Maid with Necromancy

One second, mid-strike, and a touch dynamically, Alex, with a wind-up, could transform, if you wanted a man-sized bear or bear-sized man. Golden fur and human skin rippled back and forth, incrementally getting bigger in the process of a slow buildup. No longer was there this towering beast squeezed into a tight red shirt who anchored the team during weeks of training, who was able to crumple the mock-guards with a stomp or swipe of a paw while moving nearly as fast as Adric or Harmony when pressed.  

Like with her undead creation, Marci, she’d reached too far and had imperfect results here. Not that the change wasn’t a complete loss. Because size growth was gradual, with adjustable gear, Alex maintained clothes and decency. Both had more variety in their access to combat skills, giving them a wider weapon chest as they moved between forms. As seen in the mindscape woods, the man wasn’t a bad fighter. His body was changing to be stronger and tougher in human form, which hadn’t been a goal but was apparently a side effect of the soul surgery. But it hadn’t been that long since Harmony messed with his soul, meaning the growth here was only starting. A fascinating side effect.

The real disaster was how long it took the team to handle a single fake guard with pseudo-skills programmed into the golem. And by team, Harmony meant Alex, Xera, and Tasha keeping it away from her and Tun-Knee as the support and healer. The traditional battle plan. It was polite of them not to ask them to do more, even after she’d made Alex weaker.

“Are you sure that you don’t want to see a real healer?” Harmony asked him as he rested.

The bear in him rose to the surface and growled before disappearing. Their souls were almost too aligned now. She nearly made a monster out of him. Next thing she’d be seeing would be him grabbing fish out of a river, or climbing a tree. Too much energy focused on him being a bear and not enough on him being a man.

“No. We’re talking now. Taking tea and sharing honey in the woods. My brother bear title means I’ve earned this. I’ll grow into it. Harmony, you don’t have to worry.”

“He’s got this. He’s even stopped drinking. I need you to focus on my half-step potion. Three days. The clock is running out. Tick-Tock Tick-Tock.” Tasha cried out, not too stressed.

Tasha couldn’t see Alex’s soul. The joy of having her roommate and best friend back was clouding her mind. If Harmony could improve the ranged fighter, the group shouldn’t be too bad for the dungeon run.

“I’m working on it.” Thirty-two of Tun-Knee’s gifted samples were completely destroyed when trying to force the ingredients over to that space where they can interact with a human’s soul. When things were flowing, fifteen to twenty percent would slip over, but then they’d eat themselves, explosively. Using [Claim] and the sickle to siphon off some violence helped. “I need to do a bit more research.”  

Adric clapped his hands. “Enough napping. I need you to redo this match-up with Xera being the point until Alex gets used to his body. Tasha, keep on tossing balls a hair's breadth in front of our support and healers, it stutters the golem even if you can’t track their approach yet.”

With the general issuing his orders, everyone groaned into place for their fifth run against the training golem.

This time, Harmony had to [Mend] Tun-Knee’s fractured femur when the golem’s version of a restraint skill hit Tasha, and he slipped around Alex, tanking two of Tasha’s balls to smack the tiger in the leg. “Prrrey’s luck!” he cursed.

Tasha’s third ball took off the golem's head as Alex’s claws ripped out the fake control crystal, collapsing the puppet.

There was no time to celebrate as Adric marched into the scene, ripping into everyone’s performance. Harmony got a  cold line of “Bad Positioning.” Because she was out of place, she should have nudged Tun-knee enough that he wouldn’t take such a bone-cracking blow. [Manipulate Dead] had tugged him away a little, but not enough. “Focus,” for Alex. “Ignore Harmony,” for Xera. Then he got into footwork and skill activation timing.

“I should have you all doing laps. I should have you work on timing skills. But each of you has mid-quarter tests and presentations. Tasha, Harmony could use a new sample. The rest of you are dismissed.”

The redhead walked over to Harmony as the others shuffled out. This prince had already naturally shifted from harsh instructor to buddy, by suggesting to Alex how to frame his recent changes for his Combat 101 presentation.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever had an alchemist ask me for so much blood before,” Tasha commented as she stripped her practice armor and lifted her shirt.

“Not an alchemist. I’m a revivalist. I work with bodies, blood, bone, souls, skills, memories, basically what makes you up. My hope is to use these bits of you to figure out what ingredients will work best when making a potion that suits you. This time, I want to try something different and get a bit more. It might be extra painful.”

Tasha snorted. “I saw what you did to Alex. You had your hand in his heart and were slamming his whole body into my table, while your knife was stabbed into his head. It was the type of stuff my parents were afraid they’d see if they walked in on some party I was having with my friends. Adric laughs it off, but twisted gears, you're intense.”

Harmony let the frown show on her face. “It wasn’t meant to be.”

“I know. I know. I can handle the pain.”

