As his Mana started to spin out, Jeb felt the pull to make it move like a river. He resisted as hard as he could, but it flowed just the same. Sighing, he cut off the flow of Mana.
Jeb focused on the rhythm of the pattern. Now that the lute was a part of him, it almost felt like he was going through some sort of Meditative movement as he plucked out the notes on the lute’s neck. When the motions became thoughtless, he slowly fed Mana in again. This time, rather than letting his Mana choose the way that it flowed into the Song, he pushed with all of his effort into slowly making a knot form.
Try as he might, though, he could not visualize the entire knot at once. Before his third attempt, Jeb considered the fact that a Glyph somewhat resembled a knot, other than the fact that they didn’t loop back on themselves. Jeb stopped playing for a moment and drew out a quick sketch of the knot. Nodding to himself, he started playing again and fed Mana into the Song.
This time, rather than rejecting the part of him that subconsciously made his Mana move, he repurposed it. All his practice Attuning his Mana while playing Lute Enforcement paid off, and he was able to redirect the thread of his Mana with minimal effort. He quickly looped it around itself, building a knot of moving thread. When he had looped through, though, he came to another issue. Try as he might, he could not get the end of the thread to overlap with the beginning.
Jeb spent the rest of the day trying to break through his mental wall. As hard as he worked, though, he could not make his Mana flow in a closed cycle. When he looked up and saw the sun setting, he sighed and set his lute down. Thankfully, dinner that night was a subdued affair, so his lowered mood wasn’t notable. When he made his way back to his room, Jeb considered trying again. Instead, he crawled into bed and fell asleep.
The next day, Jeb woke up and briefly stretched his fingers. When he had, he started playing the pattern for the Ephemeral Song again. This time, rather than forcing his Mana to flow through a path that was unnatural for him, he just let it move like a thread. He could feel the Song waiting for him to use the Mana he was flowing through it. A small part of him was curious what would happen if he didn’t try to make any illusions and just let the Mana build in the Song.
His mind conjured up memories of the too many times that he’d given himself Mana Backlash, and he shuddered. “Maybe after I learn this Song,” he said to himself, conjuring the image of an apple. At first, it simply floated in the air, slowly spinning. It was clearly a fake apple, even ignoring the fact that it was floating.
It was perfectly symmetrical, both in shape and color. As Jeb kept flowing more Mana through the Song, he slowly adjusted the vision of the apple. Slowly, he deformed the apple into something realistically shaped. Once he had, he focused on the color of the apple.
First, he made it slightly reflective. That ended up being far harder than he expected. Without a Skill to guide him, he had to remember the way that an apple usually reflected light. By the time that he figured it out, his Mana was nearly drained. He carefully ended the Song and tried to figure out how working on it would help him to compose.
When he came up short, he pulled out a piece of paper and tried to activate his Musician Skill. Since the Quest came from that Skill, Jeb hoped that it would be able to show him what to do. To his disappointment, he got no feedback from the Skill.
With nothing else guiding him, Jeb reflected on the songs that he knew. The most memorable all had some short melodic phrase that they played with throughout the song. Shrugging, Jeb tried to write out a phrase of his own.
Once he had, he considered what chords could go underneath it. Even if he wasn’t totally satisfied with the music he’d written, he’d learned the value of a good enough job. Working for perfection, especially on the first song he composed, was a fool’s game, and he knew it.
When he had figured out a loop of chords that fit underneath his melodic fragment, he returned to working on the melody. It was easier than he had expected, especially since the chords he was using constrained the notes that he could use throughout the song. He quickly wrote out around three minutes of music that he was happy with.
Now comes the hard part, Jeb thought. He knew enough lute that coming up with chords was a fairly quick process. Writing a melody, likewise, was mostly just an exercise in playing with scales and arpeggiated chords. Writing lyrics, though, was not something that Jeb had any experience with.
He jotted down a few notes beside the music he had written.
Song Priorities: Figure out a topic Write verses Write chorus
That seemed to be most of what he needed to do, though Jeb was sure that none of the steps would be as easy as they seemed on the page. Sighing, he stopped to think about what he wanted the song to be about.
As he played the meldoy on his lute, he felt like the overall feeling of the song was somewhat reflective, bordering on wistful. That made him think of the stargazing that he had done with his family a few nights before.
As he thought about the star his sister pointed out, Jeb felt like a set of blinders had been taken off of him. The words flowed quickly out of him, and he looked up in a daze to realize that he had just written down an entire set of lyrics.
