Zilo, May, and Cruxis were led into their sleeping quarters that was a simple modest room with bamboo mat floors, sliding paper doors, and bedrolls on the ground. Each of them was given their own rooms that they looked around in for a few minutes until Maldrek finally came. With his meeting done the wizard motioned for them to follow.
"So what did the guy want, buddy?" Asked Zilo as they walked the long halls of the building.
"Apparently there is a faction of renegades in the city who want to see that the Umie line of succession is wiped out. The warriors here have been fighting them off in city sieges for many years, but they just stopped attacking the city recently. He wants us to investigate while we wait a month for the proposal ball."
"What is the group called?" Asked Cruxis.
"The Order of the Black Daimyo. I only have the name, so I think I'll need to do a bit more research on this before we head for their old base hidden in the forest."
May furrows her brows and says, "Leave the city? If these guys want the royals dead, why would we leave?"
Maldrek stops and looks to her, saying, "If they lived there then we might find a trail."
"Or they already are here making a plan to strike." She retorts.
"What do you mean?" Says the wizard. May begins speaking with her hands as she begins to describe, "If these guys haven't been able to take out the lord with raw power, then it only would make sense to use guile and trickery. At least that's what I would do."
Maldrek rubs his chin and says, "I'm not so sure, the king said they have a warrior-like creed, I mean they died to nearly the last man five years ago, even if some escaped."
May gives a playful smile and crosses her arms before she says, "Okay yeah, it's not like a small group of individuals would be able to single-handedly murder an entire royal family under cover of a royal ball."
Maldrek's stalwart stance and face are immediately shattered as memories of their premiere job in the Stormstate floods his memories. He sighs and says, "Okay, so maybe they are hiding in the city and are planning something."
May nods in victory and says, "Thank you, so I'll stick by the royals then here. I'll look for how I'd try and get at them." Maldrek nods to her and speaks, "Sounds good, let one of the servants know though. It might look shady if you start skulking."
May turns and raises her thumb up as she disappears around the corner. Maldrek and the other two begin to make their way out of the building. Maldrek took a few moments until they emerged to form a new plan of action.
"Okay, new set up, I'll go do book research on the Order of the Black Daimyo and see what I can learn about them from the record keepers here. Cruxis, you are the closest thing we have to a samurai here and since they are the guard of this city, work with them. See how much you can pick up from the people who fight the Order and watch the city through the eyes of the law."
Cruxis gives a nod and Zilo beams a huge grin and asks, "Where do I head, boss?" Maldrek gives a grin and says, "You're the most important factor, bud. I need you to make the rounds at every tavern, plaza, and other things you can think of and play your music. If the Order is in the city then they are laying low among the people. Get the people on your side and see if they can point you anywhere."
Zilo snaps out his hand from low and his violin pops into his hand and he says, "Piece of cake, I'm on it." Cruxis makes his way to one of the samurai on standby. Maldrek and Zilo proceed into the city proper and Maldrek points to a nearby larger building and says, "There's the Imperial Library, I'll be there if you need me"
Zilo raised his fist and tilted his head before saying, Copy that." Maldrek grins nods and they fist bump before Maldrek makes his way into the large building. Zilo was already in a large open plaza with many well-dressed people walking with a number of guards among them. Zilo grins and speaks softly, "Nobility I guess, they always love the more artistic works, best get to it."
Zilo begins to play his violin in a grand sweeping fashion to form an opera-like song for them to listen too. Some of the nobles begin to stop and listen, but the elder ones only halt for a moment before moving back to their duties. The younger of the nobility stays a bit longer for the rest of the song.
Zilo begins to play much more flamboyantly once he has a suitably sized crowd. He begins to dance gracefully with the melody and decides to spice up his performance with a new addition. He raises his violin with Mage Hand takes out his Songsword, Scherzo, and begins to add swordplay into his dance, rhythmically tapping his blade's tip into the stones on the ground to add to the grand flourish of the song.
He ends in a bow stance and the nobles watching begin to clap for the show, many of them make their way to where they were going, but a few walks up to Zilo and begin to ask him the usual questions: What was that song called, where did you learn to do all that, will you play another.
"Doesn't have a name, I made it up. I learned at a Bardic Academy. And sure I can do a few more I have nowhere to be."
Zilo played a few more songs getting more and more confident about incorporating the Scherzo. He was getting used to it now, up till now he's only needed to use it for combat performance, not complex performances including dancing and violin as well. After two more songs, Zilo wished everyone well and made his way away to try and find a new location to play.
"Best to build a reputation before getting into the investigation. I'll look for a tavern or something." Midday was beginning to come, so the taverns would be starting to open now and after about 20 minutes of searching, he found one a quaint little place to gather and drink.
It had lower tables that lined up along the right with benches and a smoothed out ground with part of the ground toward the back having an elevated wooden foundation with even lower tables and cushions for seats. This foundation made up a quarter of the floor that had a wooden stud rising from the corner in the middle of the entire room. The walls had intricate paintings of trees and nature and there were curtains to act as doors to the outside and the back room where food was made.
Zilo halted, he could very clearly see men at the tables drinking and women walking around serving them, but the thing that stood out to Zilo was...
"No bar. That's weird?" A nearby young woman short hair bundled back into a bun heard him and walked up with a smile and asked, "What was that sir? Can I get you a drink to start?"
Zilo looked to her and asked, "Actually I was wondering If I might do a bit of performing for your patrons?" She didn't quite have a response for that, so after a second of confusion, she called for one of the older servers who looked around 30 and repeated Zilo's question. The older woman looks Zilo up and down and the Fetchling responded,
"I'm a bard by trade you see and wanted to peddle my profession." She had not listened past the word bard, her face erupted in a smile before saying, "I know bards please go right ahead. We are really lucky Kasumi. Move one of the high tables, give him a spot to play."
The young woman bowed and made her way up to the table, trying to lift it by herself. Zilo noticed she was struggling and made his way over to help, and got the table toward the entrance in no time at all with only a leg loosening from handling it. With a spot cleared Zilo gauged his crowd.
They looked much poorer than the nobles most of them working class. A few young men at different tables with a few men of older ages at others. The only exception was a woman in the corner, but with a house full of working-class, it was time for a much more upbeat song.
He began to rapidly go at his violin with an intricate opener to get their attention before getting into the chords of a steady beat that made people want to get up and dance. The bar began to tap along on the table drinking their drinks as the older woman and Kasumi began to fill their drinks while they were distracted with the performance.
Zilo won the crowd very quick and the tapping began to turn into clapping and slapping on the thighs, even Kasumi was distracted from her work, looking to the bard tapping on her serving tray as she watched from right in front of the foundation. As he began to get to the end he realized he shouldn't cut up the wooden floor with Scherzo.
He instead let his violin rise away and he reached out his hand to Kasumi, who reached out with curiosity. Zilo yanked the woman up to the foundation and began twirling her about in a dance. He had to hold her up for some of the dance since she was unprepared, but as she understood her situation she got into it and danced along.
As the song came to a close Zilo lifted and spun the woman before dipping her to finish off. The tavern clapped as Zilo lifted Kasumi back to a standing position. She was red in the face and holding back a huge smile. Zilo was about to smile back and reassure her, but he was interrupted by a swift punch in the gut that sent him reeling back into the wall.
The bard looked up to see three young men, the one in front was cracking his knuckle with an angry look. He spoke, "What do you think you're doing with my girl, dead man!?"
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