Saintess Summons Skeletons

This place wouldn’t be here for no reason, right? These flowers look useless though, and there’s nothing else here.

Quickly searching through the overgrown ruin, Alith found nothing of note at first, but a detail caught her eye as she was ready to leave.

This flower down here is the only one that hasn’t bloomed? The stalks and leaves are a bit weak compared to the others…

Alith grabbed the pot and carefully pulled the flower out from the loose soil. Wow, shit. I almost missed that.

The roots of the flower were wrapped around a small wooden box.

No wonder it has grown so weak.

The box wasn’t locked, and it contained a single thing on a small cushion.

Another tooth?!

Hell. Now I’m glad I kept the locket, these are clearly important somehow.

“Be honest, how often does anyone find that?” Sofia asked Love, who was idly flying on her back next to her like floating in a pool.

“It’s noooot that rare… For the people who actually manage to get inside, that is. Most people don’t get there before the bird appears. Your friend rabbit-girl found that one too.”

“Did anyone ever get full completion?”

“Nope. Not even close. It’s not meant to be fully completed, really.”

“Alright. Your words not mine.”

…

Alith had grabbed her vine bandolier on her way out, it needed some patching up to make sure it wouldn’t break, but the pouch of leaves and one of the two bottles had miraculously survived. She looked for the side opposite where the big bird had left and went that way, only walking for a few minutes before she started hearing strange noises from the canopy.

I’m being followed… Can’t reach up there. Gotta pretend I noticed nothing.

As she kept walking and the thing above kept following Alith quickly noticed a pattern when she moved.

Little fucker’s getting impatient, huh? Getting agitated whenever I move to the right? Is it your nest or is it the edge of the jungle, what’s it you don’t want me to see?

After a few more steps, finding a relatively clear path, Alith took a sharp turn right and started to ‘run’, as fast as she could go through the jungle, at least. This seemed to greatly disturb whatever followed from above, who only followed for a moment more, before leaving with guttural howls of frustration.

Oh, no. That’s not… Not good news, that.

The jungle had once again become eerily silent.

It shouldn’t be big bird’s territory, but it’s someone’s. I don’t really want to turn back now but… Ah whatever, I wasn’t scared of bears back on earth, this is going uphill and the jungle didn’t seem to extend very high up the volcano so this really is the way out.

Alith continued uphill, hoping to be out of the dense jungle soon.

For a big predator’s territory there isn’t much trace of any activ– Are those wild Goreberries?!

Running up to the tree-climbing bush she had spotted from a distance, Alith observed the tumor-like berries growing on it from up close. Aside from looking like disgusting fist-sized

lumps of rotting flesh, goreberries were actually pretty rare and tasty, full of slightly bitter juice.

Alith bit into one of the berries without even double checking. Water and food all in one, it was the perfect lucky find. She ate three large goreberries and was about to pick a fourth one when she heard a loud snort behind her.

She turned around, but there was nothing, just the jungle, immobile and silent.

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Forest weaver!

She immediately understood. It was a monster she knew, one she had already hunted herself several times for the rare plants growing on its fur. But above all, a monster with an average level of ninety.

Alith let go of the berry, firmly clutching the shaft of her makeshift spear. Since the monster had ‘warned’ her, there was still a chance it wouldn’t attack if she left now. She slowly moved away from the berries, taking a few more steps uphill.

The muffled sounds of hooves came from her left.

That’s what I thought!

Alith grabbed her remaining alcohol bottle and threw it to her left as strong as she could before jumping back downhill.

Plants spread out of the way as the plant-covered stag monster charged. The bottle hit its neck and shattered, causing the monster to rear and bellow loudly, its dark eyes glaring at Alith, full of rage.

Dumb thing.

Alith’s spear flew, perfectly aimed into the Forest weaver’s mouth, stabbing the underside of the large creature palate before shattering.

