Prelude 10 - Side Quests

Kaye went ahead with a drop attempt without telling the others. His legs gave out underneath him and his body crumpled. The unexpected part was how roughly his head whipped forward to the point it gave him a yelping headache. It also briefly felt like being suffocated.

< - 1 HP.>

The pile of his body, along with where he had fallen, didn’t help either. Still, he resisted a breath, until he sensed Cestia crouching at his side and reaching out for his shoulder. Only then did he indulge in a raspy breath through his contorted neck.

Twen congratulated Kaye on his commitment, noting that was the key element. Kaye just felt glad he could take a full, relaxed breath of air again. Cestia practiced several times more, until Twen announced that it was “good enough”.

<100 Zel and 2 Ambrosia.>

Kaye watched each of Cestia’s efforts at tumbling to the ground. He took in the way her body moved, shook, and shifted. Even after all the years they spent together, just watching her was both a comfort and a prickly sensation at the back of his neck, rising like a shadow-cloaked beast ready to strike.

Cestia had been bigger and stronger than him for several years. And, even when he started to catch up, it felt like what he gained in muscle, she already overcame in swiftness. He wanted her to tumble and roll around with him in a way that he never gave words to, that he felt ashamed and embarrassed about even considering. He begged his mind to flee from these thoughts, to put a cap on them once again, no matter how briefly that measure lasted.

Rationally, he understood why Cestia failed to give the appearance of deathly defeat. Even though she was falling, tumbling towards the ground, she was still watching for danger and making sure her fall was safe. Someone in a death fall can no longer care what happens to them and others. Kearny understood that. Kaye made a firm self-reminder to later pass along the best of his words, shaped into this notion, so that it might help Cestia if ever she needed this tactic.

As she checked the grimy coins and lusterless ambrosia vials before shoving both somewhere deep in her inventory, Twen spoke just a little more about inaction, “ When you choose to fight and strike at all enemies or just certain ones, you can set your mind to run towards them or just focus on one with all your strength. But, there is an alternative. You can keep alert, but let the enemy come to you.”

While there were no enemies nearby to practice this on, not even stray Wormwools, Cestia actually got into the idea a little better than the 'pointless' tumbling. They stood together and made an enemy of a nearby, needled tanglebush. Past a certain mark in the ground, they either swung their Daring knives or flung them at their foe.

Cestia even managed to sever one of the heavier branches. Kaye still hesitated at the threshold, but he found it easier than committing to closing the distance to his enemy. Of course, like those days of practice in the forest, this enemy wasn’t the same as facing a Charmie, a Hairnut, or even a Wormwool. Still, he gave thanks to Yggdrasil.

To Cestia’s relief, that basically ended their lesson. Twen thanked them for their patience and their time before settling back on the grass in much the same position they found him. Cestia eagerly led the way back through their faint boot marks as they left the clearing and worked their way through a narrow wood. Not far removed from Twen’s presence, Cestia turned her head back to Kaye and casually questioned rhetorically, “Why are there so many goofballs in this wilderness?” Kaye’s answer was a pleasant smirk but nothing else.

After they had put a modest distance between themselves and Twen, he asked, “Should we craft our hats now, before we get back?”

They did have the crafting recipes, but this was far more intricate than anything Kaye ever made by hand. When Suray had done something similar, it appeared like the magic done by strange travelers from distant lands. The kind that caused the longhouse elders of the village to grumble the most amongst themselves as the young and curious gathered to gawk and clap. Not as though they truly cared what happened to the young and naïve, but there were impressions to maintain.

Cestia paused before an especially wide evergreen, as she clasped the edge of it. Before Kaye could ask her what was wrong, she faced him with her arm tensed beside her knife and sharply asked, with hush tones, “...Do you hear singing?”

Silence fell across the forest as they both held their breath tight in their lungs and listened. Cestia pulled back her hair with her shield arm, as her eyes searched the dense layers of brush and needles.

Kaye smothered a cough that fought to find its way to his lips. When all the little noises, such as blood rushing through his ears, came to a perfect lull, he heard it. Singing...

The fragment he caught didn’t sound like any form of music he knew. Not chanting with steady percussion or a lyre or flute accompanying. The voice stretched out, as though mounting from a great distance, with help to bring it forth. A trace of instruments lingered after each sound. At best, he felt a hint of percussion and maybe a stray noise like what the Charmies made as they jumped around. And maybe a form of lyre, but it had to be muffled and distorted by the distance.

Cestia extracted her knife and led the way with Kaye close behind. He thought about getting his ready too but instead he focused on the rhythm and allure of the distant song. It was strange but captivating. With each step forward they took, it became clearer in both language and composition. But it was finishing, cresting towards some climax, and if they didn’t trace the source before the end, who knew if they would ever be able to find it.

Fighting through a dense wall of clinging branches and shrubs, they breached into a new clearing where the music was instantly clear for one singular moment before fading. All Kaye could tease out was a final phrase.

“…WITH MY LOVE!“

Standing at the center of the clearing was the strangest-looking young woman either of them had ever seen. A tiny, knit black cap topped her silvery hair, which looked like sword metal streaked with bands of ice. It flowed nearly to her neck, with a broad, sleek parting at her forehead. From behind those locks, rusty crimson eyes blinked open with full, fancy shadowing from makeup. In her hands, she held a bulky, purple puffball on an angled rod. Her clothes appeared snug and fitted, especially her odd, blue trousers made from rough, textured cotton with metal adornments.

