Saintess Summons Skeletons

Alith managed to step foot into the strange cliffside village unnoticed at the beginning, but the burning strawman monsters were too numerous to hope to get far without a fight. The houses were fully made out of wood tied together with the same kind of charred rope that bound the bodies of the strawmen into shape. Sneaking in an alleyway, Alith jumped into the first open window she found to avoid a patrol of three of the creatures.

The furniture inside was sparse, mostly made of the same yellow wood. The room Alith was in seemed to be some kind of kitchen, she crouched under the window to get out of sight of the patrol outside. Her gaze shifted to the partly-open door of the room.

There’s one in the next room.

It might be a good opportunity.

The monster in the next room was just like all the burning strawmen outside, but instead of flying around the streets, it seemed to aimlessly float from one side of the living room to another.

Alith silently made her way to the door, and waited some time for the monster to be moving away from her. Although the creatures had no face, they did seem to have a front and a back.

Flinging the door open, Alith stabbed the back of the burning monster with her antler spear. The antler effortlessly pierced through the burning straw, the split horn’s shape working perfectly to restrain the beast. It reacted instantly, emitting strange ethereal roars and burning brighter as it tried to turn around and face Alith. She pushed it further, pinning it against a wall with the spear, and avoiding the flying embers that the creature haphazardly flung back at her.

No core? But it doesn’t feel like a ghost? How does this thing even…

As more airborne embers formed around the monster for another magical attack, Alith noticed where their mana came from.

So it’s this.

Brandishing her antler knife, Alith cut through the several strings and ropes that tied the monster’s straw body and arms. The creature fell apart, burning straw and cinder scattering on the floor, before burning to ashes in a flash.

I see. A few embers touched me but the ointment negated most of the burn. I don’t think their physical attacks will be anything to worry about…

After an expedited search of the house that returned nothing interesting, Alith jumped back outside, and slowly made her way toward the deeper parts of the village, disposing of a few monsters here and there.

It was not too long until she was noticed by the lurkers staying in their house, and the entire village seemed to have woken up to her presence at once. She killed a few as she kept running, taking a lot of turns, trying to reach some sort of monument or shrine built directly into the volcano wall that looked like an easily defensible position.

I’m surrounded!

Three burning strawmen stood on the other end of the narrow alleyway Alith had run into, while at least a dozen followed her from behind. She knew there were also several tracking her from above the rooftops, making climbing up a bad move. Her first reflex was to look for another window to dive in, but there were none of those in reach.

Fuck. I have to break through!

Left with no escape, Alith put her knife in her mouth and ran straight ahead into the three strawmen blocking her way.

With her freed hand, she ripped her bandolier off, and threw the entire thing at the three creatures, colliding with the shower of burning embers they were casting at her. The herb-filled pouch exploded into a surprisingly large ball of fire that completely engulfed the three monsters. They were immune to fire, but it could still block their vision. Alith’s spear impaled the strawman in the center and pushed him back as she used it like a vaulting pole, jumping over the blockade. Behind the monsters, she couldn’t afford to pull her spear out of the strawman, but she noticed the mithril lockbox from her pouch had somehow been flung there, so she grabbed it without stopping and rushed toward the shrine-like building carved into the cliff. There was a short flight of stairs leading up to an open stone gate, a burning strawman blocking the way atop the stairs, while more were arriving from every other direction.

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Like the others, the strawman above conjured flying embers around him, and Alith just ran straight through, letting the curtain of embers embed itself into her skin.

“Out of my way!”

A round kick sent the strawman flying off of the stair, and Alith rushed in, hastily closing the heavy stone gate behind her, and sitting behind it to keep it closed.

The stone floor seemed cold compared to her burning skin. Alith patted down her sundress to extinguish the fire, but she could still feel the burn. The ointment helped, but it could only withstand so much, there were large burn marks all over her skin, and most of her hair was gone.

“Ahahahah… Playing with fire…”

The strawmen outside tried to push the door in, but their physical strength was laughable compared to their magical prowess, Alith barely had to try to keep the heavy door shut.

As she finally took a second to breathe and look around her, she heard a light click. The mithril lockbox in her hand opened by itself.

Huh?

The box contained not one but three teeth, an almost complete set of canines, tied together by a thin string.

It turned out that while most of the lock’s components were mithril, it used a regular iron spring, which had been deformed into uselessness by the intense heat the box had been subjected to.

The interior of the shrine was quite dark, as Alith had just closed the only opening, leaving only a tiny ray of light seeping in through the uneven edges of the door, but it seemed to be a single room with relatively few things. There were just a few pillars, some decorations, and something she couldn’t quite make out in the darkness on the far end.

Alith first blocked the door by slamming her dagger into the stone ground as a temporary doorstop. Within the few seconds it bought her, she pulled one of the heavy-looking pots with a dried up leafless shrub from under a nearby pillar and used it to hold the door.

Just to feel safe, she piled up two more of the square pots in front of the door, and started looking around.

It looks like there’s no exit…

Walking up to the darker side of the strange room, she found a weird pillar, a round hole was carved out in the middle of the pillar, and a crowned skull sat there, like an object of worship.

All of this for another fucking tooth…

Alith slid her hand into the skull’s slightly open jaws, but she found that it was completely toothless.

Oh?

Alith tried to pull the skull out of the pillar, but it would not budge even slightly, so instead she played with the three canines still in her other hand.

Am I meant to…

Pulling a canine off of the string that tied them together, Alith brought it up to the front of the skull’s mouth.

The tooth almost flew out of her grasp, fitting into the cranium’s upper jaw with a click. A weak blue glow appeared in the skull’s eye sockets, and Alith received two system messages.

[Amaralak’s grin 1/32]

[You have scored bonus completion points!]

OH HELL YEAH!

The six teeth Alith had found all fit perfectly into the skull’s empty jaws, every time the glow in the skull’s eyes grew brighter, and every two she slotted in, a small glowing box appeared behind her on the shrine floor with a chime.

[Amaralak’s grin 6/32]

[You have scored bonus completion points!]

Alith opened the boxes without ceremony. The first one that appeared after slotting in two teeth contained a water gourd and dried meat. The second one contained a hand-drawn map of the island marked with a little over forty crosses. And the third contained a weak stamina-regeneration potion.

Not even a healing potion. So cheap.

The marks should be the location of the teeth? There’s one in the small bay, and right about here… This one should be the plant nursery. This place is just marked with a skull, huh.

There are a bit too many marks, so I guess it’s not just for the teeth. Still… Even with this… By the time I make it out and collect more, who knows if this village will still be standing?!

If I could take the skull out at least I could–

Wait… It’s a human skull, with human teeth…

Alith grabbed her antler knife with a strange grin.