1 Soul Bound
1.2 Taking Control
1.2.1 An Icy Welcome
1.2.1.2 Wager
Kafana wasn’t afraid. Almost certainly because she’d buffed her own confidence before giving her speech back at the Sanctum, and that affected both her aura of authority and her resistance to fear. The Princess chose not to turn up to her concert? Well, when the cat's away, the mice will play. Let’s change the game, and turn this from a contest about entertaining people into something else.
Kafana: “Metathiaxioniel, then let’s cheat. I’m going to touch you with a gem and sing a song to you. Then I need you to go down to the Spawn below us and order as many of them as you can to open their minds up to me, to join in with me, obey me. If you can do that much, I’ll do the rest. Believe in me.” She willed him to go along with her plan, be impressed by her.
Metathiaxioniel tried being stubborn for a moment, but he was too shattered to put up much of a fight. “Yes, Kafana, Queen of Song. That much, I can do.”
She moved her ghostly body back to the amplifier and held Metathiaxioniel’s hands with her physical body, leaning in to touch him with the purple gem in her hair. Her physical body sang the slow words of Marianna, by Ingrid Helene Håvik, directly to him, directly into his mind. It was about the mother of a murdered baby lingering over the torturous details of the death she wanted the murderer to die, and she sent him not the words, but the images and feelings associated with it, letting him experience and enjoy the pain of others conveyed by the song. She focused upon the runes of Krev, Rac, Dro and Bel, for Shifting, Flame, Devils and Quakes. Metamorphose, damn you. Feed and grow upon this. She willed him to change. She brought him into the harmony of the tight group performance between the halves of herself and drew on his mana too.
It worked. Sharp spikes extruded through his skin as he grew larger and turned into an Excruciarch. Overjoyed with his new status, he stalked down to the Spawn below the stage, eyes glowing, sharing in her buffs.
Now she had the audience’s attention. She willed her ghost body to appear larger, so everyone in the parade ground could see Bardic Kafana clearly. She willed her voice to change, put pain and a thousand packs of smoking cigarettes into it.
Kafana: “This next one is for all you Spawn, you know what it’s like to need. Well, if you want to grow, feed on the pain in this song from a mortal consumed by need.”
She started with her physical body playing the violin, but willed the sound to morph into that of a guitar, seeking resonance, trying to connect the audience with her chosen song and beyond, to a feeling of regret so raw it tore at your mind; regret over empty years spent increasingly isolated and addicted; regret over wasted years spent chasing fame and false promises; regret over shameful years filled with failures and surrenders.
She launched into Hurt by Johnny Cash, pushing mana into it directly from her storage ring, amplifying the emotions until she could feel a stab of a needle piercing her, it was so real. Verse by verse she felt Spawn joining her, accepting the trade of joining her performance in return for growth, until she no longer needed the mana ring because the mana from each previous wave of joiners was enough to power the next wave.
System wasn’t able to grant her ghost body skill increases in that state, but she felt her physical body gaining levels in performance, aura of authority, and other things. Not all the spawn metamorphosed, but enough did, the ones who were close to it already. She willed them to spread out and join the legions skirting the parade ground.
“Don’t stop, don’t pause, don’t give them a chance to interrupt you” Metathiaxioniel had advised. Her physical body moved smoothly on from the finish of the song to introducing the next one, while her ghost body dressed itself in plate mail and expanded to the size of the largest Milites.
“Now for all you soldiers out there, a song of despair, of the absolute destruction caused in total war, and the grief of your enemies. Join me, feed upon it and grow stronger.”
They made a duet of it, this time, in closer harmony than even Simon and Garfunkel had managed, singing The Sun is Burning. She used the mana and group performance advantage from all the Spawn still with her, willing them to provide a background hum. This time, rather than a general effect she tried a domino approach, starting off at one end, bringing them in and using their added power to launch the mental assault upon the next legion. She made it a bit more than half way around, so she repeated the song, throwing in every image of Hiroshima, Trinity and Bikini Atoll she could remember, and the radiation victims from the Kozloduy tragedy.
