Saintess Summons Skeletons

Since there was no danger, the group was free to take their time observing what lay beyond each door.

The first was the mysterious rolled up scroll. The second was a closed stone box about large enough to fit a skull or two. The third contained a pair of red leather gloves. Beyond the fourth door was a hand holding a long rapier. The fifth door was one of the most intriguing, as it contained a pedestal piled up with an obscene amount of glowing mithrium objects that looked like flat ingots. The sixth door in comparison felt like an actual prison cell, where three human skeletons were chained to the far wall, each with a wishing orb embedded in their chest. The seventh door contained nothing but one closed book with no visible title. The eighth door had some kind of finger-shaped relic. And lastly, the ninth door, the one at the very back, was the one Sofia was standing in front of.

“Are ya really gonna open that one?” Henry asked, “That hand pedestal sure looks ornate but…”

“Yes. If I can only open one then it absolutely has to be this one,” Sofia confirmed without hesitation.

“Heh. I don’t know what ya see in that piece o’ junk, but suit yarself.”

Beyond the door, clearly in view, was a golden hand holding a piece of stone in the shape of a circle with a protruding bit that was broken off. In other words, it looked like the back half of a large stone key.

It shimmered in a color that Henry could not see.

After some deliberation, Henry stood in front of the door with the sword, and the two took out the mana hearts they had collected. Since the one Henry had was from the throne’s corpse, it was technically their shared loot, but Sofia let him have it, feeling that being too greedy here would not be to her advantage.

Since Henry thought opening the doors was likely to open the way out as well, they inserted the hand-shaped mana hearts into the locks at the same time.

The mana hearts cracked, and the heavy locks fell from the doors, shattering on the piles of triangular gold coins. The magic protecting the two vault cells disappeared.

“That’s it?” Sofia asked, the mana heart still in her hands, covered in cracks but in one piece.

“Grab yar stuff,” Henry said, opening the barred door and stepping into his cell, “Way out’s open.”

“It is?”

Sofia quickly did the same, pushing open the metallic bars door, and grabbing the piece of stone from the palm of the golden hand.

Hmmhmm… It’s definitely half of a key, one linked to the deep…

And the material… This strange smooth stone… It’s just like the original form of my ring when it was still the ‘ringed arms of zar’. Did the Annihilator also make this?

I have a feeling I might be able to bring that back out to the real world. If not then maybe I need the other half to reach Aphenoreth’s mirror? Either way that’s made the dungeon worth it.

Henry stepped out of his open vault, a new rapier in hand replacing his old scimitar. “Was about time I got rid of that ol’ piece o’ crap. Look at this fine blade. It’s perfect,” he commented, using the edge to play a few notes of his violin.

“It does feel like your music is a bit cleaner now? I’m no expert. What about the exit, though?”

“Ah, yes, the way we came from, listen closely, it is like before.”

“Right… We should be able to open one more door each at least, no?”

Henry nodded, “Seeing as the keys didn’t break. Which one d’ya have in mind?”

“Well, most things I probably won’t be able to really get out into the real world. So I am considering the book, but I kind of want to try the box, also.”

“The box? Ya would take a gamble like that? Well stuff ya can’t keep ya can still resell at port, so won’t be much of a loss I reckon.”

“Yeah, that was the idea. Really I just like to gamble. I am already fine with what I got, in a way.”

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“What?! Never say that, ya fool! Comes to treasure, there ain’t ever enough to go ‘round! But do get that box if ya want, not gonna stop ya. Am leerin’ at those mithrium things on the opposite side meself.”

“Right, I was wondering why you took the sword when you could make several with so much precious metal.”

Henri clicked his tongue, despite not having one, looking displeased, “Not so easy. Crew’s forgehead’s not in his right mind, ya see, haven’t been for a long time. Some people, like me, adapted quite well to the blood sea. Others… didn’t.”

