Saintess Summons Skeletons

Erredis brought everyone to the dark side of the moon.

The hidden moon was right there. Much smaller and not so far away compared to the planet. It looked just like the regular moon, at first glance, unnaturally so.

“Is that it?” Alith asked, looking up, “It doesn’t look as dangerous as you said it was… Wait, no…”

“It’s the same,” Sofia said, turning toward Erredis, who was also looking up at the celestial body, “the same as this moon.”

“An Illusion,” Erredis said under her breath, “Moon found this sibling of hers distressing to look at, so she hid it with her reflection… If we are to call me the moon guardian, then this is what I am guarding, more than the moon we stand on,” she explained, “I prevent people from going there, to be exact. But if it’s you, then maybe…”

“If it’s me… Because of the deep, right?”

“Yes… But even then, I am uneasy at the thought of letting you go. I have no advice to give. I could never find the courage to explore it myself, not knowing how dangerous it is… The people we lost to it…”

“It’s that bad?” Alith asked.

Erredis gave a weary nod, “Dragons and gods alike have gone and never returned. Not even their name is left for their family to remember. As far as I know, Moon and Avross are the only two to have ever gone and returned, though that happened long before my birth. It was bad enough that they mutually erased their memories of that expedition, and Moon has been hiding this forsaken place ever since.”

“That’s not right,” Sofia chimed in, “Someone else has to have returned.”

How else could the admins have found a spell from the deep there? Unless the dagger is lying.

Erredis frowned, “My memory is not perfect but there are no… Oh… Now that is strange…”

“Remembered something?” Alith asked, seeing Erredis stand there silently.

“Not quite… But it feels like I am just about to. This… YES! I remember now! Nex!”

“So that was the admin’s name,” Sofia commented with a smile, “About time I learned it. Guess that completes my collection. Anna, Jin, and Nex.”

Erredis looked at Sofia like she had seen a ghost. She knew about the glove, and had heard firsthand from Sofia about her visit to the old admin’s secret safehouse. “Is- Is this your doing?!”

“Kind of? It’s complicated,” Sofia answered, innocently cocking her head to the side, “Basically, it was a happy accident? But I’m afraid I’m not at the liberty of saying more, since you would rather not get involved with the lords.”

“Right, that happened…” Alith commented, “Well. If the admin made it back, so can we.”

Erredis was left speechless. “Since when?!” is what she finally managed to force out.

“Oh, it’s been a few months now. I thought it would make big waves, but it seems not. He must be awfully busy dealing with three thousand years of neglected system alerts and errors is my guess.” 𐍂åNȰβЕŝ

“Ridiculous…” Erredis whispered, “Maybe it’s for the best that you disappear from the planet for a while, then…” she said, cracking her knuckles, “It seems I have another horn waiting to be added to my collection.”

“G- Grandma?”

“Shush, sweetie. Let the Dragons deal with their own issues, will you?” Erredis answered Sofia with an evil toothy smile, her bunny-woman form slowly degenerating into her draconic-human form is a weird uncontrolled transition, before she seemingly instantly calmed down and her bunny ears sprung out of nowhere again. “But let’s deal with you first.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

She clapped her hands, and a fulgurous wave of mana spread across the horizon.

In response, the illusion hiding the forbidden moon started to fade, bathing the dark side of the moon in an eerie red light.

Sofia Alith and Pareth all looked up.

The forbidden moon gave Sofia chills.

It was nothing but a mass of swirling red clouds, in which could be seen a thousand squirming screaming faces, warping and melding together.

“This is straight out of a nightmare,” Alith said, blankly staring at the red mass.

“It wasn’t like this in my vision…” Sofia said next, already regretting her decision.

Even Pareth looked unsettled, and Bookie, in his book form in Sofia’s arms, was shaking like a leaf.

“Do you see that largest grotesque face on the top right with mismatched eyes?” Erredis asked, “It’s the only one which never disappears no matter how much the clouds shift. The center of its left eye is the literal eye of the storm, the only safe place from which to enter the clouds.”

“H- How do you know?” Sofia asked, afraid about the potential answer.

“You can feel it when you go close,” Erredis answered, closing her eyes, “Even with all my defenses up, I would never venture to cross the clouds anywhere else. I will bring you to the entry point and leave. There is an emergency beacon there, I made it long ago... You can activate it when you need to leave, and I will come back, but be sure to not let anything into the safe zone with you…” she explained with a sigh, “Are you sure you want to go? It’s not too late to change your mind.”

Sofia turned to Alith, who simply gave a thumbs up, then to Pareth, who answered with a nod. Bookie could not answer in his book form, but Sofia could feel his anxiety. “Are you going to be alright?” she asked, caressing the book cover. That calmed his shaking a little.

I cannot pass up on a full quarter of my false lord class.

“Let’s go,” Sofia confirmed a final time.

Erredis never took her Dragon form, she flew everyone along with her, enveloping them in raw mana, bringing them from one moon to the other. Everyone felt a sense of dread as they approached the hidden moon’s twisted red clouds through the silence of space.

Sofia’s instincts begged for her to leave this place and never turn back, but she was committed to this expedition.

I have been to the Deep itself. She thought. We will all be alright…

Unease grew as Erredis slowly brought them closer to the grotesque screaming face which hid the entrance to this cloud-covered moon, the face’s swirling left eye was smaller than the other one, a calm vortex in a much darker shade of red.

They got close enough that Sofia started hearing the sound of the wind, harsh and unrelenting, like a constant storm. Plumes of red clouds silently shot up, lightly caressing and grasping at the mana bubble Erredis was keeping in place around everyone, as if prodding for a way in. No one dared to say anything, and Erredis ignored them, focused on keeping the trajectory in line with the slowly drifting eye of the storm. Finally they pierced the clouds, sinking into progressively dark and darker shades of red until everything went black, the howling of the wind quietened, and the fall finally stopped.

Even with her ability to see in the dark, Sofia could barely make out that they were somehow inside of some sort of a round hall, thanks to the dim glow of Pareth’s eyes. Fully armored, she herself was not emitting any light.

Surprisingly, the air was fresh and breathable, with a faint floral aroma that was hard to describe.

Erredis took out a bright lightstone lamp, illuminating the hall. “Here we are…” she announced, her voice oozing with the unease that she reserved for the topic of the deep.

Sofia looked around the grand round hall. They had entered from the dark round hole high up in the ceiling, where the structure hinted there might have once been a cupola of some sort. There were no windows and a singular other exit, in the form of closed double doors.

The hall was overall mostly empty, devoid from any hint of its original purpose, but a few things remained. In the center, a large crystal was strapped to an enchantment-covered contraption, Erredis’ emergency beacon. On one side, a large number of old wooden desks and chairs were piled up messily, many of them broken into pieces, and on the other, a few disparate tombstones with no name were lined up against the curved wall.

After making sure one last time that they did not want to turn back, Erredis lightly hugged every member of the expedition, and left without looking back.

“Well. Here we go again,” Alith said, breaking the silence and tension, her voice a mix of dread and excitement.

“Indeed… Well, since this hall is supposedly the only place we can use our spatial storage, let’s take out everything we might need before we step out these doors…” Sofia said, her eyes fixated on the ominous closed doors. One thing in particular was a bit disturbing to her, although, considering everything that she knew, it was not that much of a surprise. This hall and these doors… They feel distinctly human.