A mouthful of broken glass wouldn’t stop the monster for long, but alith had hunted enough of them to know these beasts very well. Vines shot out from the ground around the monster’s rear hooves, piercing through the air toward Alith’s head. She crouched down just in time, having predicted the attack, and grabbed the vines before they could get pulled back by the monster.

Stomp.

The front hooves of the monster finally crashed down, trying to hit her, but Alith was gone, having hitched a ride on the vines to the large stag’s backside.

With the smell of the alcohol and sudden mouth pain distracting it, the monster could not react in time to attack again.

Alith unleashed a devastating uppercut. The monster screamed, spasms, and fell, frothing at the mouth.

“Tcch. This is why you don’t leave your disgusting balls hanging.”

Alith left the jungle a few minutes later with only a few bug bites and scratches, carrying an extra pouch of rare herbs and a brand new ‘dagger’ and ‘spear’ made with broken Forest weaver horns.

Climbing another dozen meters to get a good vantage point above the jungle canopy, Alith sat on a boulder to catch so rest.

“Aaaaah… What a refreshing little adventure. Reminds me of the old days with Sof…”

“Oh, I can see the shipwreck bay from here. I only got that far? This jungle’s really slow to get through. I don’t see the ruins from before but they should be somewhere around there, probably… There’s a stone tower all the way on the other side… Is that a lighthouse maybe? That could be a good place to check. Still no signs of the Ark anywhere in sight, might be on the other side of the volcano. Clouds on the horizon… Might rain soon.”

Alith looked around but couldn’t find anywhere nearby that would even remotely be a good shelter aside from returning to the jungle, so she decided to keep climbing up instead, hoping the weather wouldn’t be as bad as she predicted. The higher she went, the easier it was to notice more ruins in the jungle, there were quite a few of them, singular buildings, like the one she had found before, and very spread out. A single one stood out as a larger structure aside from the tower, but it was too overgrown with tall trees to make out clearly.

Progressively, she made her way up the volcano, and found actual stairs carved into the dark rock, going up and around, which made the ascension much easier. When she made it halfway up and to the other side, she noticed a long shape on the ocean in the distance.

Found the ark. Quite a distance… I don’t think I could just swim there. Maybe that fish-man guy could, but I sure as hell can’t, not with my current stamina… That’s at least ten kilometers out for fucks sake. I guess we’re supposed to build a raft?

Damn. I don’t even know if I could make one that floats.

Well, whatever. Alchemy will get me there. I need to get more island completion first, or I’ll just lose to any fish dude who decided to swim right up to the Ark from the start.

Alith opened the locket at her neck, observing the two teeth inside with a dubitative look for a bit, then snapping it shut and looking toward the top of the volcano.

“Up is never wrong.”

After stretching her sore legs, Alith resumed her climb.

The dark clouds she had noticed earlier soon reached the island, shrouding it in a cold darkness, and drowning the jungle under a torrential rain. Alith wasn’t spared. The rain quenched her thirst and washed away the salt and the sweat coating her skin, but she had to slow down considerably, her bare feet constantly slipping on the wet steps of the volcano’s stairs.

The rain lasted until dusk and did not let up. Alith found refuge in a small cave-like recess in the rocks near the top of the volcano, completely soaked. She had some company there, a skeleton in rusty armor and the long cold remains of an old bonfire.

“Sofia would have loved it here,” Alith snarked, standing naked in the cave, forcefully wringing the water out of her ragged sundress. She crouched in front of the skeleton, struggling to see much at all as night was falling fast and she had no light.

Slinging her still humid sundress over her shoulder, she extended a hand, grabbing the skull by its upper jaw. In the darkness she felt the bones with her hands.

Hah! I knew it looked a bit strange.

This fucker has no teeth.

Oh! Almost no teeth.

She found a single molar at the very back of the skeleton’s lower jaw, the jaw was cracked and fissured around it, as if the tooth had been forcefully smashed in place with a mallet.

Alith pulled out the tooth.

… I better not have to find twenty-nine more.

Minutes later, as she laid down on the cold stone floor, preparing to get some sleep, the ground started to shake with a low rumble.