Maid with Necromancy

Honestly, Harmony couldn’t stand Rose anymore.  Any of the maid’s respect had burned away by the attitude the princess slowly adopted since she’d discovered the necromancer had saved Adric. Rosaline behaved smugly, spoiled, self-centered, and with an authority that felt entirely unearned. Here, Harmony had the chance to wipe that off the princess’s face with a punch.

Too bad there was no way of dodging Rose's presence permanently. If Rose were set up anything like Queen Talia, there would be dozens of performances about her, with Kelly White starring even, ‘because those young actresses in Hazeldown don’t have the experience and skill to do it right.’   Could this assault potentially ruin a working relationship with the future queen? Absolutely, but there was no time for diplomacy. Too many moving pieces and deadlines,

Soul sight checked to see what she was working against. Chewing a bit of fate for true sight would have been overwhelming.  Here, she got a sense of Rose’s skills and bonds. The crown still weighed with fate along her system, but it was double-bonded with that unfathomable astral energy flickering underneath and behind the princess's eyes.  The Jamesian bond in her hand was even more seeped in chaos, linking it to the missing arrow. Hargreaves's undead servant bond looked overly placid. But why wasn't Rose reacting with her skills or reaching for a weapon?

“Guards,”  Rose called lazily, her tongue dripping with authority.

The ground erupted between Harmony and her target. Rising from the ground, a clay golem was head and shoulders taller than her, and three times as wide. A true giant. It didn't have a soul, but the mana-detecting aspect from [Mana Roration] showed that the red gem at the center of its forehead would be a problem bigger than its size, as it looked to be crystallized energy. A small flash and a stream of flame burst forth to catch her when she was in an inconvenient position to dodge with both her feet in the air.

If this were a normal fire, there would be many options, but the mana density showed the best thing to do was to get out of the way. With a quick flick from her chest to the ground and a signal through [Familiar Bond], Harmony tossed the tiny Hyacinth at the ground.

“greeep!” he whined through the air.

Still, he complied and shifted up, creating a surface for her to kick off of before shrinking back down to avoid the flame himself.

Rose said guards, plural. The golem wasn't hers.  A quick glance caught Adric dodging spheres of force that left indentations in the ground where they hit.

Harmony weaved toward Adric’s green-eyed attacker, and the golem cut the fire attack when it looked like it might get too close to his bonded.  “Is this really a fight you want to involve yourself in, Mr. Roth?” She asked.

“The Heir promised me a letter of recommendation from the queen to the university of my choice.” His answer came with a forceball sent Harmony’s way.

​That wouldn't work for Eric, but such an offer would work for this fool? Swallowing irritation, Harmony focused on the task at hand. There was never a chance this would go perfectly. Rose could join in on the fight or worse, run.

The princess contentedly watched, gloatingly as she took a bite from an apple handed to her by Hargreaves.

That attitude wouldn't hold. There wasn’t time to let everything play out slowly. Now! Harmony signaled Hyacinth.

​“BWAAOOOOOGH!”  A deep animalistic sound echoed through the conservatory. Windows rattled, and the castle shook.

That chonker would be bragging for weeks about this for weeks. Pride seeped through the [Familiar Bond] Full-sized lungs with their maximum croak to shake the foundations. The rumbling was something to take advantage of amidst that chaos, but more than that, it was a signal.

​[Poise and Bearing] Kept harmony more sure-footed than her opponent during the shaking, opening the opportunity to use [Disintegrate] mixed with [Dust] to swipe a chunk of the clay golem’s knee enough to give it a slight limp.

​Could constructs get angry? No emotion showed on its clay face, but the gem  in its forehead glowed with more power than it had emitted before. Stronger attack? Wider attack? Harmony contemplated counters.

Both! A wall of flame rolled her way, impossible to dodge.

Harmony danced backward, only stopping when a flicker of blue in the shape of a person appeared. In that outline of sapphire fire, Tyler Cooley inserted himself with a flash between her and the inferno.

The attack pinched in on the young Lord, but behind him, Harmony felt cool as all the heat and light seeped into his combined form. As the attack faded, Jessica projected out, her ghostly form stretching playfully as she gave the golem a hungry stare. “I needed that. Got any more?” She asked.

With wary intelligence, the Golem stepped back.

“I got this. Take care of what you need to do.”  Tyler called back, but Harmony was already moving by him and toward Rosaline.

It was nice that he didn't ask about the change of plans and accepted that now was the time to help. While the croak alerting allies to act had been planned in advance for emergencies, the idea has been to keep Rose away while working on solving the Max problem. Now it was so much more complicated.

