Chapter Sixteen

“Total gnome shit.”

The Necromancy Guide wasn’t very thick. Expertly edited to get to the point. One Harmony relaxed in the tub, while the other thumbed through the book getting annoyed. [Stride Before the Fall] needed more development. After how painful getting hurt had been, she knew that if she didn’t force herself to use the skill she might get resistant to using it out of fear. It still didn’t last that long, having refused to level despite its use. With the pressure to choose she set the book down and dissipated to enjoy her soak.

“What’s so bad about it? Ambrosia asked, picking up the book.

“It has only one pathway recommended to defeat Nae’s Garden.” She’d only managed to get through the first two floors in the guide. The gnome shit aspect of it was that it is good advice, perfected by hundreds of trials. Damage a wooze, any small wound would do. If you’re lucky enough to get [wound], or throw a bone and use [manipulate dead] to explode it toward them. A cast of [Rot]. Wooze’s were more susceptible to it than other living things and it would poison them rather quickly. It would ruin the meat and a good chunk of fur. Then you can [raise dead] and either make the corpses explode or use the raised beast for combat and repeat the process.

For the second floor, which had plant monsters, [Rot] at the base of the roots made it easy. Where some poison users might falter on this floor necromancers excelled.

“It doesn’t look like bad advice, Harm,” Ambrosia said after a perusal.

“It’s not.” The book revolved around [Raise Dead] and [Rot].

Ambrosia had voiced her opinion once that it was as odd that a Necromancer didn’t have [Raise Dead] as a beast tamer would be without [Bond Pet].

“I just don’t feel like it is my path.” Harmony continued with a wince. The idea of individual paths and following one’s heart when choosing skills went against her principle of picking the best ones for her career. Maybe she rationalized what she desired a little. [Familiar Bond] had meant she’d never be alone. [Manipulate dead] gave her the skill to dive Old Bones. Even [Cold Touch] was selected to make her a better Maid. No one wanted to see any undead walking the streets of Hazledown anyway, the undead pet scroll had been a calculated risk.

Ambrosia walked over and dipped a finger into the tub. “Ow, you’ll freeze yourself into a block of ice that way. I thought you’d wanted a hot bath.”

Enchantments meant to keep the water hot were being overpowered. [Cold Touch] acting up again in response to her emotions, authority, and stress. Numbing herself to make a hard decision. At least she couldn’t feel the cold.

Ambrosia fetched a towel as Harmony stood up from the newly made ice-cold bath. But that’s something to contemplate, isn’t it? What if [Rot] did the same thing? Random smells, poisoning grass and flowers. Even if she got it contained she pictured eating delectable greens from Ma Bell’s table and having it turn rotten as it hit her tongue. Defeating Nae’s Garden was temporary, and really she only had to level up to evolve.

“I can’t take the advice. I’ll find my own way.” She felt stupid and petulant saying that out loud. No risking small pleasures like eating tasty food over a useful skill. Inside she could feel the pressure build to make the skill choice. There should be more time, usually one has a day or so to decide. Need increased chaos inside her, fragile, everything felt fragile.

“Amb, I leveled at the dinner, and I have to make my choice tonight.”

“I’ll… “ Her friend let the sentence die in her mouth. Prince Adric would not be useful here, and Bates wouldn’t be much help. Time debating was not time thinking about the options.

Dry once more, Harmony picked the book back up. It’s not like it wasn’t useful. Inside she could feel the clock ticking to decide, it was time to learn what she could.

The book was amazing in many ways, breaking down the technical details more than most of what she read of Tyler's oddball collection. You need five levels of [Raise Dead] to raise a Wooze, at ten you could raise two. Level twelve before you could raise a third-floor great eagle, but be careful to not damage the wing feathers or it couldn’t fly. It gave hard numbers on what it would work on and suggestions for substitutes like having a bird of prey corpse with you when you reach the third floor.

It gave you a timeline based on the level of [Rot] on how long to the second it would take to kill different dungeon creatures once infected. It almost sold her on the idea.

She looked up her other skills. [Manipulate Dead] had a section on how close the bone or corpse needed to be to damage a target and a note that with practice one can direct and control the direction of the blast after using the skill. All her other skills were listed as inadvisable or not useful for the dungeon. [Final Silence] was notated as a rare option that would disrupt a target for a short time. It didn’t have the same numbers and details some of the other skills had listed with them which means it wasn’t researched, used, or selected much. At least it did say there was some use. The words on the pages started to blur from exhaustion. Laying in bed she set the book down.