“Sorry I asked…”

“Tis’ what it is. At least we still have the cook and carpenters. So, gettin’ that box?”

“You’re gonna stand here and watch?”

“‘Course I am. I like me a good gamble too.”

Sofia nodded and inserted the cracked mana heart into the lock. The mana heart and lock shattered together.

Unable to contain her curiosity for long, Sofia grabbed and opened the box right away.

“Hah, yar lucky day,” Henry commented, giving Sofia a tap on the shoulder, and turning around to open his own second door.

Inside the wooden box, there was another hand-shaped mana heart, intact.

I get to open two more doors!

Since knowledge was the only thing she could for certain take back to the real world, and there were no more interesting gambles to take, Sofia just grabbed the book and the wishing orbs with her two extra tries, while Henry was still busy with his mithrium things.

Sofia opened the book, flipping through a few pages of text that she had no idea how to decipher, until she found a few drawings. They mostly showed hands, people, in-body mana pathways, and objects like fruits and crystals that Sofia had never seen before.

I was hoping for a spellbook but… Is that their training method?

This looks like it… So they used these crystal veins to carve their mana hearts. We were never told where the inactive base for ours came from, now that I think about it.

Curious, Sofia looked toward the end, but the later pages of the book had fewer and fewer visuals, while the text was packed even tighter than before, so there wasn’t much to see, aside from one drawing somewhat near the end that caught her attention. In it the fully formed, five-finger crystal mana heart was set on fire, and its host along with it.

Does that illustrate a failure or is it just part of the process? Looks painful. Well, if nothing else I feel like I could sell this to the system. Surely DATABASE would be interested, right? Either that or I’ll have to find someone to try to decode it.

Checking the book to the end, Sofia actually found a few spell schematics at the very end, they were built in the same strange way as the one she had seen from the wall before, mostly flat with random ‘pillars’.

Only three spells.

The first one looks easy enough, I could out-of-body wildcast that.

It took Sofia about twenty seconds to reproduce the spell. She had no idea what it would do, but considering the tiny amount of mana it needed, it could not be too bad, so she activated it.

An illusory hand of bones appeared about ten centimeters in front of Sofia’s right hand.

Oh?! I get sensations from it? It’s an illusion invocation mix?

Sofia moved her right hand, and the illusory hand followed, it copied her movement, and when she used it to touch the book, she could vaguely feel the texture of the paper. She used the fake hand to turn a page, then tried to see if it could hold the entire book.

The answer was no, the moment Sofia let go of the book with her left hand, the illusory hand got overwhelmed by the weight it tried to hold and the spell broke.

Super weak. But it’s a nice trick to know, I guess? It’s simple enough to memorize, no blueprint space needed. Could use it to open chests that are definitely not mimics, stuff like that. Nothing I couldn’t do with an actual bone hand I guess but still. Will be a good spell to teach Chino too.

And the remaining two…

Yeah those ones are simple too but they’ll take at least a few hours to get right.

Henry joined Sofia, holding the wooden box she had opened before under his arm, which he had visibly loaded with his prize.

“I guessed ya’d take the book and scroll, why’d ya choose the wishin’ orbs instead?”

“I was going to do exactly that,” Sofia answered, “Then I thought about the very real chances of this scroll being some kind of map or deed, which in both cases, would be completely useless. At least the wishing orbs I can resell or use to summon more of my things in a pinch. What about those mithrium things you got?”

“They be looking like barrier magic cornerstones. It’ll be a pain to work out a compatible barrier spell, but a nice haul nonetheless. Could use ‘em to protect a real ship instead of the ol’ row boat, just gonna take me some time. Then if yar all good, time to set sail!”

“To the port?”

“To the port!”

Stepping out of the vault into the corridor they came from, the three skeletons were instantly brought back to the cliffside they had come from. The fingerprint-marked door they had entered from was shattered and the space beyond collapsed. Nothing else had changed. The blood sea was shaky as ever under an endless carpet of dark clouds.

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