The gloating at least turned to a look of chagrin on the princess's face, with a twist of her wrist, Hargreaves was ordered into action. Chronostasis allowed Harmony to speed up her thinking, not because of how dangerous the undead servant could be. Sealed, he was less of a problem, but brought centuries of experience behind a smart mind, which always made him a tricky opponent. But he was undead, and she was a necromancer.  Rose, for all her attitude and current behaviors, had never been stupid. The Princess had seen Harmony freeze her servant to have a conversation with her. This whole scene wasn’t to be trusted.

Trap? Hyacinth asked

Definitely. Harmony responded.

With traps, it was best to avoid them completely, set them off from a distance, or utterly destroy them. It also meant Rose expected something like this. Her newly hired bodyguards. Using Hargreaves as a ruse. Was the play to set up Harmony as a villain to those watching, was it to kill her, or simply eliminate her from the Games?  That would require a level of foresight to know this is where things would converge.

Harmony unguarded her problematic heart. While [Eternal Fable’s Heart] would become a future problem, it was still sealed. Using it in The Ascendant Games was as safe as she could get, even if she could forget all the scary implosions that had happened so far. The royal eraser let her heart beat hard, pulling in deeper than she’d allowed so far. The threads of fate tied to her pulled into the skill, forcing true sight over her vision. Just like when she swallowed Felix’s field skill, it ate what touched her and opened her eyes to what was going on with a headache.

She had been worried about Rose’s circlet’s unfathomable astral energy, but the first time she saw the circlet, it held that heavy feeling of fate, a sense that came from her heart skill. Now she could see the threads coming off Rose's crown of chain. The ones that were tied to her fell away, but all across the battlefield, those lines were looped around nearly everyone; only Tyler, with his recent appearance, was free as the flames around Jessica burned off strings that got caught in her fire.

Taking a gamble, Harmony tied [Eternal Fable’s Heart] into [Shadowed Graves] and let her fear spread with the darkness eating the bits of twisted causality that would shift outcomes. It was more fate than she’d ever willingly fed to her theocratically twisted skill. Underneath the seals, her chest burned, and tears flooded from her glowing eyes as she saw more and more. Inside Rose’s head was that glimpse of the unfathomable.

In an act of self-preservation, [Recall] merged with [Disintegrate]to wipe clean that memory until all that’s left was a feeling of dread and knowledge that she had seen it.  An emergency precaution she'd planned with Pappi’s  after getting more than just vague stories and warnings.

That can’t be healthy for the princess. Not that it changed what she needed to accomplish. But it did mean she had to avoid looking at her targets.

Duck, Hyacinth croaked into her mind. Spin left. Hyacinth’s directions came with a feeling of how she could make her movements. Blind fighting was not her forte. [Style and Grace] with [Poise and Bearing] couldn’t handle only so much as she waited for her normal vision to return. Arrow is in play. Hyacinth announced.

 The Arrow of Many Things, Rose’s Jamesian bonded item. The way Rose’s hand glowed, there was no doubt what she did with the chaos in Max’s system to drain Saccerate and his [Chaos Seed].

Chaos was a core aspect of the agent; it was in his evolved profession’s name. Adric told her of Max’s brief return to his senses after Harmony had shoved Eric’s chaos through the oath that connected him to her. That was why Saccerate was cut out of him.  The words from Hyacinth weren’t a warning. It was a signal that they had what they needed.

Squash the Servant. Harmony sent back as she moved in range.

To assist, [Manipulate Dead] cut Hargreaves through the knees to keep him from running. With a crunch, Hyacinth landed on top of the man, flattening him in a way no living person would survive. The technique the butler had given her for sidelining him was too fragile; she needed him pinned down to work. With true sight fading, the world turned back into normal dark shades as her shadows covered everything with a tinge of extra darkness and fear.

Adric, free of the twists of fate, with a hand from Tyler, hauled the rug-wrapped Maxwell to the picnic spot.

Mr. Roth and his pet golem had run.

“Rose. I am here to help.” Harmony started.

Cornered, there might be a chance of reason with the woman. Unfathomable energy sparked in the heir’s head, and her fast twisted into a snarl.  “You attacked me!”  Rose bit back, throwing the arrow straight toward Harmony, her skills activating with the range attack. It wouldn’t miss. The ranger had too many skills related to that. Adric and Tyler knew them all. Without a good way to discharge the chaotic energy, it could be a bloody mess.

Prince Adric slid between her and the arrow, taking the hit.

“Addy!” Screamed his sister.

Good to know she still cared, but that was step one. [Final Silence] slammed Rose, and Harmony tackled her to the ground, straddling her.

Tyler unrolled the rug to have Max tumble out, bound tightly around his legs and arms, and land on the princess’s side.  As he wheezed through a punctured lung, Adric moved into place to sit on Maxwell. The pieces were here. It was time to get to work.

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