Two weeks of time pass with Maldrek taking plenty of time to gather research from the royal library, making huge strides in his studies. Zilo, back at their tavern, asked Maldrek at the beginning of the week about the duel that he was to take part in, but the only response Maldrek would give was,
"There will be a few challenges, nothing you can't handle, just relax."
Zilo would just shrug and took up his time assisting Aria with refining her awakened Bardic magic. She would hold her Violin and he would lecture.
"Now that you can feel instinctively how the world is put together, you need to reflect that with your playing. Before you played to hit the notes, right now, I want you to play something new, that you never played before."
"How am I to play what I don't know?"
"Trust me, just start with a lone note and reach for the next, see where the violin takes you."
Aria sighed, closed her eyes, and began to play a note as she warily and slowly played into the next. The playing was notably somber as a result, and Zilo stood and placed his hat on the table he was seated at. He then spoke, "When you feel ready, try keeping your eyes open and letting the playing be almost secondary. Focus on my hat instead."
Aria slowly began to stop focusing as heavily on the music and simply let her arms move, while the rest of her body focused on the hat. Zilo smiled and said, "Good, next I want you to imagine a hand and-"
Aria in that moment accidentally hit a sour note and all her focus immediately went back to her playing and she stopped listening, She panicked and fumbled until she dropped her violin from her shoulder. Zilo snatched it before it hit the ground and shook his head for a second before she spoke,
"I'm sorry."
"It's fine, I'm amazed you could even play without focusing on the music, that's not an easy thing to do."
They both took a seat,in the table's chairs. Aria snatched his hat and placed it back on his head while Zilo handed her back her Violin. Aria looked to Zilo's violin at the bard's hip and asked, "Can you show me how its meant to be done."
Zilo looked down to his case and a magic hand formed, unlocked the case and reached in. The ghost hand lifted up the Violin and along with a second hand it began to play. Zilo's eyes don't veer away from Aria, his hand just simply makes a few subtle movements and Zilo speaks Mage Hand to activate the spell.
"I'll show you, but I I'll warn you that this is my specialty and you won't pick up much. All bards learn how to focus on other things while performing. It's how I assist the others in fights while playing my music to lend a hand." Zilo's violin begins an inspiration quick paced series of notes to play as he continues to speak.
"Playing while doing other things is something you need to get good at. Watching me won't help as it's not a thing you get off of technique or hand placement, it's something you get off of practice until it is almost second nature, do you get me?"
Aria looks to the floating violin then back to her boyfriend and nods as she says, "I'll try, I just need to practice right?"
Zilo nods and responds, thinking back, "Right, Like how you dance while playing when we first met, I'm sure you practiced that to pull it off but I was just adapting to what you did on the fly. Try new dance routines without planning your playing for a few weeks, then we can touch base again."
Aria scrunches her eyebrows and says, "No insane tasks? Just practice this?"
"You've graduated past the requests, they were only to trigger your Prelude."
Aria's eyes widen and her mouth gapes before she stops to think and nods understandingly, "That makes so much sense now. You were getting me more adaptable." Zilo smiles and flicks his finger across her nose and says, "Right on the money, I knew my student was smart. Anyway I'm gonna head out and practice a bit with the blade and bow, I wanna make sure Maldrek's new gifts feel natural."
Zilo motions to his Necklace of Natural Armor, his Ring of Protection, and his Cloak of Resistance. He waved her goodbye and walked over to here Jin already training. but as he rounded the side of the building to begin practice on the dummies there Aria grabbed onto him from behind. Jin looked over and gave a quick drunken hoot to the couple.
Zilo smiled it off and asked Aria, "What's up? I forget something?"
"I was just wondering, when do you think Maldrek will let me in the field again?" Zilo froze and turned back to her as she let go, he bit his lip and said, "About that, Maldrek thinks it'd be a good call for you to just keep practicing being a bard for a bit.
Aria stood firm with her hands on her hips and said, "No way! Do you know how worried I am every time you head off into Dema knows where while I am stuck watching the bar, May or Leo is just as able to bar tend as me, heck even Clay is getting good enough.""
"It's not the bar that has us worried, it's what happened last time, when we fought the goblinoids you were a liability."
"ME! You almost died!"
Zilo shook his head and said, "You aren't wrong, but still I can heal, you can't, please."
"Then teach me to heal." Zilo grabs her by the shoulders and says, "That's what I'm saying. I'll teach you to be a bard then you can go."
Aria crosses her arms, turns, and responds, "Fine then."
"Fine." Says Zilo as he turns in a similar fashion. Aria heads back inside Zilo is left with Jin. Jin giggles and asks, "Trouble at home?"
Zilo motions to the bar and says, "Can't she see I'm trying to protect her, She's not like the rest of us yet, she might get herself killed."
"You ain't wrong, but she don't see it dat way, She wants tah protect ya."
"I can protect myself."
"Physically and magically sure, but ya aren't de wisest of people."
Zilo begins practicing with his blade as he says, "I'm not?"
"Not by a mile, ya got a royal to hate ya, dat's not a place ya wanna to be."
"No big deal, It's not like I'm going to kill him, Maldrek said it won't be to the death."
"Dat's not the point, ya are carrying all of us and our fates here Zilo, ya gotta be careful here."
"Yeah I know Maldrek told me as much, if I beat him the business goes down, so I have an easy answer to that."
"What's dat?"
Zilo flows from strike to strike trying to let his new cloak avoid the blade and he continues. "The way I see it. If I win the kingdom hates us. If I throw the match then the prince will be even angrier and Aria might think even worse of me for not fighting for her. So I really only have one option.
Jin tilts his head as Zilo speaks with a grin, "I gotta make it a tie."
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