Chapter Twenty-Four

Tyler was pliable. Whether from the alcohol or the leftover effects of Hemlock’s skill Harmony wasn’t sure.

“Pack up. Then sit.” She told him as they entered the lodge.

Harmony went to her smaller room and shut the door. It was time to change her clothes. She willed the armor back inside her soul space. The skin-pricking feeling of the cold air coated her body. The armor had taken her new dress with it, leaving her naked. She’d been so close to stashing the armor on the way out.

“Grrup, grrup, grrup.” Hyacinth chuckled from his corner.

“Shut it.” She marched over to her clothing and pulled out the maid uniform. Nothing like a little bit of clothing to make you grateful for any amount of clothing above being nude. She was heading back to the manor, and having the outfit on would be more efficient when she traveled to the parlor to check on the prince.

Packing up took very little time. Tyler sat waiting where she had directed, his gear at his side and whatever extras he had probably stashed in his storage item.

“It was a very intense couple of days.” Tyler started.

Seeing him coming out of his haze slightly, Harmony interrupted him. “I want to thank you for allowing me to dungeon dive with your team. Intense at times, but I accomplished my goals, and the gifts were extravagant. Everything has evened out between us.”

If it hadn’t all gone to shit, Harmony feared she might have felt obligated to help him with more of his sensory sessions.

“Nothing really went as I planned.” Tyler continued.

“It’s alright, my lord. I don’t think anyone could have expected what happened. Getting back to the manor quickly and processing all our gains would be best.”

Harmony knew she was firmer than appropriate for her position. Today was still technically her day off, and she didn’t want to waste any more time.

“Of course.” Tyler half mumbled as he lurched to his feet.

The carriage ride back was mainly silent. Every time Tyler opened his mouth, Hyacinth let out a little half-croak, interrupting him. The further away from the dungeon district, the better Harmony felt in the distance she put between guild master Hemlock and the dungeon Old Bones. But it also meant getting closer to her most pressing problem. She already had an idea she felt sure would work. A couple of months of laying low and everyone is sure to forget the missing corpse of Prince Adric over some new scandal. Recovering the body is probably only about saving face for the royals.

A simple solution for a simple problem. Harmony let the smile naturally take over her face as the carriage stopped at the front of the manor. She returned to her serving role as she slid out first and opened the door for Lord Tyler.

“Thank you for helping with all the gains I’ve made.”

His help had been instrumental, sometimes excessive, sometimes overbearing, and she did mean it. But soon enough, everything needed to go back to the same routine. The lord walked out towards the manor, and she stepped back around to get her things.

Stu, the house boy, was there grabbing Tyler’s baggage. He gave her a questioning look like any curious coworker would.

The grumbly huff she returned, she hoped, would signal a long story that she’d talk about later. It’s not like Stu had time to talk. She hauled her bags inside and to her shared room, locking her new skill stone and various dungeon drops into her chest before she rushed off again.

Harmony entered the east parlor. “Hello?”

The prince was upon her before she could react. He had his hands around her waist, lifting and spinning her in the air, of all the times for her new stat to not activate and buy her time to think.

“Harmony!” Adric squealed joyfully.

Her pet’s act was not malicious, but she got dizzy. “Um,” she gulped.

Slowly he stopped spinning,

“I was so worried. Ambrosia has been telling me all about you.”

“Oh, has she now? You can put me down, please.”

“Sorry. It’s not everyday someone saves my life. I was excited. I could feel it when you were anxious. Ambrosia assured me you’d handle it like you saved those delvers you dived with. Or handled the gnome infestation.”

Harmony let him babble on a bit about the tales her friend told him. At the house of the dead, she’d been focused on the coatl. When he surprised her outside the garden party, she’d decided it would be most prudent to run back to Tyler and maintain that alibi. She took in her new pet. Perfectly pretty, annoyingly adorable, the idealized male, or if you squint enough the idealized being.

“Yes. Yes. I’m quite capable. I plan to make it so you can be free of this little hideaway I’ve got you stashed in.”

“Why hide? My family will be ecstatic that I’m back. The whole trip to this little corner of the kingdom was to keep me alive. The guild master here is twice evolved and transferred to the guild here from far off. The hope had been that he could help me with my problem.”

The smile he flashed was made to melt hearts or get him a belly rub, but it was so inappropriate that Harmony had to throttle the urge to kick him.

“Maybe. Right now, they believe I stole your corpse for ransom. Assuming I can convince them you’re still you.” Harmony had doubts there, having never met the man originally. He seemed more an eager puppy than a functioning adult, which could be the scroll’s side effect. ”For historical reasons, intelligent, independent, and royal undead tend to set people on edge.”

Stolen novel; please report.

Harmony watched the eagerness slip right off his face as his brow furrowed. The look did nothing to detract from the man’s handsomeness. Then he opened his mouth.

“Oh, right. That midnight empire stuff. It happened so long ago. You’ve also got me under control.”

“I’m not sure a low-level necromancer and maid acting as your master will inspire confidence. Never mind your special status. Even if I put a collar on you and walked you around, everyone would doubt who holds the leash.” Harmony shook her head at the image. The way people acted, it would be more likely to start a trend than anything else.

“I’m here to help you with your problems. I owe you my life. Tell me your plan.”

