Saintess Summons Skeletons

‘You have received a new quest’

[The second test of the Ark:

Tournament points are the main currency on the Ark, they allow you to buy many things, from food and drinks to skills and equipment you can take out of the trial. You will soon be teleported to a random place in the Ark for the first night’s event, allowing you to gain your first points.

Group Penalty: Your entire party will lose 20% of their points when a member dies, and a dead member can no longer participate until the next event.

To end the event without receiving a penalty: return to your room or wait until morning.

Trialees in their room can no longer attack or be attacked.

1 Kill = 10 Tournament points

Start in 10:00]

“This is going to get messy,” Astelia commented, having read the prompt faster than the others.

Relkei’s colorful feathers perked up as he read, “It was made for me! Everyone, I think I’m in love! The trial’s bountiful marvels once again blesses me on this majestic seabound vessel that–”

“So embarassing… Sorry I brought this damn clown around…” Camilla sighed, hands on her temples, while Relkei kept blathering to no one in the background.

“Hah, it’s fine, we all agreed to let him join, didn’t we?” Alith said, “Can you stop being weird and explain the strategy, Rel?”

“Oh! Yes, certainly, yes. Well, very little is needed, lady Camilla here will offer me her best amplification ritual, and you two fair warriors need only protect us for thirty– no, twenty seconds! Twenty seconds and the round is ours, I guarantee it!”

“Noted,” Astelia said, “We do that. Afterwards I will get you and Camilla back to the room, while we take care of stragglers. This will be safer for our points. Does everyone agree?”

“Sounds good,” Alith confirmed, “We just need to hope Sofia isn’t actually here…”

Astelia sat on her bed, lightly shaking her head, “No worries on that front, considering Pareth is only in room six. I am much more worried about Tartaros and that elf Relkei warned us about.”

“Not the fish guy who took room two?” Alith asked.

“He looked like a mage, we can handle him, but the battlefield will likely be a huge mess, so a specialized assassin could get past us before we realize. Relkei is sure to draw some eyes.”

“I’ll deal with that,” Camilla said, “dun worry. I’ve got a lot of experience dealin’ with invisible fuckers. Lost count of the number of algae goblins I’ve had to slice down.”

Alith nodded, “We’ll leave that one to you then, assuming he comes after us.”

“Ah, they’re starting in the same place as we did,” Sofia noted, watching the group appear in the middle of the Ark’s main deck, surrounded by other groups.

“Yeah it looks like the starting location for that test depends on the room you got,” Saria commented, “I’m curious to see what they’re gonna do now. Your score for this one’s going to be hard to beat.”

“Hmm… Alith could probably kill most people on the main deck with a shriek, but it looks like she’s not doing that,” Sofia said, curiously watching Alith and Astelia push back anyone trying to approach their other two teammates.

Mana pooled around the avian in a red suit, sucked in by the amplification rituals Camilla stacked under his clawed feet. Slowly it began to form a very obvious pillar of light above him.

The groups fighting nearby all noticed.

“It’s artillery magic!” someone recognized.

“Get them first!”

The other people on the deck formed a temporary alliance in an instant, anyone who had ever been on the receiving hand of siege magic knew the kind of damage it could do.

In seconds, the group was surrounded.

While Astelia’s flying blades turned the surroundings into a giant open-air blender, Alith turned translucent as she flew up into the spirit plane.

“FUCK OFF!” her shriek tore apart the air.

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“There it is,” Sofia said with a nod, “it is more effective the closer people are. Nice cleanup.”

“The instant death status sure is something,” Saria added, her mouth moving strangely as she chomped on some snacks in the real world at the same time.

“They’re dropping like flies. That’s about twelve-hundred and thirty kills,” Speed noted, watching the people collapse on the screen after hearing Alith’s [Maiden’s shriek].

Saria stopped her chewing to look at Speed, “You had time to count that?”

“I am Speed,” he answered with a shrug, “You should focus on the screen.”

“Right…”

“Almost there!” Relkei told the others, looking like he was struggling to even properly contain the amount of mana he was channeling through his crescent-shaped crystal catalyst.

Some of the survivors of Alith’s shriek actually started to flee, most of them breaking through the deck in any way they could to take refuge on the lower levels of the Ark where the fighting was also happening.

Astelia’s blade took care of the stragglers, it seemed that none of the other big names had started or come to the main deck, so there was a moment of fleeting calm as Relkei’s cast entered its final moments.

