Saintess Summons Skeletons

“The layout of this place is quite something,” Everelle commented as the group took another turn which revealed more of the same long and narrow corridor. They had been following that single long and winding corridor for a few hours now, making slow progress as they needed to check for traps, of which there were actually a few dangerous ones here and there.

“We should be almost at the end,” Sofia said, “I’ve just realized, but the corridor is actually some kind of ritual circle layout, I think. It wasn’t too obvious since all the corridors are straight with right angles, but it sure is starting to look like it,” she explained as she took a tiny three-dimensional bone map of what the group had explored until now out of her armor.

Everelle stopped in her tracks, “Woah, where the heck have you been hiding that?”

“Usually as long as things are peaceful, I’d sculpt a map holding it in my left hand like I did back in your dungeon, but since I have a convenient hole in my chest right now… See, that’s the bottom layer we’re on, it’s weird to see a square ritual circle but that’s what it is, is it not?”

“It is indeed reminiscent of some kind of ritual,” Ihuarah analyzed, observing Sofia’s map, “However… I doubt it would be functional as is. We would probably need to circularize it, first. Flooding these corridors with mana might still do the trick, at such a scale the cleanliness of the shape loses importance.”

“We don’t have that much mana, that would take forever… Let’s just get to the end and see then. Trying to activate a ritual circle we don’t know the effects of is a risky thing to do in the first place,” Cinthia said, trying to be the voice of reason.

“Would not be my first time,” Sofia snarked, “But I agree, and we won’t have the full ritual until we find the end of that corridor anyway so it’s not like we could try it right now. Still, that at least explains the dungeon’s strange layout.”

“And with this, we should almost be back to where we started…” Sofia said, extending her bone map up to the corner the group arrived to.

“Looks like a dead-end ahead…” Cinthia observed as they all took yet another turn.

“That’s an illusory wall just like the one we entered through,” Sofia immediately noticed, “If my map is correct… We’re back to the illusion room with the tombs. I only saw one illusory wall back then, so… This must be in the one unopened tomb.”

“Ah, so there’s a chance we’ll get to see what’s inside before it pulls one of us into an illusion,” Everelle noted.

“I doubt it,” Ihuarah disagreed, “the tombs were most likely always empty, the illusions I would wager were a product of the ritual embedded in the flooring of that room.”

“We’ll know for sure soon enough, I’m going first, just in case,” Sofia said quickly walking past Ihuarah and Pareth. Stepping through the illusory wall, it appeared that she was right, this was the inside of the one still-closed tomb. It was empty, aside from her, and Sofia opened it with a kick, shattering the cover and revealing the same room they had departed from hours prior. “It’s safe,” she told the others behind, “Man… If I had known this corridor was going to loop I could have just sent Crowie to quickly map it out…”

The others stepped out of the tomb one by one following Sofia, Everelle commenting that they would not have found the potions had they let a skeleton do the exploring.

“Still feels like a waste of time but I guess you’re right. At least we already figured out how to proceed, I’m betting we just need to round off that ritual circle and activating it should reveal the way forward,” Sofia guessed.

“Likely,” Everelle agreed, “We should let Iwa do the thing.”

“Certainly. Lady Sofia, may I?”

“Here’s the map,” Sofia answered with a shrug, giving him the bone construct.

Ihuarah grabbed the map and a piece of charcoal from his storage, and used it to draw on one of the room’s walls, starting with the ritual’s outer circle and slowly filling it in toward the center.

“This process might take several tries,” Ihuarah commented as he drew, “turning squares to circles, approximations need to be made…”

Everyone intently watched the shade draw on the wall when Ihuarah stopped halfway through.

“Something wrong?” Everelle asked.

“Quite the contrary,” Ihuarah said, wiping away a small part of what he had already drawn, and drawing over it in a slightly different way. He started drawing out the entire rest of the ritual without looking at the map a single time.

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“You already knew the ritual?” Sofia asked.

“In a way, yes. I am familiar with it,” Ihuarah answered, giving the bone map back to Sofia as he put the finishing touches to the intricate ritual circle on the wall.

“What is it?” Bookie asked next, full of curiosity.

“No need to ask me,” Ihuarah answered playfully, looking in Sofia’s direction.

“What? Me? I have no idea, honestly. It’s obviously a ritual circle but I can’t recognise a single familiar ritual module in there…”

“You have yet to realize, for you rarely get to spend a long time in your Apostle form, but this should be something you are also familiar with,” Ihuarah explained.

