Chapter Seventeen

  The temptation was there. [Final Sileo quiet the skills a little.

  “Groak.” Bored. Hyath pined with the distinct fvor of dislike at being used as a paimal with a fresh bundle of wooze hair on his babsp;

  It reminded Harmony that it wasn’t just her who would suffer from her impulsive desires. Not that she wao implode or explode, or whatever the sequences were of the instability caused by being Lady White.

  That didn’t mean she couldn’t use the new skill and py around with what she could do, only not on herself. It’s not like she was without self-trol. The invisible tattoo on her hand itched at that line of thought. It has been an easy cover-up using [Beauti] and [Manipute Dead] to make it skin color and refresh that in her m routine, enough so that it had left her mind until it itched. Cheg in with the guild to enter Nae’s Garden, however, made it more noticeable, but so far no sequehere.

  The wooze, hit by the silence, had stopped blind and waited pcidly. It’s not like you could see the ball-of-fur’s eyes or nose in that mess before she de-haired them. Whatever skills or css helped them track down aargets, boosting their senses, and causing their vicie was ralized. The silenced wooze was docile. Do beasts have csses? Maybe look that up iure? With every css having some version of [Silehere had had to be books oopic or an expert she could hire.

  Four wooze jumped through the bushes in a coorditack, the sound of their travel muffled by their fur. Harmoed them ing a while ago. [Mana Rotation] boosted [Manipute Dead], and poof hair exploded everywhere detag from the four targets. The chilly air from the field of [Cold Touch] putting a light frost ohing hit them with a punch. Every naked wooze locked up. Not actually dead. That would have taken too much effort, but they fainted immediately requiring a little dud twirl to avoid the unscious bodies as they flew through the air.

  Hyath sheir necks and Harmony gathered all the floating hair into a buo add to the pile. This time she shouldn’t o throw it all away by choking the brood mother.

  Her toad could be bored. This doesn’t o be anything too different from any tedious task she performed as a maid. And it gave her time to think.

  es and synergy, Harmony's personal stats let her explore [Final Silence]. If she hadn’t passed out st night in the middle of f the skill she would have dohat then. While she could bend rules, the months she’d had the stats taught her they were much safer to be used mapping out potential uses for skills. After [Mend] and [Recall] she’d spent days locked in her room prodding those.

  Here there wasn’t time to do that. But already she’d figured out that with a minor application, she could target the space around her, deading the sound of her movement even as she ched sticks and leaves along the path forward. Back at the manor, she could have had so much fun appearing so silently as to scare the wits out of others. Bates would eventually sit her dout a stop to that but it would have been a glorious few days. The staff are supposed to be quiet, just not this silent.

  It improved [Cold Touch], but she’d o repeat some of the experiments for her journal to see how much. The reverse was also true, probably, simply by synergizing the skills slightly iillness in a. Sadly lots of ideas included self-experimentation with [Renew Spirit] and [Recall] on how this new ability added to them in ways to calm skills or uand them better. ’t disappoint her adorable pet, by bending rules to only sorta use it on herself.

  Hyath nudged her through [Familiar Bond]. They were nearly at the brood mother's clearing.

  Different sizes. This one was big. Small house big. Two Harmony’s tall, but not like the st one where post-shaving she to its khe rger body would probably mean it was more resistant to cold. It would also be difficult to remove all the hair as fast as she’d dohe smaller ones. Before she leveled there would have been more of a challehough probably not the o risk Hyath like she had. Now everything was stronger.

  [Stride Before the fall] The two Harmonies were of one mind as they stepped into the clearing. [Mana Rotation] surged again, [Manipute Dead] synergizing [Beauti] pushed forth at an already charging brood mother. It would look better naked. Hair fell away. [Cold Touch] bined with [Final Sileruck out with the chill of the grave and finality of the st nail in a coffin. Together the act bled nearly all of her energy as the mana in her felt so thin she k would take time for the swirling currents inside her to recharge and perk up.

  The brood mother fell like the others had.

  “Kragrk,” Hyath pined some more.

  “I know it’s not dead,” Harmony said, the strided her already fading away. She’d hoped the strike would kill it. But it’s not like she’d shot an ice spike or frozeo it. [High Kick] could probably put it out of its misery. Her oruly offensive skill of shoving her foot into something. That idea made her more tired. Too much effort showing off to herself to take it down. The big bad maid, soloing the first-floor boss. Maybe a little less effort ime.

