Maid with Necromancy

Chapter Three

Do you wish to learn the skill [Stride Before the Fall]?

The skill stone felt heavy in Harmony’s hand. It was the only one she had, a prize from Ha’zel Ri, the resident dungeon spirit. Did it play a part in that spirit hound’s plans? There were many reasons why she didn’t use it when the latest skill slot opened up. Oh, she could have written Tyler and asked for a different option. That felt wrong. Too encouraging. He’d sent her enough letters from the capitol. The debt toward him was cleared, and if she never saw him again, she’d feel better for it.

The bare patch in the garden would have to work as a meditation spot to use the stone. Garden was a generous term for the once-overgrown area. The brute force of skill usage cleared it, they didn't have the staff to manage the land properly. But a rampaging coatl and prince had been enough to strip it bare. Harmony's attempts at clearing the plants had been lackluster in that they were hard to kick, and her necromancy skills were nearly useless on the overgrown weeds.

At the edge, Bates waited with Ambrosia. In uniform, and off to the side with supplies in case something went wrong, a restoration drought, water, and juice. Adric nestled in the coils of his pet coatl, Bowe. The feathery rainbow serpent comforting its master as he watched nervously. Hyacinth waited, and she could feel his annoyance at the evening sun. It had only been a few hours since Fei had left, so he'd only managed a short nap before being woken to participate.

“Grrrack.” Her familiar urged her to get on with it.

[Stride Before the Fall], no listing on the stone, yet everyone offered to buy it. Long descriptions often implied advanced skills. Stride implied movement. Research showed that [Stride] skills were quick burst skills where one step would take you ten times the distance forward. More useful for those with longer legs. It’s not like she chose her last set of skills, but both fit well with Harmony's philosophy of a well-rounded skill base. [Stride] was exactly the kind of unique thing Lordy Tyler would buy, an unknown.

Do you wish to learn the skill [Stride Before the Fall]?

Not like there was a choice. Harmony pushed forth her yes and drove into it with her stats of connections and chronostasis. While the perception-altering stat mostly triggered independently around stress, she’d learned to push it into action for a lesser effect. It probably wouldn’t punch her in the face like [Mana Rotation] but she was ready for that just in case.

The stone sunk into her and she searched for the connections and information it would use to build the skill, the accelerated perception that made time seem slow should make information acquisition easier.

Nothing.

She attempted to hunt internally for it. Physically it might affect her body. When that failed she turned to her soul space. Those skills she saw almost as islands in the now roaring noisy landscape of the turbulent ocean of her [Mana Rotation] and the buzz of authority everywhere. Where was it? Was it a dud? Something useless and broken?

The hint of it rose up only noticeable because it was different. A smell indicating death was nearby, similar but different to the feeling of being inside Old Bones. Never had she felt her necromantic senses be inside of her soul. Follow the change to the source, Below. Under the mana churn. Part of it. She dove in. Everything burst as she passed the threshold, whatever thin shell hiding the skill cracked. It exploded out and every speck of her felt like fire. [Cold Touch] retreated from the heat. Every skill seemed to shrink back and close off before they too were invaded. There was as much relief as pain as the acting-up skill's influences were finally suppressed.

Rather than experiences like [Small Armor] and [High Kick] provided or the complex information that built up [Mana Rotation] here she felt a raw concept embedded into her. A concept alien to understanding enough that it had to be baked into her soul rather than contemplated. Existence beyond permanence. I am. Here nor there, I am. Always. Harmony’s mind couldn’t grasp it, it wasn’t made to hold it. As it seeped into her being she needed to understand it as it became a part of her. Death. Death. Death yet not. Overwhelming and overwhelmed, she raged at the incompressible. The rest of her reacted well to this process.

She came to her senses coughing, half choking on fluids poured into her. Inside now, the ceiling greeted her rather than the sky. “Gah! What?” She cried, half incoherent and flailing. Those wild movements stopped as she connected that she was naked but for a blanket covering her, one she was close to flinging off of her.

Adric squeezed her hand so hard it hurt a little. “That was your third restoration potion! Once your armor disappeared we knew something was wrong. I barely managed to catch you as you fell.”

“But I feel fine.” Those words cemented that she did feel more than fine. Better than she had in months. The overacting skills weren’t thrashing about. They were timid and felt less constrained, the tumultuous authority felt cut by half. A quick check and she couldn’t find the new one. The expert hadn’t said adding a skill would work this well, though not seeing it with the others worried her. Within, however, she felt the whisper below, tickling her chaotic memory of acquiring the skill. [Recall] didn’t want to share even that memory.

She flickered to her status information. [Stride Before the Fall] sat with the others. The other skills started stirring. “Bloody Bones.” Slumbering giants of hell they woke, not as bad as before but their noise under the pressure of authority came back screaming accentuated by the brief respite she had before.

“Harmony!” Ambrosia cried worried from the corner of the room, picking up more astutely than Adric about the return of her distress.

“I’ll live.” Tired of being naked, she threw on Night, from its soul space before sitting up and throwing the blanket off.

“Your armor.” Ambrosia gasped from her corner.

Looking down she saw the combined armor and slick black covering, highlighted by speckles of lights that inspired its name. It was there, yet it visually looked as though she was wearing a hole ripped into existence. Similar to the edge of shadows when Hyacinth pulled her through. [Small Armor] didn’t complain about a lack of protection. It felt even more secure, which helped calm the overactive aspect where [Small Armor] searched for threats.

[Analyze], even leveled, didn’t pull any new information on the unique creation. It was clearly changed.

“What did that skill do to you?” Adric asked.

“I-I don’t know,” Harmony admitted.

[Stride Before the Fall]. She activated it, not quite sure how, as there was no spot in her like the other skills. Even [Mana Rotation] had that swirling fluid in her. And she was elsewhere as quick as the thought to use it. Elsewhere being across the room. With the sudden change, she expected disorientation. That was common with movement skills but it wasn’t there. It wasn’t like she felt like she moved.

Ambrosia eeped and dropped her tray that held a glass of water. “How?”

Hyacinth jumped through the shadows. She’d heard of short teleportation skills or movement skills so quick you moved nearly instantaneously. Why was her friend reacting this way? Ambrosia’s eyes darted back and forth. So Harmony turned and looked. She was still there sitting in front of Adric on the couch.

The thoughts of Harmony synced, wondering about the image of her that appeared across the way. Until she felt the sitting Harmony pick up on the standing one’s experiences. What? Time felt short. Internally a feeling echoed between the two Harmonys. Choose.

Standing. How they both coincide on that decision felt slippery. The Harmony who’d been sitting faded out. The blanket flattening on the couch she'd been sitting up on.

“So you move and leave an illusion?” Adric asked, confused.

With the distinct memories of being in both places now settled inside her. Harmony could only say, “I don’t think so.” As she tried to grasp her new skill and failed yet again, despite having just used it.