Chapter Three

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

  The skill sto heavy in Harmony’s hand. It was the only one she had, a prize from Ha’zel Ri, the resident dungeon spirit. Did it py a part in that spirit hound’s pns? There were many reasons why she didn’t use it wheest skill slot opened up. Oh, she could have written Tyler and asked for a different option. That felt wrong. Too encing. 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 pat the garden would have to work as a meditation spot to use the stone. Garden was a generous term for the once-rowhe brute force of skill usage cleared it, they didn't have the staff to mahe nd properly. But a rampaging coatl and prince had been enough to strip it bare. Harmony's attempts at clearing the pnts had been ckluster in that they were hard to kick, and her neancy skills were nearly useless on the rown weeds.

  At the edge, Bates waited with Ambrosia. In uniform, and off to the side with supplies in case somethi wrong, a restoratiht, water, and juibsp; Adriestled in the coils of his pet coatl, Bowe. The feathery rainbow serpent f its master as he watched nervously. Hyath waited, and she could feel his annoya the evening sun. It had only been a few hours sinbsp; 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 oone, 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 oep would take you ten times the distance forward. More useful for those with ls. It’s not like she chose her st set of skills, but both fit well with Harmony's philosophy of a well-rounded skill base. [Stride] was exactly the kind of uhing 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 es and ostasis. While the perception-altering stat mostly triggered indepely around stress, she’d learo push it into a 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 es 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 turo her soul space. Those skills she saw almost as isnds in the now r noisy ndscape of the turbulent o 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 indig death was nearby, simir but different to the feeling of being inside Old Bones. Never had she felt her neantises be inside of her soul. Follow the ge to the source, Below. Uhe mana . 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 bad close off before they too were ihere was as much relief as pain as the ag-up skill's influences were finally suppressed.

  Rather than experiences like [Small Armor] and [High Kibsp; provided or the plex information that built up [Mana Rotation] here she felt a raw cept embedded into her. A cept alien to uanding enough that it had to be baked into her soul rather than pted. 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 o uand it as it became a part of her. Death. Death. Death yet not. Overwhelming and overwhelmed, she raged at the inpressible. 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 i and filing. Those wild movements stopped as she ected that she was naked but for a b c 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 mao catch you as you fell.”

  “But I feel fihose words ted that she did feel more than fine. Better than she had in months. The overag skills weren’t thrashing about. They were timid a less straihe tumultuous authority felt cut by half. A quick ched she couldn’t find the new ohe 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, tig 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 uhe pressure of authority came back screaming atuated by the brief respite she had before.

  “Harmony!” Ambrosia cried worried from the er of the room, pig 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 b off.

  “Your armor.” Ambrosia gasped from her er.

  Looking down she saw the bined armor and slick bck c, highlighted by speckles of lights that inspired its was there, yet it visually looked as though she was wearing a hole ripped ience. Simir to the edge of shadows when Hyath pulled her through. [Small Armor] didn’t pin about a ck of prote. 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 ged.

  “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 ge, she expected disorientation. That was on 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 gss of water. “How?”

  Hyath jumped through the shadows. She’d heard of short teleportation skills or movement skills so quioved nearly instantaneously. Why was her frieing this way? Ambrosia’s eyes darted bad forth. So Harmony turned and looked. She was still there sitting in front of Adri the couch.

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

  Standing. How they both cide on that decisio slippery. The Harmony who’d been sitting faded out. The btening on the couch she'd been sitting up on.

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

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