“The Apostle f- Oh! Ooooh… Give me a second,” Sofia then said, unceremoniously sitting on the cold stone floor and closing her eyes.

The veins of the demon form take the shape of many interconnected ritual circles… They are made of light now, but their shape hasn’t changed in the slightest.

Sofia felt her own mana circuits, slowly observing the entirety of her interior. The demon form’s limbs were mostly home to their respective spells, while the torso was largely occupied by body-enhancement passive magic. Sofia analyzed her circuitry one layer after the other, sometimes opening her eyes and looking at the wall to remind herself of the shape she was looking for.

Finally, she found it, in the middle of her neck, the exact same vein configuration as the drawing Ihuarah had scribbled on the wall.

Sofia took another look at her map, and compared it with that inner ritual circle.

“You’re right,” Sofia said to Ihuarah, “this is it. No doubt. This is one of the natural mana pathways we have as Apostles of Sorrow,” Sofia explained for the others, “Though I still have no idea what this one does.”

“Let me enlighten you, then,” Ihuarah offered, “this particular arrangement is the centerpiece of the greater pathway stack within our necks, while it produces no spell, it is an integral part in letting us tap into and utilize the energy of Sorrow,” he explained.

“That’s great but it’s not helping with our situation,” Everelle commented, “Maybe try activating it while standing in the middle of the room or something?”

“It is more of a passive and cannot really be activated…” Ihuarah clarified.

“But have you tried?” Everelle continued.

“Who in their right mind would heedlessly flood passive pathways with mana? That is asking for a violent backlash and permanent inner scars,” Ihuarah answered, “But perhaps you might be unto something, Eve…”

“Let me try,” Sofia immediately offered, thinking that she had the scepter to absorb backlash anyway. Following Everelle’s suggestion, she went to the middle of the room before she started controlling her mana to converge toward her neck.

She started immediately feeling nauseous, Ihuarah was right, forcing more mana than intended inside of passive pathways was asking for trouble, it felt like having one’s blood start flowing in reverse.

Sofia’s health started to decline, dropping by the thousands for every second she kept pushing more mana toward her neck, as the inner turmoil started to spread throughout the rest of her body.

“Don’t harm yourself, Sofia!” Bookie pleaded, seeing her face contort from the pain, but she carried on, pumping more and more mana toward her neck, and toward that mana pathway in particular. Something was happening. The mana flew in reverse through her neck before being sent chaotically all over her body and she could start to tell that this was going somewhere.

With Sofia’s health dropping under thirty percent, her skin started to crack, a gentle light flowing from within. This was just one of her Lumian racial passives starting to activate, and it almost made Sofia stop, as she half-convinced herself that this was what she had felt was coming.

I can still push further!

More and more mana flooded Sofia’s neck as her health dwindled, and with an internal bang, the entire flow of her mana flipped around. The pain and strange sensations were all gone in an instant.

As she was still trying to understand what that meant, and while the others were asking if Sofia was alright, a hole appeared in the floor underneath her, but due to the peculiarities of the Lumian’s [Pillar of creation] racial passive, she could not move even if she wanted to while at such low health.

Sofia dismissed her unlife runes to let her blessed bone constructs heal her while she explained to the others what had just happened, and urged Ihuarah to do the same.

“I am shocked beyond words,” Ihuarah commented half a minute later, as his mana rippled through his body in reverse, while Sofia was right about fully healed. He was flabbergasted to only learn about the secret functions of his body now, in his second life.

“You may be letting me have the artifact, but you’re not going to leave empty-handed,” Sofia answered with a toothy smile.

It might not have been evident for anyone else, but to an Apostle, they had a natural understanding of the magic within their body, save for this tiny secret function. The reversal of the mana flow did one simple thing that was easy to understand. It completely turned off the possibility of using the five demon-form spells of Sorrow, instead repurposing each and every single bit of their mana circuits into body-enhancement magic. A secret juggernaut mode.

Although it was hard to quantify, Sofia felt that she was at least twice as strong physically.

My health hasn’t changed but I feel like my defenses should have gone up significantly.

And it feels like I can get the spells back by doing the same thing.

This is crazy. Are there other secrets the demon form is hiding?

Is this a thing all Apostles can do?

Cinthia’s sweet voice interrupted Sofia’s thoughts, “Hum… I-, huh… Sorrow has a message for you two,” she told Sofia and Ihuarah.