Chapter Forty-Eight

Marci was terrible company. “You're right, Miss White, I had no children. Would you like me to tell you about my grandchildren? There are Liesl, Friedrich, Louisa, Kurt, Brigitta, Marta, and Gretl. They sing wonderfully.”

Harmony slapped [Final Silence] onto the construct that was Marci Winters to cease its prattling hallucinations. It had cost a trip to the temple vault housing unclaimed remains to get a very brief family history of the debtor, and a two-hour lecture about the temple's very important duties, which included making sure remains were safe from people like necromancers.

The energy generated from Adric’s blood almost worked too well. The creature wouldn’t shut up. There was no sign of it running out of power,as it seemed to be self-sustaining on the unnatural vitality.  No outside host had taken up residence, and no spirit was reconstructed from any residue in the remains.  Empty, and with quirky consequences. But was it empty because of what she’d done, the power source, or some other factor?

Not unique, so other beings similar enough to Marci existed elsewhere in the world. Unlike Tasha. Harmony shut down that chain of thoughts again. The redhead had refused any further testing when nudged. Mid-quarter tests were in full swing, with all the students running around worried about them.  Their first delve into Oorty’s Tomb was only five days away, and the team was all too busy writing papers to do that, let alone indulge Harmony’s desire to prod deeper than what her eyes were showing.

Harmony had been writing in her journals long enough that five-thousand-word papers didn’t scare her the way they did other students. She’d finished them early; that same habit she’d picked up cleaning the Coodly Manor, say it would take five, do it in two, and spend the last three hours reading.  That left her with extra time working in her “hole,” as Adric liked to call it. Necromantic workship. And busy as she was with everything, it was important to have this third space where she could stretch her class skills by poking dead things.  The gnome in the cage squealed. Or soon-to-be-dead things.

The gnomes in Ricort had so much metal in their diet that their horns looked like silver pointed caps instead of the red ones in Hazeldown. Probably their diet, they have to eat through metal to borrow here. The rodents really did look like little humans in hats if you squinted.

Using her sickle, she killed it, causing body damage with just the normal amount of residual soul and skill disruption, making sure its heart and respiration stopped. Six hundred and eighteen seconds later, she got to work bringing it back.

[Manipulate Dead] worked with [Mend] to reconstruct the corpse back to form, [Renew Spirit] strengthened whatever soul was left lingering as she got to work re-starting the body. Some kind of electrical or energetic  spell would have been ideal for this. There were enough healers on campus that you learned of people's tips and tricks, but you worked with what you had. [Shadowed Graves] forced the gnome to fight to live and breathe again while supported by her other skills and stats, bending the edge of rules.

The rodent stumbled back to life. It lasted for about ten seconds before it keeled over.

A good potion and she’d probably be able to stop that, but with her skills alone, ten minutes was her limit. Too much lingering damage to the brain and organs for recovery.  People with evolved bodies would probably last longer, so there would be no reason not to try on someone with a sturdy half-step body, even an hour after they died, if there was enough of their soul still in them. That seems to linger for a few hours, and if there were a way to keep that from leaving, there was a lot of potential for revival even after days, assuming brain and skill damage could be managed with minimal repercussions.

Perfecting this would mean she could consider herself more than just being an actress playing a mockery of a healer. Re-using the gnomes didn’t work on the recovery time after such a major revival. She hadn’t been at this experiment long enough to figure out exactly how long that needed to be.  Good thing she had another…

The extra cage’s door was open.

“Marci, come here!”

The undead creation came out of the shadows. It should have been suspicious that it was so quiet while she worked. Blood and entrails covered its delicate metallic hands. On its head rested a new silver cone, the removed horn of the missing gnome.

“How may I be of assistance, Miss White?”

“Have you seen my gnome?” Harmony asked.

“There are no gnomes here. Do you like my hat?” The creature asked in its honey-toned voice.

This was the second time it had gone after a living creature she’d brought in to practice on. The dead rodents with horns that the construct could have harvested were ignored, as it seemed drawn to the living. When questioned after the previous incident, Marci acted as though it had no knowledge of the violence it committed. Yet it was aware enough or had some instinct of self-preservation as not to go after her or Hyacinth.

“That’s not a hat.”

“You’re right, Miss White, it’s a crown. I’m a very pretty pretty princess. That’s my profession. My class is rat catcher.”

With a twitch, Harmony could destroy this failure. No. There would be other uses. “Hyacinth. Our work here is done today.”

Two short jaunts through the shadows brought Harmony back to the streets of Ricort’s slums with Bantz waiting for her arrival. Was there irony in that this was the alleyway where they first met? The slum leader was in his tall form here. “Eraser,” he said with a polite nod.

“Do you need to call in that favor?” Harmony asked, [Poise and Bearing], keeping her calm.

“No, I plan on keeping that for a long time, unless you force my hand. I heard your team is entering the dungeon soon, and I thought a friendly bit of advice might be needed. The dungeon restocks guards quickly enough, so you don’t need to worry about going down the oldest path.”

