Master of Strings Ch 140: Knight led Astray

Cruxis stood by the side of the Umie Xunchu watching for any approaching threats. The many guest mingling and chatting with her made it have a low rumble of discussion background noise as the Paladin shut his eyes to try and block it out. 

His focus was shattered as a familiar voice broke through his veil.

"Xunchu! I've been looking all over for you!" Said Prince Kranoc reaching out to hold her hand among the crowd.

Cruxis took a few steps over to interpose between them and he spoke, "Hey milord, sorry about stealing her, but there was a problem and-"

"I don't wanna hear it. She is my fiancé and we need to be together for this event!" Shouted the prince, gathering the attention of all the nearby nobles. Cruxis glanced around to notice the growing tension in the room and held his tongue before speaking carefully.

"Lord, I am to guard this ball and was just... guarding Xunchu, nothing odd about that right?"

"Secondly I'm your prince! You need to make sure that-!" Xunchu takes a step up to the Prince and says, "Now now, how about the 3 of us head outside for some air and Cruxis can explain everything, huh Kranoc?"

The prince's rage subsides as Xunchu grasps onto him and Cruxis looks about as the nobles begin to go back to chatting privately, likely about the foreign prince's outburst. It would probably be a good idea to remove the three of them from the awkward atmosphere.

They make their way through the crowd out to the empty balcony and the couple lean over the wooden rail as Cruxis keeps his eyes on the door in case anyone approaches. After a few moments of the two of them whispering behind him Cruxis hears the sound of Xunchu scream and the sound of someone falling over the rail. 

The paladin turns to see Kranoc's shocked silhouette as he says, "What the!? Someone just yanked her off!?" Cruxis rushes forward and looks over the edge. As he sprints he shouts,

"Damnit Kranoc, she has assassins after her! Just get out of my-!" Cruxis looks over the edge to see... Prince Kranoc at the bottom of a 15 foot fall groaning on the grass bellow. The prince's voice comes from behind the paladin and says in a sinister tone, "You don't say?"

Cruxis is suddenly shoved over the rail and he twists his body about to snatch onto the edge with his right hand. The prince on the balcony hops up to balance himself on the edge of the rail as his arms begin to morph into claws.

The doppelganger lifts his claws and begins to bring it down to slice at Cruxis' face. The paladin kicked off the bottom edge of the rail and slammed his forehead into the being's nose. This forced him back and Cruxis managed to barely balance himself on the rail. Cruxis hopped down and drew his blade and shield and spoke, 

"Where is Xunchu? Speak and I will spare you!"

"Hehehe. Maybe you shouldn't get into shouting matches when you need to be guarding someone."

Cruxis grits his teeth and the doppelganger leaps off of his hands and kicks against the paladin's shield. Cruxis takes a swipe at the fake prince, but misses and re-assumes his defensive stance. The doppelganger sweeps low but finds himself at the end of a sword pointed straight ahead. 

In the other world the one known as Dave crosses his arms and speaks, "These guys are chumps!? I expect more out of enemies this late in the game." As he rolls 3 times and says, "25, 19, and 16."

The one known as Jones who became frustrated says, "The first two hit. Also you guys are Level 12, the stuff on your level could wipe a town single handedly. Besides the boss fight last session was the combat climax. This is a role play one." By the time Jones finishe,s Dave has finished rolling for damage and speaks," 18 damage, is he bloody?"

Back in Lidan the doppelganger holds his chest as he now has a gaping wound and shoulder bruise. He breaths heavy as Cruxis mocks, "Ha, looks like I wont even break a sweat." The Doppelganger chuckles lightly as he reaches into his pocket, which now seemed to have a scroll in it.

The doppelganger produced the scroll and shouted, "Summon Monster 8, Hamatula Devil." From the paper a portal manifests and from it erupts a humanoid lizard-like creature covered in spikes with a menacing smile.

Cruxis' eyes go wide as he quickly flanks around the new devil and slashes the doppelganger in twain, he then looks back at the devil and his face goes pale as it remains.

In the other realm Dave's eyes are as wide as Cruxis' as he says, "Why is he still there!? The caster died!" Meanwhile Jones gains a smug smile and he leans back saying, Who knows, maybe if you make an arcana check on your turn I can tell you, but right now its the devil's turn."

