Saintess Summons Skeletons

[Tri-Venatoserine Proteasic Acid] : Also known as the bloodhunter serum, this poison kills by intense and fast-acting blood clotting. Most effective when injected near the heart.

Safety ranking: weird water

Weird water?

This isn’t going to do anything to someone with no blood, right? So it’s like drinking weird water…

Sofia uncorked the vial and drank the whole thing like water under the watchful eyes of Elizabeth. See, still not getting burned.

“No effect?” Elizabeth asked after a few seconds.

“None.”

The empress raised an eyebrow, and her left eye shone with mana as her gaze pierced Sofia. Finally, she stopped her magic with an utterance of acknowledgement. “Got it, no blood. That is new. It explains a lot… Why would you still drink it when you knew it was useless? I saw you identify it.”

“I’m being petty to prove a point,” Sofia deadpanned.

Elizabeth covered her mouth with the back of her hand as she giggled, “Trying to impress the Empress, are you? I am already married, sorry; but how about you explain what this poisoning spree is about, if you want to be interesting?”

“Sure, after all, you went out of your way to help me this time, did you not? As an apology for your past deeds, perhaps? To keep it simple, the skill which turned my blood to light is turning my nerves to light as well, and I need to consume nerve-damaging substances to speed up the process, the percentage above my head is the completion,” Sofia explained while she twirled the one drop of red liquid in the flask she was holding around.

“My past deeds? I haven't a clue as to what you may be referring to, miss Vakaria,” Elizabeth said, clearly meaning the opposite. “A peculiar skill, it will be interesting to see how that plays into your next trial.”

“The tower of rebirth… I know the censor is in the way but, how was it for you?” Sofia asked.

“I was satisfied with my results, and see where it got me, I dare say my talent shone through.”

“Right, you wagered an essence of Talent, I suppose.”

“You are well informed, Saintess. What about you, not going to go with your original patron God, I imagine?”

“You imagine well. I was thinking of wagering an essence of a much, much better quality than that, to be perfectly honest. Even though the hows and whys of this whole wager system are still a bit opaque to me.”

“It will all be explained in due time, not to worry, one can even wager gold if they have no essence to spare. Speaking of which, your big skeleton here should also prepare a wager. He is a separate sapient entity from you, is he not? Same goes for the smaller one who is absent today. Or are you simply very much into puppeteering along with necromancy?”

Wait, wait… Do I need an essence for Pareth and Bookie?!!

Actually since Pareth goes with me it makes sense that… But what about Bookie, though?

Hmm… I don’t have that much essence to spare, I need to keep at least ten for VPPV…

Sofia glanced back at Pareth who had returned to his chair. “This might actually be an issue…”

“You will figure something out, I am sure. And if not, I would happily lend you some Talent for a meager century or two of labor for the Empire, if you beg.”

“No offense, but I am afraid I will need to refuse.”

“None taken. The offer stands,” the Empress said with a shrug.

Sofia changed the subject, “Right… I should get back to drinking or we will be here all day.”

[Basilisk miasma] : A concentrated drop of miasma refined from the gallbladder of a millenia-old basilisk.

Safety ranking: disturbingly dangerous drinkable drop!

You’re giving mixed messages now… I don’t mind if you take some liberties with the descriptions but at least try to be a bit serious when the topic is me drinking potentially lethal substances…

Sofia watched letters disappear from the safety ranking line until all it said was:

‘Safety ranking: drink !’

Alright then. Much better, thanks.

“You might want to sit down for this one,” the Empress warned.

“Good call, thanks.”

Plopping down on the bone throne, Sofia carefully ingested the drop of Basilisk miasma.

Oh.

Sofia opened her eyes. She was in her room, on her bed. It was night.

I’ll give you this one Empress, you won.

Sensing Pareth approaching, she asked him, “Was I out for longer than a day?”

Pareth shook his skull in response, and showed Sofia his hands with nine fingers up.

“Nine hours… The rune is still up so I didn’t die. But I’m in bad shape…”

Health : 12 558 / 85 980

Stamina : 3602 / 21 047

Mana : 53 800 / 417 100

Elizabeth brought me here I guess, probably Pareth who opened the door… I don’t remember anything. I just felt the drop touch my tongue and…

Sofia’s attention was distracted by Pareth who had just picked up the flask tray from a shelf and brought it to her. The three remaining flasks of poison suddenly looked a lot scarier. What a nice present.

