Saintess Summons Skeletons

“Empty,” Bookie told everyone, “our rats are not finding any danger.”

“Makes things easy. Let’s go,” Sofia said, gesturing for Pareth to take the lead.

They had first thought there was no ‘real’ ruin when they landed in the lower valley and found no entrance. But it looked like some monster had broken into these ruins from a different point not very far, Sonia had found the hole as they were getting ready to leave. They had found the real, non-mirrored ruin, right below the other one, and from the looks of it, it was in a much worse state than the one above. Even standing in the entryway, they could spy hints of collapsed tunnels and broken machinery parts scattered around. Still the main device should be in the same secure vault as the one above, so everyone expected it to be safe.

They encountered no signs of life in these ruins, save for a few invading plants that had started to grow in the cracks of the green bricks. When finally they made it to the vault in the deepest spot, what they found was not what they hoped.

“It’s gone!” Sonia gasped, stepping up to the dragon scale gates. The dragon scales had been shattered like glass, the broken debris scattered on the floor like worthless scrap. Someone had made their way through with brute force alone. Beyond, in the vault, the glass tube was gone, and all the machinery around it smashed to pieces.

“It looks like whoever came here didn’t want anyone else to get their hands on the coins…” Sofia said with a sigh, grabbing one of the machine’s mithril rods from the floor, it was strangely squished, as if crushed within someone’s palm.

That’s some serious hand strength.

“No use lingering here then, let’s try to get out of the valley before nightfall. Hopefully we find an exit quickly, I don’t want to see the damned pink thing again,” Sonia said, turning back.

Everyone followed. On the way back, Sonia asked a question.

“Do you guys think whoever did this is from our epoch?”

“Statistically unlikely,” Sofia answered, “From the crushed mithril rod I’d say human-looking person, and with how the scales were destroyed my mind immediately goes to Tartaros, but I can’t imagine him destroying the machine like that.”

“I don’t know, maybe it would be better if they were from our epoch, actually,” Sonia said, looking back at Sofia, “If so that’s at least one extra strong person around to protect the world, if not, that likely means they used the coin and still died…”

“Good point…” Sofia agreed, “I’m not sure how I would feel with that kind of person on my side, though. Trying to prevent anyone else from getting the coins… Could be a danger.”

“Not danger,” Pestle chimed in, “Klepra brain. Break bank but not check mirror?! They must huge idiot. Huge-er Klepra than Klepra. Not very danger.”

“Yeah, good point also,” Sofia nodded along.

“Yup. I’ll tell Eternal Mountain, though, if you don’t mind. Just to be safe. We can’t have a potentially hostile ultra-ascended walking around and not look into it.”

“... So much for secrecy. I’m not too worried about myself and Pareth, your side would be quite dumb if you tried to steal our coins, but are you sure they aren’t going to take yours?”

Sonia shook her head in response, “No need to worry about me.”

On the way back Sofia randomly stopped, “Wait, there’s no way whoever punched through these scales was at our level. How did they get into the forbidden layer?”

“I have the same question and no answer,” Sonia answered, getting Sofia moving with a tap on the shoulder.

Sonia had kept track of directions even when she fled the Reviskiviel earlier, so she knew exactly which way to go. The group advanced through the forest at a brisk pace, skeleton birds and rats scouting ahead for danger. Many skeletons died to the orange monkeys and other monsters, but the efficient scouting allowed the group to reach the border of the valley without a single fight.

The ‘end’ of the valley was simply all tall mountain chains that joined midway up, creating a long wall with no openings. The group followed the wall looking for an opening, it took them slightly off course, but Sonia kept track of the path and position. After a short search, they found an opening, a huge flat tunnel with no light that crossed straight through one of the tall mountains. It was like a giant had poked a hole into the mountain with his finger. After making sure no creatures prowled near the hole, the group entered the tunnel.

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“Woah. The mana here feels distinctly different,” Sofia noticed right away, having only taken a few steps into the tunnel. The light around them was already dimming unnaturally fast despite the wide opening right behind them.

“Different zone,” Sonia explained, “We need to learn the rules of this place all over again. Be extra careful, especially of dysfunctional skills. How far can you all see?”

