Saintess Summons Skeletons

As they approached the castle, they all immediately noticed that it was inhabited. Unlike the surrounding crumbling ruins, this castle was fully sealed. The broken walls on the lower level had been patched up with haphazardly placed planks, piles of rocks and mud, and there were actually two creatures guarding the closed main gate. Hiding in a bush, Sofia observed those monsters as night gradually fell.

They looked strangely a bit like goblins, with a small human-like build, and features resembling an ugly fish, but were covered in thick, hirsute gray and brown fur. They sported oversized mithril armor and weapons, likely pilfered from the castle’s barracks. The sounds of more of them could be heard from inside the castle, communicating in gargled grunts fully incomprehensible to Sofia.

It doesn’t look like these are Bookie’s secret killer. Too smelly and noisy, I don’t think they would even understand the concept of an ambush. It’s hard to gauge their strength, but judging from the noise, there’s really a lot of them…

As night fell, Sofia felt the range of her aura start to increase.

Huh? What’s going on? Is night lifting the zone restrictions? It looks like ambient mana is starting to go crazy…

As she wondered what was happening, she also noticed her vision of the gate getting worse. The bush she was hiding in was getting thicker by the seconds, leaves gradually growing, new branches sprouting in a flash. Sofia jumped back. She didn’t care about potentially exposing herself, the situation with the bush was too strange. But outside of the bush, she quickly realized that it wasn’t just the bush, the nearby flowers, the grass, the trees, even the moss on nearby rocks, all flora seemed to have taken magical stimulants, growing at a worrying pace.

The monsters at the door also noticed this, and with a few gargles, they got the monsters inside to open the gate for them, and quickly scurried inside, the passage closing behind them. They left so fast that they didn’t even notice Sofia who had no cover.

Not a good sign!

As Sofia’s aura continued to increase in range, even starting to become wider than what it normally was, she naturally regained her connection with her skeletons, and could pinpoint Crowie and Pestle coming toward her from the other side of the castle. She moved to meet them mid-way, the grass around already up to her waist as the nearby trees, previously only a few meters tall, were already starting to overshadow the castle’s high walls. While she ran, the tall grass started to gently form loops around her legs, like thousands of tiny chains. She could rip them off effortlessly by just running forward, but after she noticed the change, the pull was getting stronger by the second.

Finally she got close to Crowie and Pestle, who were flying in her direction, Pestle landed on her shoulder, “Need go inside! Fast fast!”

Not needing any more of an explanation, Sofia followed Crowie who had already turned back, making it to the back of the castle, Pestle pointed up at a window that wasn’t boarded up, “Here here! Is bad eye up, careful!”

Crowie flew inside first, and Sofia jumped up after him, sensing Pareth and Bookie’s presence already inside. Landing in a dusty old room a quick glance showed everyone was already here and in good shape, the two doors leading out of the room were fully boarded up by mud and rock walls, and the room’s furniture was covered in about thirty clusters of Evil Eyes, staring at the newcomers.

Pestle had placed her hands over her face in advance, and Sofia closed her eyes after landing softly on the rotten floorboards.

Coming from deeper within the castle, she could hear hundreds of the furred monsters gargling incoherently and making disturbing noises, while outside, the plants grew so quickly that they created a sound like a storm passing through a jungle.

In the middle of this mess, Sonia came closer and whispered, “Bad situation. Magic is back but the things inside look like they grow a lot stronger with the night, too.”

Sofia nodded, “The plants outside are hostile as well, we probably need to stay the night here.”

Turning around and looking outside the window where there were no evil eyes in her field of view, Sofia saw that the previously ankle-tall grass was already reaching the castle’s second floor, and growing toward the third floor where they were, while the taller trees already touched the crystal ceiling of the cavern.

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With just a glance, she saw several groups of the kite-like monsters that hung from the ceiling all day long hurriedly retreating up in the gaps between the crystals. But the trees were like tall snakes, their branches and leaves feeling up the ceiling as they grew. A three-tailed kite was too slow and got entangled by a tree’s branch, quickly disappearing into the canopy. Its fate was probably not good.

