Saintess Summons Skeletons

“You didn’t even tie it down, I’m surprised the boat was still here,” Sofia commented watching the coral atoll disappear in the distance.

“If it was that easy to lose It’d have gone missing long ago,” Henry answered, rowing slowly “We should be reachin’ port in about two days I’m guessin’, hope ya don’t mind the time.”

“Two days? I was expecting longer honestly, especially considering the speed we’re going at.”

“Heh heh… Speed hardly matters here. Move in the right direction and the sea takes you to your destination. Orienting yarself is the real issue, but I been here awhile.”

“Glad to have met you early then, hopefully my teammates were as lucky. Care to finish telling me about the ten lords while we wait?”

“So ya want me to sing the praises of His Holiness the pope some more?”

“I suppose so? The way you described him is quite different from how I know him, and I am honestly having a hard time reconciling the image of a pope and captain of a pirate ship together. Not to mention you kept saying pope, but pope of what? I thought it was a religious position, you know?”

“T’was much less a religion and more of a… An organisation for the benefit of humanity organised like one? Well, it did worship some supposed god in the beginning, I think, but then His Holiness took over.”

“I see… And then how did we get from there to pirates?”

“Those were some fifteen thousand years apart, things happened. The other races were rather belligerent, to say the least.”

“Why use ships, then?” Sofia asked.

“Why use a mobile fortress? Politics must’ve evolved a lot if yar asking a question like that.”

“I’m just used to flying and teleporting around,” Sofia said with a shrug.

“Best way to end up with a hole in yar chest, that.”

“Different times… Was the Orator strong? How did he fight?”

“Strong? No, he was a feeble man. His words and knowledge were his greatest tool, hence the name. The best strategist and captain a crew could have ever asked for…”

After spending an hour reminiscing about ‘the good old days’, Henry went on to tell Sofia about the fifth of the ten human lords.

“Genareth. A bastard from a Corruptor and a Dragon, ya see? A monster kid chased away by his own, repudiated by all. Until he got adopted by humans, that is! The power of his bloodline shone through, and his rise to power was fast and brutal. He led human armies in fighting back against the warmongering races, Thrulls to Bloodmers to Aginkaks, crushing them all, until he forced even their Corruptor backers into retreat!”

“Did this one not have a proper title, just Genareth?”

“No, of course, they all have a title. His moniker, well-earner after his numerous conquests! Genareth, the King!”

“You seem to speak of him fondly, or with great respect, at least.”

Henry nodded, “Of course I do. He was the Legate at the helm of His Holiness’ crusades, after all. Such a man commands absolute respect.”

The legate at the helm of the crusades, huh… So Annihilator’s marked one was likely the voice, one of the ‘fiends’ in his service, Aphenoreth’s was the ‘Admiral’ we are in the mana heart of right now… And this Genareth was Orator’s.

What about Ormoncleth’s? Izaro the dragon-turned tree?

So if I’m not wrong about those. It would mean two of the previous generation’s marked ones have become sanctuaries. And another one, the voice, is still alive. Only the Genareth guy really died, then?

Now I wonder… Was the sunless Elder beast one of Annihilator’s marked ones, just from several epochs ago?

Sanctuaries clearly seem linked to the marked-ones. Are marked-ones a recent thing maybe? Could be since the entire mirror thing with the Lords leaving their skills around is from the lost Epoch only. Or are there sanctuaries everywhere with people trapped in tiny fake worlds, bubbles left to rot like this blood sea, for an eternity?

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While Sofia was silent, Henry continued, “Following him was Julieth, the Mentor. I… Well I hardly have much to say about her. She was an academic woman, pursuing innovation in magic and other fields. No heroic tale to be found here, so to say, but her popularity and her contributions to humanity were significant enough that she was hailed as the sixth lord.”

Julieth? Interesting name. Certainly confirms ‘who’ was teaching Velania how to fix her cookies. I wonder if this Julieth was actually Ormoncleth though, considering she’s already another one of the ten lords.

“What did she look like?” Sofia blurted out without thinking.

