I woke up under the blue sky.

The sun nearly poked my remaining eye out, and I needed time to recognize my surroundings. Where did I pass out, and how? I didn't have that much to drink, no headache either. My armor and gear were still intact, nothing was stolen. I found myself in a cozy alleyway in the coastal city of Lansum. What was the name again? I could hear some annoying seagulls scream, and faint voices from the marketplace nearby.

I didn't remember a thing. We barely started when the bard strummed his lute, and it was all blank after that. I couldn't see him anywhere, but Bastion and Fang peacefully snored near me. Their gear was all right too. I found the bag of holding, and while it was hard to tell at a glance if the contents were still there, it didn't seem like we were robbed.

"No, don't worry, I'm not that stupid." I heard a familiar voice all of a sudden. The bard from yesterday slowly walked towards us. He wasn't in a hurry, approaching casually, but once my right eye adjusted to the morning light, I realized, his legs were shaking. "Yes, sure, I might not recognize the Thirteenth Champion immediately, but now that I did, I wouldn't want to piss him off. Let's pretend that nothing happened."

Fang sat up without a warning, unsheathing both of his blades. He made the human recoil, but Hakim kept walking towards us after raising his empty hands. Bastion was still fast asleep though.

"What did you try to pull on us, Hakim?" I asked him, still looking for what could have been missing. He just shook his head.

"I didn't take anything, I told you." He claimed, not too convincing at this point. "Well, fine. I did, but I put everything back at least."

"What made you change your mind?" Fang raised an eyebrow. "Don't tell me it was all because you realized who we were."

"I found your mounts," Hakim confessed, and I could guess the rest. "T-they were kind enough to show me, what would happen, if I pissed you off, so I just wanted to let you know, it was my mistake."

I don't know what the Nightmares made him hallucinate, and if it had anything to do with reality, but I liked those abyssal monsters more and more. They were worth losing an eye for. Still, I was surprised that after all this, he'd return to us with his legs still shaking.

"I appreciate your honesty, bard." I started, standing up to face him properly. "So what are you playing at now? You could have run away."

"This might sound suspicious, but I'd like you to take me, and maybe a place in the Twelve Champions?" Hakim proposed, and I had a good laugh. Did he not realize, that he was a human? Besides, one thing didn't let me be at ease. He found our pack animals, fine. He might also put two plus two together, and figured out who Fang was, but...

"How did you know, that I'm the Thirteenth Champion?" I asked curiously. From what he told us yesterday, I had a suspicion, that Exagus left me out of his chronicles. Even if he didn't name his alleged successor in his book, why wasn't he addressing his request to Fang?

"It was easy to guess. Fang Silberwulf is legendary, and there is a huge ogre here." The bard shrugged. I was still waiting for his explanation though." You don't seem to be a spell caster and don't take it the wrong way, but your kind aren't known for their battle prowess either."

I couldn't find a flaw in his logic. If that was enough for him to realize, I was their strategist, the bard must have had his wits about him.

"Exagus did mention a goblin chief of staff in the Demon Lord's army, so I just connected the dots. Captain Dioneras." He finished, bowing his head. I rewarded him with a few claps. Still, to join us?

"Why would I want to take you with us though?" I asked, doubting if that was a good idea. "And how do I know if we can trust you after this? It's not that you didn't try to rob us, you just realized you were messing with the wrong people. What if you changed your mind?"

"It is a fair question. Both of them." He noted and grabbed his lute. I prepared for the worst. We couldn't underestimate his instrument if he managed to put us to sleep so easily yesterday. "You are wary of my talent, which means you recognize it as useful. You don't seem to travel with a magician, and I could be at your service. You have food, I don't even ask for more. I just want to be famed across the lands."

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"Killing us in our sleep would have made you quite famous on its own," Fang noted, still ready to fight at any moment. "And maybe you decide to take that route at a later time. You already tricked us."

"Indeed, and I'm sorry." Hakim bowed his head again. "And sure, killing you in such a treacherous way would have brought me some infamy, but still. I'd be a spineless human, that used his petty tricks."

"I mean that description already fits you," I noted.

"Sure, but if I were to murder the heroes of the Lesser Races. Some would hate me, some would cheer me, but it would be soon forgotten." He tried some strange ways to convince us. "But imagine a human fighting alongside the Twelve Champions. Even if I don't achieve anything, they will sing about me as the odd one for decades."

