Chapter Eleven

Not the dungeon. A sandy, scrubby area with trees and mountains in the distance. No competitors waited. That had been a fear. A giant battle royale. Guessing exactly what the games were going to be had gotten pretty wild at times. The lack of domain and death was next. The visceral feeling of being in Old Bones wasn't here. The clear blue sky was less of a surprise, as she'd seen such simulated features in the tower of Nae's Garden. Checking her bonds, Hyacinth and Adric were a short distance away and heading over. No immediate danger. , but

Wind brushed over most of the skin on her body. "Oh, Night." A seal rested along part of [Small Armor], keeping her pair bonded armor reduced. Reduced to nearly naked.

The bone white metal plates were still there, adhered like they were glued to her body by the black adhesive, but now they had less coverage than when she was gifted the armor by Tyler. A lot of the metal had been repurposed and distributed through the shiny black coating, creating a hidden mesh of knitted plates that are now gone. The post-evolution form only looked like it had been painted onto her nude body as Ambrosia liked to complain, but it had been one of the toughest materials she'd ever experienced. Goosebumped skin and a few key plates of white metal were not proper protection.

Everything hung out in the wind. At least she had... She reached for a bag that wasn't there. Food, healing potions, spare silk dresses, and other supplies were gone. Probably should have been the first thing she noticed was missing, except the distraction of the new lack of coverage from Night had been the second thing on her mind after checking for danger.

"Bleeding teleports." Hyacinth had more backup dresses in his pack. The one-piece dresses were easy to shove into crevasses because she was small.

She focused on the toad familiar hopping towards her from where he'd been dropped off. The noticeable bulk of the pack was missing. "Ashed luck." There was always Adric.

"Harm, can you help me! My clothes seem to be missing!" Her pet prince yelled now that he was in shouting distance, his hand covering his privates as if she cared.

Haz'el Ri did say the contestants and their bonds would teleport in, but he must have omitted mentioning gear because that wasn't coming.

Quest: Make it to your group's site in two days. Reward: Clothing

Paired with the notification, a beacon glowed near the distant mountain range. The notification confirmed Harmony's suspicion. There were a lot of naked and frustrated Ascendant Games contestants out there. Maybe a few might have a pair bonded outfit like Night or some Jamesian bonded pants, not that she could see anyone wasting that kind of bond spot on such things… maybe a spectral suit?

Harmony walked to Adric. "I'm not much better off than you. I can attempt to craft you some form of covering, but we might be better off hunting you an outfit.

Still not a whiff of undead within the distance of her necromantic senses. There might be some squeamishness about using those, but she could whip up usable outfits for both of them out of a corpse and change them enough that others wouldn't recognize their source.

"Any prey nearby?" Harmony asked Hyacinth. His preferred living targets could easily be made dead.

"Groak," Hyacinth answered with an annoyed and hungry undertone to his frustration of a lack of prey. Teleportation often took a chunk out of people. That was one reason Harmony had brought the sweets earlier, even packing extras for this trip.

"At least we don't need to walk, ready to jump us toward the camp. Maybe we'll find something on the way." Harmony started to reach out to [Shadowed Graves].

"Cragck." Her familiar interrupted with a strong impression through [Familiar Bond].

"What do you mean you chose to have your shadow teleportation sealed rather than your new size changed?"

"Grumpf."

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"Yes, we didn't want to risk them sending us to narrow tunnels you couldn't fit. I'm surprised they gave you a choice. Walking it is."

Hyacinth leapt at her. His dog-sized body allowed him to get decent height. Mid-air, his body shimmered with shadow and shrunk to his diminutive form, landing on her chest and using her chest as a carrying shelf. Well, two of them would be walking.

Poor Adric didn't have shoes. Harmony gathered [Dust] and worked with [Mend] and [Cold Touch] to fuse a tentative pair of compacted dirt clogs. They wouldn't last, but she could reform them later. She considered dirt underclothes, but those would chafe too much. Not like she could use his hair, and she didn't have enough to sacrifice hers easily.

