might have been her.

That was because said person really fit the ‘race unclear’ description. She was relatively tall with long elf ears, had blue skin like an exidian, and pointy sharp teeth and short horns like a fairy. Having pulled her hood back, she stared at Sofia, sitting nonchalantly in the guest chair.

Without a word, the two silently observed each other only lit by the faint moonlight that streamed through the windows into the room.