Maid with Necromancy

The first thing Harmony wanted to do after Officer Cabot was dismissed from his job was to bleed off frustration; anonymously. It had been too long since the mysterious masked and obscured adventurer duo had visited Oorty’s Tomb.

If motivation around being able to kick the guards in the Tomb but not her new neighbors wasn’t enough, an excuse came in the form of a note, reminding her she still had pure rust to deliver to waiting hands as she tinkered in Verus’s lab. The professor told her the potion Tasha had used, despite his disappointment at not seeing it, had her technically passing the class, and he encouraged her to keep it up for potential alchemy-profession pathways or adjectives in the future.

“Your porter is waiting at the entrance, Eternal.”

There went the anonymity.

“Randy.” Harmony greeted the older man flatly.

“Don’t worry, the binding restricting my speaking of our delves is still in place.” He stuck out his tongue.

True sight, if she chose to have her [Heart] process some fate, would probably be able to see it, but he wasn’t lying. In that one delve they had, where she achieved her golden key, he displayed enough behaviors to know he had no quality social skills. As if that hadn’t been obvious, in the way he ripped her obscurement charm when they first met.

“Fine. Come.” She kept her voice low and cold to make it clear that if he wanted to back out, now would be the time.

Harmony waited until she was at the beginning of the long hallway on the first floor of Oorty’s Tomb before taking off her mask to let him know he should have backed out. “Rotting pits, Randy.” Harmony hissed, with [Cold Touch]’s frost extending around her. She’d considered picking him up, but that was a bad habit to break. It ended up either overly performative, as she’d done with Tun-Knee, or allowing someone to get too close, which was a mistake. Some men liked that a bit too much, and she wasn’t going to add another name to a ledger there. Be big and lose, be small and lose, sometimes there was no winning with peculiar male desires.

“Well, Su-pri…” He started

Harmony cut him off with [Final Silence] the way she’d wanted to shut down many of her new neighbors, nosey students, and even the rare stranger who cornered her. The last two team gatherings had been interrupted by local reporters, cementing them as more hated than lawyers. That could change when the trial happened. Private rooms would be necessary for future meetings. Her delving team had it worse, because people were more willing to approach them to ask about her.

“Don't call me that. I'm here for a break from that nonsense.”

Hyacinth resized Bowe while Randy sat with his silence. Part of her was annoyed at the man showing up again. The aristocratic part was quite pleased to have a new follower. Being so far away from the core of her base in Hazeldown had been a little hard on her authority, and all this attention was waking it up. Even though her past was a mystery to these people, the blank slate of a new, powerful student held preconceived notions. It was a different kind of authority than the reverence Hazeldown held.

But Randy, he’d tangled himself with her the first time because of his dead daughter. Rightfully accusing her of being a student trying to sneak into the dungeon, but wrongly worried about risks. That was then, and this was now. “Why are you here now?” Harmony continued pointedly, channeling her new local authority into her words, timing it to moments before the silence ended.

“Apologies, Lady White. I’ve been paying attention to your circumstances since we met, and guessed tonight would be the night you chose to enter the Tomb. Maybe I could be useful.”

No guile there, and irkingly, he could be useful. One reason she'd raised Marci was to get a potential local dictionary of information that only cost blood and necromancy to create, instead of money or favors.

“But why are you here?”

“You’re kind-hearted. I know what you could have done to those kids in that brawl. Maisy would want me to help you. I can tell you have the same willingness to stick your wrench in other people's gears.”

Was this the meddling one expected when they had a dad? “I'm not your daughter.”

“No, no, I never said that. But I am here because it helps me remember who mine used to be.” Harmony’s long exhale showed she wasn’t moved. “And I've got information on the Tournament of Future Worth.”

“Adric?” Harmony asked. She’d assigned him to gather information on it. For someone who hated books, he was remarkably good at gathering information from human sources. It wasn’t like Ricort was full of those anyway. Metal news-flats that got recycled and word of mouth was most of the knowledge here, as paper was rare.

“Closed instance tournament that happens once a year for those who've evolved once. If The Academy has a weak showing in intramurals, some like to complain about losing their best player when the two overlap. It helps that opposing teams lose their top students too, but the tournament is global. That’s a large pool of people fighting in single-elimination matches, and it’s been a long time since the competitor from here made it further than three rounds in. Combat heavy. The top thirty-two get a ranked title.”

Being a closed tournament without viewership meant there wasn’t much information. How did such a massive tournament get energy to support it? The Ascendant Games had contracts and questionable deals and still needed that extra outside boost of kingdoms paying to view it.

“All true, but I’ve got information from two of the former competitors. Inside information. The kind not stamped on the slabs.” Randy pressed.