The barbed devil leaps at the paladin and sweeps both his arms about to clasp onto Cruxis, then once the fiend wraps around Cruxi's waist the paladin is punctured by dozens of the devil's barbs. Cruxis coughs up a bit of blood and shakes the devil off of him only for it to try and hold onto him again.

Cruxis raises his shield and and holds it back as he activates his smite and stabs at the evil being. With a solid thrust to the devil and a flash of the paladin's red crimson smite the devil's barbs extend and stab at the paladin's sword arm. The devil rears back in pain before it begins to slink about stalking the paladin.

Cruxis searches his memory for how this devil is remaining in the material plan, but he can't seem to find a good answer. His thought is interrupted as the devil dashes at him in another attempt to give him a deadly hug. The paladin swipes to keep the creature at bay, but when he accidentally scraps the devil the barbs extend and wound him more. 

Cruxis used lay on hands to fix a fair amount of the damage and defended himself with his shield to keep the creature at bay. He continued to heal as best he could while avoiding attacking the devil. Once he had regained enough health he let loose and swung over and over taking more and more hits in retaliation.

The devil tried to throw as much damage back, but he was forced off his feet as Cruxis continued to take more and more damage. Eventually Cruxis went down and just as the devil believe he had won Cruxis in his falling state shouted, "Hero's Defiance!"

Cruxis' wounds knitted together just enough to allow him to make one more strike and cleave the devil in two before it exploded into a cloud of ash and was taken away by the wind. He breathed heavy as turned back to the ball room.

He looked to see the main chandelier was falling from the high ceiling toward the floor about to crush and shatter glass all over all the guests. He wondered to himself, "WHAT HAPPENED!!!"

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Master of Strings Ch 139: Devil and the Death Dealer

May sat there stuffed into the cupboard of the with a doppelganger posing as a guard just outside it. She sat there waiting, she hadn't struggled to much as two of them ambushed and trapped her in the kitchen supply area before the ball began.

The doppelganger posing as a guard must have gotten bored shooing away the servants since he tapped on the cupboard behind him and spoke, "Hey, you awake in there?"

May chimed in, "Do kidnappers normally chat up the beautiful damsels?"

"Beautiful?" Remarked the guard as he turned to the cupboard which suddenly banged as May thumped the wooden door.

"Jeez, you got some attitude."

"I hear that a lot, what do you want?"

"All the other folks we took out fought back, you just agreed to be captured. Why?"

"Well that's not an easy answer, but... I guess I don't like the good prince and I don't even know his bride to be. People die all the time, why should I risk getting hurt to save a stuck up jerk like him and his woman." May squirmed a bit in the cupboard before she continued.

"Sure the Black Daymio were one thing, but we had the advantage there. We ambushed them and we held all the cards. How by Dema were we to counter doppelgangers, you guys really are a huge X factor."

"You thought a lot about this huh?" Said the guard.

"I'm an assassin,  I think a lot about how to kill people, in fact I can even point out the things you could have done to make this work better." At that the guard turned fully to the cupboard and laughed a bit. He spoke, "Really? You think you could have done this better than us?"

"You ever hear about the massacre in the Stormstate, I was the one who beheaded the king and queen, and trust me, there are some messy things you forgot to take care of. For example, is that maid still dead behind the potatoes?"

The guard glances over to the pool of blood spilling from the potatoes and he says, "Maybe."

"Well I'm guessing she's there because you all didn't know about the sewer system in the castle, the royals keep it secret only known to the royal guard. Perfect place to dump a body, I kept a map on hand in case I wanted to do a side hustle while protecting the nobles round here, gimme some light and I'll show you."

The guard looked over to May's knives and poisons across the room and shrugged as he unlatched the cupboard and began to open it. As the container opened May spoke, "Being an assassin has taught me..."

May leapt out of the cupboard and snatched around the doppelganger's neck with the rope that was tied up around her hands. The ends frayed from the magic of a Spark spell. May did a flip over the guard and yanked down as hard as she could, beginning to choke him as she finished, "Always get the target when they are alone!"

The guard began to struggle and morph his form, but as his neck got skinnier May flicked the rope around her knuckles and put even more pressure on as she says, "Better chance staying a guard, a malleable neck is just easier to strangle."

The guard began to force her back, but May snapped up her leg and dug her heel into the back of the guard's calf. Forcing him to the ground on his knees. She leaned down and spoke, "As much as I hate the brat prince, what I hate more is being showed up. So I refuse to lose to some rank amateurs who get by on shapeshifting instead of actual skill!"