"That does sound likely." I pondered. Our destination was close now, and I didn't expect much to happen anymore. I would have been happy to take the help of a magician earlier, but considering the Twelve had no caster now, with Omerta gone... "What kind of magic can you even do? I mean tricking us into falling asleep is impressive, but is it useful on the battlefield, or in a dungeon?"

"I'm glad you asked, Captain." Hakim grinned, almost as if he had already won. "In case you forgot, I told you yesterday, how the Sea People uncovered new, secret techniques, passed down from the precursor elves."

"Your sentences are too long, I can't understand half of it." The ogre finally woke up too, and started strong. It made me laugh a bit, but he was right after all. The bard was great at talking, but there was barely any meaning behind his words. "Say it simple enough, so that I can understand half asleep too. So far I only got that you tricked us."

"Sorry about that. You are right." The bard kept bowing, before starting it over. "The gist is that the elves used music and sound to cast their magic, not just their imagination. And I learned that from the Sea People. So I can do any kind of magic, that involves sound."

"Can you heal my eye then?" I asked, flipping up my eyepatch. It was a tall order, and I had him recoil a bit from the sight. It was still a relatively fresh wound after all. "I guess not."

"I um, I can speed up the natural healing processes, but I can't grow it back if it was already lost." He stuttered a bit, but he wasn't done yet. He strummed his lute again, and the simple melody put my mind at ease after a few notes. "I can help you relax, or plant fear into the heart of your enemies. Though I guess not as violently as the Nightmares do."

"See, you're not useful for us after all," Fang claimed, acting rather hostile towards the bard. "The little you can do wouldn't help our team too much. And I would have to always look behind my back."

"Then why don't you look behind it now?" Hakim asked, still standing, strumming his instrument, then suddenly disappeared. His voice came from a different direction. "You didn't let me finish. I can play with sound and light. I can appear and disappear at will. Make feigned attacks, make it look like there is an entire army behind you, or hide you completely. Maybe I'm not as powerful as the Demon Lord, but I don't have to go to the neighborhood for a good trick."

His voice came practically from every direction at once to support his claims. His image would randomly show up somewhere, but I couldn’t tell where he was exactly. Fang was not impressed though. He quickly reached out his hand where he last saw the bard standing, and he reappeared, with his throat inside the wolfman's grasp.

"I can easily see through your tricks, human." He claimed, but his pupils expanded rapidly. He instantly realized he made a mistake, but I only noticed, when the real Hakim reappeared behind him, with a dagger aimed at the beastfolk's neck. "All right. You got me there."

The fake images all disappeared. Including the one, Fang was holding by the throat. But so did the dagger from the real bard's hand. I had to give it to him, this demonstration was rather impressive. My brain already hurt just from trying to make sense of it. Bastion's jaws also dropped.

"So what say you, Captain? Can I join you?" Hakim asked once more, with a smug grin on his face. He did not help to combat our fears of him stabbing us in the back. But going by his logic, he could have won a lot more from fighting alongside us. There was only one problem left though.

"The Demon Lord is not a fan of humans, you know that?" I asked, and he shrugged. He knew exactly, what he had to say about that.

"I'd serve under you directly, not the Demon Lord, and if he placed you in this position, I take it you have the freedom to pick your underlings." He said, doing his best to stroke my ego.

"Fine. But do you have a horse?" Even if I was open to the idea, I didn't want to slow down this close to our goal. He started sweating.

"To be honest, I accumulated quite a hefty debt, so all I have is this lute and the clothes on my back." He confessed. And considering, the Nightmares already traumatised him, I didn't know what he expected.

"How fast can you run?" I asked laughing. "Because we are kind of in a hurry. You better not hold us back if you want to come with us."

"Oh, now you are in a hurry?" Fang stabbed me in the back with a grin. Yes, I needed a few new underlings around me.

"Well, if we don't plan to stick around any longer, I can just steal a palfrey." Hakim shrugged. "As you could say, I can easily pull that off."

"That sounds like a good start towards greatness," Bastion interjected, and we laughed. He had a weird character, but the Champions just had some vacancy.

"Fine, I think we should head out to the south. If you can catch up with us, you can come." I offered in the end. "I don't think you'll have a problem spotting our Nightmares in the desert."

"Aye, Captain." His eyes gleamed. Now he suddenly became a child. We got our stuff together and headed for the stables. One thing seemed certain. We won't be able to get bored around this bard.