Chapter Twenty-Five

“Graaaaaack” Hyacinth complained.

“Oh, don’t be a baby. Who cares if they squeeze a little.” The spurs stretched over his front and hind paws where his wrist was with one strap between the toes to not limit their movement. Wex clearly experimented after his inspection of Night when developing the material. The long serrated blades were thicker than She’d expected, more like a wedge than a flat blade. He hadn’t wanted to wear them on the trip up the stairs. So, now he had to put them on with an audience.

The caught wooze snapped angrily, helpless from its hair stiffened to keep its feet off the ground. It would have been easier to kill it but Harmony had plans. It was time to test her new skill on an opponent she didn’t care about hurting.

[Final Silence] combined with [Cold Touch] as she lashed out at it. It turned docile and shivered a little. Fur was still blocking the cold, but it was colder now. She waited for the teeth to start snapping again. Definitely a smidge longer there. Combined effects were always greater even if they did take a good chunk more out of her, that’s how she’d mastered [Dust] so well after combining it with [Manipulate Dead].

A slightly better skill isn’t what she needed. There was strength in being different, seeing Lady Coodly reminded her of that. [Beautician] combined with [Manipulate Dead] while working with [Renew Spirit] and touches of other skills to create an effect well outside of simple uses of her skills. Hours of practice going into the first floor of the dungeon and prettying up those shambling corpses. All so she didn't slip and accidentally explode a few skulls. Imagine working on someone's hair and accidentally making it blow off their head if [Manipulate Dead] shifted into a formal activation. It would have been impossible to live down that shame.

As much as she’d wanted to see the gardener for advice, she’d never be one. He might have suggested some skill stone or focus on creating a new skill that might help, but then she’d need to train it up. Creating a skill took genius or in Lord Tyler’s case persistence. Harmony hated to admit she didn’t have either of those things. What she did have was the inclination to screw around until she figured it out.

Over time the wooze’s snarls of anger turned into cries of pain. The whimpering and crying became hard to ignore. They’re only monsters. There’s no other good way to do this. Hyacinth's predatory support helped strengthen her spine. Those cries had drawn attention, packmates were incoming. Kill or be killed.

Harmony’s foot kicked forward on the immobile wooze, twenty dead failures lay behind as she made her path through the level. The strike was aimed and guided to a specific location that wasn’t physical, yet still contained in the beast's body. The crack wasn’t even audible, but Harmony heard it. The wooze’s snarls went away. But it wasn’t silenced. Other skills remained. Whatever senses it had boosted kept its attention on her event through the fur.

She’d done it. She’d damaged a skill! That or she’d silenced a single skill. Which was something feasible. Now she just had to wait.

[Recall] let her review the steps and reasoning taken to get here with ease. People damage their skills by accident or overwork, a risk of pushing past what it takes to run them. Those take rest to repair the damage out of reach of most healing skills and potions. Limits she’d gone past a time or two and found herself hurt. [Renew Spirit] helped but didn't heal it outright.

You’d also hear stories of particularly gruesome injuries damaging skills. They existed as concrete units with levels separate from each other in people's statuses. Her internal visualization did the same thing, islands or nodes inside her soul. Each was particularly poignant and problematic with their quirks due to the stresses new authority was causing, which helped her picture what they might be on others. Since they existed it made sense that there might be a way to hit them.

Extending that earned perception onto other creatures was a different level of problem. [Analyze]’s ability to pick up information, [Mana Rotation] and its second sense of mana in the world, [Renew Spirit] which has always had a soft spot to help soothe stressed skills, and then that puzzle piece of [Final Silence] interacting with them more deeply.

Was it that different than dolling up Ambrosia before a concert, refreshing herself with the morning routine, or even all that repair work on the partially rotting timbers of their manor? Combining skills for a desired effect. No, but that didn’t make it easy. Synergy and Connections helped. Those stats strengthened what she could do and imagine. But no using them to break rules as she had in some experiments! That would aggravate her already stressed system. There was no desire to watch a wooze turn into a pile of mewling goo.

All that was required was to find a way to hit the right spot. [Cold Touch]-[High Kick]-[Final Silence] - a touch of [Manipulate Dead] and [Renew Spirit]. Until it felt like you were hitting past a veil between what was solid and what wasn’t. The strike's impact went elsewhere and blows that would break ribs, bruise flesh, or chill disappeared.

Every use was draining. Chronostasis was even forced to get the balance right mid-strike while maintaining visualization on a still target half the time. And would it even work on plants? Would their regeneration capabilities be able to fix it faster?

“Crorack!” Hyacinth snapped. Bored, Hungry, Dinner Soon.

The Wooze remained broken. Silence leveled twice. Hyacinth practiced wearing his bladed booties for walking and hopping. Blood and bones they’d been at it all day. Ma Bell would be disappointed if they were late.

“Let’s go.”

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The pair took off. She wasn’t ready to try her new skill and merely murdered the brood mother with efficiency. [Stride] allowed her to take risks and push further even if only the memory remained. Memories that chastised her for sticking an arm inside the giant wooze’s mouth to freeze its brain from the inside because It felt achievable. Which worked as long as you didn’t mind losing an arm.

Harmony absent-mindedly rubbed her left arm making sure it was still there.

