Saintess Summons Skeletons

Chapter 196: The Great Hollow

Sofias first instinct was to copy the thing on her bone slates, she was getting proficient at drawing with [Bone dominus] so it only took a second. She stored the drawing and circled around the ritual.

What am I to do with this?

I do not think this is random. I get the feeling that I need to use this somehow, but I dont know about activating a random Gods rune again.

It kind of looks like an Apostle ritual, but It probably isnt, the door is locked from inside and theres no demon here. So unless they can go through walls like me

Since there were a few skeletons there, she tried to feed them to the book, but it wouldnt eat them. Must not be real skeletons then, unsurprising, but its the first time I get to try in the maze. You never know whats real and what isnt during a trial. Im pretty sure the black belt I got from the Master is real, at least.

From the corner of her vision, Sofia saw something shine in the middle of the circle. The light from Pareths halo had reflected onto some kind of smooth gray pebble that was hard to see on the stone floor.

Perhaps foolishly so, she stepped onto the ritual circle to see what the thing was. She realized what she did after the fact and quickly retracted her foot, but let out a sigh of relief as nothing happened. She did not want a repeat of what had happened when she had stepped onto the trap ritual around Zerei back in the dungeon.

Damn Im getting careless. This place is mentally draining

She asked Pareth to grab the thing in her stead. The instant his bony fingers touched the pebble, the previously inactive and mana-less ritual activated.

Sofia cursed internally and was ready to defend herself but there was no defending the forced layer change that happened. She was now in a similar room, carved directly into the stone. No more clear cut maze, no more stone bricks, this was a natural cavern. There was nothing on the ground here, just her with her shield and Pareth holding a gray pebble.

Could have been worse. Now where am I? Yet another layer, but only accessible through the ritual?

Sofia cautiously walked out of the round room. This was a genuine cave, with stalactites, mushrooms and an uncomfortable high level of humidity. The moist walls reflected the light of Pareths halo in a myriad of glimmering spots.

She cautiously advanced through the cave, it was strange how the cave had the exact same layout as the maze, despite being supposedly natural. As if the maze had been built to replicate it. There was one place Sofia absolutely wanted to check out in this new layer, the big room. So far it was always a good indicator of what each layer was about, she had a presentiment that it was where she would find something again. Hopefully it wouldnt be another horror.

Before she could reach her destination, she felt space bend around her in a nauseating way, and she was suddenly back to the wood monster layer. Did I get ejected? That didnt feel like the usual layer change. It had also only been like a minute and a half. Much shorter than usual.

She immediately tried drawing the ritual on the ground and touching the pebble. She was transported to the cavern again, and like clockwork, a minute and a half later, she returned to the wood layer.

Finally something with clear rules. Thatll be useful to escape the eye thing if I meet it again.

Well, only if it goes away after I change layer

With a new goal, Sofia backtracked her way toward the big room, during that time, she switched layers twice, once to the undead one and once to the empty one, she arrived at the room while still on the empty layer.

Taking out her mithril dagger, she carved the ritual circle on the ground, but she changed her mind before she took the gray pebble out of her storage. She couldnt forget the abomination she had found there on the eye layer, as well as the necrotic ooze on the undead layer. This could be dangerous, she stepped out of the room and did the ritual a bit further away in the corridor.

It didnt work. I dont like this

She went further and further, eventually it worked, and she understood why it hadnt before.

Oh, cave-in. It didnt take me there because it couldnt. Thats quite a serious collapsed section too, too far to even try to cross with the graveyard. Well

Sofia could only wait in place until her time ran out. Back on the empty layer, she used the ritual circle she had carved previously directly inside the room.

She appeared in a similar space in the caverns. The two entrances were blocked by cave-ins, isolating this place from the rest of the cave network. There was only one thing in the room, a huge, ten meters tall statue of a seven armed God sitting cross-legged against a wall. How did Sofia know it was a God? It couldnt be anything else. Also, it had the rune carved on its forehead. Its appearance was demon-like and disturbing, but it was fascinating at the same time. The god was outwardly handsome and had well defined lean muscles, but everything about it felt slightly wrong. It was a strange sensation, one Sofia had a hard time describing.

Like something that came close to the real thing, but missed a crucial detail, only for the whole thing to end up being nothing but disturbing. Sofia decided not to dwell on that too much.

I wonder if theres a way to pilfer some Divine Essence here. Hmm I should focus on the trial before anything else.

The god held out his seven hands in a semicircle in front of him, palm open and turned up, except for one, grasping a rugged stone orb. Looking closer at the hands, they each wore a signet ring on the middle finger. Each signet ring showed a different symbol.

One was a humanoid figure, another a skull, another an eye, one was empty, and one was a mess of spikes. The one holding a stone orb wore a signet with an image of the seven armed God. It didnt take a genius to do the correlation with the mazes different layers. The surprising thing was the seventh signet, one that was supposedly a layer she had never seen. The symbol for this one was empty. It wasnt blank like the other one, the center part of the ring simply didnt exist, it was a hole.

Not very helpful is it?

But at least, I think I understand the goal of this maze now. The room was just wide enough for Sofia to fly, so she flew up to the hand with the blank signet ring. She placed the blank black orb she found in the empty layer in the Gods hand. The statues hand closed on the orb, and Sofia felt a wave of mana flow through her.

Surprised, she looked around with her mana vision, but there wasnt anything unusual happening as a result of the mana wave. She did however spot a place where a lot of mana gathered; the signet with a hole.

Mana? The symbol for this one is mana

Mana, layers

Sofias time ran out, and she found herself back in the empty layer again. She sat down to think things over.

The mana layer is the third hand

The order of the signets, from left to right was :

Eyes, human, mana, skull, spikes, blank, god effigy.

Thats exactly just how the world layers work! Just like the midenicite tablets!

The eye layer is the Gods plane. To be fair, my interaction with the eye monster reflected Scriptures presence very well The human layer is the one with remnants of real human activity, though everyone has been turned to wood creatures, this is the physical plane. Then the mana plane is a layer I havent accessed yet. The skull is for the undead layer which is the spiritual plane. The spikes for the traps and the Recessed. Blank for Zangdars empty plane.

And finally The Deep.

The great hollow.

The maze of Zar.

Is Zar the human lord who led the construction of this maze, corrupted by a newfound artifact as the diary suggests? Or is it this God?

A God in the Deep. Now that felt very wrong. As far as Sofia knew, there was no God to be found in the Deep, only the four lords.

Aphenoreth.

Ormonocleth.

The orator.

And

I know the last name. Its just That was such a terrible time. When I try to remember everything is blurry. I have it though. Im sure I have it E A

Eda?

Edrazeketh!

Edraz Raz Maze of Zar?!

No way, right?

A bit of a convoluted conclusion, but this whole place is convoluted.

So this giant sculpture would be