With a sickening snap the doppelganger falls to the ground as May lets the rope hang from her hands and dusts off some of the pantry dust from her dress. As she began to lift the body the door opened to the kitchen.

There stood Maldrek staring at the dead guard as May dropped his shoulders and she speaks, "Oh good, don't worry its an assassin, can you hide the body for me?" May strolled over to her equipment as Maldrek rolled his eyes and dismissed his Locate Object spell.

May spoke, "So what's the situation?"

"Doppelgangers, 2 dead including this one, and one being interrogated by Zilo. Cruxis is sticking to Umie like glue, she seems to be the target. There are 3 more we need to..."

Maldrek had put away the body and was stunned as May had taken off her dress to conceal her knives . She turned to see Maldrek starring and she produced a knife in a threatening manner. Maldrek turned away as his shade of red went deeper and he continued, "3 more to track down, best method is to check their blood, Doppelganger blood turns black after bleeding. Which by the way..."

Maldrek began to turn toward May but a knife flew past his nose and planted itself in the wall. The blade had a bit of normal red blood on it as May spoke, "You can look now." Maldrek retrieved the knife and turned back to May who was now redressed with her concealed weapons. As Maldrek went to hand back the knife she stared at him and said,

"Nuh uh, you make a mark too. This is the sort of long play I would pull to get close to Umie. Show me your blood."

"I told you about the blood, why would I-?" Before Maldrek could finish May drew and threw a dagger into his bicep and a plume of blood squirted out. As the blood dripped and remained red Maldrek gripped his arm and winced.

May gave him a smile and cast Cure Light Wounds followed by Mend to get him ready to mingle again. Maldrek rubbed his arm and she said, "So any plans to get the last three?"

"Not yet. I'm going to find Zilo, if he's learned anything then maybe we can get more information, you stick with Cruxis and watch for anyone who... well"

"Anyone doing what I would do."

"Exactly."

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Master of Strings Ch 138: Now it's a Party

 Zilo kept an eye on the door as Xunchu entered rubbing her arms, looking down at the dead doppelganger. She looked to Zilo and asked, "I told them all and they will be here soon... So you know about these things?" Zilo turns over to her and speaks, "Only what I've read. They can mimic anyone's appearance and voice, as well as the ability to read thoughts to sell the act. Maldrek should know more. He's the one who lent me the monster manual I saw them in."

As they finished, Maldrek and May entered, May was, for once, wearing a dress that wasn't fashioned from leather and black cloth, but instead a purple silk formal dress while Maldrek was dressed in a formal black suit with a red dress shirt and boots. Neither had their scythe or sword, but hidden under their outfits was Maldrek's guns and a pocket spellbook, while May hid her daggers with poison vials.

Maldrek looks down to the dead body and says, "Is that!?"

"Doppelganger, it was pretending to be Ai so it could get a shot at Xunchu. Said that it was from the Black Daimyo."

May hangs back her head and sighs before saying, "fantastic, they made one last hurrah as a noble."

Maldrek assumes his thinking pose with his hand on his chin and begins to form a plan as May kneels down to look at the body. she looks up to Zilo and says, "Not a bad plan to be honest, pose as the best friend to get close then kill her on her own."

Maldrek gets out of his stance and says, "But there's the chance of more." May narrows her vision at Maldrek and says, "Really? How many you think?"

Maldrek shakes his head and says, "At most around a half dozen, Doppelgangers can make small gangs, but never any more than that, and I think the Black Daimyo must have hired them before we killed them off."

May's face goes tense as Zilo wipes the rest of the blood off his sword before taking a step forward and saying, "So Maldrek how do we counter them?"

Maldrek looks to Zilo and says, "Best method is a blood test. Once a part of a doppelganger's body leaves the main body it reverts. Their blood turns black shortly after its spilled." May sarcastically shakes her hand and motions out to the ballroom with her arm and says, "Sure get a sample from every party goer here, that won't be difficult."

Xunchu comes forth and says, "Well let's cancel the event then! I don't want to die."

Maldrek shakes his head and says, "No need we can handle this, but I need you to do me a favor, do your best not to let on that you know about the attacks. If there are others here then they might have a back up plan if they get caught. I'd rather deal with the plan we know not the uncertain back up."

