Chapter Thirty-Three

Increased reach. Running disintegrate along the sickle's edge made for a cut almost too clean. No resistance if you severed an arm or a leg still meant that a large hunk of metal was traveling towards you at fast speeds, even if it had been detached mid swing. It was better to disable, cutting into the joint or severing the connective threads inside the legs or arms, as they had a harder time adapting to the crippling than a missing limb.

Using the blade to cut the skills in half disabled them too, but that would mean no collecting them or using them herself. Having the blade pierce into the container and metal made for easier application of other skills, such as mixtures of [Mend] and [Disintegrate]. [Renew Spirit] and other combinations of nastiness she could  think of, even twisting [Poise and Bearing] into the mix destructively to see if she could use it to ruin the guard’s coordination. It was already a hunk of shambling, hacked-up bit of metal, so there hadn’t been any noticeable change. [Recall] made a note of the idea for future tests.

Harmony was in the mood to bleed.

For all that was going well at The Academy, there were so many annoyances rooted in the unpredictability of such an educational environment; some of them were people, or pressures, cultural and economic traps you had to step lightly around. Here she could let loose and….

The sudden shift in the air…

A quick blink had Hyacinth patch her through to where they’d be coming from. This was the second set of two [Final Silence] struck out to shut down any skills the first had. The Tomb’s guards were so burning fast, always best to use that momentum against them.

Harmony threw her sickle straight at the active guard’s neck, working to maintain the connection to the extension of herself and the [Disintegrate] along the sharp edge. Even as the head severed, toppling off to the side, there was still the control crystal packed in a layer of armor inside its chest, so she summoned the tool back.   This one had two voice command skills, so without its head, it couldn’t even use them, a little cheat she’d discovered in previous runs.

Returning the blood-built blade wasn’t as quick as the guard’s fist. [Small Armor] needed to block the strike, sending her forearm aching. That was the consequence of a moment passing, until she was whole again with the handle firmly in her grasp, ready to carve that crystal out of its shoulder.

To do this, she leaned into the headless body and swung it around into the fist of the second guard to act as a shield for herself. The large clang of metal on metal had Harmony’s ears ringing, but her sickle was quick at work, removing the area around the crystal like it was a curse in one of Curie’s “patients”.

Quickly reduced to a one-on-one matchup, it was now time to see what she could do with her new tool once more. Harmony knew everything this guard could do after having picked up their attack patterns previously, so there was plenty of time to experiment.

Harmony stood over the remains of the second guard. She’d preserved the control crystal, and that was what was important for this run; other than that, not even a scrapper would pay for a pile of this damaged metal and sinew. No point going against three alone to test if the sickle was the tipping point in that matchup, even with [Stride Before the Fall] as back-up, that wasn’t tonight’s mission.

Adric approached, Randy in hand, urging the man forward with a gentle nudge at the porter’s back. This bloody fool, so much of a meddler, his silence was the free help. The older man was irritatingly pale, sweaty, and bedraggled for someone who hadn’t been in any fights. Might as well see if he’s useful at all. “How experienced are you with collecting alchemical ingredients? What would I need to collect to craft the highest quality Iron-blood half-step potion?”

All the ingredients were local to the dungeon. That is why the body was such a popular and locally cheap option for those who wanted one, and tossed at students to burn through. A big export, praised openly because of where it came from. The first official dungeon, a tier-three one at that, unless you wanted to listen to Von Trell’s since his dismissal of the dungeon ranking system. In Ricort, it was an option of last resort. The best potions were exported, and the cheaper ones always had a risk of death or complications.

That’s why this run had to be tonight. More than the money. It’s not like they provided students with the best ingredients to work with. Part of what she’d battled in class was an inconsistency in the materials provided.  To pass the test, she needed to provide her own better ones. The lack of uniformity to the command crystals, the shaved iron in the rust, the soul binding agents weren’t fresh, a [Renew Spirit] had boosted their potency during her last attempt, but walking into the test with whatever handouts were being provided might as well be accepting failure.

“Quizzing me, I see. Bloody fool I am, after watching you toss around some guards like rag dolls. I’ve been around the cellblocks a few times, so I’ll pass. Yet, even when they called you Eternal, I trusted my gut.”

More than a hint of self-recrimination there [Poise and Bearin]) schooled Harmony's face to one of calm, stern judgment as [Keen Investigative Awareness] took in Randy’s gathering of himself.  She did have to poke Adric not to smirk through the pet bond.

