Chapter 285 -21

Politically and socially, Harmony knew a second after challenging the redhead that this wasn’t the optimal choice. This was already well past what she’d prepared for. Four extra humans to deal with. Well, three-ish since Bea barely counted, even with her social upgrade from becoming a pale lady, but at least the undead would behave exactly how she ordered them. [Poise and Bearing] strained to keep her cool as she waited for her answer.

Tasha looked trapped, because she was trapped. There were no doors or windows in this well-furnished room holding Harmony’s forcibly summoned support.  And she faced two people who were, to her, strangers— Maxwell with his vivid pink beard and hair, eyes sparkling with chaotic annoyance, and Bea, who looked sculpted even with the purple scar on the left side of her face, already bowing to Harmony like the maid was the princess Tasha had joked she was.  Xera and Tasha were both uneasy after being ripped out of school, already exhausted from staying up late, but it was Tasha Harmony pressed.

“Harmony, I really don’t know why…” Tasha started with an obvious lie.

“Ha ha Ha ha Ha ha he he…” Crazy feminine laughter came from Max, but not from his mouth, interrupting the scene, until a ghostly woman exited Max’s body. “Only the best places I’m taken, and to think I was disappointed when you locked me in that cage, Harmony. I know how to pull the truth from her.” Saccerate cooed.

Harmony looked to Max, motioning slightly with her chin toward the loose chaos spirit, hinting for him to get it under control. The big man’s half shrug, hands open, signaled a bit of helplessness, which was not the answer she wanted.

“How did you get her? Bowe got left behind again. Becca is watching them.” Adric complained, miffed.

Saccerate answered. “You don’t share the same deep connection me and him do.” She gave a little shimmy. “We can’t survive apart. He needs me unlike you, my former host. And I’m as curious as the White is about the odd one out.”  

Harmony had never questioned her pet deeply about the time he spent housing the chaos spirit, saving Maxwell in the process by allowing Harmony to return Saccerate to the man. She hadn’t been there because Adric was held prisoner by his sister. It was difficult and done with, and it could put it out of his mind. That didn’t mean the process hadn’t brought baggage.

Xera stepped in front of the spirit to block it from Tasha.  “I knew I might get pulled into the tournament. I’m not quite sure what is going on, but I’m not going to let you hurt my teammate!”  She summoned a wall of red energy that looked like translucent bricks to bar Saccerate’s way.

“What is that? Level three? Not bad, but still full of holes you can poke your finger through.” To make a point, the spirit shoved her finger through a weak point in the wall. “And I’m not going to hurt your friend; I'm simply going to make her speak the truth.”  Saccerate’s ghostly body condensed until the spirit occupied only the finger in the hole, and with a pulse, pushed through to come out the other side. The spirit stood past the wall and within touching distance of Tasha.

“I don’t want to…” Tasha started

The spirit made contact with the shooter, reaching into her soul. Sacceate screamed, freezing in place, blackness creeping up her hand.

“... hurt you.” Tasha finished.

Max gripped its chest and rushed forward, only to run into the wall Xera had up.  There he bounced off. He couldn’t fit through a finger-sized hole.

Bea acted. At least undead wasn’t passive, and she punched the wall. The energy construct shattered, with Xera grunting out an oof that twisted into a snarl.  

This forced Adric to step between the undead and defender, attempting to play peacemaker.

Hyacinth, the stinker, stared at Harmony, uninvolved, but with a glare of annoyance.

This had all the signs of a brewing bar fight, but without the fun from overindulging in alcohol. None of the participants wanted to be here; most of them were cranky, exhausted, and in shock. And that black stuff was still crawling slowly down Saccerate’s ghostly hand as she screamed, with Maxwell clutching his chest. If she lost him, she’d lose access to Hazeldown, Ambrosia, and the ability to easily transfer stolen knowledge back home.

The plan had been to come here, have a nice little vacation while violently kicking strangers to burn off any frustration, then returning to school life. Even being assigned to the doom team only complicated things slightly, but this!

[Shadowed Graves] spread out.  Unlike when she used it on the shadow-masked dooms, everyone here had a connection to her, a thread of authority they granted her, filled with experience, knowledge, and expectations. That gave her power over them and responsibility.  They could freeze, fight her, try to flee, or have that rush of adoration, but whatever way the fear sank in, there would be a connection to the authority they gave her.

“You were summoned here to support me! Not bicker like children in a schoolyard.” Harmony, sickle in hand, walked up and cut off the part of Saccerate’s hand that had been damaged. [Manipulate Dead] edged the blade with [Renew Spirit] to make a clean cut. All that experience with Hexio Curie told her not to let that kind of thing root into someone, and with that same combination along her hand, she grabbed Saccerate by the neck and shoved her back into Maxwell’s body.

“Max, if you had issues controlling your protoplasmic bond, you could have informed me.  Xera, you knew I was hiding my strength, so don’t act so surprised that I’m choosing to let it out now. Bea… continue; I’ll check on you later. But you, Tasha, you trusted me to fix Alex’s bear problem but can’t ask me for help? Normally I’d accept that it is your job to deal with your issues, but with you being here it clearly involves me in a way I don’t understand. I dislike that.”  

Harmony let out a long sigh. Most of the room was tackling some of the fear that came from [Shadowed Graves]; the fear now lingered longer than when she first gained the skill. Bea and Adric were immune to it, instead benefiting by getting stronger as undead. Hyacinth liked playing in the shadows.

“Now let’s start this over, perhaps over Tea?”

