Saintess Summons Skeletons

Lifeless fingers lazily rasped against the strings of a tiny purple violin. Playing his music and humming slow tunes while the waves rocked his rowboat, what better life could he ask for?

A sudden burst of light illuminated the sky. For a moment, it felt just like his long forgotten memories of watching the blue sky under the scorching sun.

“My name, what a nostalgic sight.”

Sitting up, he grabbed his paddles, and started rowing.

Sofia, still reeling from the pain of healing her bones, flew further up to have a proper look around. The horizon was all water, no matter where she looked, but in the distance, she noticed a small rowboat, moving in her direction.

Is that a skeleton as well?

The person rowing was hidden under a cloth canopy, but Sofia just barely managed to catch a glimpse of their twisted fingers. She had a feeling they were bones, but resembled a dryad’s gnarly wooden fingers much more.

Now, is this a lucky find, or another hurdle?

Uncertain, Sofia watched the rowboat come closer, the rain also approached, from the opposite side, so she would have to move soon.

I can’t read his mana levels at all? Even the radiant sprites are confused.

Still about two hundred meters away, the rowboat turned in place, allowing the man inside to face Sofia. Still hidden under the canopy, he tapped the empty bench in front of him.

I don’t feel so comfortable going so close to the water… But if you insist…

Quickly morphing back to her human skeleton, Sofia flew down, hovering over the still rowboat for a few seconds before softly landing on the front bench of the rowboat, facing the other skeleton.

“Hah! A new face around. And a cute birdie too,” the strange sailor greeted her with his rough voice, reaching up for the canopy above him, “Pull this over yonder too, aye. Rain’s coming.”

Sofia nodded, grabbing the brass loops sewn into the thick fabric and pulling them to two hook-poles behind her like the other ones surrounding the man. “Thank you for the shelter,” she thanked him, observing his twisted, but human skeletal figure hidden under ragged clothes, a large hat and a thick beard, “My name is Sofia, I… am surprised you can speak the modern common language.”

“Henry. Nice to meet ya; guessin’ I’m the first old bag ya’ve run into? Been stuck here long enough, pickin’ up a new language or two ain’t much, don’t cha think?”

“I have just landed here,” Sofia said, “but uhm… Are we going to be fine in this boat?”

“Course we are, how long ya think I been out at sea?”

“Hard to tell…”

“Think I left port last century, maybe? ‘S been a long time. A slow time. But matter o’ fact, we gon’ be juuus’ fine. Ya know how to row, right?”

Before Sofia could answer, Henry had already pushed a second pair of rowboat paddles into her hands.

At the same time, the rain finally reached the boat, and Sofia was reassured to see it hit a magic barrier before it could even reach the canopy, let alone the boat itself.

Henry leaned in lightly as he rowed, the empty eyesockets of his twisted skull aimed straight at Sofia’s face, “So… Little miss Sofia and her baby biiiird. After the inheritance, amaright?”

“Looking for Aphenoreth’s mirror, yes.”

Henry stopped rowing for a brief instant. “That a daring name to utter so casually, lass.”

“Oh, right, I should have given my full name. Sofia Vakariazrehafin Aphenoreth, at your service.”

“Balls! That the keen truth?! Ya’re the admiral’s kin, then! Started to think ya’d never show up! Keep rowing, tho, will ya?”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“Ah, sorry, yes.”

Henry reached for the leather bag behind him, but found it fully empty, “Aye, I’d raise ya a toast but I’ been out o’ booze for a lil’ bit.”

“It won’t be too late for that later. Can I meet that admiral of yours?”

“Course ya can! Ya shall, even, searching for the inheritance without him’s a fool’s errand. Hell’s witness, been here ten times longer than I was alive, an’ I’ve still got no stinkin’ pig’s ass whiff of a clue where the thing is.”

So he was alive for at least three thousand years? Probably not as weak as he looks…

“And where is that admiral of yours? I’m also looking for my other companions, we got separated when we entered here.”

Henry nodded to Sofia’s questions, “Admiral’s either on his ship or at port, ‘s for the rest of yar crew… Stranded, like ya been. That’s how we all got here, in the admiral’s heart.”

