Chapter Eight

Harmony awoke in the tiny lodge room to a raspy, gasping "Grracck" from her amphibious partner. She might have cared a little more if she had felt his distress rather than annoyance through the [Familiar Bond]. As it was, she felt drained from staying up too late. A pair of Dig Boys had escorted her back.

"Something you ate last night bother you?"

The toad coughed some more. Out of its gullet flew a ball of slightly inky slime. The center of the ball sparkled with a sheen of metal.

The necromancer rolled out of bed to inspect it, her skills helped clear some of the gunk, but the object was still sticky and wet. Plucking it up with the calmness of a maid who had handled much grosser situations, Harmony sighed upon seeing a partially dissolved collar with a silver name tag. Princess D, it read. "I said no pets." Then she pushed as much chastisement as possible through the link between them.

Harmony was sure Hyacinth could detect a bonded pet, but not everyone used scrolls on their animals. They may be cheap, but they were not free. A little bit of guilt flooded in at the idea that her familiar might have taken someone's beloved rather than help with the rampant stray problem. Forcefully she stilled those emotions, the world was harsh, and people and pets die sometimes.

"Grrup." Her toad responded with a strong sense of guilt and shame.

"It's okay, buddy, just be more careful next time." Being a predator, she knew there would be a next time.

With no point in returning to bed and an array of chores ahead of her, Harmony started her morning routine. Stripping, she did what she called her morning wash. [Manipulate Dead], [Renew Spirit], [Poise and Bearing], [Dust], [Beautician], and [Style and Grace] combined to exfoliate, remove grime, catch stray hairs, give her a small burst of energy, and shake off any morning awkwardness. The synergy and combination took what she felt was most of her mana and a chunk of stamina, but those would recover over time.

She slid on her maid's uniform, fighting to replace the awkwardness of the cloth-light outfit with a mindful acknowledgment that it was her professional attire and part of her role when working. As an afterthought, she added her new glove. "Yes, my lord." She practiced softly.

This was the necromancer's first time as a personal maid. Lord Tyler's requirements were light as he rarely used one, often going with a houseboy as an assistant for tasks of physical labor like moving shelves for him in his room. Bates had provided a chore list after Ambrosia's performance. There had been an implication that the matriarch would pay attention to how well she played the part.

Breakfast. Assisting the lordling in getting dressed. Following simple directions. It was almost a relief that the maid knew that she'd be processing the other skill stones as the task that would take most of her time. It still didn't absolve her of her duties.

At the small pantry, she threw together a quick lunch from the lodge stores. Preserved meats, dried fruit, and cheese, she knew a fresh delivery of bread and cream would be coming and waited patiently for the bell, letting her know when it was at the entrance. The fact that breakfast took more composing than cooking was a weight off the necromancer's back because despite the food being mostly dead matter, attempting to use any of her skills always left it tasting slightly foul to her taste. 'Barely passing' was the highest compliment from the cook she had ever received before being barred from the kitchen.

She snacked while she worked. Hyacinth indicated he was tired from the night's excursions and slunk off to a corner to nap. A little [Beautician] and a touch of [Style and Grace] helped create a beautiful food spiral. She approached lord Tyler's room, breakfast tray in hand.

Tyler was sitting half up in his bed, wearing nothing but his thin under shorts, a book in his hand reading.

"My Lord, Breakfast is ready." Focusing on incorporating her physical skills rather than activating them, she performed a curtsy while holding the tray. She could feel [Small Armor] add strength and flexibility that wasn't there before as it settled in.

"Set it on the bed."

Harmony did as he requested.

He lazily dug into the food after setting the book down, not even glancing at Harmony's hard work as his fist grabbed a section, half mushing the food together before he brought it to his mouth. "I recommend you use the mana skill stone today. Mana and stamina skill stones can be difficult. The armor is coming tomorrow, and I'd prefer it if you were in top shape when it arrived."

Harmony picked up on the disappointed grumpiness in the lord's tone. Did something happen last night? Yes, it was her right to decide how she would progress. Tyler was known for both his obsessiveness and impulsiveness, and what if he impulsively decided to not let her into his team to help with the create undead pet scroll?

"Of course, lord Tyler. You are more knowledgeable than me on this. I'll absorb [Mana Rotation] next." She pushed [Poise and Bearing] as hard as she could without activation and smiled. The skill should make it more natural without the skill-activated look that gave the use away, like the gambler whose face suddenly goes blank through a bluffing skill but ends up having it be a tell.

And she could see his eyes were watching for such a change. She knew she'd overdone it earlier. He softened. "Good. Mana or Stamina skills are a test everyone has to face if they want to evolve."

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Harmony nodded as though this wasn't covered in most people's gripes. An uncomfortable necessity. No one liked to talk about it, take the skill, and move on. Mana skill stones were the most common but had the widest variety. Mana touch, Mana sense, Mana manipulation, mana sight, Mana pocket, mana aura, mana bending, the list goes on and on. True geniuses created personal mana skills. Many nights were spent meditating, focusing, and mostly daydreaming about being one of those geniuses. Exhaustion from the hard grind of hunting pests or scrubbing floors took that vanity away, never mind that she'd fooled herself in the past.