“Standard practice is to collect all the control crystal shards on the levels and put them into bags. Larger pieces are saved to go to jewelers and enchanters for other projects. But the hitch is highest-quality, and ain't nobody doing that for that kind of potion. Like you’d make a highest quality one for a Ruster. Most have to choose between the rust or having no body type at all.”

Randy knelt down by the contained command crystal she’d carved out of the first guard’s body. It was fully wrapped up and protected by the natural case provided by the dungeon monster, with a thick knot of connective fiber coming out to feed into the body as the only sign. “With your strength, it would have been easier to break this?”

Harmony responded with a slight nod of yes. It might have saved her a bruise. But considering the guild rates for those, she’d take a few punches that would heal up quickly.

“Then, like the blood phoenix potion, you’ll want to dissolve the whole crystal into the container. They never want to mess up crafting those and would never stoop to using gathered shards.”

She’d missed it. It was bloody obvious now that it was pointed out that the amount of powdered crystal provided was equivalent to a whole and undamaged one weight wise. The volumes  were a little off as the density varied, oftentimes when they broke, the outside edges left bigger pieces being harder, while the softer, more delicate middle turned to sand.

While [Dust] didn’t care if something was from a single source, a lot of manipulation skills might, making it more difficult to incorporate into the solution.

“Right here is the first part needed for a good potion. As for the rust, it’s always hard to harvest resources in the middle of combat against the floor guardian. Most sweep up the floor from all the dents and scratches made during the battle before it ignites, then alchemists sift it as best they can. With how sharp your blade is, I’d say you probably have a way to get around the claws and shave the back shell so as not to get a lick of iron mixed in. One of the rewards should be a soul-binding agent at least, shackle glue? It takes three, right?  That’s the best I can do as I’m not an alchemist. Did I pass your test, Eternal?"

Guess that was another inconvenience. They would have to fight the boss. In the list of harvestable materials provided by the guild was tallied by floor and opponent. “Rust” as an alchemical ingredient was an end product and not on that list. [Keen Investigative Awareness] had already been on the lookout for it, but nothing on the list was obvious. Boss room sweepings were a mid-pay item, mixed in with the extensive list of harvest instructions and reward options from defeating the floor boss.”

“Gather the most valuable remains. We’re going to push forward. Protect the command core and the rust when I get it for you. I’ll handle the other binding agents.” Harmony answered flatly.

She’d seen them harvesting some of  those agents when she volunteered for the Healers Association. When your corpse got called in to pay off your debt, they didn’t waste one scrap of it. The only thing they didn’t do was call it necromancy.

“Why don’t you extract that from monsters or animals?” She’d asked after watching the process on a deeper level than simply, this is how you use this tool to extract residual essence from a corpse.

“Some people do, but the tools are very expensive to replace if broken, and human essence is universal, while local monsters only work well with ingredients from local dungeons. It helps protect our goods, so I don’t complain. Now watch.”   And Harm did as Luce used pliers made with two slivers from a champion’s tooth still infused with a little bit of extra necromantic magic residing in Hazeldown’s dungeon reward to pull out and stabilize the leftover residue from a person’s soul container as he clamped down and squeezed it out as a translucent green paste.

With some experimenting, she was confident she could get enough of that substance out of a guard’s corpse to supply her, but to get to that point, they needed to grind through the floor as a team.

Randy had confidence they could do it, and he was a seasoned veteran of the Tomb, albeit one who stood far enough back not to get entangled in fights. It was entirely possible the old man overestimated the strength of her fellows as being equal to hers; after all, the porter was awed by the dragon. They’d only done individual pushes, except for a little play of Adric riding Bowe. They’d still been buying bleeding gear and talking tactics when it had been necessary to halt dungeon runs. For now, they had the advantage in numbers. Cracks of inexperience shouldn’t show until they hit five guards and the opponents gain that same advantage.

Everything deserved a thought until it was time to act.

Amidst the stirring of air and acts of violence, the metal club arcing toward her leg settled the matter of prioritization. There’d only been a slight question about whether Adric would be targeted instead. The three guards still struck out with their skills to disable her “defenders” with silences, commands, and restraint, but doing so slowed them down and staggered them.

The sickle caught the attack, and the magically summoned club had without [Disintergate] around the blade, it was her strength against the guard’s, and she was stronger, so her blow flung it back, allowing her to glance at the surrounding situation. Everyone had things wrapped up enough; she let it charge back, and as fast as these were, she knew their moves and could take them down quickly enough. Ripping through the head and chest, it was done.