She didn’t need physical musical instruments now, with this power behind her. She willed the musical accompaniment from The Rolling Stones as she powered through Paint It Black, aiming it squarely at the Knights. Her ghostly body acquired an aura of flames, blazing with her power, a heavy metal nightmare. Her images were of Vietnam, but then added in The Killing Fields and finally the victims of the Holocaust. She projected the devastated lives and emotions of the survivors of war, the trauma, the suicides and the rejection by those they protected when they came back changed. She metamorphosed almost all of them, and sent them down among her next set of targets, the Barons who made up most of the city’s population.
A different theme here. They engaged in social, financial and legal warfare not physical warfare. She gave them shame to feed off, as she sang them Everybody Knows by Leonard Cohen. She showed them everything wrong with the system and how it treats people as cogs, grinding them down. She gave them a glimpse of how screwed up society was in 2045 with its plagues, inequality and destroying lives for entertainment; they ate it up. Only a few peaked over into the rank of Count, but she had them, she had their energy, their power.
A ball of fire formed high in the sky and sank towards the parade ground, blazing like a sun.
=Stop= it sent at her, and she nearly did.
But the Princess had waited too long. With the majority of devils now part of her performance she could spread the load among many minds. She resisted the order and carried on, switching to violin; one physical one but a whole orchestra backing it.
For the Counts she played music from The Red Violin by John Corigliano, followed by Ghost Song by Max Ablitzer. The Counts, adepts at wielding power, put up strong resistance, but she persisted, wielding the music like a knife, seeking weaknesses, searching for a point of resonance like when she brought the scree slope down upon the troll mother. The Princess tried to break the link, but she willed her new Counts to walk over to the pre-existing ones and physically touch them. The strongest count, the last to give in, was the only one who metamorphosed, but the resulting quake as a new Pit Fiend appeared knocked half the devils off their feet. He wasn’t nearly the size of the one standing in the middle of the arena, but he was undeniably a new Pit Fiend. He spread his wings and breathed fire into the air with a shattering roar.
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Salma: =I concede. You are a bard. I will let you return home. Please stop.=
She changed her ghost body, leaving it in the shining armour with an aura of fire, but making it more human, giving it wings and a long burning sword she modelled after Tomsk’s. Joan of Arc. No, beyond that. She gave it mirror shades, and sent it up to face the elemental.
Salma hadn’t said the wording she needed. No point being sent back with the debt still upon her. She needed the full terms of the wager. She wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t ever stop, until the Princess said “You win the wager” to her, publicly so every devil could hear it. She sent that thought back towards the ball.
Kafana: =*determination*=
She needed a new approach for her next target, the huge Pit Fiend in the centre. She didn’t know enough about it to reach it with words. She had to feed it pain another way. Her audience. Cause them pain and feed it that.
They had enjoyed the pain of others. Now she would teach her audience empathy, since they’d granted her such access to their minds.
[Kafana, 10 minutes to go until dawn.]
She morphed the voice of her ghost body to be as angelic and emotion laden as she could conceive, and launched into In the arms of an angel, by Sarah McLachlan. She sang it not to the Pit Fiend but to everybody else she could reach. She sang it directly into their minds, bypassing their ears. She sang it directly into their spirits, willing them to change, to learn.
The spirits of those who were part of her group performance, who shared the buffs she’d cast on herself, including the highest level learning buff she’d been able to muster. She’d called upon the deities for their aid, and now they answered her. It still took luck, but her intentions were pure, her form and song were those of a pure being, and her Emerald of Harmony translated purity straight into luck, with no maximum cap set.
The audience fell in torment, a burning inside them stronger than Dino had felt when she’d purified him to gain Cov’s forgiveness. Some died, some resisted entirely, but many were changed, if only slightly, a seed planted. And the pain of that process all flowed directly into the Pit Fiend patriarch.
The Princess sent fireballs down towards her stage, willing to lose face in order to wipe Kafana out, but the Pit Fiend joined her performance and with his power and understanding of fire behind her, Kafana used the ability on her ruby to shape the onrushing flames into a spherical shield protecting her. Now the Ifrit cast aside all pretences and stood facing her stage, eagerly awaiting their turn, hoping to gain sufficient power to cease having to fawn upon Salma and escape to found cities of their own.