At that moment Cruxis entered into the bathroom, in his full armor, but polished to attend such an event. He sees the body and says, "By Arete! What is that!?"

May chimes in, "Doppelganger, Black Daimyo hired them to kill Xunchu, Maldrek says there are 5 more we need to worry about." As May finishes speaking Maldrek's eyebrow twitches and he brings his hand to his chin, and proceeds to continue thinking. Zilo, May, and Cruxis continue speaking while Maldrek forms some sort of plan.

Cruxis says, "Well if that's the case then one of us should guard her out there, I volunteer."

May shakes her head and says, "No way big stuff, It'd look weird if a man was with a bride-to-be on the night of her engagement rather than her husband, I can blend in as one of her maids."

Maldrek's eyes spring open and he says, "May give me a knife." May looks to Maldrek incredulously and the Tiefling responds, "I don't have my sword and I need someway to test them, I need a knife." May nods and walks over to Maldrek handing him a knife handle first.

As he grabs the knife he jerks it away and cuts May on her hand, She rears back, holding her new wound and Zilo shouts, "Maldrek what the hell!?" Maldrek holds the knife up to Zilo and says, "Just making sure." In a flash the blood turns black and Zilo's eyes dart over to May.

May grimaces and leaps at Xunchu with her nails morphing into claws, but Maldrek snaps out his pocket spellbook and casts Hold Person. May is held in place with her claw inches from Xunchu.

Maldrek dramatically closes his book in his palm and says, "She seemed sure that there were 5 more, might have been confidence, but couldn't take the chance."

Maldrek backs up to push Xunchu against the wall as he drops the knife and takes out a gun from his coat and speaks to both his friends, " Both of you, I want blades on skin right now." Zilo and Cruxis unsheathe their swords a bit and cut the tips of their fingers. Both bleed naturally and Maldrek lets out a sigh of relief. He puts back his gun.

Zilo point to the knife and says, "And you...?" Maldrek looks down to the dirty knife and says, "I could have killed her right now as I pinned her to the wall. Besides, that knife is filthy now." He brings his attention back to the doppelganger May and he says, "Seems this one has done something with May, I'll go find her."

Maldrek then points to Cruxis and says, "Cruxis you stick to Xunchu like glue, don't let her leave the ballroom." He then Points to Zilo and says, "Zilo, get as much information out of that deoppelganger as you can."

Zilo nods as Maldrek casts Spark to burn the old doppelganger body in the bathroom away, Cruxis and Xunchu leave the bathroom. Zilo turns his gaze over to the trapped doppelganger. It looks to sweat as it stays there still. Zilo's violin flicked into the air and a ghost performance began. 

Since he needed things from the doppelganger Zilo made use of the Dance of Kindled Desires thrusting and waving his hips and his puffy shirt coming slightly undone and as he locked onto the doppelganger's wants he knew he could give it. It wanted to leave without getting hurt.

Zilo ended his dance by moving in and embracing the Doppelganger as it fell into his arms changing it's hands fully back into a hand and Zilo spoke in a deep knowing voice, "So it is life you desire, fear not, I can show you life."

"Thank you," Whispered the Doppelganger, blushing slightly as the door to the bathroom opened to show the two of them embracing inches from each others' faces and a party guest froze, slowly closing the door and spoke, "I... Um... I'll try a different bathroom."

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Master of Strings Ch 137: Uninvited guest

Zilo and Ai arrived at the Umie residence to see that the grand throne room had been decorated with all forms of eastern style decor that had not been present when Zilo last visited. The decorating must have taken weeks to make perfect. As he walked in the doorway he looked about for his friends, but was dragged away by Ai who seemed to have a fair amount of strength for a girl her size.

Ai dragged him over to Prince Krannoc Deneval and Umie Xunchu who seemed to be chatting up a number of local lords. As the bard and lady approached the royal couple, Xunchu turned to see her old friend and immediately threw out her royal face, turning into a giggling schoolgirl.

"Ai, thank the Gods you came. These nobles won't stop badgering us with question after question."

Xunchu begins to count off on her hand, "When is the real wedding? How many heirs do you plan to have? Are you truly leaving Lidan for Deneval? It's getting tiring."

While Ai comforts her friend over the matter, the Prince glances over to Zilo then back at Ai before he says, "I must say Zilo, you do have a way with finding powerful women."

