"Since I am the one who challenged you, you may name the contest."
Leo, Zilo, and Jin huddle together and begin discussing, starting with Jin,
"I got this, I was a circus performer, no way he can out acrobat me."
Leo glares at Jin and says, " He. Can. Fly."
Jin peers back at the winged little devil and says, "Correct you are, maybe I could out drink him?"
Zilo winces and says, "Normally I'd agree, but you are already most of the way there my friend."
Jin stops drinking and then nods, realizing that he'd already handicapped himself. He then turns to Leo and says, "How about you Leo? No one is as sneaky as you."
Leo puts his thumb to his mouth and says, "True, but quasits can Change Shape and turn Invisible at will. As good as I am, he has me beat just by his race."
The two turn to Zilo, and Leo says, "Guess it comes down to you Zilo, time to prove you really are the Master of Strings."
Meanwhile in the other world, people sit in front of paper that has information on the characters of Zilo's world. The man with the hat holds Zilo's sheet, the skinny man holds Leo's sheet, a new red headed man with a goatee and pony tail holds Jin's sheet, and a man known as Jones sits behind a standing cardboard cover.
The redheaded man says, " So I guess Zilo will challenge the quasit to a battle of the bands."
Jones looks back to the man in the hat and asks, "You ready?"
The man in the hat's smile is ear to ear and his eyes are wide with excitement as he says, "Ready!? This is literally one of the main reasons I made Zilo use a violin. Gimme like 5 seconds."
After around 30 seconds of waiting for the computer to load with the crappy internet, the man with the hat presses play on a video to encapsulate the competition.
"Alright Grozzit! I, Zilo, the Master of Strings, challenge you to a violin competition."
Zilo jumped out of the huddle flicking out harmony and his violin. Grozzit, not to be out played, produced a tiny red horned fiddle with a bow and strings that looked to be encased in fire.
"Let's get it started then." Said the little demon with an evil smile. They both strummed their strings in tandem, matching the other almost perfectly, but Zilo minorly out playing the little imp. As they played they locked eyes and their gazes didn't wavered. Eventually Zilo and Grozzit spun and turned with the beat and when Zilo turned back to his opponent, the quasit had changed.
In Grozzit's place was an Erodaemon with a bewitching look in her three eyes. Zilo made a mistake from shock at the demon's change. This Quasit was full of tricks, but at least now Zilo's opponent could match him face to face.
There was no doubt that with his change Grozzit's skill seemed to have morphed as well, his playing seemed much more natural and much more intricate, now Zilo was beginning to fall behind.
They lept toward each other and the two squared up and their faces met inches apart. Zilo's face was stern, determined to match and best this demon. Grozzit's face was smiling, knowing that now that he had changed the contest was much more one sided.
Suddenly the demon struck, with a descending despair riddled melody, the snake head in place of his tail bolted out to bit the bard. Zilo's leg was bit, and he could feel his body weaken in response. He dropped his violin, but strangely still his playing continued.
Grozzit looked down at the bard and said, "What!? Trickster!" Zilo reached for his instrument and tipped his hat as his song played to his words, "A good bard, can make his Performances Linger."
The Demon spat as it's performance continued on, Zilo took plenty of time to massage and ready his leg, luckily he wasn't terribly affected by the poison physically, but he found focusing on his performance a bit trickier. Never the less he had a new song he'd been meaning to try. He flicked his harmony around and rested it atop his violin, smiled with an intense glare at the demon and said,
"My turn."
And a blast of horrifically enchanting notes exploded, breaking the air of Zilo's lingering notes. The melody crushed the will of Zilo's opponent and her body shook in fear. This was a very sophisticated performance of the Bards called the Dirge of Doom, and it's effects had made the demon falter, but his music managed to continue with his body fallen to the ground, shaking.
The Demon rose, putting aside his newly formed fear of the Magic musician, and it got back into the rhythm. It snarled and said, "You play dirty."
"You started it. Let's settle this with some solos."
"I'll leave you in the dust." Said the Erodaemon stepping forward and flinging himself to his knees. As he rose his notes became accompanied by a chorus of other performers as the ground cracked open and two more Erodaemon dancers rose, and behind them two demonic Minotaurs rose playing an organ that was spouting flames and a percussion set that boomed with waves of fiery energy.
The two other Erodaemons danced symmetrically toward Zilo and fauned on him, trying to make him get lost in their seduction. Zilo managed to shake them off just as the trio of Grozzit and the two Minotaur layed down a ominously enticing chorus of harmonies. With the finale of Grozzit's playing spurting around in the air, Zilo readied his own performance.
He had used every trick in his repertoire, and so for the first time since he cam to this plane, he would need to surface an old melody of his. He sighed resigned to his only chance at victory. His violin rose into the air with the help of the bard's Mage Hand, Zilo cast his hat to the side and out of his bag he pulled his dark robe of the Umbral Bard.
Grozzit dismissed his demons, curious to what Zilo was planning when from Zilo's Violin returned to the robed bard, and he let loose one somber note that echoed across the entire hollow cavern. Zilo's face was pensive, eyes closed and movements full of gloom. The happy-go-lucky idiot wasn't there, only a sad, suffering soul.
All the observers went silent as death as Zilo played a dark tone. It wasn't horrible, or haunting like Grozzit's, only sad and lilting. As the melody continues to build the city goes dark and little specks of light begin to rise out of the ground and take form.
The specks of light become spectral humanoids, Dwarves, seeming to walk about the city. Leo, Jin, and Falx look on at the figures, walking about as if they hadn't been killed.
"What is he doing?" Asked Jin. Falx looked back to Zilo, muttering, "He... He... I never saw the song done so... Superbly."
Zilo's bow moved with the motion of the spirits of the dwarves. The spirits begin to come out of their houses and surround Zilo and Grozzit. Grozzit stares wide eyed in amazement as the spirits begin to fly upward to the topaz sun. Zilo's hair is caught in the updraft of spirits, lightly waving in the wind.
At the end of playing Zilo opened his eyes, and Grozzit returned to his quasit form. The quasit falls to the ground and says, " I... I lost."
Zilo twirls Harmony around and stows it back into his bag, turning back to his three friends and say, "I guess you're with us now Falx, lets get going."
At the end of playing Zilo opened his eyes, and Grozzit returned to his quasit form. The quasit falls to the ground and says, " I... I lost."
Zilo twirls Harmony around and stows it back into his bag, turning back to his three friends and say, "I guess you're with us now Falx, lets get going."
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