Choose your class’s fifth skill: Raise dead - Rot - Final Silence

This time Harmony couldn’t brush it away for later. The book had been clear that [Raise Dead] and [Rot] needed to be leveled before being most useful in the dungeon. A task she didn’t have time for, nor want to subject anyone to outside of the dungeon. Is this the wrong decision? But her useless skills dominated the first floor of the dungeon? The Grave Society and their perfectly planned book, they could all shut up about it. [Final Silence] The necromancer made her choice.

Inside she could feel the skill grow. Closely linked to [Cold Touch] both halting things, sound, and skills rather than that cold final rest. Except [Final Silence] was the end. The idea life couldn’t continue and couldn’t be warmed back up. A contradiction, because Silence skills did wear off, but the idea kept to the finality of death in its creation.

Almost an antithesis of [Renew Spirit], yet she felt like they could go together if she could figure out where the pieces fit. Connections from her Maid skills slipped in [Poise and Bearing] respecting silence, a quiet maid was always expected. Even as a lady knew when not to speak. Everything was interconnected in some way, but that was a tired thought. If only she could… Sleep caught her

In the woods outside the Dragonfly Inn, a Shadow Toad chuckled as he grew in power. The burden he was carrying was slightly less of an effort to shoulder.

Harmony awoke to chirping birds. Familiar chirping birds as Ambrosia had snuck her merry crew of pets in. The beast tamer was not in her maid's uniform. “Time to get up sleepyhead. Bates has breakfast waiting for you at the training grounds. I’ve got band chores around town. You’re going to run out of time if you want to get through all the team's questions about your first run before heading back in today.”

“Don’t you have questions?”

“The others will fill me in later. Congratulations on the leveling. I’m sure you made the right choice.”

Harmony slid out of bed and stretched. You tell everyone that you’re sure they made the right choice. That was the polite thing. It didn’t mean that they did. Internally [Final Silence] felt like a shiny new toy, but one that waited patiently to be used. It was a relief that it wasn’t leaking out and affecting her like other skills.

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“You there, Harm. You’re just standing there all quiet like.”

Correction, maybe it wasn't affecting her. “Sorry. I chose [Final Silence] I’m curious about how it will work.”

“Get down there, I’m sure your personal knight will let you try it out on him.”

“Max is there?”

“I don’t think he’s ever going to leave. This sharing authority with him, it’s almost like you’ve gained another pet.”

At that Harmony stuck her tongue out at her friend. Rather than dressing herself, she donned Night. The unique armor popped into place as a comforting weight. “Have a good day with the band.”

After a kiss to Harmony’s forehead Ambrosia and her birds flew out the door.

The walk down to the training grounds was enlightening. Night was not a loud set of armor, not enough actual pieces of armor clanking together to make too much noise. Even after she accidentally attached her starry black dress to it, binding it together as one piece, there had been less free movement to make noise, but it wasn't silent. Now it barely made a sound, even the heavy metal footfalls were less that and more akin to solid-soled shoes.

Since being paired with the armor she’d wondered exactly how her skill growth had affected it. It repaired itself a little quicker after [Mend] but she hadn’t been sure if it was the skill or the levels. With [Recall] she seemed to be able to summon to herself and away at quicker speeds, but that might not have been part of the armor and instead that new skill. [Final Silence] however showed that it was distinctly less noisy. Would [Rot] have made it smell more?

She dropped that thought as she approached the members of her team.

Bates lifted the lid from a try of waiting food. “My lady.”

Sir Maxwell and Prince Adric grilled her on how the first run into Nae’s garden went. Last night Max didn’t have time to do more than inform her about that night's guests before she needed to get to the dinner table.

Harmony ate as she filled them in. Sir Maxwell took notes. With an unnaturally quick flick, the knight’s pencil glided down the paper.

“Max, what is your profession?” Harmony asked, realizing she didn’t know.

“Scribe.” He said disappointingly about a profession Harmony would have killed for at selection.

Harmony had to keep herself from prying into her knight's choice woes. A maid shouldn’t pry, but the lady in her felt some responsibility towards her sworn man. It wasn’t something she could change and now was not the time anyway. Max’s service was temporary until he evolved and no longer needed her, wasn’t it?

“The brood mother was how big?” Maxwell asked.

Between [Recall] and how [High Kick] measured distances Harmony had a pretty big estimate that she felt was close to its exact size.

“No way. I’m sorry Harm, if I’d known.” Adric started

“It’s good.” Harmony lied still slightly annoyed. Her pet prince could probably tell that. “It means I should be able to handle any lesser wooze brood mother fine, so I’ve got the first floor down. “

“Hair of that length is rare,” Maxwell added with concern.

