Chapter 286 – 22

Round One. The fight lingered on. The yellow sand of the area floor was a swirl of red stains. This battle would be as easy as the fights in the Tournament of Future Worthy were going to be. Harmony was going to squeeze every last bit of blood out of it that she could get. [Mend] reached out to stitch up a vicious wound.

“Are you mocking me!”

Someone didn’t appreciate the extra time she was giving him to train and get better.

“Quiet, Ori, I’m trying to think.”

[Final Silence] shut him up and locked the boy out of his skills. To add to the insult, she slapped a [Secure Seal] on three of his skills, the most she could do at once, meaning he'd need more time to break out of the seal- only a second, but people experienced with seals probably wouldn’t even take them that long. Trying to seal an unwilling target’s skills who wasn’t silenced had been almost impossible, not that it didn’t have other uses.

It wasn’t mocking her competitor to use him as a test subject. She respected his durability. This was her time to play; the choice echo of her [Secure Seal] was closing off her thoughts slightly. It was a big reason why she couldn’t admit to Xera and Tasha that she was a necromancer. The way the newly birthed skill wanted her to behave was to have an active request to unlock or reveal secrets.  

Ori continued to fight despite being silenced, throwing punches and kicks, intercepted by Night; he couldn’t get past the armor, nor could he match her speed. All he could do was have his hands bleed from the impact.

The delay tactic was inspired by all those rounds with Juliette where Harmony burned hours getting tossed about, unable to get past third-year's defense.  Then she wasn’t using skills, but this young man wasn’t a threat to her with his, as she countered every move he made. These first pairings couldn’t be random, as she was perfect to be Ori’s doom.

A melee fighter with fire magic, [Cold Touch] negated any spark he tried to produce. Harmony spent the match mapping out his level, skills, and abilities. Counting up his abilities, he was level forty-one for both class and profession. A writer or a scribe paired with the combat class. The tournament masked the names of combatants from [analyze] and inspection skills. Harmony only knew his name because…

“I, Oritrice Pecinique Den-lesse of the Cardinal Clan, declare you my sworn enemy and will hunt you…”

[High Kick] propelled Harmony forward quicker than Ori had seen her so far, since she’d kept it and several other skills in reserve and punched him in the throat.

This was the eighth time he’d chosen to say his full name. It was during the two-minute monologue about being the young future master of his clan that Harmony decided to take him apart slowly. Three combat skills, two increased his durability, two fire attacks, he even had regeneration, and stamina recovery, which made him perfect; no weapon skills, and a light armor one that gave him access to the tournament's equipment.  [Small Armor] gave her a barely-there armor option; she put hers on, then had Night chew on it.

Ori’s [Regeneration] kicked in as he reeled from the blow, stitching up his ruined throat.

That skill was tempting, as it really was the main reason the combat lasted so long. But most of the class skills were not appealing; it was his professional skills which piqued Harmony’s curiosity. Ori refused to use them. Two seemed perfect to bring into battle if soul sight was correct. How to convince him?

Two sparks of flame started to burn in Ori; [Cold Touch] cancelled them, taking advantage of being able to see the skills start to activate before fully implementing.  Harmony struck using soul strike. The goal was not to break anything, as that would ruin the point.  [Renew Spirit] combined with [Claim the Remains of Power] and all those other skills to reach in and tap gently at what she wanted to see. [Shadowed Graves] rippled out, focused on Awe to try to get a flicker of control.

With her words, she laced it in the hollow bit of authority the tournament grounds allowed. “Show me your power!” Harmony yelled as Ori was flung back by her strike to tumble across the sandy arena floor.

“My poems?” He asked, confused.

“With the judgment of Oritrice Pecinique Den-lesse of the Cardinal Clan. I threaten your heart to the powers it can.  Beware my mission and my plan.  For here I give up, but outside, revenge I will demand.”

The poetry skills spread his intent. Now she felt that threat. Shaped selected meaning, not too far off from the violent intent her sickle provided, trading words for a weapon. One skill composed the words, and another added weight to the meaning.

Harmony smiled now that she knew what had been missing. “That poem is more powerful than your fire. Next time you see me, if you want your revenge, come after me with all your weapons.”

[Claim the Remains of Power] finished the fight. There had been no need to summon her blood sickle to her for this one. One fist deep inside Oritrice’s chest, container and soul. It was a fatal blow that his already exhausted [Regeneration] couldn’t recover from. [Claim] hovered around the one she wanted, because who knew when and how the tournament would remove Ori and heal them. Randy said he saw his body sit there as he was pulled away and returned home in shame with the brand of failure marked inside of him.

As the corpse sat there, Harmony slotted her new skill, a proper human one rather than the monster pickings from Oorty’s tomb. Those never had the same rightness she’d felt when installing a human skill, and hopefully it wouldn’t fade once it was protected inside her soul.

[Bestow Intent] It would amplify her words in a way that touched reality. One aspect of what she understood domains to be: intent, control, force, and will.