Harmony ran her hands up from under her chin, over her face, and down the back of her hair. In that process, she focused on putting on the disguise she had on when she resurrected Adric. It gave her sharper, more colorful features, turning her hair into those golden ringlets.

“We simply have to change what you look like.”

She shook her head and cleansed her face and hair of those changes.

The prince looked both horrified and resigned. “If you think that is best.”

Harmony guided him to a chair, so she wouldn’t have to reach up to get to work. She knew she could keep him pretty, but the plain and ugly were often overlooked. Someone you wouldn’t look at twice or didn’t want to ever look at again.

There was a little excitement towards the act of vandalism she had planned. Prince Adric can enjoy new experiences. Being undead, she should be able to change his bone and tissue structure rather than create an illusion with shading and lines.

She readied [Manipulate Dead] and prepared to synergize with [Beautician]. It would be a corruption of that last skill, using it the opposite of what it was meant to do, adding flaws, maybe a mole or two. Laying her hand on his face, she pushed out, probing with her magic.

Nothing.

Smooth, firm skin, and a strong jaw, her hand rested on the prince’s face feeling nothing she could use. Like he scrubbed his skin clean, but worse. People’s skin was constantly dying and regrowing. No matter how clean the madam thought she was, there was always enough to work with for her to perform her [Beautician] miracles for the woman or for anyone else. Here there was nothing to work with.

She touched his hair and pushed magic into… a solid stone wall… an impossibility. Hair grew out of one’s head dead, the same as nails, the perfect non-living material she honed her skills on. Panic rose in her chest, and she searched her class’s senses. Her fist gripped the top of her pet’s head as she probed.

“Ow. Ow. Ow.” Adric yelped, causing her to let go.

“What are you?” She didn’t know. It wasn’t unliving material. She’d experienced that in the dungeon and other variations of undead materials, some reinforced through the dungeon’s domain to resist her skills.

“I’m your pet, and that is weird. I didn’t get how Rain feels being mine until this happened. It’s like a piece of me that I didn’t even know was missing has been filled. Have you changed me? Is there a mirror?”

“It’s that you’re not the normal kind of back-from-the-dead. You’re less dead than normal people. For people, it’s a fight to stay alive, and you’re constantly birthed anew. You’re impossibly alive. There’s… nothing… I… can… change…”

Her perfect plan. Deader than the prince was a few days ago.

Prince Adric’s embrace engulfed the maid.

“It’s alright. Everything is going to work out. I can tell.”

Harmony didn’t know how to respond. Things never simply worked out. If you wanted the chamber pot clean, you had to scrub it. If you wanted a favor from Tyler, Hyacinth had to suck some toes. If you wanted to level quickly, you had to visit a dungeon. Who lived in a fairytale world where things worked out on their own? Let alone without any complication.

“And how did you end up dying?”

Adric let go of her. Giving her an adorably sheepish look. “Cursed class, well, cursed profession, to be honest. I’d evolved, and my profession options were, cursed prince, inner courtier, and mourned prince. Cursed prince has a long enough history that the king would have executed me if I selected it. Kind of how necromancers used to be. Being an inner courtier would have meant abdicating my princely status, authority, and position. Mourned prince, now that was a new option. Sure, it didn’t have the most appealing names, but how was I supposed to know it came with a clock on how long I had left to live?”

How could it not? That’s right up there with taking a class with the prefix doomed or evil. Both of which the system has been known to throw out as options. Conversely, you could be a holy knight or divine avenger. Classes could change that way independently, but it was rare and took effort or luck, both good and bad. Or, in Adric’s case, selecting one upon evolution.

“But things obviously worked out.”

“Exactly!” Prince Adric answered, missing the sarcasm. “Not to say I won’t make an effort to make everything perfect, but it will work out.”

Harmony stepped away, numb.

“I’m sure your effort will be great.” The oblivious relationship to reality her pet had started to sink in. “I need some time to think.”

She back peddled until she was at the parlor exit. There she nearly ran straight into Ambrosia, who waited outside the door with a tray of food.

“I didn’t want to ruin your moment.” The other maid said. “Let me bring Addy his food.”

Ambrosia moved in and out with the same practiced efficiency as they served the guests, closing the door behind her.

Harmony embraced her friend, letting her body slump into her and resting her head on the other maid’s chest. “I’m so screwed. He’s an idiot, more sheltered and naive than Tyler. I’d planned to change his appearance, but that didn’t work.”

Ambrosia petted the shorter maids’ hair. “That’s actually not a bad idea. And as a pet, he just needs some training. Yvette, my little sparrow, kept picking at the embroidery of my dresses; it took months to correct that. Try to relax. Your pet can pick up on that, they’re sensitive to our anxieties, and it can cause them to overreact.

“He is my anxiety.”

“Don’t tell him that. It won’t help. Calm yourself, and not with that skill. They can tell when it’s not true. Don’t you remember any of my lectures on pet ownership?”

Harmony admittedly focused more on the practical aspects than Ambrosia’s philosophy. Her birds were as much people as they were pets to her, so it made sense that Adric was as much a pet as he was a prince.

“Um.”

Ambrosia gave her another squeeze. “A new pet bond is always a trying thing for both pet and owner. I’ll help guide you through this. Keep calm and get some rest, maybe some fresh air. It does everyone some good.”

Harmony went straight to the maid’s quarters to brood.