“Look like? One damned random question, this, only ever got to see a painting of her, so a bit of a second-hand recounting here, but from what I know, she was some freakishly tall busty blonde with a narrow face. Tallest of the pureblood human women, probably; almost three meters tall, can ya imagine?”

… Not the description I was expecting. Almost thought he was describing me for a second, but he wouldn’t know since I’m just a skeleton with horns.

I’m not even that tall either…

Three meters IS freakishly tall for a regular human. Even for Pareth’s spares we couldn’t find one like that.

“I can imagine quite well, yes… And so… Four more lords to get through, right?”

“Lords from the end of the era,” Henry said, continuing to row the boat, “The seventh would be… The Grand Inquisitor, Aphenoreth.”

“He worked closely with ‘his holiness’ as well?” Sofia asked.

“How perspicacious, milady,” Henry answered with a cackle, “What could have possibly tipped you off?”

“Very funny, Henry.”

“Tssk. Women. Ya see, While Genareth’s troops dealt with the more numerous and bloodthirsty races attacking humanity, smarter enemies remained. Races that were less prone to open conflicts, but would still enslave humans, an’ other joyous such things. Against them, we pirates roamed the sea, while the Inquisitor and his elite troops roamed the land.”

“I suppose that explains why your admiral was one of his men. Is there nothing else to say about him, though?”

“Not much, I am afraid. Certainly ya must be quite interested, seein’ as you bear his name, but the Inquisitor was a mysterious man, even to his closest. Though there are a few stories and legends.”

“Surely you would have heard a lot from the admiral?”

“The admiral spent his time with us, he also knew little, but he did confirm one thing.”

“And that is?” Sofia pressed him.

“The Inquisitor never used magic. He could grow stronger like any other man, but an armor, shield and blade was all he ever used. Nary a single spell. Some believe he lacked the talent, some believed he lacked the need. It is looking like he truly was a god all along, so safe to assume the later option to be true. After all, why bother with such a thing as magic, when his blade never once failed him?”

Orator was a ‘feeble’ man. Aphenoreth couldn’t or didn’t use magic. Ormoncleth was hailed as the silent Queen, carefully leading her people to prosperity and punishing troublemakers like Pain to minimise their suffering… But still left without explaining anything, leaving behind a devastating plague, the ebb, that still haunts Veliadren to this day.

Did the Lords get hit with a whole host of divine penalties for coming to the physical plane in their ‘mortal’ forms, just like the gods? Even they couldn’t escape it?

Hmm… Now that I think about it, this could be exactly why they were able to be around people without side-effects back then. And why these people were all able to say their names so openly compared to now. If Aphenoreth was so weakened that even something as simple as using mana was beyond his means then the influence of his name would surely diminish, right?

The lost Epoch was definitely more special than most people seem to realise…

It’s probably no coincidence that the system came in the epoch right after.

“Lost in thoughts again, are ya?” Henry commented, “Ya’re quite like the admiral, on that front…”

Somewhere else, advancing in Sofia’s direction, Alith, wearing a leaf skirt, sat on Pareth’s shoulders shouting orders through a storm.

“Stop! Jump! Sprint! Two more waves from the left, high jump!”

Pareth, using his racial abilities as a frost giant with a funny name, performed water-walking by having the dangerous sea water freeze before it could touch his feet. As the ice would instantly start to sink, he had to constantly keep moving, while Alith was his guide through the tormented sea.

When finally Pareth found a red sandbank with a few bushes to wait for the waves to stop, he tapped on Alith’s leg to get her to come down. Instead she leaned in over his skull like a lifeless corpse.

“Uah… Finally over… That was so tiring…”

Pareth flinched.

Alith sat right back up all of a sudden. “That’s right! It’s your fault! You crazy crazy Sofia-head, you!” she chided, giving the weakest slaps to the top of his skull. “Who hunts a fish with such a giant-ass sword, huh?! What else did you think was gonna happen to our shitty raft?! I swear! You and Sof are the exact same. The exaaaaact same. Tssk tssk tssk. Anyway- it’s nice up here. I think I’ll stay like this a while longer, if you don’t mind…”

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