Chapter Eighty-NineEvolve! As much as Harmony wished her feeling of accomplishment around defeating the guardian would push her to the feeling of reaching evolution there was nothing. No internal trumpets or fanfare. The opposite, as [Electric Shell] flickered and died, turning into an unusable lump inside its shell having been pushed past its limits during the fight. Even [Renew Spirit] did nothing to bring it back. A reminder that anything would break under such stresses. Removing that dead skill surprisingly pulled something into the physical world once it got past her skin, a broken dirty shard.

  [Analyze] called it a broken skill remnant. Odd things got filed away and she shoved it into one of Hyacinth’s strapped-on pouches.

  The guardian wasn’t so broken that she couldn’t access the space where it kept its skills. Except for what felt like [Water Arm] for picking people up and drowning them the skills were the same as small squirts. Size apparently does matter. It was a question of having the hunger inside of her or taking [Maintain Form], and having seen what potential complications could happen from having the wrong skill she opted for the hunger. After all, who hasn’t gone hungry before, and the next floor would have to be done quickly.

  Harmony walked to Hyacinth, who was resting from his exertion. It was time to talk about the sixth floor. “Do you think you can do this?”

  “Grup.”

  That was a yes, and Harmony wished he’d said no. Contrary to that wish her gut told her redoing the dungeon to this same point wouldn’t make it any better or more likely to evolve in time. There was no making it this far without her partner. No getting past the tree lord, no defeating the chicken, and no shattering big squirt, and if she wasn't willing to try to climb the tower without him there was no reason to retry. The sixth floor was the rat maze and presented one very particur problem. Hyacinth wouldn’t fit. They’d measured.

  Narrow passages you had to speed run through to get to the exit, only areas where options branched out would be wide enough for the rge shadow toad. There were four maze options you could get and they were thoroughly mapped out in all the guides. They’d made a pn. There was always a pn, but she’d hoped they would never need to try it.

  Fully rested, the pair ascended the stairs. At the top, the threshold to the next floor waited. Once she crossed that she’d have a ten-second head start before the entrance closed. That was one of the biggest risks of the maze. You couldn’t go back the way you came. Past that threshold, Hyacinth could squeeze in but not fit down any of the three narrow paths presented as an option. It was all her, he was counting on her.

  With a shuddering breath. Harmony kicked off past it allowing [Eternal Fable’s Heart] to boost her speed as much as it could. The middle path was the quickest way to figure out which of the four maze designs they entered. Harmony hit a sharp turn and kicked off the wall to shift her direction. The turn had a hundred-and-eight-degree shift to it bending back some. That meant she was in maze B or D and didn’t need to backtrack to take the left path. Paranoid adventures who kept track of all the minor changes signifying which dungeon you were in were to be worshiped for the work they put into the guides.

  Time for [Shadowed Graves], Harmony extended the skill knowing she’d be straining to keep it up until the end of the run unless the rats contributed more than a few deaths to maintain it. Rats, the cleaning crew of Nae’s Garden, devourers of every leftover bit of flesh, bone, or hardened wood from the monsters. They would be coming and the reason no one could slow down on this floor. Thousands ate the bastard whole. Hyacinth wouldn’t stand a chance.

  D Maze it was. Harmony took the wrong turn, it was the only way to make this work. The Dungeon limited how far her toad could go through the shadows, so she headed for the closest wide enough spot for him near the entrance. Hyacinth usually needed to have visited or seen where he was going too. The rats should be flooding through the entrance soon. He’d need to slip into the shadows and hold there, like they’d got stuck at the tree lord with all that stress and strain.

  There! Ahead was the clearing. They’d practiced this. All familiars had different skills they brought to the table. The most common one was being able to share sight. Len could probably see through Farthington’s eyes. Harmony and Hyacinth didn’t have that skill. But she could fake it if willing to pay the price. Within where she kept her skills she reached inside [Familiar Bond] and used her stat of connections to twist the connection between them to tap into the physical. The kind of warping around that had turned an old dress into a slick bck mystery, and a book into worse.

  They'd practiced and burned healing potions, while tapping [Renew Spirit], even then the results were imperfect. The damage to the skill was light, but now he could see through her while pain shot through her eyes and made everything shades of gray. Up from the shadows Hyacinth popped out. The first hurdle cleared. Her eyes blinked away tears of blood as she used [Style and Grace] to turn on her heel and kick off toward the next position on their pnned route.

  [Recall] ran through the route. The drawings were different from real life. [Keen Investigative Awareness] had to lend a helping of support as she pushed her body, lungs burning and muscles screaming. The slowly rising sounds of scraping and chittering chased her as rats pushed through the maze, their sounds echoing, making marking the rodent's current location hard.

  The second toad deposit was completed. Harmony pushed on. Ahead hundreds of rats spilled out from an intersection. Too slow. Harmony used [High Kick] to leap over them. The maze was harrying enough when you didn’t need to make wrong turns. As her heart beat quicker she forced that stamina pumped out to her body.

  The third drop-off brought Hyacinth covered in scratches and spitting out dead rats. The fourth was clear, but now it was harmony’s trial as she turned down a path flooded with rats. [Cold Touch] flooded out and [Manipute Dead] supported by [Beautician] tried to clear a path by tugging at their hair. The path got narrower as the walls were biting rats she'd shoved out of the way, and the ones she missed nipped at her heels enough for her to leave bloody footprints.

  The fourth clearing wasn’t clear as rats flooded it, but she had to use it as it was the only pce wide enough. Hyacinth popped in from above and fttened rats fell from up high as he stretched his legs to keep himself up at the ceiling, having brought the crushed ones with him.

  Harmony passed under him, unable to stop or help as she turned toward the final twists and turns to the exit. There was just enough space there as it broadened for the stairs. Harmony forced her shadows from [Shadowed Graves] as low as they could to intersect the stairs. “There!”

  Hyacinth tumbled out, smashing some of the rats on the steps. He stomped up crushing more until he crossed the magical threshold to the seventh floor that kept the rats out. Harmony pushed up and out behind him only to colpse next to him after downing a healing potion and feeding him one. The stamina well was empty, her legs couldn’t move right now if she tried, and her eyes hurt like someone dumped hot peppers into them.

  “Let’s not do that again.”

  "Grupt." Hyacinth agreed.