Chapter 88: A musician’s lament
The Drunken Fairy Tavern
“Hey.”
“Mmmh?,” Draigo mumbled as he was facedown on a dirty bar counter. He made no moves to get up, besides sorta moving his shoulders a bit.
“Hey,” the barkeep said while poking the man this time with a grubby finger.
“Huh?,” Draigo grumbled while lifting his head to look at the bartender. The telltale bags of little sleep mixed with alcohol
“Bar’s closed. Come back tonight if you want.”
“Oh… alright,” Draigo mumbled before he got up from his seat. He dropped a few coins on the counter as he did.
“For your troubles.”
“Thanks.”
Draigo exited the tavern, only to get blinded by the sheer amount of daylight outside.
“Bah! Fucking hangovers,” he grumbled while fighting through his migraine, “Gonna need more…’medicine’ tonight. Need some quick cash though…now where’s an easy mark…”
Draigo could best be described with the term: wastrel. Nowadays anyways.
If one were to take a look at his clothes, one would see that they weren’t all too shabby, rather they were once very fine and made of delicate silk.
If one were to look at his face, they would see refined features and a chiseled jaw hidden beneath lines of worry, anxiety, pain and not so flattering facial hair.
Most importantly, if one were to examine the instrument upon his back, they would find them to be very well cared for, but made of very strange materials.
One wouldn’t be easily able to tell, but Draigo used to be one of the finest musicians in all of the Iron Heart Kingdom. Well, he and his partner used to be anyways.
The story of Draigo and his fall from grace could best be described as the stuff of…fairy tales.
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Once upon a time, in a land faraway, there was a little village by the sea.
Now in this village was a pair of friends, a boy and a girl, who were as close as rhythm and blues.
The two came from not so idyllic circumstances, but they shared a very simple yet pure dream: to be the best bards in all of the land.
The two of them loved music, and loved to hear the bards play at the local inn. They could never go in, they could never afford it, but they could always listen in thanks to a little spot behind the wall where the bard’s stage would be. They never stayed for long, in fear of the innkeeper finding their secret spot, but they always made sure to stay long enough to hear a song or two.
“Someday that’ll be us, right?,” the boy would ask
“No… we’ll be even better,” the girl replied.
The two longed to be on that stage and play their own hearts out, to captivate the world with their songs, with the melodies they could make.
The only issue was, they had no instruments to play. Between the two of them, they had exactly nothing to buy such expensive items. As the two of them pondered on how to remedy this situation, the girl suddenly had an idea.
“I know what we can do,” the girl declared,” if we can’t buy instruments, we’ll make our own!”
“Okay…how?,” the boy asked, “all the wood here is used for fuel, and all the threads have been woven into cloth by now.”
The girl paused for a moment, thinking of what to do.
“Hmmm.”
Until it came to her again.
“”Then let’s ask the old hermit on the hill! He’ll know.”
Now the old hermit the girl mentioned was a strange old man who just showed up to the village one day, went to a nearby hill and erected a hut in that same day.
No one knew who he was at the time or where he came from, but when people came to visit and see what he was all about, he proved to be surprisingly wise and polite. Whenever people came to visit with questions, they would come away with answers.
The duo was convinced that the hermit could help them with their plight of no instruments, so off they went off as quick as rabbits up the hill and to his hut.
When they arrived, they found the old hermit meditating outside his hut.
The two were tempted to interrupt him and ask their question immediately, but stopped themselves. It wasn’t polite to interrupt a person while they were busy doing something, regardless of the activity. Luckily for them, they didn’t have to wait long.
“Ahhh, that was a good nap…oh? Who are you two?”
“Dear hermit,” the children asked in unison, “we want to become musicians, but we have no instruments. We want to make our own, but the wood is being used for fuel, and the threads have been used to make clothes! Can you help us?”
“That so?,” the hermit asked while scratching his chin. He thought for a moment before giving his answer to the children.
“The wood is no good and the strings are now gone, but I know what we can make,” the hermit answered.
“You do?,” the children asked excitedly.
“Yes, but to make one for the each of you, I’ll need double the items. Do you think you can get them?”
“We do!,” the children quickly agreed.
“Good, then here’s what you’ll need,” he began to say as he curled a finger as a sign for them to get closer.
Once the children had leaned in, he began to instruct them.
“I’ll need two shells, preferably from the sea, two animal hides from beasts that live between the land and water and six catgut from three vicious beasts. Do you think you can get them?”
The friends looked at each other for a moment before nodding.
“Of course we can!”
And so the two children ran off to find the items they needed to make their instruments.
Their first stop was the coastline.
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“Hey! Let go of my purse!,” a woman screamed.
“Shove it lady, lest you want us to gut you like a fish!,” a rough looking fellow threatened, a rusty butcher knife in hand. Flanking him was a pair of muscle headed goons that just laughed at the situation.
“Oh bother,” Draigo grumbled as he saw the mugging happening in an alleyway he was just passing by.
Despite all of the advertisements stating that Emerald Eyes City was the safest city in the frontier, it was a still a city in the frontier. The city was huge and the guardsmen were understaffed, meaning petty crimes like this still happened despite the government’s best efforts.
The woman looked frantically a out, pleading for aid with her eyes until they fell upon Draigo.
Not wanting to get involved, Draigo turned his head before she could make eye contact.
‘Don’t look at me lady, I ain’t not hero,’ Draigo thought to himself as he tried to make himself seem invisible.
“Hey! Why don’t you leave the lady alone?”
‘Huh?’
The two young foreigners that suddenly walked right pass him though, definitely seemed like heroes.
Zhen Liu and Zhen Hai strode right pass Draigo and confronted the muggers, not even trying to be the least bit subtle or diplomatic.
“Do we need to repeat ourselves? Leave the lady alone.”
