Saintess Summons Skeletons

Before going, the group endeavored to test everything they could and could not do, to be sure not to miss anything. What they found was rather depressing.

As they had guessed before, the vast majority of everything was suppressed to a point where they could barely be used if at all. There were a precious few outliers not impacted by the zone’s restrictions. In Sofia’s case, she was the least affected. Her specializations [Heat Death] and [Sovereign of Unshackled frames] were both still active, and she found that her aura had even regained some range compared to the previous zones, although it was only a few meters. Aside from that, her mana heart ability [Relocate Core] was still functional, and so was [Singularity edict], suggesting the two other False lord skills were probably also fine, if of not much use.

Her active skills were all completely shut down, and among the passives and classless, only the always-on stat-boosting effect like [Dodge-Me]’s stats were still really working. Semi active ones like the stats from [Runeforged Overlord] were completely out. The effects from VPPV were the only big outlier, all still present as they were more racial skills than anything else at this point, everyone’s racial skills still worked fine. Lastly, she would not test her signature skill due to the atrociously long cooldown, but Pareth’s still worked, so it was safe to assume hers probably did too. That was it for Sofia’s skills, as for her items, the helmet seemed to retain most of its functions, although it was questionable whether the Phageid blast would work, and the Philosopher’s stone seemed wholly unaffected. Everything else was like carrying trash, although the Gluttony ring would still likely eat a dead god if they found one.

Bookie’s summons were most affected, losing all abilities. Even the forgotten had lost its pseudo-immortality, and from their short testing the few auras like Pestle’s midenicite corruption was all they had left.

Pareth originally being part of Sofia’s specialization thankfully retained most of his innate passive effects like the increased weight and his hero blessing, but his skills were pretty much all gone save for the skills from his mana heart and [Ophanim Corona]. The one good news was that at least now he still had a weapon despite his sword of light not responding, the cursed ‘sword’ was basically just a heavy lump of metal now, but in his hands it would still do the job.

Lastly Sonia was almost empty-handed, her two specializations and signature skill were all defensive ones, so although they still worked, they would not contribute much to the group’s offensive power going forward. Her main weapon was reduced to a regular –if sturdy– bow, and her arrows lost all magic, so currently her arrows would only rely on pure strength and nothing else.

Faced with these parameters, they had to proceed with extreme caution, remaining where they were, setting camp right outside of the restricted zone, and sending the currently most capable member of their group to scout ahead.

That was how, mithril dagger and shield in hand, Bookie hesitantly continued advancing through the wide tunnel, his fiery eyes illuminating the way forward. Crowie in his dragon form was following next to him, shapeshifted to the size of a big dog. He was mostly there for morale support, being currently unable to do much of anything at all. He could not fly, even his dragon breath was stifled, and his physical capabilities were weakened, he could only shapeshift to adjust his size and exercise a very weak control over gravity with his aura.

The tunnel progressively widened as Bookie advanced, tightly clutching his dagger, hearing something, he stopped and looked back.

“Wind?” he mumbled.

He was too far to see the others already, it made him nervous, but it paradoxically also let him relax a little. At least now if he messed up, Crowie would be the only witness.

Going forward, the tunnel started to split. Bookie confidently followed the sound of the wind that was growing louder.

He was scared of facing another hostile environment like the desert before, but he felt like the wind did not actually sound that harsh. As he continued, he heard a peculiar rhythmical sound.

Waves? The underworld sea again?!

Sensing the possibility of having braved the scary desert for nothing, Bookie was even more scared of that than of a possibly dangerous zone. He walked faster and faster, starting to run, until, after a turn, he had to urgently stop, his enchanted leather boots screeching against the rocky ground.

The tunnel emerged from the side of a sheer cliff. Bookie almost couldn’t believe his eyesockets.

This place was hard to describe. It was a brightly lit vast open area. Several hundred meters below was a calm sea with crystal clear sky-blue water, emitting a gentle blue glow. Above was a ceiling of naturally polished colorless crystals that reflected the blue light of the sea, drowning the entire caverns in soft blue light that created almost no shadows. Countless waterfalls fell from holes between the crystals into the sea below, creating blue to purple tricolor rainbows everywhere.

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Tall islands with sheer cliffs were everywhere in this sea, some distant, some close together, on which abundant, colorful vegetation grew. There were animals, or rather monsters, everywhere Bookie looked. Strange crystalline slugs on the ceiling, large schools of fishes and other creatures in the sea, unknown creatures, small and big, on all the islands, hunting each other or lazily chewing on leaves and grass. There were even ‘flying’ monsters that bypassed the zone’s impossibility to fly by hanging from crystal to crystal with three slender tails long of a hundred meters.