  Pulling out her bone knife she walked over to the atose beast. Time for the messy work.

  Too tired to the blood off her properly, Harmoed in the clearing grass. Hyath licked some of it from her.

  “These solo dungeon diving trips burn. You’re here but I could use a little more friendly pany.”

  Being more of a solitary being she felt the shadow toad’s shrug. He wasn’t going to take offe not satisfying her socially. The hunting trips with Adric, Ambrosia, and even Bates had been cozy at times and f to know friends were nearby evehings got heated.

  “Shall we check out the sed floor?”

  The shadow toad washused, but it wasn’t like he’d put much effort on the first floor.

  “Not enough prey?” The woozes were unsatisfying and nearly iible cold. The sed floor was worse. It only had pnt-based monsters. Hyath was not a vegetarian.

  Pnts were a . W on the flowers for the lounge had stressed Harmony’s skills in a way that had left her exhausted. Pnts didn’t die properly quiough. Cuttings could be used to grow new ones. Long dead floorboards, bits of debris in dust, and sheets of paper were totally different from a living pnt. They didn’t even have hair and nails to work with.

  Like with the first floor, they’d only have one monster. She o know what she was w against, without a skill that made the floor a walk in the park.

  [Manipute Dead] crafted a rge hag bde from one of the brood mother’s teeth. The o unfortable in Harmony’s hand, but what was she going to do to a pnt, kick it to death?

  The sed floor was eerily identical to the first, opening up to a thick jungle. Harmony reached out with her senses automatically, only to e back blind as it hit a nd teaming with life. Her ability to detect hair and nails was a little unusual, but it had been impressively useful in hunting animals. Bowe's feathers and near-death state had masked him wheried to raise him months ago.

  Here there wasn’t even a hair floating around in the air. Only the thick pack Hyath carried on his babsp;

  Virictors were rooted to the ground here, their viretched out to grab and pull prey back to them. Twiggy’s were another option to run into, six-limbed stick mohat dashed about, unrooting and rooting as hey’d root into a person if able to. Either tion early oh. Time to test taking one on, and maybe both, if the fight goes well.

  Silently through the woods, harmo [Final Silence] lightly active, lest she break a twig and spook herself. “You sense anything?”

  “Croak,” Hyath responded ory.

  This robably how others who didn’t have ways to sense ambushes felt. Nothing, and then a wooze jumps from the underbrush. Not a pleasant feeling, not knowing what was ing.

  “Graaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaakkk….”

  Hyath’s fading shriek caused harmony to twist towards her partner, but he was already gone, a trail of disturbed sticks and leaves leading into the thick bushes.

  The neawisted and pushed off after him, following the [Familiar Bond] and flecks of wooze hair ripped off his back by branches like a trail of breadcrumbs.

  Lord Tyler’s gift wasn’t made for pushing through like this. Scrapes and cuts from broken and reag brareaked across her exposed skin. The skin-coating bck starscape she'd actally added onto it didn’t snag, catch, or tear, but she could feel it all the same.

  The trail e Hyath gripping a tree with his forelimbs, his leg encircled by a thick brown vine, pulling and stretg him out as he groaned.

  Bone cleaver in hand, harmony kicked out swinging it down towards the taunt living vine.

  She didn’t see the sed vine spring into a. It hit her hip, ing it with a loop, yanking her out of the air and away from her familiar.

  ostasis kicked in and everything slowed down for her. The scream that involuntarily started felt deeper as it escaped her mouth. The bone bde jostled from her grip, sliding past her fiips, too te to try to pull bato her hand with her fully extended arm. The vines were thid wooden, with no flexible sponginess, they only moved that way. [Manipute Dead] kicked on with a choibsp; Attempt to pull the tooth-crafted bde into her hand or boost its momentum already spinning forward toward her target. Losing the on would be bad. Losing Hyath would be unfivable.

  Aim, push, shoot. She wasn’t an archer, but enough of her skills were good at figuring out trajectories. [Small Armor] and [High Kick], that with some effort she could just about. The bde spun through the air and with a satisfying thunk hit the taunt vine.

