Chapter Eighty-Eight“There’s my predator. Now let’s see what we’ve got.”

  Harmony fetched a spare gear bag and reapplied a healing patch. Hyacinth had four more strapped to him in case more accidents happened. Ideally, she’d never need them, but sometimes you got swallowed whole.

  Picking over the guardian’s remains Harmony evaluated her skill options. The invulnerability skill looked dead, but it was only drained. A push of [Renew Spirit] restored maybe a twentieth of the skill's power and immediately started to degrade. With the light trigger, she could stub her toe and have it go off even if she’d invested in it. An ability to stun with a gaze that matched up to the guides, as mossifants, and squirts had no eyes. That didn’t mean they were immune, but not worth testing. Immunity from taunts. Bah, most of the power was in its massive size and toughness. [Electric Shell] would stay for now.

  The squishy moss-filled fifth floor represented the highest they’d climbed. Probably too much to hope for hitting level twenty-five when defeating it. A little squirt burst forth. [Cold Touch] froze it in pce before it could attack. Hyacinth gave it a zy kick, shattering the water elemental.

  Even though its body turned into pieces the spiritual container that held its skills hovered there quickly destabilizing. A skill to keep cohesion, a water bde, a spshing technique, but nothing useful. Useful or not she needed to level [Cim] to evolve. Would water elementals have the same lethal problems the twiggy did? Slow breaths, she needed to do this and also focus on [Eternal Fable's Heart]. Advancement requires practice and understanding. The floor was only going to get tougher. It was best to experiment early.

  [Maintain Form] offered some injury protection as a cut didn’t bleed, and impacts were reduced, but only slightly. [Water Bde] didn’t generate water, so having not healed the cut she made a poor cutting strike with her blood, and with a focus on the second attempt pulled some water from the wet ground into an arc. [Spshing], well, don’t try that with a cut, or you’ll bleed out quicker. It’s like these skills were designed for the monsters. Logic dictated that it would be better to take one from another person. Killing people in the Deadwoods might have contributed to getting offered the skill? One of the ambusher's deaths probably triggered her leveling.

  The first mossifant charged, ending that gruesome chain of thoughts. Hyacinth, pying guard toad, was ready and they slipped into the shadows. Below them, the mossifant paused, as though confused its target slipped away. Good, because they needed the padding for the long fall.

  It popped like a smashed berry, a ring of mud shooting out fast on all sides. So much force remained Harmony and Hyacinth had the wind knocked out of them with a giant oomph. If there had been another enemy nearby it would have cost them. “Maybe not so high with your new weight.”

  “Grack.”

  “I never called you fat. I’m the one that needs to lower the sky shadow some.” Except that was already lower than her st run. There was one potential factor possibly causing the increased force of impact. Her new [Hearts] effects on Hyacinth. Stamina and his connection to grow with her could have made him denser and maybe stronger? When she improved, so did he. Probably should have made a journal with all the changes and measurements for him, though the moment she attacked him with a scale or measuring tape he’d probably have rebelled, [Familiar Bond] be cursed.

  Whatever remained of the Mossifant's spiritual structure wasn’t there. Apparently, if you hit it hard enough you’ll pulverize that too. She readied herself for more, recalcuting exactly what lower height for their plunge might work.

  Grinding through the level making it a mossifant graveyard of popped, smushed, or defted mossy sacks of mud Harmony practiced applying stamina to her descent. It was more than her body but the space around her body. It was an odd counterpoint from mana that flowed amongst the skills in her soul space, where this was more body, frame, and an extension outside of herself.

  Considering the mossifants' main avenue of attack was to smush or roll over on top of enemies to suffocate them to death, the carnage was a statement of who was really on top. Not that Harmony ever wished to experience what it would be like to have one roll on top of her and push her into the soft mossy, muddy ground.

  The skills those lumbering creatures had were interesting, the moss wasn’t animated to move them, but more contained the mud which walked the moss. It was closer to a squirt with [Maintain Form] than the skill that allowed movement for twiggys. Their secondary skill [Sturdy Rest] made it difficult to move them after they chose to stay in one pce; usually on top of some poor adventurer.

  One squirt remained frozen in the distance near Hyacinth while she stood near where the big squirt would be birthed. Time and time again this technique has worked at the cost of one of her lives. To be tired of dying yet to know this was a consistent win. How much leeway did she want for this battle?

  Go! She sent.

  The rumbling crack in the distance roared as the once-wet earth had all its water stripped and pulled toward where the guardian would emerge. You could time when it would complete based on how close the sounds were.

  [Stride Before the Fall]. At the center of the floor, Harmony froze the water at her feet and without using too much extra energy pushed deeper into the water building up to bst out to form the big squirt. Internal instability and leaking skills were at least practical for that kind of free py despite the pain. That gave her solid ground to stand on, made as wide as she could.

  It might be a stupid time to try something new, but the problem of freezing the top half rested with needing the guardian to lift you up high. This tactic might solve that problem. Stagnancy was also the opposite of progress, and if Len was right you needed to continue to strive to evolve. The Harmony outside of the center readied for the bst.

  [Electric Shell] from [Cim the Remains of Power] might not be perfect but it could more quickly burn out the floating crystals that kept the big squirt afloat. There was also [Eternal Fable’s Heart] and how it advanced her physical skills in subtle but powerful ways. With the potential to survive using risks needed to grow, if she was lucky, she’d reach twenty-five and not need to deal with the problems the sixth floor would present.