Good. As long as this man felt like he could get things out of her, he’d leave her more secure projects alone. There was a study space she’d passed through in case people inquired. A public excuse was unavoidable, with wanting to stop by every few days. “And break guild protocol?"  

“Even with those rules, teams still run into each other in the tomb.”

Harmony nodded at the warning, leaving the man behind as she left.  “Thanks for the advice.” Building up more of a debt, or wanting to preserve the one she owed him?

It didn’t matter what Bantz wanted, as long as he reliably kept her secrets for now. This had to be that bleeding murder problem. Two or three teams party-wiped every quarter during their first time delving into the dungeon. That wasn’t counting individual issues, students bragging about testing out the tomb and making that slideshow, or the least-liked teammates having competency issues.  Can’t even let this issue go as Von Trell advised.

“Greep?” Hyacinth asked from his pocket.

No, you can’t eat them. I still want to stay here for years more. This will be just like when we first joined Coodly Manor. Demonstrate competence, restraint, kindness, and make an example of those who mess with us. There, it had been about ensuring Bitson nearly drowned in manure once the hazing went too far, even if it cost Bates making her clean the stables. All she had to work with then was [Dust], and Ambrosia had lent one of her birds to help with a latch. Showing that people “could die” if their improper behavior continued was often an effective deterrent.

Piling this into her to-do list was a headache worse than Marci, when the schedule should have been free to do tasks like track Houte Waxer down to ask about the prisoner key business. Curie surely wouldn't let him skip the next class? Or maybe she could use this time to get the pure rust from the floor guardian for those potions professors?  Where was Ambrosia when you needed her to organize your to-do list and schedule? Stuck halfway around the world, managing other business for her. At least completing the gnome experiments had been a simple one to remove. Harmony worked on reprioritizing tasks without any nifty skills to help her do so with the efficiency she was used to. [Keen Investigative Awareness] was more about actively figuring out the situation at hand than handling a knotted ball of future tasks

“Student White, I’ve been looking for you.”  Becca’s cheerful voice cut through all the thoughts as Harmony reached her dorm complex. Avoiding the resident associate after their little meeting on the gloom paths had been on her list. “How are mid-quarters going for you?” Becca continued.

“Surprisingly light on work. I completed the written papers, including the one on necromancers and cupids for Flint. I’m a little worried about the meeting with him and my team’s trip into the dungeon.”

“The way you pulled apart that table. I can’t imagine any guards will bother you.” Becca quipped.

Harmony let herself wince at that. It was socially important to show your human side, while accepting the embarrassment, even if she still didn’t remember it.  That example, the gauntlet, and the first seminar all added up to the fact that her freakish strength was open knowledge for the curious. Garry and Don could even talk about her shaking them like brooms.

“Love does strange things. How is your paper going?”

“I still have a thousand words to write. My inquisitor class is mostly about finding peaceful solutions to violence. Like, I can tell you were contemplating a path towards a more peaceful solution to something as you were returning to your room. I’m not sure how I can tie that into the lessons on necromancy. What did you say?”

That had Harmony crack a smile.  Contemplating violent ways not to kill whoever was planning to ambush and murder her team counted as a more peaceful path. “I talked about how healing spells don’t work or work atypically on undead. Perhaps your skill works differently on undead. As to my thoughts, they’ve been circling self-defense, both because of the poor situation I put Miss Gottman in, but also because I wonder what I would do in such a situation. I have the dorm handbook, but what are the rules on self-defense for The Academy, on campus, in the city, or in the dungeon?”

“How about I make you a deal? You help me with those last thousand words. And I’ll tell you everything I know and have learned from being on campus the last few years and self-defense.” Becca answered.

“Greep!” Hyacinth protested, not wanting to hang out with Becca or her frackling.

Harmony dug him out of her pocket. “You don’t have to go fatty.”  

I have a different task for you. She reminded him through [Familiar Bond]. She tossed the toad into the shadows of the bushes, where he slipped into the gloom paths.

“Your room or mine?” Becca asked.

“Yours,” Harmony answered, curious to see how an inquisitor decorated their room. Would there be manacles or questioning devices?  Also, let the woman be at ease as they worked on the paper.

The answer was pink… so much pink… Was that an elf thing?  That she could handle more than all the erroneous assumptions about necromancy. Evil, did she really think it was evil?  There had been that one impulse to raze Naewauld to the ground when she first spotted the pillar of vitality, and even then, it wanted to bring everyone back. There were hearts included in the text about the cupid class. She wrote about how she could sense the class because of its complete rejection of violence for love. Bliss this, and bliss that, bliss which had lingering effects on Becca. Seemed contrary to the violence Instructor Flint touched on about armies of lovers destroying a town or each other. That was one reason why alchemists restricted the potion as much as the increased suggestibility.  

“Maybe stick to the objective more than the subjective?” Harmony suggested.“And as you ponder on that, what would I do if another student attacked me in the dungeon? How much defense is too much?”