Saintess Summons Skeletons

The shape of the room was relatively normal from a human perspective, except for the closed set of doors in the ceiling. There were tables along two opposite walls, and doors on the others. Sofia was currently on one such table, while there were things on the others which she thought were likely rocks.

Confident that she was alone in the room, Sofia stored the bone coffin.

Eww what in the

The floor, walls, ceiling and doors were all entirely made of something shiny and dark blue. At a glance, it looked a bit wet and probably sticky. It had small round wart-looking bumps which shone weakly, giving off some yellowish-white light.

Are these walls made of some kind of magical toad skin? That sure is one way to get light underground

I get why the Veik would have an issue with these guys.

The tables which lined the walls were made of flat Veik shell segments mounted on Veik legs, glued together by a hardened, messy black substance. Bits of moon rock were on the other tables seemingly sorted by size and color. A quick Identify taught Sofia that these were all different mineral ores, mostly iron and copper.

Still, clearly they have some kind of a civilization. At a glance, its probably more advanced than the Veik, actually.

I dont know if I can justify killing a thousand of them even if they have a strange taste in furniture. It would be hypocritical to judge considering most of my usual furniture and tools are made of bone...

Sofia poked the wall near her with a finger.

Sticky indeed Almost like its covered in a thin layer of sap Or is it sweat?

Anyway, lets look around a bit.

The bone hands of the graveyard skeletons emerged from Sofias armor and grabbed a hold of it. The idea of going through the weird sticky wall was a bit disgusting even if she was in the spirit realm.

She quickly had to stop, as she almost entered another room through the wall without checking what was inside.

The walls are really thin. Not great for graveyarding around. There are rooms above and below too.

Sofia pulled back and was back on top of the Veik table. Using the graveyard was a very slow way to move around. It could be useful to go undetected but if the walls were not even thick enough for her to hide in there was no point.

Ive seen how vulnerable it leaves my soul too, the Veik King really just grabbed me and I could not even try to do anything.

Alright, to begin with, lets learn more about the worm people.

Back to the basics. Pareth is a bit big for this place Stay around in book form, Bookie. Just float near me, well summon something if need be.

Sofia jumped off of the table, of course the floor was also slightly sticky. Choosing to go for the doors on her left, Sofia looked inside of the next room by sliding a vision-sharing bone token in the thin gap between the double doors.

The next room contained huge bins, made of Veik shells, full of a lot of rocks. On the opposite wall, instead of doors, there was just a big round hole.

Some kind of mining tunnel. Explains how they dragged me in here. Some poor worm miner just brought a great bone calamity inside their home and they dont even know.

Speaking of which, if you were to find a big bone coffin and bring it out of the mines with a bunch of ore You would probably go fetch your superior to see what the damned thing was, right?

Meaning two things, I should put the coffin back on the table to avoid suspicion, and I should promptly leave or hide.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Sofia put the coffin back on the table. To make the weight consistent with her being inside it, she filled it with summoned blood and called it a day.

Theyre up for a bloody surprise.

Going through the doors in the ceiling would be a hassle, so Sofia did the token thing again on the other side of the room. That room featured more bins, smaller ones, which were all empty, and mounted on rails each facing closed trapdoors.

More mining stuff Lets just move until I find one of these worms.

It took a surprisingly long time for Sofia to find anyone. The place she was was an expansive underground mining facility, and for some reason it was currently completely empty of any living presence. There was not much to pilfer besides relatively cheap minerals so Sofia did not touch anything in a bid to keep her presence hidden.

What it took for her to finally find two of the worm people was to find the entrance of the place, where two guards were stationed, one of them even seemed like it was sleeping on the job.

Hmm. Either they had to evacuate the place for one reason or another Or more likely Its night and they have gone to sleep?

She was spying on the two guards from afar with her mana senses. They had no mana at all, much like the Veik, but by spreading her own mana around she could still feel their shape, even if vaguely. Since the area beyond them was empty, as far as she could tell, she guessed that it was probably the outside.

I might be able to Identify them from here. As long as my mana can reach them it should work even without vision.

Since she still had the Cheater title on, Sofia expected to learn a lot. Just in case the worms could feel the prodding of the Identify mana surrounding them, she targeted the slouching one that wasnt moving and she thought was asleep.

[Guardian Kidjikkik - Lv. 233 - Imprint power : 0.3 - Effect : +30 Health]

An adult Kidjikkik of the guardian variety. They specialize in defense and have various immunities, but are lacking in other areas.

No actual class, just a biological variant? And the [Cheater] title gave a description It only does that for monsters Just like it gave one for the Veik guards but not for the Veik King or the smart Sunless.

An intelligent species without the system, recognized as monsters? Thats the first time.

I guess the Alphageid might have been the same, maybe? Its hard to say whether that thing was acting on instinct or not. Wait, not It could be identified! Back then I had no way to identify monsters

Has that ever happened again? No Except for the Alphageid Ive never been able to Identify a monster before getting the Cheater title. But if I remember correctly it did not have a level. So Like the angels. And like Sun.

I need to look more into how the system labels work It can be precious information in situations like these. Now what, then?

If I kill one of them, will it say defeated or will it say murdered?

At a loss about what to do, Sofia identified the other guard, and the result was similar with a slightly higher level.

It did not notice a thing. Hmm. Its possible that they have strong spiritual bodies just like the Veik, so I should be careful with the graveyard, it could get me spotted depending on their abilities.

Wanting to get a direct visual, Sofia stood a few rooms away from the entrance, and controlled a bone token from a distance, making it glide above the floor. Very carefully, she had it slide under the entrance doors, finally giving her a direct visual on the two worm-people guards.

Worms, huh. Thats not how I would have described them.

They were more like human-sized centipedes. Their long chitinous body was of the same dark blue color as the walls of the mining facility. They stood upright, shaped like the number 2, with the tail part of their body on the ground, resting on many insectoid legs and ending in a dangerous-looking stinger. Their body was peculiar in a lot of way, they had short legs all over, four of them for each section of their segmented body, spread around in a cross shape. For the most part, aside from half the legs of their lower body used to stand on the ground, these many legs were folded up against their carapace. The rounded upper part of the number two shape they were standing in kind of reminded Sofia of someone standing with a hunched back, and from that part of their body sprouted four strange looking arms which ended in small three-fingered hands. They held onto long spears.

Black iron shaft. Not bad but also not impressive. The spearheads are Veik claws

No antennae in sight, so they probably rely primarily on vision for sensing. Maybe communicating with vibrations like the Veik?

They are not wearing anything besides the spears. No clothing or anything.

I really dont know what to think.

Looking past the guards themselves, it seemed the mining facility was dug into the walls of a large underground cavern. Unlike the Veiks clearly artificial hive, this one seemed natural in shape, aside from it being entirely covered in the sticky dark thing with its luminescent warts which made the caverns ceiling glow like an eerie underground starry sky. Besides that, inside the cavern was a fully fledged city, with many tall square buildings blocking the view.