Saintess Summons Skeletons

While Sofia had gone to look for Chino, a much more lighthearted event was taking place in Ser’Extra, right under her home.

Everelle let herself fall back into one of her sunless drones, using it like a bean bag chair, “Aaaaah, I’d forgotten how complex it can be to set up a compelling dungeon. Thank you for your help, senior Losh, sorry to bother you for this, I know how busy you must be with work.”

“Oh please. I enjoyed the change of pace, if anything. I was hoping to visit the city either way,” the other sunless answered, adjusting her glasses. “The architecture of this place is quite interesting, clean chaos bone city with old human inspiration? It tickles the mind in unexpected ways.”

“Glad you’re enjoying the place at least, you should talk with Sofia if you get the chance, she seems to enjoy architecture quite a lot. As long as bones are involved.”

“The occasion will surely present itself sooner or later. I shall take my leave for now, duty calls, but it was enjoyable working alongside you again. See you later, Evy.”

After a quick wave, Losh disappeared, leaving Everelle alone with her summons in the palace’s basement.

“Aye. Time for the test run! Saria had better have found someone already, I need to farm dungeon points real bad… I’m almost out. Hmm? Speaking of the devil,” Everelle said out loud, already having to stand back up.

“Hey hey, is that how you should talk about your coworker?” Saira quipped, casually coming down the stairs to the basement, hands in her pants’ pockets, followed by two young ladies.

“Our testers?” Everelle asked.

“Right on, perfect candidates for the job.”

Everelle watched the two identical-looking young women come down the stairs with curiosity. They were tall and slender, with long flowing black ponytails. Aside from their identical faces, one wore light half-plate armor and lugged around a large battle-axe, while the other just wore what looked like enchanted casual clothes, and held a pendant necklace wrapped around her wrist as her weapon.

[Princess - Lv. 248]

[Princess - Lv. 249]

“Topaz Drakron,” the first one introduced herself after making it to the bottom of the stairs, “Nice to meet you.”

“Opal,” the second one added with a slight bow, her voice faint and wavering.

“My sister has a weak voice, so please understand that she cannot talk much,” Topaz added.

“Not a problem at all!” Everelle responded, “Glad to meet you, I’m Everelle, your local dungeon master. I remember Sofia mentioning you two before, you can call me Eve, Sofia’s friends are my friends. Thank you for coming. Did Saria already explain the principle to you?”

“She did, in detail, yes,” Topaz answered.

“Of course I did, who’d you take me for, huh? Think I just kidnapped two princesses?” Saria joked.

“Wouldn’t exactly be a surprise for your family to do that now, would it?” Everelle struck back, “Anyways, I just got done with the final major setup, so since you two already know what it’s all about, the entrance is right here,” she said, pointing at the door behind her. “Feel free to go whenever you’re ready, it’s still an early access test so you’ll need a guide to navigate some unfinished sections, she’s waiting inside already.”

Topaz and Opal briefly shared eye contact, nodding to each other. Topaz took the lead, taking a few steps toward the door, “We are good to go right away.”

“Perfect!” Everelle rejoiced, “Quick mandatory reminders: there are a lot of protections set up in there, but still, avoid aiming too strong magic at the ceiling or digging straight down, everything else is fair game. Any magical objects you get your hands on inside are yours to keep if and only if you can beat the final boss. Although the monsters will be tailored to your level they are still attacking in earnest, so do not take them lightly. Your time limit is twelve hours, and should your health ever drop below twenty percent, you will be instantly teleported out. And lastly, remember to have fun, welcome to Ser’Extra’s dungeon!”

Entering the dungeon, Topaz and Opal passed through several layers of shielding before finding themselves in an imposing antechamber with two rows of sculpted stone columns.

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A system prompt appeared in their vision, bigger than usual and accompanied by a faint background music of a distant piano playing a slow song.

[You have entered the special dungeon : Entrails of Ser’Extra]

As for the ‘guide’, she was waiting for them, sitting on the floor in uncharacteristic calm, holding and reading a piece of paper almost as big as herself with a complicated expression.

Topaz approached her first, waving to try to grab her attention. “Hum… Excuse me? Hello?”