“Any shenanigans?” she asked Pareth.

Again, he shook his skull.

Well. Let’s see. I’m at 66%... This was the strongest poison yet but it only gave that much. Another case of diminishing returns?

Sofia decided to slow down the poison taking, she would do one a day after class, with Alith and Saria to watch over her.

The next poison went down easy. Sofia simply died, her entire upper body dissolved by the flask of strange alchemical compounds, and brought the completion up to 78%. She was brought back by an unlife rune with no further issue.

This only left the last two ‘most dangerous’ poisons.

First was a vial of [Kleptra Saliva] which Sofia debated trying for a while because it sounded disgusting but which she eventually consumed. Her scribe’s safety ranking of this one was: Literally lethal. And to no one’s surprise, it actually was, but this time in a slow and painful manner, with Sofia’s body consuming itself from the inside out. This did wonders to the completion of VPPV, which shot all the way up to 99%.

She waited for the following weekend to try the last one, as she needed to prepare a special place to consume it; once again, the vial only contained one drop.

[Leviathan's tear] : A droplet extracted from a tear of the Leviathan.

Safety ranking: DO NOT DRINK!!!

Recommended process: in a closed room, inhale a single breath of the smell from at least 10 meters away, quickly close and store the container before setting yourself on fire to consume remaining airborne emanations.

You really know just what to say to make me feel safe.

To Delivia’s credit… This one is probably very expensive…

Saria was watching bookie’s stone ogre squad dig an underground chamber in a random cliffside for Sofia to do her thing. “Are you really sure you should be using that?”

Sofia shrugged. “I tried several other things for the last three days but it’s been stuck at 99% so… If anything, Eternam and Leverle both said I should be alright as long as I follow the instructions. We even have a death priest hiding nearby I think. It should be alright… I’ll still have three runes on but if everything goes well I shouldn’t even die. Not from the tear directly, at least…”

“The fire won’t help either,” Saria continued, still uneasy.

“I have the fire resistance from [Saintess’s madness] so it shouldn’t be too bad. It will stop when there’s no air left in the room anyway, which should be relatively fast if I understood everything correctly. Anyway I’m more than used to getting burned at this point.”

“Alright, alright… I won’t stop you, I’m just worried, everything I found about the Leviathan points to anything coming from it as extremely nasty stuff.”

As the two sisters debated on the safety of the poisoning, Alith resurfaced from the hole in the cliffside. “Your room is ready, your highness!” she hollered from there.

Sofia rolled her eyes and walked up to her. “I see you take your class as a lady-in-waiting very seriously. All jokes aside, thanks for coming.”

“Not that I can do much if this goes wrong, but I’m happy to be here for moral support. Good luck, Sof.”

“See you both in a bit,” Sofia told Alith and Saria as she entered the long underground room.

Pareth was already on the other side, holding the flask with the tear. The stone ogres left after Sofia entered and closed the path behind themselves.

“Alright, I’m ready when you are!”

Pareth opened the flask and closed it almost instantly. It took a few seconds for a prickly sensation to reach Sofia’s skin, prompting her to take one deep breath of the fumes. It smelled a bit like the ocean. When she was done, a single spark from [Angel’s bolt] set off a chain reaction that engulfed the room in green flames.

Within the flames, Sofia closed her eyes.

The curse-like mana from the fumes spread through her like waves crashing against her body. She felt bloated. She couldn’t see what was happening exactly, but she had already lost all physical sensations from her body. Even the heat of the flames died down.

It feels exactly like it did when I died to become an apostle.

My health is… moving. Up and down like a wave. This is the first time I’m ‘healing’ despite the unlife rune being there… I’m really curious but…

Oh, screw it.

Sofia connected her vision to Pareth’s.

She shouldn’t have. There were no flames left, only her body, bloated, warped and stretched, extending like an invasive seaweed to cover every wall, becoming little more than a painting of flesh. Her veins of light stretched across her elongated organs like an eerie sight from outer space as uncanny waves of visible mana scattered along the surface of her skin.

Pareth covered his eyes.