Sofia and Alith decided to retreat first, hunting a sandworm right now was too risky since they knew so little about them. And had no armor. And because Pareth was a chicken. And they could not regenerate mana, not fast enough anyway. And Sofia couldn’t use her wings.
There were a lot of factors that made them reluctant to actually fight. They had been way too optimistic about chasing the relic armor, they had recklessly charged into the desert. Now they had to go back, having made little to no progress in anything. It only took four days this time, as they looked and finally spied a hint of green on the horizon, Alith started going on a weird topic.
“Say, can’t you just use my bones for Pareth?”
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah I mean, you CAN re-summon me, right?”
“Do you have any idea how long getting that much mana would take?! And that’s weird! And gross! I don’t want that, what the hell. And like, like. What if. What if the resurrected Alith isn’t you?!”
“Not me?” Alith took a second to understand what she meant, “Oh like a copy or something but not the same? Or if my memory gets erased back to before I came here?” Her expression changed a lot the longer she talked, ending up in a perfect melange of emotions, from worry to disgust. “Ok, no, I changed my mind, not dying if I can avoid it. Yep. Didn’t think of it like that at all. I want none of that either. I’m good.”
“See.”
“Yeah I get it now. Well, too bad. I can never team up with myself I guess… The problem with Pareth is always finding a skeleton… Should we just kill someone or what? Sounds like something Kuli would do,” she sneered.
“She’s not that bad… Well that shit she did to me did hurt but I get where she was coming from… kind of. We’d probably be dead under the sea right now without her advice.”
“Right… The herbal tea was not bad I guess, and she knows a thing or two, still though… I’ll be the one to punch her when I’m level 300. Just once.”
“The summoning punch thing was a breeze compared to the level up to 100 honestly. Or compared to carving out my own heart. Back then it all went so fast, I was shocked more than anything, bit like when you pull out an arrow, it hurts a lot once then…”
“Sofia… Do you hear yourself talk? You worry me sometimes, really.”
“Uh? I’m not the one who volunteered her own skeleton to a necromancer!”
“Fair point… Also when the hell did you get hit by an arrow?”
“Long story…”
…
They had made it to the border of the desert again, being back into an environment full with mana was appeasing. They could return to the glass factory if they flew a bit, but that wasn’t exactly in their plans.
Instead, Sofia cut off her own wing.
“Doesn’t hurt?” Alith asked as she came closer to heal Sofia.
“Not really, I feel the mana flow panicking a bit but that’s about it.”
“Alright, let’s fill up this bone storage then, gimme your hand,” Alith rolled her eyes at the ridiculousness of her skill. “I can never get used to it, really,” She added in between two kisses on the side of Sofia’s hand, “How many times do we need to do that to completely fill it up?”
“Hmm… Around three thousand. Half if I cut both wings.”
“Let’s settle at like fifty…”
They did that a few times until Sofia could activate the armor. They would try feeding it to Alith’s Dopple. This was how they decided to call the annoying piece of clothing, since that was part of its system description. Sofia couldn’t actually take off the armor, even less so only the torso, so Alith had the delicate job to cut it out on the spot with her kamas. It was something of a nightmare for Sofia to try to wiggle out of there after the parts were separated, but it was necessary. Dopple had insisted that the armor piece had to be in the best condition if they wanted the best protection.
“It’s funny how it gives you a kind of skirt now,” Alith pointed out. The armor had adapted to go over the robe, giving her a sort of armored long skirt, and she still had the leg armor underneath. That’s actually an added layer of protection… But it does limit my movements a bit. A decent trade-off I guess. I could roll up the robe before activating the armor to change back if I want.
Alith grabbed the separated bone chestplate, “You awake, Dopple? Your food is ready,” she said nonchalantly.
“Uh? Oh. Yes I was taking a nap. Excuse me. Well. Bring it, please, I cannot grab it myself.” The bone chestplate slowly sank in the black piece of cloth on Alith’s torso. “Hey! That’s some good stuff. You could have done this all along and you went in the desert without protection? You really need some coaching…”
Sofia interrupted Dopple’s monologue, “That’s right, imagine if we had something along the lines of a millennia old sentient clothing piece to help us make better decisions. Sure would be nice wouldn’t it?”
“...”
“Of course now you shut up… You better at least protect Alith well.”
“I think you hurt its ego,” Alith shrugged, then tried to hit herself. Her punch impacted an invisible armor a few centimeters away from her exposed skin, it looked like she didn’t feel anything. “Works great,” she added with a thumbs up, “Now we fill your armor stock a bit and get to worming!”
…
Their plan was quite simple. Summon a lot of blood on the border of the sand, wait out far away, if a worm came they’d fight with Alith on the ground, Pareth as a support and Sofia in the air. If no worm came they would try again a few kilometers further east. Like that they would never have to go deep in the desert where mana was restricted.