Pareth shook his head. “Him, not far,” Sofia interpreted, “Me… I think I can see about a hundred meters forward. Pestle, Bookie?”

“Ten Sofia,” Pestle answered first.

Bookie was right after, “About ten meters, I think.”

“I’m a measurement unit, now? Pestle you stay with Pareth, since you can see further than him, you’ll be his eyes if I’m not available, alright? And you Sonia?”

“About fifty meters. I can juuuuust about see the ceiling.”

“I assume lighting up the place is a bad idea?” Sofia asked.

“You’re assuming right, too much light might attract some unwanted attention, I can already see traces of monsters here.”

Sofia nodded, “Looks chitin from something like a big purple centipede if I had to guess.”

“Hopefully not. Centipede-looking monsters tend to be very nasty, as you should know.”

“We all know very well, yeah. If it helps, I can confirm this one isn’t from a Kidjikkik Destroyer. Way too small.”

“Better than nothing…” Sonia nodded to Pareth, who took the lead as usual, although both Sofia and Sonia stood very close behind.

The sound of their footsteps echoed through the tunnel. They advanced, seeing nothing strange, and slowly, the light of the mirror forest behind them disappeared. The group carefully moved forward only lit by the cold sheen of Pareth’s halo.

While they moved, Sonia kept track of any minute detail, mumbling to herself, “Tunnel starting to slope down a little…”

Sofia silently tested her skills to see if there was anything wrong. There was a lot wrong. “Is your range also limited?” she asked Sonia on her left.

“I just found that out. It looks like my magic reaches about two meters away. I can’t touch anything any farther.”

“Same here. Let me try something.”

Sofia extended a finger and let out a tiny zap of electricity. A severely undercharged bolt. Still, it should have flown for a good twenty meters before hitting the ground, but before it could ever overtake Pareth’s position, it pewtered out. “Two meters,” Sofia noted.

“Good to know. The monsters are usually bound to the same rules, so at least we’re not risking getting hit from outside the visible zone. Not by magic, at least.”

“I still don’t see any,” Sofia said, “I am starting to notice a few side-tunnels in the distance, though, a lot of them way up in the walls and ceiling, we’ll have to be extra careful.”

Sonia nodded, and the group continued on. Just a few steps further, Sofia noticed her health start to decline for no apparent reason, it was very slow, but her passive healing was not working one bit, which made it worrying.

“I noticed too,” Sonia said right away, “We must have entered some sort of aura. We press on until we hit seventy percent health, if there’s no end in sight we turn back.”

As they walked by the side-tunnels, Sofia noticed they were full of colorful crystals, jutting out from the stone in huge chunks. They were in every single hole. The health drain slowly got worse, but when they walked far past that first set of side-tunnels, the group all noticed the health drain start to weaken.

The crystals…

“There are many more tunnels like these ahead,” Sofia said, already seeing more at the far-end of her vision.”

“At least now we know it’s not some monster’s aura,” Sonia rationalized, “We rush through the zones with more crystals, but try to keep the noise low.”

Everyone got the message, they started to walk faster, and directly jumped through the hole-heavy areas at Sofia’s signal. Like this they managed to keep the health drain low, and even got an opportunity to heal up one time in a crystal-free segment of the tunnel.

“The slope is starting to get even steeper,” Sofia pointed out as the group watched their health go back up.

“It’s been constantly getting steeper as we walk,” Sonia added.

The tunnel had been perfectly level at the beginning, now, just a few kilometers in, it already felt like they were going down a small hill.

“We should stop here for now,” Sonia continued, “it’s not uncommon for connected zones to share the same day and night cycle, it will be night in the mirror valley soon and I have a bad feeling about this tunnel. I don’t like that we haven’t seen a single monster yet.”

“That’s true… Let’s set up a temporary fort here for the night, then?”

Sofia was still constructing bone walls and Sonia was still carving ritual circles in the ground when the group heard something. The first signs of life in the tunnel. Everyone recognized the unmistakable noise: mosquitoes.

Judging from the noise, huge ones! Everyone get ready!