Saintess Summons Skeletons

One week after the second event, on the following weekend, Saria was helping Sofia get ready for a social outing. Lola’s family was organizing a party to celebrate her outstanding performance in the competition, and Sofia had naturally been invited. Since she could bring two guests, and Alith wasn’t interested, she was going to go with Pareth and her sister.

Saria adjusted the tightness of Sofia’s corset. “About this much should be good. How do you feel?”

“It’s much better than it was when I put it on myself.”

“You should have asked for Pareth to help you.”

Sofia looked back at her sister, “Pareth knows weapons and fighting, he’s not so familiar with clothing.”

“Eh, you never know, until you try. Oh right, did voice-man come to clarify things about the quest?”

“No, Orator hasn’t shown up since the last time with Alith, but the quest has been updated so he was listening,” Sofia explained.

“I don’t know if it’s funny or scary to think about the Lords just always listening to everyone.”

“The feeling I got is more like they just know the things happen rather than actively listening probably. The one vision I had of Ormoncleth in particular felt like… As if they were more real than reality. It’s weird but, yeah…”

I didn’t know much back then.

“I’m curious as to what the fourth one looks like now. Do you think the sculpture was accurate?” Saria cautiously asked, trying to circumvent the censorship about the second trial.

“Maybe? It’s hard to tell. I’m more curious about Orator’s appearance, if he has one.”

“Guess we’ll ask next time he comes for a chat,” Saria said while she looked through Sofia’s clothes, “Right, how did the quest change? You didn’t say,” she asked.

“It now says the restriction on allies helping only applies to marked quest targets. That’s it, nothing else changed, no precision on who the marked targets are either.”

Saria shrugged, “So some kind of ‘you’ll know when you see it’ deal. I would guess Scripture and his high-priests must be the targets. I can’t imagine Orator caring much if you get help to get rid of a few paladins.”

“I don’t really intend to kill more paladins if I don’t need to. I’ll get Scripture for what he did to the Orphanage and that’s it.”

“Still, to think Scripture would attack you even in the Academy… He must be really desperate for that essence you have.”

“Well, too bad for him, I don’t intend to ever give it back. Speaking of which, Saria, what are you going to do about the next trial?”

“Cinthia has been going to the church of Death every so often after you told her of the Apostle, we managed to negotiate something with them. Death will give us each an essence to wager,” Saria explained. She finally picked one of the outfits for her sister, “Raise your arms.”

Sofia followed the instruction while Saria dressed her up, at the same time, she asked, “Death? Sounds dangerous. I expected Cinthia to get a deal with Hatred.”

“The stronger the essence, the better the return on investment from the trial, supposedly. Hatred wants Cinthia to get stronger so He actually advocated for her to get something better than His own essence. And yeah, handling Death’s essence is dangerous, so it's going to be quite something setting it all up, but that benefits everyone, Death can also get some relief too by having their essence spread out.”

Saria then grabbed the pieces of the saint set Sofia had laid out as part of the things she could wear. “No news on the other three parts?” she asked.

“In the last two months? Nothing. I haven’t really been looking,” Sofia admitted as she adjusted the long black robe Saria had just helped her put on.

“Too busy with changing your blood into light, still?”

“I’m getting much faster at it, I will be done in a few more weeks, if nothing major comes up. I promised myself I would read every single book in the Academy’s library once I was done with it, that helps me stay motivated.”

“You seem plenty motivated already. I’m trying hard to keep up, gotta get my first place back in the next trial. I won’t let you beat me at it twice, lil sis,” Saria told Sofia while juggling with the Saint set’s headband and the crown of Victory.

“I’ll get you your own crown if you beat me. Sounds good? That might be easier than you think, too. I don’t think I’ll perform as well this time, Sen warned me that the trial would be twice as hard now since I would be taking it along with Pareth who now counts as his own person.”

“Don’t forget to have it enchanted to adjust to my Dragon form,” Saria said with a small laugh.

“Don’t get overconfident now. And are you going to keep playing with my stuff or do you want to actually help me choose what to wear at some point?”

Saria gave Sofia the side-eyes, “Sorry sister, I don’t think anyone ll’be paying any attention to whatever jewelry you put on now. Not with the corset and that robe. Your… charisma is overflowing.”

Sofia glanced down.

Hmmmm. Yeah it is a bit much. Well.

I don’t think anyone would complain about it, though. The clothier said it would be good for nobles’ gatherings so… Oh, hey, my first mana pearl is starting to take form.

Saria tapped on Sofia’s back, startling her. “See, even you get distracted by your own stuff.”

Sofia rolled her eyes. Observing Saria, she noticed something wrong. “Have yours gotten bigger?”

“Well, you know. I can buy Charisma from my class shop. So…”

“I see. You do know how exactly charisma works, yes?” Sofia asked.

“Oh don’t worry,” Saria laughed, then continued her thought, “I’ll be content with them long before I get to your level. I’m more surprised that you can say this with a straight face.”

“Hoy, I’ll have you know I looked like this from level one, so don’t start insinuating things.”

“Sure, sure…” Saria answered with a smirk. “But enough joking around, we’re going to be late at this rate, just keep the dragon scale, the blue earrings and the crown,” Saria told Sofia as she handed her the crown she had been fiddling with until now, “that ought to be enough, no need to bring out the whole saint set too. Is Pareth ready?”

“Haven’t checked, he left with the Clothier a while ago. He just has to teleport back when he’s good anyway. You looked up where the ElderPlain Marquessate is?”

“Yeah, you can fly us there in no time, don’t worry.”

Sofia landed in the central place of a small town, far to the west of the capital city of Exidia, she let go of Saria’s waist and looked around for someone she could bother. Her arrival hadn’t gone unnoticed, so the few people still around the central fountain at this hour were all looking at them. Sofia just walked up to the closest person, a middle-aged Exidian woman walking with two large bags full of potatoes under her arms.

“Hello, excuse me, could you point us toward the ElderPlain Manor please?” Sofia asked the blue-skinned woman.

“Human nobles?” the other people around the plaza wondered aloud, while it took a few seconds for the woman Sofia had questioned to process the sudden encounter. In the end, she pointed to a seemingly random direction, “the north gate, follow the paved road…”

“Thanks.”

Sofia walked back to Saria, grabbed her and flew up. The directions from the woman turned out to be true, as a few minutes later, they could see the huge manor on the border of a dark forest in the distance. The sun was starting to set and the manor was brightly lit, making it impossible to miss from above. Sofia started slowing down as they flew closer, having a good look at the estate of Lola’s family.

“Looks very wealthy for a Marquess,” Saria commented.

“They are art makers and brokers, supposedly,” Sofia explained.

“I know, they have a big shop in Exidia, we’ve been there once with Cinthia and Zerei. But it’s still impressive to see, can you imagine how hard it has to be to maintain a garden that big?”

“I’m sure with a single competent plant mage around…”

“If they can find and hire one just to play gardener, yeah.”

Sofia stopped completely.

“What’s going on?” Saria asked, surprised by the sudden stop.

“I just remembered, this is going to be a special night,” Sofia started.

“Isn’t that the whole point of a celebration party?”

“No, what I mean is, Jen is also invited.”

“Oh, you mean we’re going to check up on that potential ancestor of ours, finally? About time, I was wondering when you were going to bring that up again.”

“I’ve been busy…”