‘[Summon Blood] reached level 18’
…
‘[Summon Blood] reached level 22’
It also gave Sofia a few [Summon blood] level ups. Easier to make money later. I should focus on this now, and [Heal undead], guess I can cut off my wings and heal them by myself to train. Actually they should count as undead, right? She checked that on the spot, they did. She could now heal herself! But just the wings… Small victories…
They dumped blood at sixteen different spots before something happened. It began with a low rumble. A shiver in the sand. It was as though the dunes came alive, bristling up like the fur of a terrorized cat.
"Hey, looks like we got one," Alith rejoiced, swinging her blades.
The ground shook. Springing out of the sand, the worm appeared.
The first to act was Alith. She ran for her life.
This was no simple worm. This was a titan. Wide like a house, several hundreds of meters long, a force of nature in the flesh. It obscured the sky in its colossal majesty, and plunged in an arc toward the sand stained with blood.
Sofia dove down like a bird of prey and grabbed Alith, carrying her away as fast as she could.
“The ring!” Sofia urged.
They could have just flown away, which was actually their original retreat plan, but the thing was so tall that it could no doubt reach higher than the mana density near the desert allowed Sofia to fly. And they wouldn’t take the bet that they could outrun this thing.
Out of caution after their last mess up at the pyramid, they had prepared a backup retreat plan. Before dumping the blood they would always draw a teleportation circle to Zangdar, just in case. It had to be a bit further away, or the red sand would no doubt mess up the mana flow.
Alith started to activate the ring before they even reached the ritual circle, Pareth had teleported onto Sofia’s back, the instant they landed in the circle, the trio disappeared.
They were back in the locked city, exactly where they had left the last time.
“That WAS a sandworm right?” Sofia asked. She felt a sudden sense of loss as she thought back to her skill specialization choice.
“Can you even still call that a worm? I don’t want to know what a damned Dragon looks like.”
“Imagine if we could get that skeleton though…”
“And reanimate it with what blood exactly? Even if [Summon blood] was level 500 you probably wouldn’t be able to summon enough to activate the circle. Did you see how long the thing was? Actually we wouldn’t even manage to draw the circle that big!”
“Can’t you let a skeleton enthusiast dream? Ah whatever, going to this desert was a mistake from the start. Let’s just level up here… again…”
“Hmm, yeah about that, Sofia… Don’t you notice something weird? The dungeon…”
Sofia had been busy opening the visor of her helmet, she was hit by a sudden revelation at Alith’s words. The system message about re-entering a dungeon. It was missing.
Sofia and Alith decided to retreat first, hunting a sandworm right now was too risky since they knew so little about them. And had no armor. And because Pareth was a chicken. And they could not regenerate mana, not fast enough anyway. And Sofia couldn’t use her wings.
There were a lot of factors that made them reluctant to actually fight. They had been way too optimistic about chasing the relic armor, they had recklessly charged into the desert. Now they had to go back, having made little to no progress in anything. It only took four days this time, as they looked and finally spied a hint of green on the horizon, Alith started going on a weird topic.
“Say, can’t you just use my bones for Pareth?”
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah I mean, you CAN re-summon me, right?”
“Do you have any idea how long getting that much mana would take?! And that’s weird! And gross! I don’t want that, what the hell. And like, like. What if. What if the resurrected Alith isn’t you?!”
“Not me?” Alith took a second to understand what she meant, “Oh like a copy or something but not the same? Or if my memory gets erased back to before I came here?” Her expression changed a lot the longer she talked, ending up in a perfect melange of emotions, from worry to disgust. “Ok, no, I changed my mind, not dying if I can avoid it. Yep. Didn’t think of it like that at all. I want none of that either. I’m good.”
“See.”
“Yeah I get it now. Well, too bad. I can never team up with myself I guess… The problem with Pareth is always finding a skeleton… Should we just kill someone or what? Sounds like something Kuli would do,” she sneered.
“She’s not that bad… Well that shit she did to me did hurt but I get where she was coming from… kind of. We’d probably be dead under the sea right now without her advice.”
“Right… The herbal tea was not bad I guess, and she knows a thing or two, still though… I’ll be the one to punch her when I’m level 300. Just once.”
“The summoning punch thing was a breeze compared to the level up to 100 honestly. Or compared to carving out my own heart. Back then it all went so fast, I was shocked more than anything, bit like when you pull out an arrow, it hurts a lot once then…”
“Sofia… Do you hear yourself talk? You worry me sometimes, really.”
“Uh? I’m not the one who volunteered her own skeleton to a necromancer!”
“Fair point… Also when the hell did you get hit by an arrow?”
“Long story…”
…
They had made it to the border of the desert again, being back into an environment full with mana was appeasing. They could return to the glass factory if they flew a bit, but that wasn’t exactly in their plans.
Instead, Sofia cut off her own wing.
“Doesn’t hurt?” Alith asked as she came closer to heal Sofia.
“Not really, I feel the mana flow panicking a bit but that’s about it.”