  The bde didn’t cut through. Harmony kly ho she’d made it, shock rippled through her as her heart sped up a beat.

  Snap! Stretched tight as it was toad and virictor in a tug-a-war, the two-thirds deep cut was enough. Energy dispersing both toad and vine were flung in opposite dires. A brief purple fsh showed her familiar passing through the shadows. [Recall] made a o find some way for Hyath to fight these types of enemies.

  ostasis only sted so long and as her heartbeat returo its excited speed, Harmony crashed to the forest ground with acceleration pulliowards the waiting fight.

  Being dragged over roots and rocks made it difficult to trate. Sharpening and strengthening her nails she attempted to cw off the vine around her hip as it squeezed the bone unfortably. If it had gotten around her soft middle, Harmony shuddered at the damage it could be doing. Digging into it made her fiips bleed and only scraped off a thin yer.

  [Cold touch], frost seeped into the vihe unfortable stri stopped, water i swelled up, and with a crack, split some of it, not enough to break it off. It might have made it more brittle, but it was still too dense for Harmony’s strength to shatter it.

  [Final Silence] couldn’t find a target, it was like targeting a finger rather than the core of the being.

  The acceleration slowed. Good, bad? A sed vine slipped around her left ankle and started to twist up her calf towards her thigh. Very bad!

  Kig did nothing other than jerk it about some, and that was her other main bat skill. Looking down her legs, she could see the writhing mass of tentacle-like vines waving with anticipation ing in prey.

  A third vine criss crossed her chest. At this point, she’d let loose with [Cold Touch] radiating chill away from her, enough to kill a naked Wooze, but here it only slowed the pressing.

  Closer… [Mana Rotation] kicked into a. Closer… Filing whips shed at her. Close enough, boosted [Final Silence] kicked in at thirty paces for the new skill hitting the Virictor. The whole thing froze in pce. Why couldn't it go limp a her escape? But whatever aspect the sileerrupted it dealt with at the very least the dungeon monster’s movement, but not the stiff durability of the pnt.

  Thirty seds, plus however much [Mana Rotation] boosted it.

  A flicker in the dark opy above. Hyath crashed down out of the shadows like a boulder from above. His weight and size were not a hindranow. Immobile vines snapped, bent, and broke underh him as he nded in the middle of the virictor. What she o do was damage its roots enough to kill the sucker. There were options, too risky options.

  [Stride Before the Fall], restrained as she was, the skill felt like it was fighting fate and the seds ticked on with nothing happening.

  [Manipute dead] did its best to worsen the cold-damaged parts around her while Hyath rioted about. The vine eg Harmony to the main body snapped. Hyaths work.

  [Stride] pleted.

  Bloody beaten and exhausted harmony stared at the entangled version of herself. Night looked fine, but scratches and newly f bruises covered her. The adrenaline of fighting overcame how bad she looked. [Recall] kept track of the time left and they were running out.

  [Familiar Bond] called the shadow toad to her. With a paired leap she grabbed onto the dirty and torn mat of collected fur on his bad they jumped into the shadow together to start skipping back towards the entranbsp;

  Rather than disperse [Stride] right away the part of her that stayed paid attention. The viricter started moving. If it had been Adric she’d have at least six seds left, even boosted the monster clearly resisted silence skills.

  Undamaged viruck out with enraged purpose, iight and dragging her in. Stopped, she could feel more vines ing around her, fighting the chill as they insuted each other and creaked inward. “Burn you.” With the st of her strength, she pushed [Cold Touch] into the ground. The virictor shivered in pain. Then it redoubled its efforts. Squeezing until her bones ached and her flesh bruised. Harmohat part of her disperse as they colpsed over a pocket of mostly nothing.

  The memory stuck with her as Harmony stood beside her also beaten Familiar outside the sed-floor entrance, ready to leave. Luckily the short jumps forced by the dungeon enviro didn’t lead them to more trouble. “I should have chosen [Rot].”

  Stay true to you. Hyath reminded her with the rare use of his voi her head.

  His support meant something, even if it didn’t wipe away Harmony's feelings of doubt and recrimination. They have to per. Together they limped out of the dungeon. The plimentary healing potion had been on the copy of her that dispersed moments ago, along with a small bit of supplies. A small price to pay.