Saintess Summons Skeletons

Sofia gifted Eleonore a lumian bone bracelet that she made on the spot, carving internal enchantment channels in a small loop made with her aura, and filling them up with a few drops of summoned Odalite blood to act as the medium.

She quickly checked it with her homemade Identify before handing it over.

[Basic Bone Barrier Backup Bracelet]:

When health drops below 50%, surrounds the wearer with a flying barrier of invoked bones for up to five minutes.

The barrier is capable of absorbing a few hits from an average level 200 creature and dealing some physical damage to anything it touches.

48 hours cooldown.

1 mana/minute upkeep.

“There you go,” Sofia offered, showing the description on the side, “My enchanting skills are still terrible compared to Zerei’s so it’s not much, but–”

“It’s already too much. Thank you, city lord! Eleonore answered, quickly snatching up the bracelet and giving Sofia another deep bow.

Sofia lightly shook her head, the corners of her lips curving up slightly, “Does it fit at least?”

“It’s perfect!” Eleonore confirmed, easily pushing her hand through the bone bracelet.

“Alright, I’m not there often but you can come visit the palace whenever, we have a big library there, if you show the bracelet at the door the skeletons will let you in. You can’t bring out any books but feel free to read anything you want.”

“I do not know why I deserve this honour but I will gladly accept it, city lord! Thank you for your generosity!”

“You’re Zerei’s student, it’s only natural. I’m also a bit impressed by your level at your age. Did you leave your family in Hooasow?”

“I…” Eleonore looked hesitant for a second, looked at the bracelet at her wrist, and shook her head, “No, they moved here with me.”

“Oh? Didn’t your parents teach you that necromancers are bad people?” Sofia teased, remembering this detail of their conversation years ago.

“They changed their mind!”

“Alright, alright. I assume Zerei has everything taken care of for you so I won’t ask too much. How are the other students?”

Sofia and Eleonore had a casual chat for a bit longer, Eleonore was still the same straightforward girl who wasn’t scared to ask questions like ‘are you a murderer?’ while Sofia was happy to indulge her after satiating her own curiosity. Zerei eventually made her way to the spells lab, interrupting the discussion.

“I’m here, yes! Sorry, that took longer than expected. So! What are we working on?”

Sofia explained her idea to Zerei, and the apostle of Curse was naturally very interested. Surprisingly, Eleonore was also a good help, having decent ideas and a good intuition for spellcrafting despite her lacking understanding of the very complex mana circuits they were working on.

Eleonore eventually fell asleep in a corner of the lab while the other two continued to work through the entire day and following night to get what they wanted.

Sofia walked around the fruit of their work, a bone filament three dimensional sculpt of a custom, utterly useless curse spell. It was theoretically the perfect binding agent to fuse [Reign over shadows] and [Saintomancer’s Star] into the kind of spell Sofia hoped to create.

Unlike Suhen, however, nobody in the room was experienced enough to really predict what the final result would be, it was all just educated guesses and intuition.

“And now I have to learn this.”

“Easy task for you, no? Going to stab yourself with it again, yes?”

“Exactly.”

Zerei laughed. “Eheheh, I’ll leave you to it, then, I will. I’ll take Eleonore to get a good well-deserved meal, want me to bring you back something?”

“No, thanks. Not hungry.”

“One bottle of dwarven wine, noted,” Zerei chirped as she climbed up the stairs.

… I guess I owe her a drink. Eleonore surely won’t be around so I can finally ask about the Phageid titan she was sent to study. Really wonder how that went.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

But first… The fusion should be very smooth here so… Surely I can learn that and get the whole fusion through before they get back?

No longer than twenty minutes later, Sofia had already ‘mastered’ the new spell she and Zerei had spent all day creating.

What a name… Did you name that Mr.Scribe or did DATABASE do?

[Soulsnake confetti]:

A blatant mockery of the vile soul parasites. This one is at best a neat party trick to give ghosts the tingles.

Shoots a head-seeking slithering projectile through the spiritual plane. It self-destructs at destination spreading the contained mana.

With an extended finger, Sofia fired a test shot of the spell.

Oh wow. The constriction and acceleration modules were well worth. I don’t think I could even notice that thing if it was headed my way. Primarily soul-side mana too, even harder to detect.