“Alright, let’s fill up this bone storage then, gimme your hand,” Alith rolled her eyes at the ridiculousness of her skill. “I can never get used to it, really,” She added in between two kisses on the side of Sofia’s hand, “How many times do we need to do that to completely fill it up?”
“Hmm… Around three thousand. Half if I cut both wings.”
“Let’s settle at like fifty…”
They did that a few times until Sofia could activate the armor. They would try feeding it to Alith’s Dopple. This was how they decided to call the annoying piece of clothing, since that was part of its system description. Sofia couldn’t actually take off the armor, even less so only the torso, so Alith had the delicate job to cut it out on the spot with her kamas. It was something of a nightmare for Sofia to try to wiggle out of there after the parts were separated, but it was necessary. Dopple had insisted that the armor piece had to be in the best condition if they wanted the best protection.
“It’s funny how it gives you a kind of skirt now,” Alith pointed out. The armor had adapted to go over the robe, giving her a sort of armored long skirt, and she still had the leg armor underneath. That’s actually an added layer of protection… But it does limit my movements a bit. A decent trade-off I guess. I could roll up the robe before activating the armor to change back if I want.
Alith grabbed the separated bone chestplate, “You awake, Dopple? Your food is ready,” she said nonchalantly.
“Uh? Oh. Yes I was taking a nap. Excuse me. Well. Bring it, please, I cannot grab it myself.” The bone chestplate slowly sank in the black piece of cloth on Alith’s torso. “Hey! That’s some good stuff. You could have done this all along and you went in the desert without protection? You really need some coaching…”
Sofia interrupted Dopple’s monologue, “That’s right, imagine if we had something along the lines of a millennia old sentient clothing piece to help us make better decisions. Sure would be nice wouldn’t it?”
“...”
“Of course now you shut up… You better at least protect Alith well.”
“I think you hurt its ego,” Alith shrugged, then tried to hit herself. Her punch impacted an invisible armor a few centimeters away from her exposed skin, it looked like she didn’t feel anything. “Works great,” she added with a thumbs up, “Now we fill your armor stock a bit and get to worming!”
…
Their plan was quite simple. Summon a lot of blood on the border of the sand, wait out far away, if a worm came they’d fight with Alith on the ground, Pareth as a support and Sofia in the air. If no worm came they would try again a few kilometers further east. Like that they would never have to go deep in the desert where mana was restricted.
‘[Summon Blood] reached level 18’
…
‘[Summon Blood] reached level 22’
It also gave Sofia a few [Summon blood] level ups. Easier to make money later. I should focus on this now, and [Heal undead], guess I can cut off my wings and heal them by myself to train. Actually they should count as undead, right? She checked that on the spot, they did. She could now heal herself! But just the wings… Small victories…
They dumped blood at sixteen different spots before something happened. It began with a low rumble. A shiver in the sand. It was as though the dunes came alive, bristling up like the fur of a terrorized cat.
"Hey, looks like we got one," Alith rejoiced, swinging her blades.
The ground shook. Springing out of the sand, the worm appeared.
The first to act was Alith. She ran for her life.
This was no simple worm. This was a titan. Wide like a house, several hundreds of meters long, a force of nature in the flesh. It obscured the sky in its colossal majesty, and plunged in an arc toward the sand stained with blood.
Sofia dove down like a bird of prey and grabbed Alith, carrying her away as fast as she could.
“The ring!” Sofia urged.
They could have just flown away, which was actually their original retreat plan, but the thing was so tall that it could no doubt reach higher than the mana density near the desert allowed Sofia to fly. And they wouldn’t take the bet that they could outrun this thing.
Out of caution after their last mess up at the pyramid, they had prepared a backup retreat plan. Before dumping the blood they would always draw a teleportation circle to Zangdar, just in case. It had to be a bit further away, or the red sand would no doubt mess up the mana flow.
Alith started to activate the ring before they even reached the ritual circle, Pareth had teleported onto Sofia’s back, the instant they landed in the circle, the trio disappeared.
They were back in the locked city, exactly where they had left the last time.
“That WAS a sandworm right?” Sofia asked. She felt a sudden sense of loss as she thought back to her skill specialization choice.
“Can you even still call that a worm? I don’t want to know what a damned Dragon looks like.”
“Imagine if we could get that skeleton though…”
“And reanimate it with what blood exactly? Even if [Summon blood] was level 500 you probably wouldn’t be able to summon enough to activate the circle. Did you see how long the thing was? Actually we wouldn’t even manage to draw the circle that big!”
“Can’t you let a skeleton enthusiast dream? Ah whatever, going to this desert was a mistake from the start. Let’s just level up here… again…”
“Hmm, yeah about that, Sofia… Don’t you notice something weird? The dungeon…”
Sofia had been busy opening the visor of her helmet, she was hit by a sudden revelation at Alith’s words. The system message about re-entering a dungeon. It was missing.