“Hyacinth stored it somewhere after we arrived back from the dungeon. I’d have to ask him where it is.” She could sense the beast sleeping in the inn’s stables reserved for large pets and mounts.

“Most important is that I leveled and selected [Final Silence]. Anyone want to help me try it out before I head back to Nae’s Garden?”

“I don’t like being hit by silence effects.” Prince Adric quickly admitted.

“I’ll give it a try,” Max answered.

“You should run at her and have her use it when she feels like you’re in range,” Adric added helpfully.

Suspiciously helpfully, but it was a good idea so Harmony accepted. The advantage to using a skill for its base activation rather than the extra ways Harmony liked to use hers was that it gave you a solid baseline. You can’t activate it until something is in range. While playing around with skills or synergizing techniques like how she used [Manipulate Dead] to shape hair affected things in unexpected ways. That could only be figured out through trial and error.

The Knight charged from across the ring, focusing on [Final Silence] about thirty paces away she felt it kick in as usable. After about three more steps she felt it go off, so a little slow from activation to action. Rather than spread out from her it was very much a single target that snapped into place. That meant it would probably be difficult to block or avoid.

How would Max… The Knight tripped forward stumbling, landing face-first in the dirt and sliding forward.

Prince Adric started laughing from his spot off to the side. “You knew that would happen.” Harmony accused him as she made her way to Max. [Mend] would need to be used.

“As Royalty, we went through a lot of training around being silenced. It’s an assassin’s favorite tool. The first time you try moving in armor without the innate benefits of the skills around it, let’s say the first ten times they silenced me while running I ate turf as much as Max is.” That was more info about Prince Adric’s training than he’d ever given Harmony.

Maxwell moaned silently from his position on the ground. He tried to speak but no sound came out.

Adric frowned. “It usually doesn’t last this long.”

A few moments later Maxwell announced it ended. So roughly half a minute. It took almost two minutes for Harmony to feel like she could cast it again. No way to keep a target permanently silenced yet, and how could she use it with her other skills?

“How does it feel?” She asked.

“It’s like you’re naked, or when you reach out and expect to find something only to have it missing. That’s the best way I can describe it. "

“You're the expert,” Harmony said to her pet.

“My trainers called it a restriction. Some skills it doesn’t work on or doesn’t work on them as well, like pet bonds, familiars, and things that have already physically changed your body. It’s hard to describe without having been silenced yourself. For most classes, it’s a rare skill.” He clearly was struggling to remember some. “They trained us to fight while silenced. Or at least figure out how to wait and survive while it was effective. One of your length would be tough. Cone of Silence was like five seconds, but you can see how if it hit a whole group of people there would be issues.”

If you had to experience it to know. Harmony cast [Final Silence] on herself. It resisted at first, but she was more than used to using her skills on herself every morning.

All the little things her class and profession did for her shut down. Memory went a little fuzzy as [Recall], her newest skill went down. How to stand felt off and awkward, Night while still feeling like part of her pulled in ways she wasn’t used to as her connection to both how to wear the armor and the physical nature of all her body control skills, be it combat or [Style and Grace] shut down. But it’s not like she went clumsy, she’d had some training before the skills and some practice rubbed off over time, but now she couldn’t rely on them. For some classes and professions, this would be hell. Hyacinth was still there and the bond with Adric, both almost felt dim and in the distance. There it was. In silence. Relief. All those overactive skills shut down to some degree.

“Harmony?” Adric asked with an anxious tone in his voice.

Opening her mouth to answer, nothing came out.

“She cast it on herself.” Max pointed out the obvious.

Okay, not being able to talk was annoying. Taking some careful steps, it was easy to see how the knight had stumbled, but she managed to stay upright.

“That wasn’t so bad.” She squeaked out as she felt it end.

“No,” Adric stated firmly.

“What?” Harmony complained.

“You don’t get to use that skill on yourself to help with your condition. You don’t know what it will do or if it will help more than it hurts.”

“What condition?” Maxwell busted in.

“Not in front of my sworn knight, Addy.”

“I forbid it.”

“You can’t..”

“I’ll tell Ambrosia, and lean on Hyacinth. I bet I can even get Bates here to work on you.”

The Head Butler took his cue. “I will support whatever is best to maintain the health of Lady White.”

Betrayal. Well not so much. When did Prince Adric get so perceptive? “Burn you all to ashes. Fine. I’ll not use it on myself, right now. Bates, see if you can get a letter to expert Fei inquiring about using silence on myself with my delicate constitution if he’s still available in Hazeldown. I’m going to kill some wooze now.”