Zilo turns confused to the Prince and the Prince continues, "A heiress to one of the richest family of a nation, a Draconic Elven knight, and that little vixen from your tavern."

Zilo's face lights up and he says, "Well Tess is just a friend, Aria is the one I needed that favor for. She's the one for me."

"Who?" Comes a soft voice from the two woman as Ai looks to the two men with a confused look. Zilo's face contorts to panic as the Prince sips on his sake and says, "Our bard friend here has a woman in Deneval he plans to marry she's-" Zilo clamps his hand over the Prince's mouth, but the damage was done. 

Ai looks on the verge of tears as she stares at Zilo. The Prince, taking advantage of Zilo's distraction removes the hand from his mouth and threatens, "Remember what happen last time you laid a hand on me bard?!"

Zilo, refusing to let the oppurtunity go to waste returns back with, "I beat you in almost every single challenge you placed, now I must see to... where did Ai go?" The bard turns back to see Ai has gone missing and the Prince turns to see that his own date is crossing her arms.

Xunchu berates the two, "Well done you both drove her off in less than five minute of her arrival." Xunchu turns and leaves the two of them to contemplate their choices. In a bathroom off to the side of the throne room Ai is crying. After a few moments Xunchu opens the door and calls out, "Ai! Are you alright?!"

"In here." Says Ai's voices from behind a privacy screen. Xunchu approaches and begins to speak, "I'm so very sorry about Zilo. If I had known I would have warned you. I met him back when Krannoc had that duel I wrote to you about when... Ai?"

As Xunchu spoke Ai charged out from behind the screen and grabbed Xunchu's neck lifting her clear off the ground and beginning to choke her with one hand. Xunchu looked at her best friend in shock as the small noble girl's face began to warp and shift into a grey form. She grew a few inches and her hair reformed to match Xunchu's followed by the kimono and face also reforming to match Xunchu's outfit and face.

The being that was Ai spoke in Ai's voice, but mid sentence her voice warped to mimic Xunchu's, "So sorry my lady, but your friend has been dead for at least a week now. The Black Daimyo sends his regards." The being pulled back it's arm to form it into a menacing sharp claw, but as it came forward it was stopped just before impact by a silver arrow that streaked by and pinned the arm to a wall.

Zilo stood in the entryway to the bathroom and notched another arrow before shouting, "Ai, I think we should see other people! I don't have a thing for Dopplegangers" The shape changing assailant hopped back, reforming it's arm to escape the arrow holding it on the wall. It ran and took cover behind the protective screen as two more arrows flew and pierced the paper barrier. Zilo unsheathed his blade and ran to the barrier as he shouted to Xunchu, "Stay down, I'll handle this!"

As Zilo rounded the edge of the screen he was stunned still as there behind the barrier was Aria. In his moment of hesitation The doppelganger leaped out in the form of Zilo's fiancé, slashing at his torso. As he stumbled back from the wound, the doppelganger tried to press it's advantage with another attack, but Zilo flicked up his sword and intercepted the lunge and in a clean swing cut the arm off in an instant. 

The beast slammed Zilo's unprotected side to the ground into the cowering Xunchu as it made a break for the exit. By the time the two had regained their footing the enemy was gone, a few moments later the Prince came running in and said, "Zilo! Ai just ran out of here crying again! What did you do!?"

Zilo marches to the door and says, "It's not Ai, it was a doppleganger that was after Xunchu."

"What!? Well go get it! I'll guard Xunchu." The Prince puts out a hand to shake, Zilo does so and makes for the door, but at the last moment he notices a bit of black liquid on the cuff of his sleeve. After a quick recalling of his knowledge of nature. Zilo turns back and asks,

"Krannoc back when you came to our bar, which of my friends held back your two men?"

The Prince turned back to Zilo and said, "Well that was Leo of course."

Zilo turns back and smiles, "You're right, good memory."

The Prince smugly shuts his eyes and says, "I could never forget a moment from that ni-"

The Prince's gloating is cut short as a sword pierces his heart and Zilo says to the dying creature, "Too bad Krannoc was drunk as Cayden Cailean that night." Zilo pokes his own temple and says, "But the mind you've been reading this whole fight was sober as a Paladin.

The Prince reverts to the true doppelganger form of lithe and grey features with his blood flowing red but changing to black shortly after it left the body, same as the blood on Zilo's sleeve. Zilo flecks the blood from his blade and says to Xunchu, "Find Maldrek and the others. Seems the Black Daimyo had one last Ace up his sleeve."

