Chapter Ten

  Harmony sipped her witempting to wash away the taste of half-digested food ah out of her mouth. At the very least, it repced it. She didn’t want to think about how the wine ore than her week’s wages. The longer she , the calmer Lord Tyler became. He’d stopped to take her back to the lodge after the fifth “I’m fine.”

  Sir Maxwell ughed, retelling the match to friends who hadn’t been in the room until he waved them away and headed over.

  “Little Lord, the rest of the team should arrive soon to meet our member.”

  “What? She’s not ready yet. I only promised a few runs to get pos for a spell, not membership.” Tyler sputtered.

  “When was the st time yht someone you didn’t want to make part of the team? Jess, Minx, even Alison.”

  “It’s not like that. We haven’t even seen what she’ll do in the dungeon. I don’t even know if she wants to joieam.”

  “She’s a neancer going into an undead dungeon. Do we eveo guess how it will go? And who wouldn’t want to join our team? Wealth, riches, power. We’ll hit fifteen, quer the capitol dungeon, ao the wilds.”

  Harmony didn’t want to joieam. All she wanted was to get the pos and the levels, then raise her new pet. Not that she would tell either of these two as to disappoiher one of them. The thick taste of death reminded her that Old Bones wanted flict. She wouldn’t let herself get nudged into the fight.

  “I think yetting ahead of yourself, Max.” Tyler’s serious, almost lordly tone shift indicated skill usage.

  The maid notieither of these boys liked the other much. Why were they on the same team? Sir Maxwell first objected to her preseo annoy Tyler. And is n to woo her to the team to tio bother the young lord. It wasn’t a team where camaraderie was there to carry them off and into the wilds together. Members rotated in and out of Tyler’s party quicker than the manor went through staff. Maxwell’s promises about progressing with them were as empty as any boy whispering sweet nothings into your ear in an attempt to bed you.

  “Rose!” Maxwell yelled across the room, standing up and waiving.

  Tyler gave up and groaned into his hand before sitting up straight.

  Harmony turo face the newer. The woman was wearing bck pants and a billowy blue shirt. She had what the maid initially thought was a staff befnizing it as something she’d seen a few variations of in Tyler’s colle. A force bow for those pesky archers who no longer wish to use a string or arrows for their skills. Apply mana, pull back, and fire. Of course, Tyler only had unusual or unique variations. Still, even a regur one made the cost of skill stones seem like coppers to gold s.

  “Sir Maxwell, Lord Tyler, rare to see you two together outside of our dungeon jaunts. And who is this?” Rose asked, having given Harmony a look of mild curiosity.

  “This is our eammate!” Maxwell announced”

  “Trial.” Tyler squeezed in.

  “Harmony the neancer. We have our tank, a knight, the archer, and our wizard after Les here when he finishes grading magical theory exams. The five of us will sweep through Old Bowo, no, three times our run day. Maybe we’ll evehe time record.” Max boasts.

  Rose raised a skeptical eyebrow at that. Theed herself at the table. “What’s your story, little necro?”

  “Lord Tyler has offered me a ce to gain some levels and collect crafting materials. I’m trying to make the requirements for a scroll.” Harmo o reveal that she was the man’s personal maid today. If Tyler had wahat information told, he would have. It wasn’t like most adventurers didn’t have some kind of mundane profession that they worked on to advance.

  “Very generous of him,” Rose replied a little too sweetly. “Boys, we’ll need more food and drink than this. you go fetore? The good wioo.”

  Maxwell nearly leaped out of his seat, getting up. Not to be outdone, Lord Tyler gets up and follows after. “Why are those two on the same team?” Harmony asked as soon as the two of them were out of earshot.

  “Cousins. This is supposed to make them closer. Len tutors them both, not that they bother to attend css, and is paid extra to be oeam. All they do is pete for women, loot, and attention. Don’t let Tyler pull you into his experiments. That’s ushed Alison into Max’s arms. Not that she didn’t rush to get her levels and bail as quickly as she could. Everyone’s nearly doh this dungeon, so I’m surprised you’ve been invited.”

  Harmony knew how far she would and wouldn’t go with Tyler to get what she wahe other teammates were expined. “And why are you here?”

  “Um… Mom wanted an in to join Tyler’s Gran’s garden parties. She’s visiting for the season. You’ll be repg me as the member. I only need a level before I follow the Cleric to the capital anyway, which should be soon.”