“Alright. Hopefully they’re as lucky as I was to meet you, then.”

“Ahahah! Must be the first time a lass thought that ‘bout me stinky bones. I feel more vigorous with ya around somehow, Admiral’s bloodline, me guess.”

“Well, we’re all bones here. Speaking of, why is the water like it is, and why does healing hurt?”

Henry shrugged, “Just how it is. Shit ya get for shoving yar fate the finger, if ya get what I mean.”

“I do, quite well in fact. This is the third such place I’m visiting…”

“Third? So we weren’t the only ones who made it. Great damn news, that! You understand why I’m shittin’ and pissin’ myself all day every day under the sun, right, do ya?”

This… That’s what it’s like to be on the receiving end of this stupid cataclysm topic censoring, huh…

“I know about the incoming cataclysm, yes,” Sofia answered, taking a guess that the skeleton in front of her was not actually actively talking about shitting himself.

“Ya like to wear orc panties on yar head ya say? I ‘spose yar horns would fit in them holes, aye,” Henry answered in a mocking tone, before bursting out in laughter. “Wah ah ah! Stinkin’ stuff, truly a wonder why it’s got to be like this… Hmm d’ya feel that?”

“No?”

Henry let go of the paddles, grabbing the scimitar and purple violin he’d kept behind him, “We got some company comin’. Ya better stay in here if ya got no magic against rain.”

“I’ll probably be fine.” [DODGE - ME] should curve the rain around me as long as I move slowly…

“Then let’s hunt.”

Henry kicked himself off of the boat, jumping up on thin air with a light music note accompanying his every step. Sofia followed closely, her own aerial jumps just slow enough that they did not trigger the other state of [Dodge - me].

“What are we up again?”

“Beast from the depths!” Henry answered, spinning his scimitar, “Could be anythin’, jus’ don’t let it touch ya!”

Now that the beast approached the surface of the dark red waters, Sofia could start to feel it, its mana, its bones, and an oppressive feeling it brought with its arrival.

Sofia readied a skewering bolt, watching the dark form of the beast approach from under the waves.

It’s coming for me!

As the beast was about to emerge, Henry struck the chords of his violin with the back of his saber, sending a shockwave of sound magic toward the sea, “This way, big boy!”

The creature finally burst out of the waves sending the corrosive red water splashing into the air, as it flew into the sky like an arrow aimed at the old skeleton. Its body was like that of a long snake or worm, with two enormous wings.

Zombie basilisk?! It’s covered in those fucking water tendrils!

Unable to find anything that looked like a weak point, Sofia aimed at the beast’s head as it approached Henry, and fired her bolt.

The bolt sank deeply into the creature’s skull, disturbing the strange tendrils that only seemed to get stronger from the blow, while the basilisk’s jaws snapped at Henry.

The old musician skeleton struck the chords of his violin again, sending a series of rippling shockwaves through the basilisk’s body that bent the ocean below into a beautiful pattern for an instant as they crashed into it. It slowed the beast just enough for him to jump out of the way of its bite.

He’s not any weaker than I am!

Left alone, Sofia took the opportunity to throw another Skewering bolt at the basilisk’s face.

The creature, enraged at the hit, turned to face Sofia with a single flap of its massive wings, its maw gaping open, a wave of mana coursed through its body from the tail still in the red waters to its gnarly head.

Henry frantically played his violin without producing a single sound while the basilisk unleashed its most powerful attack at Sofia. From deep within its entrails, a beam of devastating green corroding magic recolored the sky for an instant as it shot towards her.

Unable to move out of the way without exposing herself to the rain, Sofia waited until the last moment to buy some time for Henry.

The beam was just centimeters away from her face. [Heat death]

What felt like at least half of her mana disappeared, and the deadly beam was extinguished before it could ever reach her.

The basilisk roared in pain from the backlash of its interrupted channeling, and Sofia prepared another skewering bolt, when all sounds disappeared, the rain, the wind, the waves, the scream, all was overridden by a loud cacophonic tune. The basilisk was shredded to pieces, falling in huge chunks into the ocean’s red waters.