“Agahk!” The startled fairy reacted in surprise, fumbling the paper in her hands before hastily throwing it behind her as she flew up to be eye level with the two princesses. She was wearing a shining robe fitted with dozens of rare blue-glow lightstones. “Hi! Am Pesle! Pesle is guide, very help! Give cheating when you is stuck.”

Topaz bowed to the little fairy, “Nice to meet you, Topaz and Opal Drakron, we will be in your care.”

“Hmmhmm, good care! Start here, Pesle is follow.”

Compared to her time working in the third trial, Everelle had a few more skills and a lot more mana to spare. Plans for this dungeon had been brewing up in her head for a while, and with Saria to pitch in extra ideas, the final result was impressive. The dungeon was built under the sewer network of the city, spanning a good third of the inner city already and going all the way down to ninety meters deep underground.

The twin sisters tackled the dungeon very seriously. Topaz stood in front, disarming traps, defending and calling the shots while her sister handled most of the fighting, restraining and killing the groups of sunless grunts they continuously ran into.

While backtracking to escape a particularly tough lesser Sunless amalgam Opal accidentally activated a trap, a volley of poisoned darts shooting out of a wall straight towards her. Topaz stood in the way in the blink of an eye, intercepting the attack, but her armor was not infallible; a single dart pierced through the chainmail, and the poison quickly started to spread.

The twins continued to run until the amalgam lost track of them, hiding in a corner, Topaz fell limp against a wall the poison was quickly gnawing at her health.

Pestle watched Opal struggle to push aside the multiple layers of armor to properly access the wound. “Hey! Pesle is need help?” She asked.

Opal shook her head as her hands kept moving.

Acknowledging her answer, Pestle still landed softly on Topaz’ head, and silently cast a minor illusion spell to reduce pain, letting Topaz breathe easier.

Opal seemed grateful as she kept going, finally accessing the wound, manually extracting the broken shards of the poison dart’s tip before closing the wound with a healing spell.

With the source of the poison gone, Topaz’ natural regeneration was enough to stabilize her and slowly refill her health.

“Thanks… Should have disarmed that one even if it was easy to avoid on the way in…”

Opal shook her head. “My fault,” she whispered, “bad scout.”

It was true that locating the enemies in advance with her mana senses was Opal’s job, and that she had missed that sunless amalgam.

“We’re both bad then. I’ll be good to go in a minute…”

Pestle, meanwhile, was flying around the room, observing the walls. “Hey hey! Look! Listen!” She told the twins, pressing the side of her tiny head against the room’s back wall.

Opal stood up to check it out, imitating Pestle despite her mana senses not noticing anything wrong with the wall.

“!!! Noise…” she reacted with surprise, her voice barely audible.

“Pesle think it secret treasure! Much leg, very should break wall!”

After Topaz recovered, she kicked through the wall, and there was in fact a narrow cave-like fissure in the stone beyond the brick wall of the dungeon.

Topaz looked at the dark and narrow crack in the wall, uncertain. “Are you… Sure this is part of the dungeon?” She asked Pestle.

“Yes!” Pestle answered with very exaggerated nods, “Every all inside shield is dungeon! All prepare, trust guide, Lopaz, not worry!” She proudly explained.

The narrow passage ended up being an entirely alternate route through the dungeon with skelem enemies alongside a few sunless drones, and riddled with more frequent and random loot to grab.

After a long nine hour crawl through the dungeon, the twin sisters made it to the final room, facing off against a heavily-restricted Saria as the last boss. She gave them the win after an arduous battle, estimating that they had fought well enough, letting them leave with all of their gains, including some gold, a few of Alith’s potions and stat candies, and a pair of enchanted gloves sewn by Elsep and enchanted by Delicate.

There would be an entry cost for actual participants, but testers obviously did not need to pay. They shared their impressions of the dungeon with Everelle and Saria before leaving, which concluded the first dungeon run in Ser’Extra.

Everelle looked satisfied by the end of it, sharing a drink with Saria in the palace’s otherwise empty mess hall.

Everelle stretched on her chair. “Aaaah... That went great. I think we’re about ready to open.”

“Hmm… I’ll get my sis on board, you deal with Ihuara, let’s make the opening a big deal! This city is in dire need of more entertainment.”

“Wholly agreed! Now hear me out, I have an idea for the opening. We can make outdoor segments for people to try out, I was thinking, we do a kids one first, that’ll be sure to get people interested, and then…”