Finally, he swung his catalyst down, as if pulling down the blue sky with it, black clouds instantly forming above.

“[Day of the storm]!”

As his words echoed above the Ark, a cataclysmic storm erupted in an instant. A typhoon formed above, strong winds and torrential rain battering the ship, small tornados forming everywhere, lightning indiscriminately striking the ship and the sea, and a gigantic wave profiling itself over the horizon.

Relkei fell to his knees, limp and without the slightest bit of mana in him.

Already the lightning strikes tore through the ark, netting the group a crazy amount of points as they reduced anyone they touched to ashes, but the most devastating part would undoubtedly be the insane wave that would soon arrive.

Astelia looked at the incoming wave, and noticed the arrival of both Tartaros and the fishman’s group on the deck.

“Not good… We’re out!”

Astelia disappeared from the deck with the avian and the dwarf. Now they only needed to get into their room to secure the points. As they had discussed before, they left Alith behind.

“What cowardice,” Tartaros huffed as he approached Alith, “Are you going to flee as well, ghost?”

“Flee? I don’t see anybody here being a threat,” she answered, casually thrusting her rapier back to intercept a lightning arrow from Ezerid aimed at her head.

Tartaros answered by flashing a creepy smile. It seemed Alith’s answer made him very happy. Without a word, he clenched his fists and struck.

Alith jumped back performing a flip. Tartaros’s fist landed squarely on her back as she spun in the air, sending her flying off of the Ark, completely unharmed. She shifted to the spirit plane as she flew to avoid getting sent too far off, and watched the ark from within the storm cloud. She thought that nobody would be stupid enough to waste time chasing a ghost into the clouds, and she was right, as Tartaros started clashing with Ezerid’s group instead.

Soon, the gigantic wave ten times the ark’s height crashed onto the massive ship, obliterating most of the upper levels aside for the team rooms which were protected by the event rules, and flipping the entire Ark over. The structural damage was so massive that despite there being a few dozen survivors still able to continue, the Seraphs sounded the end of the event.

Everyone’s vision faded to black for an instant, and they were all back inside of their rooms, the Ark in pristine condition under a pure blue sky.

“I actually know his class, I think,” Sofia told the others in the private spectator room, “It was in the ‘record of logistics classes’ of the Exidian royal library.”

“That did not look like a logistics-focused class in the slightest,” Speed said.

“Well, they classed it as logistics because it’s centered around artillery spells. War logistics, in this case. The class is [Doomsayer]. The example of spell they had for it was [Day of the drought], I think you can see the similarities.”

“Hmm, well, it’s not as good as your play was back then, even if the destructive power is quite impressive for his level.”

“Mostly it’s got the downsides of costing too much mana and being slow,” Saria said, “Also it’s interesting that none of the stronger imprints stopped them. That dwarf’s rituals must have done a lot to help conceal the mana movements for the people on the lower decks.”

“Right, I know her class as well,” Sofia said, “Well, I know her actually, kind of.”

“Oh! Yeah, she was that captain in Shaily’s trial, wasn’t she? I remember now, she does fit the description quite well.”

“My thoughts exactly. I never met her but it’s not a stretch to think that’s her, both Alith and Asty have heard the story from Shaily’s mouth too. Didn’t think I’d get to see it in action, but the [Ritualist] class is quite interesting.”

“Between the rituals and that Avian I bet Zerei is foaming at the mouth right now,” Saria added with a chuckle, “Too bad I can’t go look into that Apostle spectator room. You sure you don’t wanna go take a peek, sis?”

“... I’ll think about it. I just fear it might be a bit awkward. And it’s Asty and Alith’s trial, plus Dread’s Apostle. I don’t want to make it about me.”

“You worry too much,” Speed commented, leaning back in the couch, “the Ark is very much a socializing event for those who can afford the private rooms, for them the actual spectating is usually the side event. You should not waste the opportunity to go and get to know more people in my opinion.”

“I didn’t really see it like that… Well, I guess we still do have several hours before the next part. Do we get to see the rankings for this at some point?”

“We should get them any second now,” Speed answered, “They won’t get as many points as you did but I predict a solid first place nonetheless.”

“It’ll depend on how many people died in the fifty-odd seconds it took ‘em to destroy the ship,” Saria said, “I have a guess. Are we taking bets?”