Now if I can just fuse them properly…

Compared to the fusion guided by Suhen, this one was much simpler, but it still took long enough that when Sofia opened her eyes, she found Zerei sitting on a cushion in front of her, drinking a colorful cocktail through a straw.

“Went well, yes?”

“Smooth like silk. No idea whether the effects are good, but our intermediary spell was really the perfect fit.”

“Just what we expected. I’m sure the spell can’t be bad. Fully locked?”

“[Lightsoul curse], no locks.”

“I like the name.”

“Of course you do. I like it too, honestly. Very reassuring for the effects.”

Like a child opening a surprise present, Sofia avidly read through the skill description.

[Lightsoul curse]:

As if the Erredian rot was not devastating enough.

Fling a rapid shot of Lightsoul rot cursed mana through the spiritual plane.

Lightsoul rot latches onto and feeds off of spiritual bodies, turning them to light, and compels the afflicted to seek bright lights. Lightsoul rot enters a dormant state in total darkness, and is more lethal the more light touches the afflicted’s body.

Shades afflicted by Lightsoul rot gain temporary health regeneration instead.

+20%(20* Skill Level) Lightsoul rot effectiveness

Cast time: 1s base cast speed, halved for each consecutive shot.

Scribe note: non-transmissible curse

“Adaptive mana cost? That’s always nice. Care to try it on me, yes?”

“Uhm… I’m not sure I can dispel it so I would rather not.”

Zerei chuckled, hiding her mouth-beak with both hands. “You are really funny sometimes, Sofia. Who am I the apostle of again?”

“When you say it like that… Still, I’ll make it a weak one.”

“Hmmhmm, I’ll purposely let it through so even a very weak test is fine.”

Sofia pointed a finger at Zerei, and activated the skill with the bare minimum amount of mana needed for the spell to resolve which was just around 12000.

Zerei twitched lightly as the cursed packet of mana entered her soul.

“How is it? You good?” Sofia asked, while Zerei looked around without saying anything.

“It feels weird. It… Uh… It is eating my soul right now, but it’s slow enough that it barely tickles,” Zerei described, “It would take a few hours for it to do any real damage I think, but it is going steady.”

“What about the inherited aberrant sunlight curse?”

“No change from before, as far as I can tell, no. But most mana went to the soul rot, yes, so the power behind the light curse is weak. I barely feel it right now. Do you think you can alter the curse to rot ratio?”

Sofia closed her eyes to re-examine the new mana circuits in detail before coming up with an answer. “It looks like the curse and the rot part are still produced independently and only merged toward the later half of the cast… It shouldn’t be too hard to find the exact modules to alter for that level of control… Might take a few days.”

“Hmm… I say the current spread isn’t bad, but more control is always nice.”

Sofia nodded. “Is the curse self-multiplying like the original rot?”

Zerei shook her head,” No, no, steady consumption, it eats just as much energy as it spends so the quantity I have on me isn’t changing, just digging deeper into my soul. Like dropping a hot coal in the snow.”

“Hmm… So the severity of the curse is really just how much mana I put in it and how tough of a soul the target has to chew through.”

“Seems that way, yes. Better not miss and hit a civilian with that, would be a very quick and nasty end.”

“Don’t worry just because it’s not as flashy as a huge rod of plasma doesn’t mean I’m going to be using it that liberally. I’ve always been very careful even with the original rot. Are you able to easily dispel it?”

“Hmm… The easiest way is probably to cut off the affected soul portion, but it’s digging straight in so that only works at the start. But if I simply target the cursed mana and break it down… It’s gone, yes. The rot is tightly tied with the curse so getting rid of one dispelled the other.”

“Alright. Good. Honestly not bad.”

“Yes! Very good. Now imagine shooting ten of those at someone, yes? They would need to treat each patch of curse like as many different wounds. Do you mind letting me copy the whole schematic? I am interested in learning this, yes.”

“The whole spell?” Sofia asked.

“Yes yes. Though I might replace the light curse with something else.”

“It will probably take you a while to learn to wildcast that… But sure. You don’t have to copy it; I’ll make you a life-sized bone schematic, just give me an hour… Maybe two.”