She took the tray after it looked like an explosion cleared away most of the once-organized food. With the lord's armor waiting, dressing duty was next. Inspiration from her new skill gave a sense of how the armor worked, even if it rejected such movement-stifling equipment. It made it easier to predict where a strike from him would come from due to the narrower range of motion. It also made it easier to help him put it on.

Outside, the cold morning air caused goosebumps across the maid's exposed skin. Her physical skills helped keep her from shivering, which would be unbecoming, as they walked to the meditation spot. Her employer looked positively oblivious to the chill under his multiple layers of padding and armor.

"Remember, no matter how prepared you feel, you're never fully ready to handle the mana skill."

Harmony was sure the lord was repeating words he'd been told himself. "Of course, my lord, I'll do my best. Is there a reason why you selected this skill stone for me?"

"You've always had good movement control when you use [Dust], and mana skills with movement like Mana push, Mana wave, and the like often have an offensive activation useful in combat. It's also my chance to get an entry logged in the records. [Mana Rotation] doesn't show up anywhere."

Taking the stone, she sat on the mat and tried to calm herself, letting the chill distract her. Of course, it was something new and unique because that is what Tyler does. She only fumed a smidge, knowing that he could have acquired something like the sought-after Mana Bolt to give her a helpful skill in combat against something other than the undead.

Do you wish to learn the skill [Mana Rotation]?

She readied herself to slow down the acquisition of information from the stone. [Small Armor] had been an unexpected rush to her soul, but now she had that experience. Outside of experimentation and internal reflection, absorbing a skill stone was the best time to gain insights. She accepted learning [Mana Rotation]. The push that happened down her arm wasn't there. The stone sat in her palm. She stared at it, contemplating if she needed to draw out the information. Pop. The skill's essence shot out and punched the necromancer right between the eyes.

Numbers, equations, acceleration, decelerations, folding, twisting, knotting, information shoved into her that felt too big to fit. Like her soul entered an eating contest where her eyes were bigger than her stomach. It did not stop. She tried to grasp the simpler concepts, but with only self-taught book learning, nothing prepared her for this. A treatise on the exponential difficulties of progression and how that paired up with mana usage had been a tool to put her to sleep.

The world started to shake and twist like a ride in an out-of-control carriage. Harmony's mana dumped into it, slogging into the mess, pushing, yet unable to reach a goal even if she wanted to activate a skill. The information didn't connect to her skills and synergize with them; it bathed the whole system, dousing it all completely.

Fear crawled up like an unwanted guest in her mind. Tyler broke her. What if she could never use a skill or progress again. Rather than freeze, Harmony did what she always did. Fought harder beneath her mask of calmness. The teasing, cruel words, and her mother's look of disdain all fueled her progression.

Mana trickled back into her, but this new part of her gobbled it up, useless for her to use. More tools, so her heart beat faster. With every pump, she added stamina to get started if magic wasn't going to work, she'd push her endurance and willpower into it. There she felt a nudge, something she could work with. She pulled concepts from the skills she'd mastered to fight. How to spot the little differences with [Analyze], to change the nature of things with [Manipulate Dead], the deep connection with [Familiar Bond]. She drew pieces about grace, poise, energy, and the proper application of force. It was not a dam to burst, but the mess started churning slowly rather than sitting stagnant.

[Mana Rotation] held all that energy and concepts, but the best she felt she could do was kick it, straining herself in ways she wasn't used to.

The flow moved, breaking up more and more of what felt like dams sealing in her skills, barriers she had to burst. A trickle became a flood, and everything started to spin. She pushed more in, going from tired to exhausted until she could no longer maintain the effort, but letting go, she no longer needed it.

A self-sustaining flow inside of her soul around her skills. As a bit of acknowledgment for such a task, some of the essences of the new skill melted and merged into the movement. Slowly she felt her stamina and mana reserves recharge.

Gasping, she opened her eyes to the clouds and the sky, her back against the hard ground. Rolling to the side, she threw up her breakfast onto the dirt.

"It took me two days to feel okay after absorbing the [mana heart] skill stone."

Harmony tried to curse him, but all that came out was a moan.

"You were out for about an hour. I almost ran to get a healer during the worst of it, but even then, they know not to interrupt mana skill acquisition."

Trying to get up only resulted in her emptying the rest of her breakfast and laying back down. Only an hour? It had felt like the process had taken twice as long as getting [Small Armor].

"Eeep!" She squeaked, finding herself lifted into the air. Tyrone's hands were appropriately placed under her shoulders and knees. A fury-based shame built up about this not being professional or how a Maid should present herself, yet she could not accept any other option as he carried her.

"If you shove the skill to the side and try to forget about it, recovery is quicker."

Good advice or not, Harmony petulantly bristled at the idea internally. It went against how she pictured her progression. Synergy, working together, is how you use the skills rather than activating them only when needed. The flow inside felt stable, except the conflicting movement caused her stomach to flip. She ended up expelling bile onto Tyler's armor.

She felt herself being set into the small bed. Then a tray of food and water was brought and placed beside it. Later Hyacinth settled in at her feet. She struggled with her new skill until sleep took her, making her dream of a turbulent sea of math equations.