"Can you make me a weapon? Without a sword, some of my attacks are limited, bad enough that I'm a rider without their bond." The sword she made him was a pitiful thing, and if it lasted more than a few blows, she'd be shocked.

"Since they took our food, I'm going to recharge us before we head out." Unaffected by the teleportation and held by [Claim the Remains of Power], Harmony used her stamina to cast [Feed] on each of them along with [Renew Spirit]. The choice of the dirty dozen selection had been a calculated one, both to combat the effects of teleportation and in case it was all undead with very little usable food the competitors had to fight for.

Hunger was still there; it was hard to combat the feeling of an empty stomach, but the magical energy stuffed them all should mean they wouldn't need to eat. A meal's worth of energy and nutrients seeped into their bodies. The unpleasant memories from when she'd had the effect used on her as a child were an unwelcome addition that lingered.

As they walked, Adric and Hycinth were enough to watch for trouble, prey, or other contestants that could be both. That allowed Harmony to focus internally on what got sealed, other than Night.

The easiest was to go one by one through her skills. It would be a perspective on what was considered too powerful. Night being a bonded item made sense, but [Beautician] and [Style and Grace] both had seals on them within her maid/eraser profession. Why would Haz'el Ri consider those too powerful? She'd need to test to see how hampered those skills now were. Was this a sign that she underutilized them? Life and time had prevented too much experimentation, but Harmony could take a hint and made a note with [Recall].

For her necromantic skills [Manipulate Dead], [Cold Touch], and [Renew Spirit] had seals. She'd used both of the latter, and they had felt a tad sluggish. Synergies took extra effort, and presented the kind of strain she was more familiar with before unlocking her stats. Maybe? Harmony froze and burned a chunk of energy to display her status, willing it to show seals on a hunch that it might work.

Class: Necrotuned Revivalist (25)-B

Profession: Rigorous Royal Eraser (25)-A

Vital Body [Sealed]

Skills:

Familiar bond(25)* – Familiar Augment (3)

Manipulate dead (25)* [Sealed]

Renew Spirit (25)* [Sealed]

Cold Touch (25)* [Sealed]

Final Silence (18)

Shadowed Graves (11)

Claim the Remains of Power (9) - [Feed]

Analyze (25)*

Poise and Bearing (25)*

Dust (25)*

Beautician (25)* [Sealed]

Style and grace (25)* [Sealed]

Mend (25)

Recall (22)

Disintegrate (2)

Small Armor (25)*

Mana Rotation (25)* [Sealed]

High Kick (25)*

Stride Before the Fall (18) [Sealed]

Keen Investigative Awareness (17) [Sealed]

Eternal Fable's Heart (6) [Sealed x 7]

Stats:

Synergy [Sealed]

Connections [Sealed]

Chronostasis [Sealed]

Primal Bond - Adric Highsmythe

Pair Bond - Night [Sealed x 2]

Quantum Bond - Harmony White [Sealed]

That was both informative and frustrating. It didn't help that she could feel a few additional seals that were not in the count. Only [Recall] revealed the changes and the off feeling, hinting at a wrongness that pointed out the obvious ones. Seals also didn't mean the skills couldn't be used, just hampered or weakened. How or how much would take time and testing. [Eternal Fable's Heart] was a major surprise as it continued to produce stamina with every beat. Attempting to activate it like [Mana Rotation] had always provided nothing. Yet with that number of seals, she was missing something major about the skill that had twisted out of [Ink Heart], a mystery she couldn't even experiment with what was missing. It was probably the cursed theocratic bond.

In some ways, the seals made sense. Haz'el Ri had her fighting against children and those who hadn't adapted to the kingdom's failed educational system. No one she'd seen in the dungeon club would have been a problem without some handicapping. Make them all naked. Take away their fancy evolved kingdom tools, toys, scrolls, and potions, and they wouldn't even have tricks up their sleeves. Can't boost them up, so make her as weak as one of them, each now a problem worthy of her attention.

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