Maid with Necromancy

Wounds got treated and rewards were collected, as mimics who’d destabilized before dying converted back to producing the valuable resources on death. Tensions eased for most of the group enough they felt safer reaching out.

“I relayed to Loap that we have a solution. Things are heated back there. Her words were short. We should head out.”  Tyler broke the silence as they connected with their tethered bonds.

Harmony drank one of the healing waters they’d just been rewarded with. Hyacinth was grumpy, but gave the sage advice to not rush, for there wasn’t a point in making anything accidentally worse. Impressions more than words, but he knew how to get his point across.  No one back at camp will be happy to have her rip off a piece of them. Those mimics really did believe they were the people they copied, until they turned. “First, I want to check everyone here.”

“You can’t be serious?” Owlsley asked with disbelief.

“I’m with her. I’ve already seen enough of me bleeding,” Kenny moaned.

“We’re going to ask all of the people back at came to do this. The least we could do is tell them we all got tested as well.” Harmony insisted.

Tyler stepped forward. “I volunteer.”

Owlsley shook her head in disgust, “Of course her puppy would...” She grumbled faintly.

Now mostly muscle, between his evolution and the lean diet provided during the games, Harmony had to settle for a handful under his left butt cheek. Nothing that couldn’t be healed with no scar, but he grunted when she took it.

[Shadowed Graves] focused again sharply on the separated bit of man. Fear of hunger.. No… Harmony kept on adjusting the spectrum of fear. Fear of change… Fear of loneliness. Some place between that and fear of rejection. That bloody bit flared up enough to have everyone flinch toward their weapons as heatless blue fire came forth from what she held.

“Not a mimic,”  Harmony yelled to ease their tension. But how intertwined were Jessica and Tyler truly? They couldn’t be the same person anymore? Note, don’t bring that up. No need to give the lordling a reason to have a mental crisis.

“Fine. Take your pound of flesh, but don't be upset if Socks takes a swipe at you when we get back.”

Owlsleys took longer as the flesh fought against the fear pressed into it. The way it internally shielded against the skill brought up intriguing questions about how the prismatic enforcer's skill could be used.  

The young woman started to nervously wiggle her fingers as this was taking close to as long as the Mimic's did. As the lump of flesh died, its will to fight back receded with it. That defensive positioning had been a clue. Owlsley’s deep fear was being stripped bare and helpless. As that clicked on, a prismatic, shimmering shield surrounded the sample before cracking as it died.

Milo preemptively filled Harmony in for his turn. "I'm afraid of losing myself to Pappi, since bonding with him, I get a lot of his dreams at night. And some nightmares." He's added with a shiver.

The way his fleshy donation phased into a completely non-physical astral form under the activation of his deep fear caused the swordsman to pale. Most fears held a hint of truth.

"Do we really need to do this? With my luck, I'll bleed to death when you cut me for this." Kenny protested as Harmony approached with her sickle.

"Don't  be a..."

Eight throwing darts fanned out, evenly distributed at two per person.  If that wasn't an obvious sign of the mimic talking over, the sudden shift from depressed nervousness to a cool half-manic confidence with an overly toothy grin that the thing flashed as it turned to run into the spider's woods.

Rotting damn it, the hope that they'd all made it out of the labyrinth crumbled. They'd killed Kenny, those bastards.

Regardless of the disappointment, they were all ready to act.  Too bad luck was against them.

Tyler flashed forward to get ahead of the mimic. What looked like teleportation wasn't. The borrowed [Flashing Steps] pulled the user along a path to the projected image, nearly instantaneous and partially immaterial, but still with movement. Kenny’s darts, in part of their pure utility, didn’t care that most weapons might not be able to touch someone, as long as they hit, something was going to happen. The impact of those disabling attacks had Tyler tumble to the ground at his arrival, allowing the Kenny Mimic to leap over him with ease.

Owlsley popped a prismatic barrier to stop the attack on herself rather than contain their target as she was a few steps too far away.

Slowest to react, still recovering from his test, Milo took the non-lethal darts to the chest, knocking him out of the race.

Tyler's failure drove Harmony to action. The [Claimed]  [Prismatic Barrier] activated under a flood of stamina. Every time she'd tested it, the skill lacked the flexibility that Owlsley managed, but produced a barrier that should handle the darts. With [High Kick] accelerating her after the Mimic, she’d meant to block the darts while diving after the monster.

The first sign of trouble triggered chronostasis. Not only did the barrier fail to form, but the energy from the borrowed skill turned into teeth inside of her soul, gnawing and gnashing.    

Too trusting of consistency and distracted by the situation. A mimic wasn't loose in her soul, but the skill she'd captured had morphed in its shell, so when she'd activated it, something other than [Prismatic Barrier] was unleashed.

It used what it had, so the teeth were formed with prismatic energy, like a pack of vicious sharks in the condensed swirling mana surrounding her skills. If they didn’t have to fight against the rapids, one of her skills would have been shredded; as of now, she at least had time.

The recent experience working on Owlsley’s dying sample provided valuable experience in sensing these sharks.  She required a net. [Renew Spirit] blended with [Final Silence], taking key skills out of the coming battle,  but acting like a filter to  burn out those internal jaws. As they died, cramps twisted Harmony’s gut as they went out gnashing and snapping.

The darts were another problem. [Small Armor] expended its use to block the magical effects as Harmony charged after, swerving around the fallen Tyler.

​That poison of a skill couldn’t stay. Harmony reached in, costing her half a step as she ripped it out of her chest. It burned with acid in her hand and whipped out razors to cut lines across her hand before she tossed it into a passing tree with a sizzling thud.

Was the mimic getting faster? The bleeding freak was, as it added muscles mid-stride.

Harmony countered the best she could, having her vital body grow to lengthen her stride. Even then, she could see herself getting slowly out paced, even maximizing her leg length and stamina.

[Stride Before the Fall] could project her forward, but that would eliminate needing it for emergencies, and having the only skill to detect mimics, increasing the risk of losing her, wasn't worth getting this one, even if it meant one more to hunt down.

Hyacinth was never going to let her live down losing prey in a hunt. Even Adric might get in on the action for extra training.  Personal ramifications aside, it didn’t feel good to lose this fight. Then there was the embarrassment and complications of explaining this to those left at camp.

As if reading her thoughts, which was possible. The mimic turned its head completely around to give her a knowing, goading smile with more than a few extra teeth in its mouth.

Which was just its bad luck for it. A patch of webbing on the ground tangled the mimic's foot. An awkward half-step and sprain that its malleable body was already starting to adjust to. Three glowing darts slammed into the abomination, bringing it to a halt and crashing the beast to the ground.

Harmony, without hesitation, covered those final strides with a pounce. Liberal application of [Cold Touch], [Disintegrate], and repetitive application of her arm arching her blood-red weapon up and down, took advantage of the monster's inconvenienced state with  now practiced violence until it dissolved into rewards.

Above her. "Harm, now that you’re done with that, can I have a little help getting down?” Kenny asked, nearly completely tangled in a spider web, with only his head and one arm free as he dangled upside down from a tree.

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