The blood wasn’t good enough. Harmony summoned her tool and aimed to make a small cut into Tasha’s soul. She’d cut flesh, container, and soul when testing fear out, and here all she needed was access, because what she needed was essentially Tasha’s soul-binding agent. The kind that the healer’s association harvested from the debtors. It should be a superior medium for alchemically aligning materials for use in the girl. She’d treated one batch of ingredients with blood, and that helped, but this should be better.

“Janet! Misha! Chapell! Donna! Rachel!” If you’re going to milk me, you might as well do it from my tits. I don’t have enough squish on my side!”  Tasha yelled.

She did need more. “Fine. Shirt higher. And what were those names?”

“Just the girls I’ve broken in since arriving at the Academy.” She answered with a grin.

Twelve more names were added as Harmony milked out the rest of what she needed.

“I can heal those bruises.” Harmony offered as Tasha pulled down her shirt.

“Oh no. The girls delve those as much as they do scars. I might as well get some use out of these sessions. Ticking Clock. Three Days. Go!”

More information was needed. Her poor Potions 301 classmates were more interested in asking her for tips than giving out information, and the moment she turned off the spigot of information, they stopped giving her information, and those little quirks as to why Verus selected some of them for elimination in this class started to reveal themselves. Pettiness, self-righteousness, sloppiness, and even a temper problem.

The library at the Association of Amateur Immortalists was an imperfect tool, but it was what she had easy access to on short notice. Harmony stepped out of the shadows and into the poorly warded, sparse bookshelves of the once grand Fairfax Manor.

Priority was copying the temporary loans of the books on curses for Hexologist Curie’s class, so she hadn’t gotten around to exploring these much. The repair projects she’d taken on were more nostalgic than anything. An excuse to maintain an active membership. [Recall] led Harmony down the shelves toward one of the three books that mentioned alchemy.

“Association Archivist White, I’m glad you could make the leadership council meeting this week.”

Was that today? Rotting gnome feces. “Ah, Association Steward Bellwether, I wasn’t expecting you in the library.”

“I often come here to look at The Book. Most of our notes on Byerly’s words are from before the previous attempt at repairing the journal. That repair was a costly mistake that sadly made the damage worse. But those tests you’ve turned in are quite promising. I hear you’re taking up alchemy?” The white-haired old man asked.

Not even a bleeding student, and her class schedule was public news. [Poise and Bearing] forced a pleasant smile. “Yes. I’m helping craft a half-step potion for a friend. I was hoping to review some of the books on alchemy from our library to see if they’d bring inspiration.”

“Oh, those useless books won't bring any inspiration.” Bellwether’s smile was not for her. “The Book contains many fascinating shards of knowledge we’ve been able to construct from. Saren Byerly was a true genius. Several passages delve into the heart of alchemy.

The tone hit that same spine-stabbing disconnection from humanity that priests had when they preached about how visiting the temples would earn you your proper choices as a hook to get you into Hazeldown's meager soup kitchens.    

It made her wish to panic despite the words she’d seen in the book. The worst thing was that, like on those days where her stomach hurt so bad she’d listen to the full speech to get that bowl of soup, she was desperate enough to take Bellwether’s hook.

“Then I’d love for you to share those words with me.”

“After the council meeting. Join me, and I’ll share my private translation with you.” He offered his elbow.

Not the first time she’d needed to escort an old man. She took it; at least this time, there wasn’t a risk of having her ass grabbed.

The way Milwep Fairfax’s face fell from a smile into a frown in the meeting room as she entered on Bellwether’s arm showed this was more than about his pitch to learn the words of the founder. Her arrival couldn’t have been planned. Harmony had barely decided to come here herself, and none of the visits were on any schedule.  Two other Immortalist leadership members sat beside the president of the association.

“Now that we have five votes, we’ll be able to break the ties on those pesky votes that have been plaguing the council once the bank trustee is here to observe.”

Oh.

Harmony didn’t have a rat in this fight.

“First, we’ll want to make Harmony’s emergency appointment an official one, of course.” Milwep countered.

That would be useful in that she couldn’t be dismissed easily. But Milwep and Bellwether were scrawny dogs fighting over bones with barely any meat on them. The association was a corpse, one that this necromancer planned to raid. The revivalist in her wondered what it would be like to bring the dead thing back to its former glory. The eraser reminded her how fragile it was, and if it became a problem, ground bone meal had many practical uses. She cared about breaking Alex some, messing up her necromancy project, and even the chance of failing Tasha. The Association of Amateur Immortalists didn’t rate, so if she messed this up…Harmony leaned back in her chair. It was old, creaky, and not managing her weight, split with a loud crack. [Mend] had to act to keep her from falling. While [Style and Grace] kept her calm and smooth.  Bleeding bones that would have been embarrassing. Instead, the sound rang out like a peal of thunder had gone off in the room, using that effect, Harmony pumped her voice full of authority, the rising from the ashes of being a revivalist, and finality of an eraser.  “I’m game!”

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