As for ruins? They were everywhere too. On the island, in the cliffs, under the sea, among the crystals, hundreds of ruins, some in a relatively good shape, some barely recognizable as buildings, all overrun by the colorful vegetation. They shared no common theme, materials, size or architecture, it was simply pure chaos. Bookie’s eyes would be twitching if only he had any, he almost dropped his dagger from shock.

“I found the ruins…”

“A bit too much ruins…”

For a moment he hesitated.

Can I go back?

He gave a quick glance behind him, then back to the ruins.

No! I need to make sure it’s safe properly!

Since he was in the middle of a cliffside, with no islands nearby, there was only one way forward.

Bookie took a few steps back, dashed forward and jumped. Crowie jumped behind him, flapping his wings. For a second he had forgotten he could not fly here, with a surprised caw, he fell into the water.

Fishes scattered from the two impacts in the water. Bookie opened his ‘eyes’ as he touched the bottom of the sea, standing on a huge flat coral piece. There were no big aquatic monsters nearby, not that he could see at a glance, at least, but the dense coral reef gave him a sense of unease. With a kick of his feet, he swam back up to the surface, joining Crowie who had used his aura to make himself float. Eyes locked onto the closest island, Bookie swam forward, followed by Crowie who was awkwardly learning how to swim as a dragon. Bookie paused every so often to let Crowie catch up, using this time to look underwater and make sure nothing was attacking them. There was no aggression so far, as two drifting skeletons with nothing but bones was not a meal worth chasing for most.

Dripping with salty and sweet sea water that smelled slightly of honey, Bookie had to climb a small cliff with Crowie on his back, hoisting himself up on the nearest ledge, sitting in the grass. He looked at the sea twenty meters below, where curious hand-shaped fishes had swarmed the spot he had jumped up from, as if only daring to come sniff his trail now that he had left.

“So weird…”

Looking around at all the strange creatures, and thinking of what their bones might taste like, Bookie deflected the blame for his gluttony.

“Sofia is going to love it here,” he told himself with a few nods.

“It’s not so dangerous after all?” he wondered, looking around. A few meters above him he could already see the signs of a ruin, pieces a rusty metallic wall and pipes protruding from the cliffside above the small stripe of vegetation he sat on. It was only ten meters above, easily reached in a jump. He sat up, lightly patting the dirt off of his wet shorts, and shared a glance with Crowie. Naturally as they could understand each other without even speaking. They jumped up, landing on the rusty pipes. Crowie used his aura to lighten them, making them so lightweight that the pipes did not even creak when they landed. Bookie standing right behind Crowie, they observed the insides of this ruin. It was full of cubic, rusty human-sized machines, broken beyond repair, with a few chairs lining the opposite wall. It reminded Bookie of the underwater elven city where Sofia had found Saria in the fake world.

This one room was actually all there was, the door on the other side led to straight rock, as if only this rectangular room had been teleported straight into the cliffside, carving out a room-shaped hole.

Bookie tried to understand what the cataclysm could be that would result in this room ending up there, but he really had no idea.

Stepping back out, Bookie looked further up, there were no other ruins in the cliff, but some eighty meters above, there seemed to be some kind of broken bridge, built in clean green bricks.

It’s from the squid mans!

Bookie was proud that he recognized the origin of the bridge from the materials. He could probably reach it in one jump, but wasn’t confident he wouldn’t miss and fall back into the sea. Not wanting to get wet again, he jumped to another grassy ledge first, which was closer, then another one.

Then, he prepared to jump again with Crowie under his arm. In a dense bush next to him, a shadow flashed, Bookie raised his shield, then everything turned black.

He barely understood what had happened to him. His consciousness was pulled back, fusing with his true body, feeling an intense headache, he reflexively resummoned himself and Crowie right away. Holding his skull as the aching sensation that overwhelmed his senses slowly faded.

“...kie! Bookie! Are you alright?!” Sofia’s worried voice gradually pierced through the pain.

In a few seconds he was stabilized, nodding to Sofia and the others, easing their worried looks. Then he noticed that something wasn’t quite right. He was still holding the mithril dagger, but the shield? It had taken a hit so abrupt it was deformed into a shattered cone, appearing at his feet.

“My shield!” he cried out, falling to his knees, “nooooo, I liked this one…”