Salma: “Kafana, you win the wager.”
That was once, she kept pouring in the power, willing the Pit Fiend not only to metamorphose but to change into the sort of Arch Duke that would exhibit the noblest side of Bel’s philosophy, preventing the despoiling of the graves of ancient rulers by jackals with no respect for the heritage they plundered.
Salma, more urgently this time: “Kafana, you win the wager.”
That was twice. She sang a wordless prayer to Bel and all the other deities “let me be your instrument in this”.
The Pit Fiend turned to stone. Which then moved, and shrank, become darker and more concentrated, until a new Arch Duke stood before them all in elegant obsidian. She turned to face the other Arch Dukes and opened her mouth.
Salma: “Kafana, you win the wager, you win the wager, you win the wager, I say it thrice before witnesses and it is true. You are the Queen of Song, my social superior and a true Bard. Stop, damn it.”
She stopped, turned, and graciously acknowledged the Princess, morphing her ghost body back into its simple bardic form.
Kafana: “Greetings, Princess Salma. How nice of you to attend my humble concert. Thank you for your hospitality. Remind me of the full terms of the wager again, please?”
Salma: “1. I will pay off all debts currently owed by Spirit-Kafana, Vessel-Kafana and Metathiaxioniel.”
Salma: “2. I will ensure the safe and uncursed return by this coming dawn on Covob to the Sanctum at Torello for Spirit-Kafana, Vessel-Kafana and all her items, including her healthy, living, undespoiled body, with experience, levels, skills and other properties intact.”
Salma: “3. I confirm Kafana’s status as a Bard, and decree that henceforth Bardic immunity to assault, challenge and protocols applies to her while in this Realm, as do all other traditional Bardic privileges.”
Salma: “4. I indemnify against and stand guarantee for losses from any revenge or animosity suffered by Spirit-Kafana, Vessel-Kafana or Metathiaxioniel from myself and my throng for their current or past actions. I renounce all such revenge and animosity, and forbid it to my throng.”
Salma descended to land on the stage taking the shape of a cute princess formed from fire who winked large winsome eyes at Kafana. “Well played. Now it’s nearly dawn, let’s get you going, shall we?”
“Ahem” coughed Metathiaxioniel, very respectfully.
“Oh yes. 5. Metathiaxioniel shall be raised by one level into a form of his choosing, and be provided with a positive balance suitable for maintaining his chosen lifestyle.”
Salma giggled. “Memory like a sieve, me. I’ll get you sorted in a moment, Mety. But the Queen of Song here really does need to get going. It wouldn’t do to delay her.”
Why was Salma behaving like this, after trying to fireball her earlier? She was feeling rushed. Was there a term in the wager she’d missed? Ah, yes.
Kafana: “That’s ok, great Princess. Happens to us all. Why, I was so impressed by the beauty of your realm that I nearly forgot to ask you for the traditional Bardic reward for playing, which is to be rewarded according to your ability to pay. You’re not broke, are you?” She put concern into her voice when asking that last question.
Salma switched back instantly to a tall imperious woman, with a furious expression on her face. The volcano beneath them started to rumble. Salma reached up to her neck and threw a large shining pearl down at Kafana’s feet.
Kafana picked it up.
Peaceful Pearl of Storms (EPIC)(UNIQUE)
Peaceful : +90% mitigation against physical attacks by those with lower level than you
Peaceful : reflect 180% of unmitigated damage from physical attacks by those with lower social status than you
Peaceful : You may not initiate combat
Storms : +30% attunement to the element of chaos
Storms : Weather friend
Won by Kafana from the Devil Princess Salma.
Durability: 100000/100000
Kafana couldn’t resist getting a little dig in: “Why, thank you Princess Salama. That’s a princely reward indeed. I’m glad you enjoyed my singing so much. Feel free to invite me back any time.”
Salama yelled at her, shattering the stone all around: “You. You! You are NEVER coming back here. I’m banning all devils from making deals with you. Your soul is no longer valid currency. I’m kicking you out of the Inferno for good. YOU ARE BANNED.”