[Claim the Remains of Power] grabbed [Break Restraint] to add to her toolkit before their tag-a-long could see they were finished.  She’d wanted a complete set of the nine options the guards had, but that was a different trip. Vials full of the fate-influenced oil were ready, but she’d left them at home for this trip, so as not to get distracted.  

Cracking open the armor and with [Claim] still lingering on her fingers, she experimented with extracting some of the essence and stabilizing it.  It was like you were reversing the reaction created in the potion, pulling something from the land of the soul out rather than putting something in to be consumed and processed. Maybe not even like that,it was probably exactly what she was trying to do. The possibility of understanding a smooth transition between such states opened up many interesting possibilities when working with undead and improving creatures like Bea.  “Bah!” Harmony’s lingering thoughts ruined this first experiment  

 “What’s going on?” Randy asked.

When did he get here?

“The Eternal is of the age that they get lost in their thoughts when they play around.”

The porter nodded vigorously and backed away half a step.

Don’t smirk, damn it! The fool pet had a smile everywhere but his mouth.

Coolly getting up and avoiding shaking her pet by the edge of his armor, Harmony resumed the group's push. Three Guards. Three Guards. Four Guards. Four Guards. Four Guards. [Disintegrate], not [Mend] to loosen the bond! She did it! She extracted the essence stable enough to be jarred, which felt like the potion-crafting material she received in class! Four guards. Five guards.

The shift in tactics was in the guides, written out in simple text on thin metal sheets often used as books in Ricort. But even forewarned, Harmony found herself caught by surprise. Gone was the single focus on what was deemed the weakest in the group. Pets and bonded were usually ignored as a matter of priority, and that is what made them so valuable in this dungeon, and why The Academy was famed for its training stables.  In a normal group, they spread out the attacks among different team members after the continued attempts failed. But the guides had one warning. Beast tamers traveling alone would have the focus shifted to their weakest pet. Spelled out plain as day in the special circumstances notes.

Yes, Adric was a pet. So was Bowe. But Bowe wasn’t her pet, and Hyacinth was a familiar, so he clearly didn’t count. She might be the only non-follower bond in the area, but she wasn’t technically a beast tamer. Which was why this possibility had slipped her mind.

Hyacinth screamed as his voice wobbled in pitch due to rapid size shifting as he darted between everyone to get away from the five guards after him. “I am not the weakest! I am not prey!” She’d never seen him go so fast.

[Break Restraint] snapped the hold that had her tied up. Time for an eclipse, up! She told him through [Familiar bond]. Grabbing him in his smallest form, she tossed him up high.  “Scatter!” She yelled

Five guards converged where he would land as Harmony, Bowe, and Adric rushed to get out of the way.

At his biggest, this hall couldn’t contain Hyacinth. It couldn’t contain his pride. It couldn’t contain his rage. And in this case, it couldn’t contain his massive toad ass, as his shadow stretched out from wall to wall at the narrowest point, with only enough space that his sides wouldn’t scrape against the wall to halt his momentum, a darkness rushed down with a crash.

The whole dungeon shook with the crunching of metal.

Hyacinth groaned and returned to a more manageable size,  where there were once five guards; there was now a single flat compressed disk-shaped lump.

Harmony fed him one of their healing potions as [Mend] wasn’t quite as efficient for internal injuries. He hadn’t quite been impaled, but it was the equivalent of falling onto a cluster of kids’ toy soldiers, not lethal but incredibly painful.  He hopped over and kicked the pile. “Grurp!”

Harmony patted his back, “Yes, you showed them you aren’t the weakest.”

“What in seven levels of solitary confinement  was that!” Randy cried as he came running up.

“Prioritization issue,” Harmony told the man and left it at that.

Hyacinth kicked the large disk again.

They couldn’t do this without him, but he was clearly worn out from the experience. He’d been close to finding a shadow to slip in, and risking him being caged wasn’t worth it. The slowest here and with the worst stamina, not that she’d point that out.  The best he could hope for was being a bigger target, a wall for them to defend.

“I know you don’t like tools, but are you willing to use a shield made out of the corpses of your fallen enemies?"

While keeping her tone pleasing, she did let him know through their [Bond] that she was putting her foot down.

“Gurrrap.” He answered.

She knew he wasn’t an idiot, but he could be stubborn. It was good that he wasn’t being resistant this time.