When he tried to fit the lyrics to the melody he had written, though, Jeb realized that the lyrics didn’t line up with the melody. Even outside of the fact that the number of syllables didn’t line up with the number of notes he had written, the emphasis of the lines didn’t align either. Sighing, Jeb debated which would be easier to change.
As he read through the lyrics he had written, a part of him cringed. What had felt thoughtful and beautiful as he wrote it read as forced and trite on second reflection. Sighing, Jeb started rewriting the lyrics.
When his second draft scanned just as badly as the first, he sighed, crumpled the piece of paper and tossed it aside. After a moment of reflection, he walked over and picked it back up, uncrumpling the sheet of paper. “It doesn’t have to be good, it just has to be finished,” he repeated like a mantra as he rewrote the lyrics yet another time.
His third draft of lyrics were still bad, he knew, but they weren’t painfully so. He played through the song, unsure what he would need to do to complete the Quest. To his surprise, as he plucked out a quick ending to the song on his lute, he saw a Quest Notification arise.
Congratulations! You have completed the Minor Quest Musician Second Tier “Compose a song”. A Musician who only plays other’s music is no true Musician. Rewards: 39 Experience, Intelligence +1 Charisma +1.
Even though he was glad to have finished the song, a part of Jeb was disappointed. He had held the slight hope that composing a song would also count as learning a song. Still, two Statistics was nothing to be mad about. As he looked out the window to the darkness of a new moon, though, Jeb realized that he’d spent the entire day working on the song.
He quietly made his way down the stairs, hopeful that there might be something left from dinner. To his surprise, his mother was sitting by the stove, a large pot simmering beside her.
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“What song were you working on?” she asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before.”
Jeb blushed. “I was composing a new song,” he said. “Sorry, I didn’t think about the fact that all of you would be able to hear it.”
His mother beamed. “Don’t apologize! That song was fantastic, Jeb. It was lovely to hear you sing.”
Jeb flushed a little redder. “Thank you,” he muttered. Try as he might, there was no way that he could think of to say that he was personally unhappy with the song without sounding needlessly dismissive of his efforts. Thankfully, his mother spared him from needing to come up with another response.
“A lot of people missed dinner tonight,” she said, “so there’s plenty of stew left if you’d like a bowl.”
Jeb’s stomach let out a dull roar, and his mother chuckled. “I’ll take that as a yes,” she said, handing him a bowl filled with steaming stew.
Jeb’s Status Sheet at End of Chapter:
Jeb Human Age: 16 Class: Least Mud Initiate Level: 1 Experience: 8930/100
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Total Statistic Load: 452 ->454 Physical Load: 139 Strength: 33 Dexterity: 26 Endurance: 35 Vitality: 41 Presence: 4
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Mental Load: 313 ->315 Intelligence: 52 ->53 Willpower: 75 Magic Affinity: 74 Mana Depth: 64 Charisma: 48 ->49
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Mana: 1755
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Glyph Attunement: 31 Least Shape Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Earth (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Shape Earth - Efficient (Modified) Tier 3 Spell Lesser Shape Earth (Modified) Tier 3 Spell Least Shape Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Shape Water - Efficient (Modified) Tier 3 Spell Lesser Shape Water (Modified) Tier 3 Spell Least Hold Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Conjure Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Conjure Water - Efficient (Modified) Tier 3 Spell Least Destroy Water (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Move Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Air (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Move Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Hold Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Destroy Fire (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Least Create Mud (Modified) Tier 2 Spell Attune Earth Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Water Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Water Mana - Efficient (Modified) Tier 2 Spell Attune Air Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Fire Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Attune Sand Mana (Modified) Tier 0 Spell Least Create Sand (Modified) Tier 1 Spell Attune Sand Mana - Efficient (Modified) Tier 2 Spell
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Bard Songs Known: 1 Lute Enforcement
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Skills: Least Mud Magic Meditation Mana Manipulation Spell Glyphing Improved Glyph Groking Gift of Gab Running Identify Soil Savvy Animal Handling Fertilizing Lifting Athletics Lute Playing Singing Musician Pollination Brewing Distilling Bardic Magic Smithing Wood Identification Woodworking Soil Improvement Enchanting Glassblowing
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Achievements: Focused Meditator Student of Magic Glyph Specializer
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Quests: Major: Slay the Dragon of the West (Progressive)