Hooked around her neck and draping forward like a large, strange horseshoe, was what Kaye could best describe (if he attempted to at all) as a fancy headband with a squishy set of armor. A long, thin shiny cord led from the bottom of each side and merged into a single strand that slipped into one of her pockets. Her top had precise stitching at the shoulder and vibrant, blue sleeves. A strange, indecipherable set of pictures, that reminded him of runes, adorned the lower section of the top with a cute and familiar rendering of a Charmie, which looked exactly like the one he glimpsed in the adventure book.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

OMItq5i.png [https://i.imgur.com/OMItq5i.png]

And the marvels around her didn’t stop there. To her right, set comfortably on the grass, was a wooden contraption with sparkling bits of gold and fainter yellow. An unfurled, banded opening, like a massive, metallic flower, spread out towards them as though they were the sun.

With a gasp, the singer fanned her hand high above her head and greeted them, “O. M. G! Welcome! Greetings! I am so sorry, but I was just wrapping up my concert. Total bummer, but like you two are the first ones to show up. Maybe I need a rethink on my advertising strategy....”

Best as Kaye’s ear could discern, she was speaking a version of the common tongue but, some of her words, he had no clue what she was talking about. Cestia‘s face also flashed with confusion as she gave Kaye a look. The odd young woman hummed to herself and adjusted the stuff around her as she awaited their reply with those wide, rust-toned eyes and a cheerful grin.

“…What?” Was all Cestia could really offer. Kaye raised a hand in response to that exuberant greeting, but was also at a loss.

Setting her hands on her quite-revealed hips in that getup, the young woman dipped her head with her lips twisted nearly to her nose in consternation. "Hmm. Sorry for the confusion. I travel everywhere. Almost literally everywhere. The Lifta Ladies have me beat. It's gotta be like...evening, right? Sorry, please call me Melody. I'm the musical...the musical...Melody the Musical...diva? No no. Too big on myself. I don't have the followers for that. Melody...artist of music...still not catchy. Sorry again. You guys need a boost? Let me help out!"

The girl bent forward with a glimmering smile and a carefree, spirited mood with twinkling, ethereal light stretching from her like morning rays through the fullest tree.

Immediately, Kaye felt like a bolt of electricity blasted right next to him like in the most violent late-night storms that flared outside the farmhouse. Only he didn't feel fearful, but as though a blast of vibrant energy swallowed him. Cestia stretched out and shifted her legs, giving a sign that something weird, but not unpleasant, happened to her too.

"Magic is gnarly, huh?" The girl kept her hands out with a playful grin. "Music is even better. You know what, I'm gonna give you...you...two...together. Oof, I don't want to be presumptuous but you guys look super comfortable next to one another. If I may be so bold."

Kaye's cheeks felt briskly warm. When he turned to look in Cestia's direction, she turned away and cleared her throat, asking the unusual girl, "You're going to give us...something?"

With arched, sharply-groomed eyebrows, she deepened her grin and noted, "An encore. And something new. It's a bit of a work in progress. Still cooking but my treat. Something off the EP and the CD and all the other letters Rava Media chucks at me. The Ravalerine Corp rep gave me like a thousand demos. Here! Extra treat."

<1 x "Broken Things Can Be Beautiful" CD.>

It took Cestia a few, long seconds to be convinced to accept the reflective, metallic disk, which provided a practically perfect mirror of polished luster. Kaye needed less convincing, gawking at the way he could see his face darkly but as detailed as any mirror, especially the silver ones he noticed in the homes of the local elders.

After they placed the flat circles of thin metal in their inventories, Melody explained, "Now...to play those...have them make music, you need a phonograph. Like over here. I hear they just installed a huge one right outside Elshelm Castle which was a gift from the Schwartzchild Republic." She gestured with both arms to the metallic, wooden flower-looking contraption and added, "You have my verbal okay for all public presentations of my music. May the energy within them inspire and motivate you! Now, just gimme a sec to reset and prep. Get as...comfortable as you like."

Kaye looked away as Melody bent over in her strange, snug trousers. He instead looked to Cestia, whose eyes met his at the same moment. A long bout of confusion and consternation brewing over this whole, bewildering encounter waned and the furrows on her brow eased with the smallest sigh through her nose.

Resigning the strangeness of this young girl to the many mysteries of the nine realms and their kaleidoscope of worlds, they surveyed the clearing for a spot not too far from the singer. Pausing in her work, Melody gestured with her arms a certain span and advised them, "You're welcome to rock out as close as you like, but you might have the best, most comfortable time on your ears...just a pace or two back."

They followed her advice, settling into a worn, shallow bowl of fair tufts of fluffy grass that provided a nice spot to rest. Kaye leaned toward Cestia then bent away as an overcorrection. Cestia slipped a blink-and-you-miss-it smirk like sneaking through an emotional keyhole before gazing skyward. The first, waning light freckles of stars passed through the drained tones of the sky. That breeze, sometimes fervent, sometimes friendly, had settled to a persistent but twisting calm. Cestia bound her locks together with a fist, toying with twisting them into something more secure but ultimately let them hang behind her. Kaye didn't have enough hair to accurately control it but groomed the ruffled flames of their radiance so he could clearly see Cestia sitting beside him with her arms binding her knees.

Meanwhile, Melody hustled about with the weird band pushed up on her head and the cord joined with a silvery, round hole in the side of the device. She traded disks, much like the ones she'd gifted them, on a turning, circular portion of the "phonograph". A black, needle point with sparkles of light lay against the disk as it spun in place. Kaye could hear muffled traces of music that briefly got louder as Melody adjusted the headband.

Cestia interrupted the spell of marveling at the foreign technology by asking him, "You wanna craft those hats together? Get that done so...so you're spared another, overly-detailed lecture by Rufus?" This time, the smirk lingered pleasantly on her face before settling into a full, calm smile.

Kaye cleared his throat and lightly reflected her smile. He had no objections.