[Stride] actually felt close to leveling after that. More so than it had after all its other uses. Yet it remained at level one. “Everything all right, Eternal?” The booth agent asked as she lingered on those thoughts while checking out from her run.

“Fine. How close is it to the dinner hour?”

“Not quite ten minutes from now.”

. “Delve me.” She muttered. Enough zombie dazing about. “Come, Hyacinth.” She put her hand on him and they were off. The brief glimpse of the shadow world was always fascinating. One day maybe she’d have the time and energy to wring some answers about it from her companion.

“... and that’s when she…”

The pair stumbled out of their designated shadow in time to interrupt Sir Maxwell mid-sentence talking to the bodyguards. The pink-haired knight froze mid-sentence, in a way that Harmony suspected that the “she” he was referring to was herself.

“Lady White, I have the information on the guests ready for you. But there has been some seat shuffling on our side. Prince Adric is indisposed and I’ve volunteered to take his spot for the evening.”

Harmony snapped her attention inward past all the skills she’d worked sore by bending them sideways to do what she wanted, and towards her bond with her undead pet. There was no communicating the way she did with Hyacinth, the mostly one-sided bond was harder to pull information from. So she leaned into connections, the stat bending normal rules, little flickers of information bled through. No pain or hurt, but touches of fear, worry, and guilt. Not in great amounts, but contrary to his usual oblivious, happy, eager self.

The temperature dropped quickly and [Final Silence] started to show irritability as little sounds like breathing cut out to the point where you could hear a pin drop.

“How is he indisposed?” Harmony asked, her voice clear in the cold silence.

“He was called away for family matters. His cousins Prince Jacob and Princess Willow fetched him from the common room a few hours ago. He was actually excited to see them. I’m sure he’ll be back before bed.”

Harmony was sure he was excited to see them. That he loved and missed his family. That they’d babied him after his fate-ending evolution. Poor Prince Adric the doomed beauty. It was easy to be kind to someone you knew wasn’t long for this world. [Recall] brought up all the stories from the carriage ride. Jacob and Willow were what you could call enemy friends or friendly enemies, always taking the sickly prince out partying, and getting into trouble. Encouraging him to do riskier and riskier things, because after all, what did he have to lose? They were the ones who’d recommended he go to Hazeldown rather than spend his last moments with friends and family. They also didn’t go with him.

“He’d better be.” But what if he wasn’t? Rather than gnaw at her that thought fueled anger.

Harmony only half listened as her sworn knight informed her of the other guests. Ascendant Games fever was still the rage. The guests would be more idealists and overeager information seekers. Ones who did not hear the rumors of how Harmony responded last time, yet were still eager to get their shot at prying information she didn’t have from her. Hopefully, Ma Bell bled them dry for that honor.

Dinner conversation ran hot and pressured. Sir Maxwell was not as comforting as her pet. Oh, he tried. “For the third time. Lady White has already said she knows nothing about the games!” It was actually the fourth time. That's one of the reasons why Max's overprotective mode tonight was tolerable.

Even Ma Bell was having difficulty managing her table, “Gentlemen!” She interrupted, her skill flooding the table to encourage relaxation and comfort.

That was a mistake. This was the wrong crowd of people. Try hard adventurers desperate to get a shot at these new games. The kind of people that run their heads into a wall one hundred times to improve their defense. The kind of people who find violence relaxing and comforting.

“All we want is a polite conversation about what to expect from the dungeon spirit. Someone with her background knows how important it is to share information with her fellow working class adventurers” A hint of a skill rippled out from him.

Suddenly this tank got more interesting. Not the hinted argument that she was a revolutionary here to help overthrow a corrupt system. That had been chasing her in some news circles since she’d stood up to the duke when she first met him at the ball she was serving at in Hazeldown. [Taunt] she recognized that from one of the skills Lord Tyler had, but this time used in a flexible way that wasn’t fully activated. It was what she liked to do with her skills. Not that she felt like she could have a rational discussion on skill theory with the man after how dinner was going.

Adric might have been a calming influence in this situation. Sir Maxwell, however, was one of those brawlers.

The knight pushed himself up from his seated position, wagging his finger like a sword. “What you’re doing is questioning my Lady’s honor. I ought to pull off my glove and challenge you. “

Harmony let the quieting effect of [Final Silence] bleed out to everyone else. Not too dissimilar from when it leaked around Max and the guards earlier at the mention of her pet’s situation. “Enough!” She snapped. All the group's retorts were blocked by the silence that covered them.

“I apologize, Madam Bell. But it has been a long day. I must depart dinner early.” She ended the portion of silence around her host, realizing she’d hit everyone.

“It’s, uh, understandable. I’ll make sure to be more selective at future dinners. I hope the prince can be back as well.”

Bates and Ambrosia were already at her side when she stood up and managed to get five steps away before her skill effect ended.

“Ashes and weeds!” The yells from the other guests chased after her as she shuffled off toward her room.

Inwardly she checked on Adric again. More of his anxiety bled through. She’d hoped to share the excitement of her training with him. Oh, he has every right to visit his family when called. The suddenness of him not being there when she’d expected him to be around hurt. He had wanted to confront his family. But why now, and without consulting her first or leaving a note?