Chapter een

  Colorful toy feather bits, scraps of prince masks, sticks from kabobs, and other remnants of the city-wide hysteria from the funeral procession y scattered at the ers of the steps up the House of the Dead. The trash remaihe lines were gone, and the citizens moved on. The first few days, you had to wait for hours to go in a a viewing of the prind his pet, but the y quickly wore off. Those still entranced by the situation could choose to read put-together books of fialized adventures of the duo and their tragic demise quickly.

  Harmony passed more people leaving for the evening than she saw going into the temple as she made her the steps. It was too much to hope for the pce beiy wheempted this. She'd sidered breaking in, having Hyath map the shadows, and teleport her after closing time. The w was less kind to that behavior than simply taking an uncimed body using her neancer css.

  An attendant in cleric's robes waited at the open doors. "Donation?" She asked.

  Harmony dropped an iron into the pail she was holding.

  "The temple will close in fifteen minutes. Enjoy your visit."

  That didn't leave much time, but it expined why most people were going. The prince's corpse was on a ptform in the back of the rge room, his body resting on top of his coiled pet like it was on a rainbow bed of feathers. Some rope corded off the area to keep people out of arm's reach. The audience would be small.

  An older couple searched the most ret book of the dead, grief on their face as they looked for a missing loved one.

  One young woman stood there with a young boy, looking more bored than ied. The child was excited, pointing at the still body of the Coatl.

  "It moved! It moved!" The kid excitedly gestured.

  "Don't be silly, Ben." The girl answered.

  "I'm not silly. I will be a mighty adventurer a a pet like that!"

  Harmony, having just stepped up, made eye tact with the girl.

  "Sorry." She mouthed to her as she grabbed Ben's hand. "e o's head home. I'll read you The Dragon Bird Prier dinner."

  "But it moved!" The boy cried as he was dragged away.

  Harmony eyed the coatl. It wasn't moving. Long and ed up into a spiral with its wings tucked along its body, it was hard to see much of it. A short cwed limb. A small gold ear or horn of a head tucked most of the way into the coils. Bright, fshy, and out of pce for the temple. With her [Manipute Dead] skill, Harmony figured she could ge the bright colors into a lovely forest green or an unobtrusive bck or dark gray.

  Out of her bag, she pulled the scroll and a little buhe vials, tooth, and cores all rattled together. She'd used the ghost ce to tie all the other pos into a package.

  The fallen prince's body would get disturbed by this. He was not as pretty as he was on the day of the procession but more hollow and dried out. Still uhly irritatingly attractive. No one had the right to be that pretty even dead. Harmony searched for the outside influence of a skill or something affeg her, like that charming effect from the gang member that hit her earlier. The thrumming rotation of mana as the neancer's senses revealed nothing.

  It wasn't like she felt passionate or attracted to the dead man. It is more like looking at an excellently done painting or work of art. The kind of rea she'd hoped to get when she sculpted the matriarch to the test fashions. A vision her [Beauti] resonated with, but nothing more.

  "You're dead, so you won't mind if I borrow your friend." She told the prince's corpse.

  "Ten Minutes until closing!" The clerining the entrance yelled.

  Harmony's heartbeat quied, but her perception of it slowed. Time to get some use out of ostasis. She weighed the pou her hand, drawing on the knowledge of both [Small Armor] and [High Kick] for this attempt, information gleaned about targeting and hitting what you aimed for. A flick of the wrist to an underhaoss sent her little po bag s over the rope and toward her target.

  The scroll had few dires to it. Getting it from Lord Tyler had prompted her to review the bits she read on activating them. Like everything else, people debated the best way to do it. Spag of the ingredients, timing, and eliminating distras. One on thread is that brute force could help or make the failure extra-spectacur. Which is a risk here, but no risk, no gain.

  The pouded with a plop on the coatl's coil. Despite the invenience of its size, she was grateful it had enough space to separate the bag from the prince by arm's length. If she'd missed so badly as to nd on him, she'd o hop the rope and fix the positioning.

  She flexed her mana. Brute force is something she do here. Activating [Mana Rotation], the spiraling started to speed up. It was time to use the rest of her stats here. Synergy pulled strength from her neantic skills. Sure, she could have just pumped in straight mana into the scroll, but it required her to be a neancer, so she figured it would be best to feed in filtered through that. Her [Familiar Bond] should be a good blueprint, that base feeling of death from [Manipute Dead], [Renew Spirit] for that sembnce of life. Even that uanding of the still finality of death from [Cold Touch], despite this possibly being trary to that state, for when all things settled, they had the potential to move again if enough energy was added.

  e pyed into synergy's strengths binding everything together tighter in old ways and linked in new ways. Harmony could feel the fields and bonds that uhe spell pos ahrough the vials of blood. Strong, she wahis to be strong. I; use of skills, mana, and effort was simply exerg i and hoping, no, f it to work out as you wanted.

  She surged all her mana into the scroll like she was feeding a skill. Having it be supercharged and theying all that energy and meaning from the movement inside her soul and then ara reserves until she felt as still and drained and cold.

  In her hands, the scroll glowed like a burning fire. With the ache of slowed perception, she could hear the beginning of a yell behind her. Now or never. She cracked it, and it snapped in half like it wao explode.

  Even with her increased perception, it was hard to see the energy move from the scroll to the pos. There was that flicker of e where the pieces were separate, and then they were one. Smoothed and solidified away from the tangible into the intangible, sitting oarget. Anticipation gripped her as she waited for it to sink in, raise that pet, and build the boween her and it.

  That spell ingredient mixture shot out one end, pierg her in a stream of energy. She could feel it returning some of what she put into it and reigniting movement out of the stillness of her soul as it added a new bond to the mix. The other half of the magic shot out, not down into the still coatl, across that arm's length, and into the corpse of Prince Adric.

  Harmony was ready to nht out of there, but the hooks in her soul were already there. Built, strengthened, and dedicated by that vicious i of wanting more, along with the depth and stat-supported framing of that eager neantic magic. She couldn't simply leave it, and her mi her wat near helplessness as the spell pleted between twelve agly slow beats of her heart that echoed slowly like the dooming chime of a clock.

  The pri up, a plex series of emotions dispyed on his face. "What?" he asked.

  The giant coatl uncoiled, and Harmony took a step back as it set the prin a standing position. The pet's rge dragon-like head stared its formerly-dead master in the eyes.

  "Bowe, you look terrible. When was the st time you had a proper meal?" The prince chastised his pet.

  "It wasn't dead. It wasn't delving dead." Harmony squeaked out.

  There might have only been five other people in the room, but they were all entranced by the se unfolding. Amid that distra, the maid did what she felt most prudent. She turned on her heels, kicked off, and ran, but as quick as she moved and as far away as she got, she could still feel the hook of the e between her and the prince.

  Cool evening air hit her as she raced doweps. [Style and Grace] kig in to keep her from stumbling down on them.

  Through [Familiar Bond], Hyath queried her at the distress, though it held a little amusement. Of course, he could sehe new bond inside his paired partner. A thin thread even linked him too.

  "This isn't funny." She muttered, sending her desire for help through the bond.

  Hyath returned an image. Clear dires to a dark alleyway nearby. Three twisty turns and the toad sat waiting for her.

  Through the stats and the levels, the challenges and achievements, the bond with her familiar was at least growing, and Harmony was grateful. With this kind of a mess, she knew she'd need more than just his help.

  " you take me to the manor?"

  "Grrupt." The shadow toad answered.

  It was a tone of agreement, but she could taste amusement, exasperation, and chastisement through their bond. Rather than arguing with him, she walked up, pced her hand on his head, a him lead her into the shadows.