Harmony wished for tea, and it arrived.  Food and snacks were on a wish-based system for participants, working exactly as Randy had explained.  The old porter, in his brief time as su-primus, only got to play with it for one evening before his loss in the morning, but he said he’d gone a little wild, as he told the story.  He stretched his imagination to the limits, asking for obscure things like amber pie and gold-encrusted power berry tarts.  

Everyone in the room reorganized for a group tea service, slightly shaken. Some of the animosity lingered, but this was a familiar setting for discussions.

It helped that she could summon any treat one of her supporters wanted. Xera made one sour face after drinking the tea, but only because it was better than her family’s special brew.

Harmony took the time to properly introduce Heir Consort Maxwell Bitterly and Maid Bea to Xera and Tasha.  

This led to Xera asking, “How are you connected to Healer White?”

Max’s wince was covered by his beard and only showed in his eyes. Harmony knew he never thought of her as a healer. The foolish man probably had many more negative concepts about their relationship.

“I took an oath to work in Lady White’s best interests, and the oath became consuming. I’m afraid my bonded spirit has been touched by that and decided a direct approach to getting the answer to my lady’s question from Tasha was best. Saccerate can be a bit of a wild card. I’m sorry to all of you for allowing that to happen.”  

Oh, my, Max really had been working with courtiers and managing politics. It wasn’t long ago that he was a boisterous wild knight ragging on his cousin and challenging a maid far beneath his level to a test of strength in the dungeon club. That made Harmony calculate all the changes both of them had gone through in such a short period of time; soon it would be almost a year.

“Savior White healed me from a fate worse than death, and has continued to invest in my strength. I wouldn’t be the woman who I am today without her. I’m curious as to why I was brought here.” Bea answered with some of the gentleness the undead acquired from their choice to be a pale lady.  

“I formed a link with Harmony with my [Two Against the End] skill. I must admit some of my shock at being here is that I believed it would be the two of us, and not a whole group of people summoned to be by her side. And that armor…”

Harmony knew Xera Chase had inspected Night. The unique pair-bonded armor was special in how adaptable and strong it could grow, enough that she wiped the memories of the man who’d told her about it.  

“I kept my secrets. I still want to keep them. But for this Tournament I can’t hold back if I want to do well. I’m sure all of you will watch the matches, so if you have any questions, I’ll try my best to answer. Just put your faith in me as much as I plan to in you.”

Harmony prepared to tell them both her first class was a necromancer. But that question never came. They both thought of her as a revivalist, the tertiary healer who’d been made su-primus. No one really asked what you used to be; as much as being the maid with necromancy defined her internal thoughts, it didn’t cross over into Xera or Tasha's. They wanted to know about the armor, the technical details of the shadow skill, how it opened up gloom paths, and pestered Max and Bea for tales of Harmony before she arrived at The Academy.

When Harmony told the story of how night was created by a mistake and accidentally fused with a pairbonded armor, it took up much of the conversation.

“So you wore goo as a dress?” Xera asked.

“It wasn’t goo, no dripping, just black stretchy material that appealed to my sense of beauty enough to wear it when I had no other option.”

“So they’d seen all of your other dresses?”

“Yes, the ones I had packed,” Harmony answered, letting them keep the assumption that at that point in her life she had many other options when the truth was she was just a poor maid, and a short, skin-tight creation was still better than the uniform Lordy Tyler selected for his employees. Explaining every detail would have been exhausting. But all this sharing in a private room was wearing down one target a little. Probably should have started this way to gain answers. She set [Recall] to remind her how efficient cake and tea could be.

Harmony turned toward the redhead. “Are you willing to open up a little, Tasha, about how you’re connected to me?” Peer pressure. It’s not as efficient as magical manipulation, but still a tool to crack a shell. Using it felt dirty, a slight soiling of herself, but it wasn’t a clogged toilet, desecrating graves, or killing people. Sometimes, if you were too rigid about which dirty work you wouldn’t do, it would get you nowhere.

Tasha took a long drink.

“The body type potion. It changed me. More than I’m comfortable getting into right now, it’s come with several issues, but I didn’t know it connected me to you. Harmony Physique of Fae’s Queen Night felt a bit too pointed.” She finished with a dark chuckle.

There was more Tasha wasn’t saying. The black burnt metal from her fall. Her odd behavior, and what Harmony cut off of Saccerate.  The blackness dissipated with fingers removed from the freeform spirit’s container. But you can’t go into Hexio Curie’s basement and not recognize something close to a curse.

The bloody secret ingredient— the spiritual extract made from the corpses of curses, used because she’d been desperate for a body potion that worked.  That didn’t explain why Tasha had closed herself off from them all or not told her, and why she hadn’t gone to see medical experts, or even leaned on Alex. Harmony used [Poise and Bearing] to hide her frustration about how this whole mess was her fault.

“Well, take your time. You’re among friends and associates who are all connected to me; I hope time with them can convince you to reveal more. Trust me, I do want to help.”

Six beings connected to her. Hyacinth was a partner. Adric came from a mistake and turned into her darling. Maxwell screwed himself with his oath, only to become her agent. Bea committed to serving her. Xera was a choice, misinformed or not. But Tasha was a disaster, one that was all her fault. There was no attacking this problem, because underneath the bold redhead was clearly someone now very skittish. But if she couldn’t clean up the ruin she'd made, she couldn’t properly call herself a maid or an eraser. There was no good reason to pin Tasha down as she had done with Princess Rosaline. This time it would take a bit more planning.

Harmony resumed her role as host.  “Does anyone want more tea and cake?”