  Boom! The cork on the bottle popped and that disk of ice she’d been forming shot straight up in the air as the guardian formed. If she hadn’t frozen her feet to the ground a little she might have found herself flung off. [Mana Rotation] spun up with a boosted [Cold Touch] fed from the shadows above and below and worked to freeze the pilr of water she was rising up on that would form the guardian’s body.

  Anchoring the ice solidly enough into the elemental’s cohesive body would theoretically ensure the chunk of ice would not fly off when the acceleration stopped. As it grew the ice started to shift, tilting. Chronostasis kicked in along with the headache, it’s still too soon since she’d overdone it against the snake. But danger was danger and she’d take pain over dying. A slight application of stamina and a twist of her heels was all it took to snap out of the ice she’d anchored into. [Cold Touch] was still flowing, slowing down freezing would be a worse mistake than falling, but some tasks could be handled with split attention. [Poise and Bearing] and [Style and Grace] were practical with their dual nature. Social, mental, and physical strength about keeping your bance, don’t trip or stumble, glide gracefully. Stamina fed into those allowing Harmony to keep her footing and climb the ice as it rotated while accelerating upwards. It spun in the water floating yet attached and Harmony managed to stay on top despite the spinning. No telling Ambrosia about this or she’d add circus-style tricks into her show.

  Below, Harmony let [Electric Shell] zap into the rising water. Even with all the healing from [Renew Spirit], she could tell the skill was nearly tapped out as she kept on wrenching effort and then healing the skill taken from the third-floor guardian. Healing [Cimed] skills was too new to her repertoire to do it perfectly, and the whole technique was not practiced enough because not enough time had passed. Eventually, maybe she’d be able to keep one of the cimed and degrading skills around perpetually but today wasn’t the day. If it was going to burn out she might as well get some use out of it. Those little crystals in the big squirt popped and fshed as they burnt out and cracked under the assault, sparkles that trailed up the rising wave. All damage before it got situated was good damage.

  Then it formed, and that added cohesion locked the ice in pce. That sudden jerk sent Harmony tumbling over despite the acrobatics needed to stay up. Her nails morphed into cws and she jabbed them into the ice, causing huge gouges trying to keep herself from flying off.

  Below the boosted [Cold Touch] started freezing the lower half. Could squirts get pissed, or had attacking the guardian early sent it in overdrive? The question fshed as quick paced consecutive water bdes came sshing down. Guardians were pretty consistent. [Recall] could map out to the second when attacks were expected based on past experiences. Timing, general patterns, and abilities, all had routines which is why climbing guides were so valuable. Whatever Harmony had done had messed that up.

  [Small Armor] rose up to block the first bde. They’d been tricky with the way that even a strong use of the skill would be less effective as the cutting power would wrap around creating wounds that required a quick application of [Mend], which always slowed the freezing process. Now she had stamina, and it helped stretch out the defensive power as it met the first bde. She received two light gashes that didn’t need immediate attention, an improvement but with practice, she’d get better.

  The second water bde required something new. [Final Silence] shed out and Harmony directed its path into the giant squirt. While highly resistant to silence skills, Harmony had watched how it attacked and learned from experiencing the skills of the smaller squirts. [Water Bde] was a skill that remained connected to the form of the elemental. As an extension, the silence passed through it to disrupt the guardian and for a fraction of a second, the bde lost its cutting edge. Instead of a bde cutting into her, Harmony found herself drenched from head to toe in a spsh of cold water as she continued to work to freeze the giant.

  While dangling from the side of what could be considered the squirt’s frozen head, Harmony chose down and started to punch her way down, jabbing her spiked fingers in as she did while continuing the freezing process. Right below her out of the unfrozen middle, the long grabbing arm designed to capture and drown adventurers started to extend out. “Delving not again!”

  The arm wobbled as it was picking the target and it shifted toward the one on the ground where the freezing process was the least complete. Retracting her spikes, Harmony shoved hard with her stamina to accelerate her downward fall. This wasn’t a soul strike but it was close to it. [High Kick] with a heaping dose of [Final Silence] and [Cold Touch]. [Electric Shell] coated her hoping to zap any fragile bits she might meet on impact. Her whole body spshed into the extension like diving into a ke and it cut her momentum. Without a solid target, the force of the attack expanded out, the energy going off like a bomb disrupting the guardian's skill. The whole arm lost cohesion and disconnected from the main body crashing to the ground with a very wet Harmony inside of it.

  Both readied to continue the fight, soaked, exhausted, and bleeding. They needed more time.

  “Graaaaaaaaauuuppp!!!!”

  Or did they? From the sky, five seconds earlier than expected the massive shadow toad came roaring down. Harmony wasn’t the only one who’d improved since their st battle here. Increased speed, power, mass, and willpower able to force through the dungeon’s shadows quicker than ever.

  Hyacinth crashed into the frozen top chunk, sending it swinging hard to the side, it was frozen enough that it didn’t have the water to keep the top and bottom halves connected as the ice climbed up from below. It broke. And wherever Harmony sensed the gems keeping it still alive she snuffed them out before it could recover. Defeated without a sacrifice.

  Harmony grinned at herself as the two returned to one once more.

  KitFalbo