  The Dig Boys stressed that a good w retionship was vital for any team. The people by your side would put their lives on the line for you. You had to trust them to do their job as much as they trusted you to do yours. Tyler wasn’t the best with people, but she had assumed he might have a friend on his dueam, or they’d at least be professionals.

  “Don’t pout. her of those boys has yet to find a problem they couldn’t throw mo. The dungeon is a piece of cake.”

  That was the prevailing wisdom that Harmony didn’t believe. More than didn’t believe it because she’d experiehe rare random enters that could make things turn deadly. That was one of the reasons she didn’t pte aher than Tyler, who’d cleared the dungeon multiple times.

  Rather tha caught up fretting, Harmony leaned into [Poise and Bearing] without activating the skill. She trickled energy into allowio present a rexed but fident demeanor by the time the boys arrived back. It was easier than it had ever been for her to do it. She noticed how the rotation inside her was charged enough that instead of needing to transfer directly to the skill, she merely had to let energy move from the swirling io [Poise and Bearing]. Even that muption ended up a little too much as she forced her attention away and took anulp of wine.

  Maxwell embellished the match between him and Harmony for Rose. She ooh’d and ah’d at all the appropriate pces through practice or skill. Tyler bragged about improving the speed of his skill activations. Rose expined how the team easily took down the bone knight, one of the dungeons rotating final bosses. Allowing both boys to add their tributions to her story. Harmony khe story was for her be and appreciated it. A cakewalk to twelve with a champion’s tooth in hand, she’d be ready to raise her pet. O more days before the prince’s body is picked up, and his Coatl would be out of reach.

  “Len!” The team annouhe wizard’s arrival together. The bespectacled young man in long gray robes looked embarrassed at the outburst. After a brief introdu to Harmony, they did their best to pete to be the quietest in the group.

  That was until Tyler spoke up, looking more than a little tipsy. “Did you know Harmony here is also atypical? She practices Carter’s schema.”

  The distaween casual disi and intense focus was crossed in two deep inhations, enough for the wizard to power his words. “How do you tend with Well’s takedown of Carter’s derivatives? Or the pelling paragraph oopi Problems ression? What Carter derivative are you letting guide you? Please don’t tell me it’s Thalia.”

  The ued verbal rush forced Harmony to activate [Poise and Bearing] to buy time to formute a respohe first impulse was to secretly stab Tyler in his sleep as he giggled into his mug of wihe biggest issue was that she had no idea what the wizard was talking about. The manor library might have some of those texts, but she hadn’t gained access. All of her learning had e from the book nook in the parlor she’d ed, Tyler’s esoteric colle and speed reading a she leisurely had to return to the library after one of the masters of the house was done.

  “I don’t tend with them. I simply prefer Carter’s Schema to the current Thibodeux activation craze. If skills were meant to work solely on activation, they would be desighat way, without synergies, adaptations, and flexibility. rogression path do you follow?”

  “Professor Oak’s evolutionary mi.”

  The rest of the table groaned. “Look what you’ve started, Tyler. If I wao listen to a lecture, I’d actually go to college.” Maxwell rebuffed.

  Harmony ighe pint. She hadn’t heard of this theory. Csses evolve every twenty-five levels. You actually get three to choose from, simir to when you gain new skills. Most treat it as a thing that happens as yress without it pying a big part in how you choose to use and develop skills. Like getting your period or a boy’s voice dropping. It happens when you’re older and move on. “Expin.”

  “By maximizing and minimiziain skill levels of my css and profession before leveling up, I influence my stat progression and even the css options I receive during evolution. This will let me guide my evolution. I will bee the arch-magus!”

  Rose tossed a roll at the wizard’s head. It bounced off, and he ig.

  “It doesn’t seem right to leave skills underdeveloped.” The idea of doing that bothered her deep inside. Some of her skills simply hadn’t gotten much use as a maid, but that didn’t mean she wao abandon them. Carter’s mi of using everything to the max appealed to her, the idea that you are your skills. Leveling them made you stronger, and improved synergies gave you more tools to work with, like exercise.

  “Oh, only up until evolution. It might be harder to max out old skills after you evolve. This is more about narrowing the focus to tions yiven. Skills acquired through skill stones are shown to have greater importance for options. A knight with a fire-based skill added on has a much greater ce of being given the firebrand option upon reag twenty-five.”