Adric shrugged at that.

The less interested they acted, the more she might learn. He’d been so eager to please them about his gathering knowledge last time. [Keen Investigative Awareness] hinted this would be the same. “You can tell me as we’re harvesting Clanker. And it better be worth it.”

Harmony summoned her sickle to her hand and turned to march down the hallway, ready to carve something up.

Watching the failures of Hyacinth's Elite revealed that the guards on the first floor of Oorty’s Tomb, for all their skills, had a slight hesitation whenever a bit of randomness was introduced, even from something as simple as a flinch. Usually they made up for that with their skills, but soul sight letting Harmony know the toolkit was enough to plan around.

Adding that flinch, not even a true feint, more like a properly timed tick, pushed Harmony further than she ever had before, solo clearing all the groups of three guards without needing to slide into using [Stride Before the Fall].

Not that it was easy. She sat on the ground panting after that last trio.

“Ready for the next group?” Adric asked.

Harmony responded with a rude gesture.

Randy processed the remains, and not all of them were pretty. Even if money was needed, it was not needed more than practice. And the mangled bits. Those turned into Hyacinth’s new shield.

Arming her toad before the four of them continued would save them from the embarrassment of last time. Hyacinth never liked to feel like prey for even a moment.

“My claws are tactile enough that I could potentially use tools too,” Bowe stated.

A giant black toad, and a rainbow dragon using fused metal torsos as clubs and shields to beat teams of guards. That would be a show. “I’ll craft you something after the next batch.”

After crafting the proper tools for their oversized partners, Harmony and Adric barely needed to lift a finger to the point where her pet brought out a bag of snacks as the two giant monsters played with their prey.

“Are those jelly-filled rolls?” Harmony asked.

“They’re a day old, but the way the filling’s flavor soaks into the bread almost makes it better.” He answered.

Randy muttered about the level of destruction making it impossible to gather good resources, between looks of fear and awe. When Adric tossed him a roll, he was grateful.

Clankers Shouldn’t be a problem. [Recall] mapped out how she’d damaged his skill, inverting it, so it changed into almost a curse. [Keen Investigative Awareness] offered suggestions on how to make the specialized soul-strike shape the attack so it was more efficient at turning the crab’s greatest strength into its biggest weakness. A perfect example of knowledge and planning trumping brute force.

Most of the bosses in Nae’s Garden had been more difficult. One mistake with that cheat could make it a much more difficult battle. Holding on underwater as it bucked and fought while the others restrained it, she repeated her strike as a craftsman rather than a brute. With that, it was over.

The chest in the giant crab's corpse this time didn’t contain the key, either recognizing that she already had it or something about her actions didn’t qualify her this run. The pricey soul-binding agent inside was a better consolation prize. Randy gathered the unburnt rust for her to hand off.

“Now's the time to spill your guts, Randy.” Harmony reminded him as Bowe ate his fill of the crabs.

“Christian Wolff now works in accounting for the local guild. The former su-primus is now cleaning up balance sheets and collecting debts. He won in the first round but lost in the second. Lethal combat, fight to the death. Many people find that hard when facing other humans. The tournament’s hosts have magic that will restore both fighters at the end of the match, so don’t hold back. His second opponent joked about a faction he was assigned to; Wolff wasn’t invited, so other things are going on than rounds of combat.”

“And the other person who fought in the tournament?” Harmony asked.

Randy’s face scrunched up uncomfortably. To the point where all of Harmony’s skills had a hard time figuring out why the man was in so much discomfort.

“Spit it out.” Harmony nearly ordered, losing her patience.

Randy sagged in defeat. “You’re looking at him. It was bad luck. The woman who held su-primus before me graduated by evolving, and I had five days to get ready.” Randy choked out an ugly laugh. “My daughter only got into The Academy because she was a legacy. Now you can see what great company you share. Me finding you is destiny. Keep me around, and I’ll tell you everything I know.”

This broken man? Well, if a man like Houte was in the running, she could maybe see it. If being top student brought a future of sitting in crabguts, scraping red crystals off the metal shell, then it didn’t matter much. Chewing a bit of fate with [Eternal Fable’s Heart] opened up true sight and the splitting headache that came with it. Parsing what she knew from looking deep into the porter’s soul allowed Harmony to see things that weren’t immediately obvious. Scars across his soul messing with the man’s progression on an invisible level. No, scars were not right; this was foreign material, a mark placed upon him. The brand of failure. Could it be removed?

She’d promised Maekus not to mess with any new things yet, and the tournament was sure to reveal secrets around it that could help.

“I’ll think about it,” Harmony answered rather than give him the satisfaction of a yes, even if she knew one might be coming.