The skill was still there as Harmony found herself teleported to the room where her support staff waited.

Xera was sitting down, pale. “You took his heart.”

“Oh, no. I only took his skill? Having my hand in his chest was the only way to help guarantee I’d get the one I wanted as it became available.”  

“That’s worse,” Xera complained.

“Quite the show. Saccerate approved if you’re wondering.” Maxwell told her.

Harmony hadn’t wondered.

“May I ask why you took so long?” Bea inquired.

“Skill training, and I wanted to shop around all of Ori’s skills to see which one I wanted to borrow. Once it was clear he was unlikely to do any major harm to me, I had plenty of time.“

Hyacinth nodded smugly— because he enjoyed playing with his food. Prince Adric was all for any action that would keep her alive.

“Is this how you would have fought for our school delving team? Is that the power of the su-primus?” Tasha asked.

She’d shown some of her power when they’d been ambushed by ten students in Ricort’s dungeon, but that was over so quickly, with everyone taking care of opponents.  Tasha knocked out several herself. There was never this focus on the totality of what she could do.

“If needed,” Harmony admitted.

“Then after all this power you’ve given me, given Xera, helped Alex get control over, and we’re still holding you back? Is this the benefit of being from a world power? Unique armor. Authority over masses. Elite strength and speed. You already have two powerful people linked to you, Bea and a blood heir consort. Why did you even entertain Alex’s offer to join our team? Did you want to play with us the same way you did that man?”

Max started laughing.

“Quiet, you.” Harmony shushed him.

Harmony reached for her new skill [Bestow Intent]. “Time to tell the truth,” Harmony spoke to herself. It warred with [Secure Seal]’s desire to keep secrets. It felt like the first quarter of hiding had contributed to getting the choice of this skill more than her time being sealed in the Ascendant Games— if one believed such hypotheses.

Harmony looked Tasha in the eyes, certain the perfection around her was hiding a curse. “You’re not holding me back. I joined Alex’s team because he was kind. I helped you because my team is my responsibility. It was never a game, but I did make mistakes. I didn’t hide so I could play around. I’m not a world power. I hid because...”

Why was this so hard? Intent. Intent. Intent. What’s the worst that can happen? [Recall] went to Von Trell’s warnings. The tools of defeated necromancers sitting as trophies in Flint Steelheart’s office. The potential protection from patronage yet to arrive. Hunted, expelled, or worse, but Tasha wasn’t going to trust her until she told the truth, and trust was needed to get at that failure her soul needed to erase.

“She hid because she’s a necromancer,” Max answered for her.  

“The best ever.”  Bea piped in.

Max pointed to Adric. “Raised that Prince back to the living herself. A maid who is equal parts bold and shy. I don’t know why you’re calling Harm a world power. I don’t need you swelling her head bigger than it already is. Ambrosia isn’t here to deflate it. But I don’t like the implication that my sworn lady is anything other than what she is. She earned her nobility.  Probably mostly because she was willing to empty my cousin’s chamber pots when no other maid would. More tenacious than any weed, and my friend Len, who is a genius, calls her a genius above him. The only thing she’s been gifted is both of your ungrateful asses to watch over.”

Harmony could see the chaos rise inside Maxwell for all that buffoonery he put on display, stealing her chance to admit herself.

“I’m linked to a necromancer? Grandpa is going to kill me.”  

Ashes. The Chase family patriarch. Another person to worry about that had slipped her mind.

“She’s really a nobody?” Tasha leaned into Max, and the large man leaned away as, in his soul, Saccerate jumped back, as it was still recovering from what had burned away part of her existence.

“Savior White is not a nobody.” Bea insisted.

“That’s not what she means. Harm knocked me on my ass as a wee little thing when we first met. She was always Tyler’s most precious little gem, and that man collects the rare and unique, but she was his maid, not even out of her teens, level-wise.” Max rambled on.

“Please.” Harmony started. She could see his oath trying to help her do what’s best for her. Maybe Maxwell had been right to leave as soon as he summoned her to Hazledown the last few months.

Tasha turned to Harmony. “You’re like me.” She said with a tinge of excitement.

Harmony nearly stumbled socially at the mood change; [Poise and Bearing] was holding on with all the power it could manage. Something there had connected.  What did Tasha mean by that?

With the first round completed. You and your support will be brought to faction town. Find the other dooms. Win the faction wars. Destroy opposing factions' charters. Protect your own. Complete missions. Prove your worth.

​

The next moment, Harmony found herself in a crowded bar on a stool with a mug of ale on the long table in front of her as the barkeep cleaned a glass behind the table. A turn of her head to scan the room found that none of her support had arrived with her.

A girl popped herself onto the seat next to Harmony with a familiarity that had [Keen Investigative Awareness] set the hairs on the back of her neck rising. The stranger she’d never seen before– blonde hair in two braids, a long-sleeved red top loose in the arms and tight across the chest, and tight blue pants.  “I think it’s time we shared that drink.” The woman said with a smile that stretched across her face, revealing one too many teeth.