  “B. B. B. You might have had the little lord listening to your lectures once upon a time, but we don’t need any of your yappy lectures tonight.” Maxwell groaned.

  A table exploded in a burst of magic at the far side of the on room. “Wooo!” Rose yelled and was joined in by many of the patrons.

  “That’s the kind of a we need.” The Knight enced.

  Harmony could taste a pu whiff of the dungeon’s influence flooding the room. A shiver of fear crept up the back of her spine even as the wine and joyous wildness of the room made her feel free. She hat the staff of the dungeon club had cleared the tral area and now hugged the walls, watg the patrons with practiced looks on their faces.

  A chair flew out of the area where the explosion had e from. The patrons were getting to their feet. Harmony’s height gave her a disadvantage in watg what was going on. But from the noise alone, she could tell a brawl was growing. “I think we should leave, Lord Tyler.”

  Sir Maxwell lifted his sword high and roared at the crowd.

  “Too te for that. My aunt will kill me if I leave Max to get hurt. Wisdom is not his strong point. And hey, you asked for a distra.” With a fsh of magic, a maul and a sig breastpte dropped onto the middle of the table, and Tyler started to pull on the pieergency armor. Harmony presumed it was enough for him to activate his skills even as her mind goggled at the fact he had a ste item. While her rare nor unusual, the expense of them meant that evehy families rarely handed such things out until their kids’ first evolution.

  The neancer had no i iing caught up in a brawl inside a dungeon club. As one of the lowest-level people here, if anyone was going to get hurt, she was. Using the enviro in that match against Sir Maxwell was ohing, but at best, she could hide behind Tyler or the people she had only just met. This wasn’t a mess to or hair to style. The appeal of earning a pet had been that it could fight in ission matches, so she could avoid this kind of attention.

  “Max, We’re not joining this fight! Get me out of here, or else!” Harmony yelled at him, letting [Poise and Bearing] take her into more of an aggressive preseher than a panig one.

  “Or else what, little dy?” He tered, half drunk and full ahe Knight stood there, the picture of a pampered guild adventurer, fancy bck beard and wild hair. She’d served his type many times. He wouldn’t back down because the image he made of himself demanded a.

  Without the mass of ground bone, she doubted her skills could hurt him. If she had learned whatever the bat skill [High Kick] was, she could damage him enough to snap him out of this. If it didn’t risk a greater ce of riling the boy up more. The challenge was there.

  Synergies knotted as she pulled upon skills amid the slurry of [Mana Rotation] that now felt more at home inside her soul than ever before. [Manipute Dead], bined with years of experience, braided with a task she’d used almost daily. Instead of careful application through her hands, she pushed out the skill at a distance. Her synergized death magic cut through the thick power of the dungeon. It felt like they sparked against each other.

  Sir Maxwell glowed uhe influence of the neancer’s power.

  “By the Gods, she’s made you pink!” Rose barked out.

  She had worked oriarch, ging and adapting her hair. [Manipute Dead] with a pinch of style and a heap of [Beauti]. It was an atta the Knight, one she hoped would wound the man’s pride enough to pull him out of his intoxicated madness.

  The bck locks and intricate beard all glowed bright pink. Spshes of color stained his armor due to her ck of trol. Not even the young man’s eyebrows were saved. Where hair used to be b his forearm now looked blonder, in how the pink strands appeared.

  Sir Maxwell’s look had undergone a signifit ge. Still, Harmony could sense a greater ge as the death atmosphere from the duurned hot like cooked rotte. The room began to shake.

  “Dungeon quake.” Someone in the crowd cried.

  While the room pitched and rolled, the fighting stopped. As the dungeon space settled, everyoayed frozen in pce. “Drinks for all!” The crowd yelled.

  The energy of the pce had stopped and spun in a different dire. Even the flood of death left Harmony’s sehe staff worked double time. Everyone for drinks.

  “What’s this about?” Harmony asked the wizard.

  “First dungeon quake? It means something big has happened. A team got wiped. A new boss has been added. Something has stirred Old Bones up some. It’s tradition to raise a pint for those who may have died or for a new future that has yet to e. It’s been over a year sihe st one.”

  Max ighat he’d been turned pink, joining in the celebration.

  Harmoed her choice to not wait a few more seds. Everything could have worked out fine if she’d dohing. Accepting a fresh mug of ale delivered to her, she sipped it as the settling mana skill started to feel manageable. “Adventurers.” She softly muttered as both a curse and a blessing.