Seeing this, Sofia decisively started boarding up the window herself with some bone. Her aura being much stronger than ever before, it took her a very short time despite her bone armor being her only source of bone. This done, she got to work covering all of the room’s clusters of evil eyes, finally allowing the others to open their eyes.

“I managed to more or less understand the castle’s layout,” Sonia said, “Nocturnal monsters, apparently, by my estimates, at least five hundred of them. Pestle was the one who found this entry point.”

“What are the chances we can communicate with them and ask about the artefact?” Sofia asked, although she could already guess Sonia’s answer.

“No shot. I climbed the wall earlier to have a look inside. They have sentries patrolling the ramparts, and they’re grilling at least a dozen different monsters in the middle courtyard. Unless we strongly overpower them, strong groups like that usually aren’t the kind to peacefully negotiate. Not to mention they don’t seem capable of advanced language.”

“Do we not strongly overpower them now?”

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Sonia rebuked, “Remember that plant beast from earlier today? Those are the weakest looking of the monsters they’re grilling in there. The bonfire occupies like half the court, heck, can’t you smell the smoke?”

“Now that you mention it… Must be coming through these old planks. So what, do we just spend the night hiding here?”

Sonia thought for a few seconds, before suggesting a plan of action, “We make an exit out of here, some of us stay here to defend this position while another group goes out on an assassination mission. Full power and discretion, we only need to kill one.”

Sofia understood Sonia’s plan from there. “Then we feed it to Bookie for information. Sounds good. How do we split?”

“I was thinking of us two and Pestle for the assassination. We need to strike strongly in the unlikely case they really overpower us, we can’t have it fail and alarm the entire castle.”

Sofia nodded, “My aura alone should be able to restrain one if they’re not too strong. I can already feel a few in range in the lower floor and the rooms next to us. That room there is the only empty one nearby,” Sofia said, pointing to the wall on the left from where she entered.

“Right, you can just mess up their bones. That should make things easy.”

“If they’re above level 400 or resistant to aura It won’t do much to them unless I can touch them directly,” Sofia warned.

Sonia shook her head, “I’d be shocked if they were. Even here monsters this powerful aren’t so common you’d find them in such large numbers. They could have a few elites or a stronger leader hiding somewhere though, that’s quite common like with that giant grayskin from before.”

After quickly going over the details of the plan, the small squad left the room through the left wall that Sofia had carved a hole in with her dagger. Initially she wanted to use the graveyard Nymphs, but, perhaps due to the current strange situation with plants outside, they couldn’t be summoned.

The assassination trio left through the hole, entering a larger room full of metallic junk. From broken armor and weapons to incomprehensible devices, gears, springs and scrap, there were metallic objects stacked up in neat piles all around the room.

They’re collecting metal? There’s even some mithril and orichalcum things in there.

Sofia almost wanted to pull out what looked like a mithril sword out of the junk, but she was scared the entire two meters tall pile of junk might topple, so she didn’t dare touch anything, and followed Pestle, half invisible, who had naturally taken the lead. They stopped behind the next door.

“Two of them in that room,” Sofia told the others in a hushed voice, clearly feeling the bones of the creatures with her aura, “one sitting in this corner near the exterior wall, the other standing next to the door, about ten meters ahead.”

Sonia nodded. “Not ideal but that’ll do. You immobilize the nearest one in the corner, we send the other one to the afterlife. Keep yours intact.”

“I’ll be fully focused on mine so I won’t have much control on that other’s bones,” Sofia warned.

“Don’t even worry about ours, just make sure yours doesn’t make a sound.”

“Alright, let me prepare the door.”

After sticking a bone plate against the door, the bone drilling into it like small screws trying to fuse with the wood, Sofia silently sliced the lock mechanism and the hinges of the door with her dagger. Now her bones were the only thing keeping the door in place, so it could be flung open without a sound. During that time, Sonia had drawn her bow with three magical arrows already ready to be fired.

Sofia exchanged a look with Sonia.

“Three, two, one…”

The door flew open under Sofia’s control.