The next few days passed by quickly. Each morning he woke and practiced the Ephemeral Song that the Bard had told him to learn. After a week of practice with no inspiration on how it intersected with composing, Jeb made a journey out to the Inn.
Along the way, he stopped by the Library to see if there was a repository for songs like there was for Glyphs.
“Hmm,” the Librarain replied, “not in any real sense. I can archive your songs here if you would like, and they would be publically available, though the odds are low that anyone would ever request them.”
“I trust your judgement!” Jeb said, leaving the pages behind as he made his way towards the Inn. As he neared the door of the Inn, Jeb was surprised to hear music before he’d even opened it. It sounded much more upbeat than the songs that the Bard had generally played. When he opened the door, Jeb understood why.
“Jeb!” some townsperson called out, “are you also here to celebrate?”
Jeb gave a sheepish smile, “celebrate what?” As soon as he said it, he knew that he should have just said no, but the man just laughed, “the Innkeeper just broke through to the Seventh Tier!”
“Congratulations!” Jeb replied, “but I’m here to talk to the Bard.” As though he had heard, the Bard artfully ended the song and made his way down to Jeb.
“Good morning, Jeb,” he called out. Jeb heard the sound of far off music as the Bard clearly read part of his Status, “and fantastic work learning to compose. Did you bring any of the songs with you? I’d be happy to help you work to polish them up.”
Jeb’s smile fell. “I didn’t even think about that! I gave all a copy of every song that I wrote to the Librarian. I can run back to grab the originals, though, if you-”
The Bard cut him off with a wave of his hand, “no, that’s not necessary. The offer stands, though, if you should ever want a second pair of eyes on whatever you’re working on.”
“On that note,” Jeb said, hoping the segue would go unremarked on, “I have been having some difficulties with the Ephemeral Song, and I was hoping to get some advice.”
The Bard nodded. “What is the issue?”
“Primarily, I don’t see how working on the Song is helping me to compose new songs,” Jeb said.
The Bard laughed. “It really only helps in that it forces you to work with your Lute on something that doesn’t take all of your focus. And, since you have to have some spark of creativity to run the Song, it helps to prime you to compose even further.”
“Oh, that makes sense,” Jeb said. He heard the faint sound of music again and saw the Bard nod.
“I see that you still haven’t mastered it. Have you been able to change the way that you visualize your Magic spinning out?”
Jeb shook his head. “No. I haven’t spent as much effort on that, though. Do you think that working to change my visualization would be a better use of my time?”
The Bard paused, clearly considering the question. “Show me what you can do right now,” he hedged.
Jeb opened his lute case, grateful that he’d thought to bring it along. Inside were some notes for other songs he knew he would need to write, which the Bard commented on.
“Your lute case finally looks like a real Bard’s,” he said, pointing to the scraps of paper.
When Jeb picked up the lute, he noticed that it was a little out of tune from being in the cold. Thankfully, the Mana that he’d poured into it meant that it was in no real risk of being harmed, but he would still need to retune it. As he did, Jeb realized that this was the first time he had retuned his lute since it was bound to him.
Thankfully, he hadn’t forgotten what he needed to do. A few seconds later, he fretted a chord and gave the lute a tentative strum. Nodding, Jeb moved into the pattern for the Ephemeral Song.
As he flowed Mana into the music, Jeb watched a strand of Magic form. He ignored it and spun up the image of an apple. The Bard nodded as Jeb worked his Magic.
When Jeb spun the Song back down, the Bard kept nodding. “Yes, I would say that working to change your visualization is probably the best way for you to learn the Ephemeral Song.”
Jeb nodded and packed his lute case up. As he left, he heard the party pick back up in intensity. He hadn’t considered the fact that his conversation with the Bard might have disrupted the Innkeeper’s celebrations.
On the walk home, he felt the strings detuning again and picked up his pace. He didn’t want the lute to take any damage, and the fact that it was getting cold through the case was absolutely a prelude to damage.
Back inside the house, Jeb let the lute return to ambient temeprature before retuning it again. Once he had, he started playing the Ephemeral Song, this time paying the majority of his attention on the thread that spun out.
Once more, he was unable to make the Mana he poured out move as anything but a flow. That set the scene for the rest of the winter. A few days into his new routine of waking up and practicing the Ephemeral Song immediately, his grandfather came up to his room.
“Jeb, would you mind practicing your Song in the forge or the Brewery?”
Jeb shook his head. “Sorry, I didn’t think about how much sound travels in this house.” For the rest of the winter, Jeb woke up and moved into the Brewery. Once there, he spun up the Ephemeral Song and made the slightest progress on changing the way that his Mana worked in the Song.
When he ran out of Mana, he worked on composing a song. As the Bard had said, practicing the Ephemeral Song did seem to get him ready to compose. Each song took Jeb longer to finish, though, even as he grew more experienced with it.
As he thought about that fact, Jeb realized that composing was taking longer because he was more experienced, not in spite of it. He had been willing to accept lines that didn’t scan while composing his first song, but had set higher and higher standards for himself as he kept writing new music.
As the last night frost left its chill on the earth, Jeb finished his fifteenth song of the season. The advice the Bard had given him on earlier songs he’d written was plain in the voice leading and harmonies, but Jeb had put his own spin on it. He accepted the Quest Notification and went in to join his family for dinner.
The following day, everyone started working on their springtime tasks. Jeb went over to the hive, noticing that the entirety of the swarm was finally awake. He’d seen the occasional bee start flying out of the hive as the days had started warming up, but this was clearly the hive gearing up for spring.
Without a Farming Class, Jeb realized that he didn’t have any specific tasks he needed to do at the start of the season. He wouldn’t be helpful in sowing seeds or pruning trees. And, unlike before he had a Class, there was no need for him to shadow someone, hoping to influence the System into giving him a related Class.
So, Jeb went back to the forge, knowing that there would be a number of tools that needed to be sharpened. His grandfather would be able to do it far more quickly than him without a doubt, but his grandfather also needed to do a seemingly endless number of other tasks.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
As the next few days passed by, Jeb slowly found a routine for the spring. He would wake up, practice his Ephemeral Song with the bees, and then go to sharpen whatever instruments had gotten dull over the previous day’s work.
It was while watching the bees one day that inspriation struck. Jeb was watching one of the Sand Attuned bees dancing around one of the Fire Attuned ones while trying to force his Mana into a knot.
Watching the trails of Mana that they left in the air suddenly made something clear to Jeb, though he could not say exactly what it was. The Mana he’d been forcing suddenly snapped into place. Now, instead of a thread spooling off into nowhere, his Mana was spent making the thread in the knot of the Song loop around itself.
He spun up an apple, excited to see what his Song would be able to do now. When it appeared, he frowned. During the winter, he had improved his abilities to the point that he could make an apple that looked and felt almost indistinguishable from a real one. With the new Mana pattern, though, he was unable to even to make an apple that looked three dimensional. Furrowing his brows, Jeb kept working.
Jeb’s Status Sheet at End of Chapter:
Jeb Human Age: 16 Class: Least Mud Initiate Level: 1 Experience: 9515/100
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Total Statistic Load: 454 ->484 Physical Load: 139 Strength: 33 Dexterity: 26 Endurance: 35 Vitality: 41 Presence: 4
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Mental Load: 315 ->345 Intelligence: 53 ->68 Willpower: 75 Magic Affinity: 74 Mana Depth: 64 Charisma: 49 ->64
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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)