Saintess Summons Skeletons-Chapter 612: Fairy ferry

The avian lady having left after only a few words, it left the group uncertain about what exactly to do next, despite that, they felt that they had discovered worthwhile information.

“But it does finally explain what is going on with the people here, somewhat. They just cannot form new long-term memories, as it all gets ‘reset’ every so often,” Sofia summarized.

“Maybe that happens whenever the village does their ritual?” Alith suggested.

“Maybe… But at the same time, there’s also an obelisk here, so I doubt that one village was anything special…”

“Is there a village around this one as well?”

It was Crowie who answered that one with a caw, shaking his small head from left to right.

“Guess not…” Alith continued, “Well… Now that we know hiding in the light world is the solution to escape the stalker, we’d do well to find another fruit soon…”

“We could always try to go grab the ones we left behind, but it’s risky.”

“We can also rush out and run as fast as possible until we find another obelisk or lighthouse for protection,” Alith suggested.

“Hmm… We could probably do that. Ideally we want to get to the royal palace or wherever the ‘queen’ was when she died. Considering her name, it’s likely that the skill will be nearby.”

“The count did say it was on the other side… Who knows where we are right now, though, we flew quite far in a short time trying to flee from that thing.”

“Why don’t we follow the tethers?” Bookie asked after being silent for a while.

“I feel like the sky is dangerous,” Sofia explained, “but we could try if we run out of options. For now… I have an idea, let’s set up camp somewhere near the edge of this obelisk’s light. It’s time for some basic necromancy.”

‘Setting up camp’ was just about chopping up a few trees so as to have a fire and not sit on the ground, since no one needed to eat or sleep. With a semi-comfortable place set up, they waited for their scout to return.

Some two hours later, Sofia’s fastest summon reappeared almost out of nowhere, a cute little blur-faced fairy in white robes. If one was to ignore her midenicite-blue wings, claws, and feral attitude, she looked almost like a tiny human.

“Found a target?” Sofia asked.

The fairy nodded.

She still has an ample lifetime. “Lead the way.”

This was Sofia’s strategy. Wait in the relative safety of the light world, and let the fairy explore the moon in their stead. She was faster than even Sofia with her third tier [Runeforged Overlord], much sneakier, and could also unsummon herself back to Bookie in case anything dangerous happened. When the fairy found another light source, everyone could rush there and minimize the time spent outside where they might encounter another giant stalker.

As it turned out, what the fairy had found was not another obelisk, but another lighthouse.

Climbing to the top of it, everyone proceeded to wait in the crystal room while the fairy went out again.

“Think we could just grab the crystal?” Alith asked, sitting right next to the spinning thing.

“Maybe, but I’d rather not. On the off chance that it’s dangerous somehow. And also it’ll be easier to leave if we still have all the known waypoints on the way back.”

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“We can just leave using this though,” Alith said, as she was still playing with the escape orb, turning it in her hands.

“We could, but there’s no reason to waste it. I want to explore the dangerous underground layers of the planet at some point, and this thing could probably be useful there as well, from what I understand.”

“Fair point… I’ll be teleporting us all back if one of those stalker things ever comes too close though. If a single touch is all it takes I’m not taking any chances. Don’t want to become a tethered, thank you very much.”

“I’ll trust your judgement, Alith. There’s a reason why I let you carry it in the first place.”

The group followed the fairy’s guidance several times, travelling as fast as possible from one pocket of the light world to another, failing to find another fruit to light their way. They found another village relatively similar to the first one at some point and managed to get some direction from them, learning that they were almost on the correct general way to the capital, and only needed to correct the course slightly. They had also tried bringing up the idea of the memory reset to the villagers but were only met by incomprehension.

A sort of routine slowly installed itself as the group flew from one place to the next, by a stroke of luck, never meeting another stalker, and simply taking in the beautiful sights of the light world and the depressing reality of the dust-covered moon.

One thing that was becoming evident now was that the light world was stuck in a permanent never ending day. Despite there being ‘sunlight’, there was no actual sun, and the sky just stayed eternally blue.

The fairy, this time was leading the group through a darkness so intense the group had to slow down. It had been getting progressively worse, but now it was reminding Sofia of her time in Sorrow’s palace, when all she had to light the way was her tiny candle, which she now wished she was able to take out of her storage ring.

All of a sudden the world shifted, the group’s clothes changing and the skeletons regaining a fleshy envelope once more. But it was still very dark.

“It’s night?” Alith asked, surprised by the unexpected change.

Sofia had a much better low-light vision, so she could immediately tell what was really happening.

“No…” she said, looking up, “it’s not that it’s night… The sky… It’s covered in tethers. They all converge in this direction,” she explained, pointing straight ahead. Tweaking the [VPPV] parameters, she let her hair glow stronger, to provide the group with some light.

“Looks like we’re at the foot of a hill… Still can’t see anything up there, but I’ll take your word for it,” Alith said, taking a few steps up the hill before she stopped and looked back at Sofia who was still looking up at the sky. “Wait, Sof… Tethers… In the light world?”

Sofia looked around. Here the grass was not as verdant as it was in the rest of the light world, there were fewer bushes and flowers, and most of all, it all seemed a bit dusty. “It looks like the two worlds are getting mixed up here.”

“That ain’t a good sign… We might not be safe here.”

“But we might finally find what we’re looking for. Keep a hand on the escape orb, we go carefully.”

The group silently climbed up the small hill, stopping at the top. From there, they were able to see quite far away. Despite the zone being dark, obscured by the thousands of overlapping tethers covering the sky, many weak sources of light let everyone appreciate the haunting scenery sprawling below.

Before them was a grandiose, beautiful city built on an island at the center of a wide lake. The houses of white stones with red roof-tiles were tightly packed, most of them two or three floors tall, creating a labyrinth of meandering narrow streets and alleyways.

But amidst the beauty of the city, the fractures between the two worlds were unmistakable. Large sections of buildings stood in pristine condition, their windows softly reflecting the shimmering light of the deep, but others were a cruel reminder of what the city had become. Ruins interrupted the seamless rows of homes, their walls crumbling into dust, exposing hollow interiors where furniture had long since rotted away. Some structures flickered between states, pristine one moment, collapsed the next, as though unsure which world they belonged to.

The lake surrounding the city was no less strange. Where it should have been an unbroken mirror of still water, vast, empty holes tarnished its beauty, they were perfectly round gaps where the lake simply ceased to exist. They revealed the dry, cracked bed of the real world’s long-dead reservoir beneath, a stark contradiction to the shimmering water that still lapped at the edges of the island.

Finally, two main things attracted Sofia’s eyes, firstly, the light.

There were countless smaller ‘stalkers’ and other creatures of the deep prowling in and around the city. Behind the windows in the houses, in the streets, on the rooftops, their shimmering colors were the only sources of light, and they were everywhere.

Secondly, the palace. A tall dark and golden tree pierced the roof of the royal palace, becoming its tallest spire. This was where the tethers converged, or rather, where they originated from, they were the thousands of branches of the giant twisting tree.

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Sofia scanned the city below, her grip tightening around her staff. “This… is not going to be easy.”