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Master of Strings Ch 136: The Ball to be

The heroes collapse onto the grass on the edge of the park lake. Maldrek is the first to stand up again and dust off his robe before saying, "Right then, all we have left to do is attend the Ball, then head on home." Zilo pops up his head and remarks,

"Wait! I still have to go!? I thought we were done!"

May smugly smiles as she stands and says, "What's the matter, afraid of waltzing in with a noble woman on your arm?"

Cruxis begins to stand as well and says, "The three of us should see about getting dates as well, to blend in a bit better."

Maldrek looks to May and says, "Luckily May can just go with one of us." At that may looks to the two of them and begins to contemplate, "Would I rather go with a half-orc or a half-devil? Boy you really know how to spoil a girl."

Both men look a little bit insulted and May shrugs and says, "I guess Maldrek."

Cruxis glares and says, "Why him!?"

May points at him with her thumb and says, "He's a good father, plus he's got at least half a brain."

Cruxis sulks and Zilo pats him on the back and tells him, "Chin up buddy, don't forget you beat the Black Samurai, girls love heroes like that!" Cruxis stands back up straight and smiles to cover his pain. The three heroes say their goodbyes to Zilo, and return to the Umie residence while the bard questions his destination.

"I could do my rounds in the taverns," Zilo stumbles from fatigue as he walks out of the park and continues, "But that bed back at the Rai's has a really soft mattress... and man I could go for a quick nap."

He then freezes up remembering the determination of Ai, but his own exhaustion endures and eventually wins as he walks into the mansion and collapses onto the bed. Hours pass as the bard regains enough strength to make it through the day. As he wakes up and begins to get ready to go out into town to do his bard thing, he hears footsteps making their way down the hall.

He spots Ai who looks into the room and he is stunned still like a deer in torchlights. The girl gives quick nod and smile before she says, "Morning Zilo, good luck today." And... she begins to walk away. Zilo blinks as she walks off in silence.

Any wise man would just let this happen... But the bard darts out of the room and takes off after her and asks, "Ai, are you okay?" The girl looks shocked by the bard's question and she says, "Of course, what makes you ask?"

She looks to the bard and he just tilts his head and says, "You um... just seem off."

The girl smiles and gives a little bow before saying, "Well I rarely get to see you in the mornings, I just figure you were getting ready to go do some performances in town. I wouldn't want to keep you." And she just walks off. Zilo blinks a few more times, but eventually just shrugs and heads out into town.

He plays at the usual spots he had become expected to play at in the city over the last month before he returns to the Rai home and by instinct he sneaks into the window of his room but he stumbles as he enters when he hears,

"Welcome back" from Ai, sitting there near his mattress. The bard smashes into the ground and looks at her ready to fend her off, but she instead stands up, dusts herself off and smiles as she speaks. "Father thought a new mattress would be in order since you've slept on the old one for weeks, so I thought I'd ready it for you."

Zilo raises an eyebrow and asks, "And you intended to break it in or something like that right?" She giggles and responds, "You're funny Zilo, but no, after all it would be indecent for a noblewoman to do such things before being courted."

She gives a quick bow and exits the room while speaking, "I hope the mattress is comfy for you." Zilo watches her carefully as she leaves, the moment she is gone he obsessively examines the mattress to ensure it is not some sort of trick.

After he is done he talks aloud the strange way Ai is acting, "She hasn't made a single advance on me, I wonder what her deal is. She's caught me vulnerable enough times that I may as well have been served up on a plate. She must be up to something, probably waiting for me to lower my guard."

As he talks it through he feels the mattress which seems much softer and more comfortable. He succumbs eventually and falls asleep, waking up in the morning. He readies himself and makes his way to the door of his room, but gets a surprise as he opens it.

There stands Ai head hung and shaking. The bard speaks causally, "Morning Ai, did you nee-" he is cut off as the girl leaps forward and tackles Zilo to the ground and shuts the door with her leg. On the ground Zilo is stunned by this as the girl shakes and begins to speak with a tremble in her voice,

"I-I over heard you l-last night, s-s-so I guess I can tr-try to give you what you want." Her hand trembles as she presses it on Zilo's chest and works its way down to his belt, but the bard quickly grabs her hand and stops it. The girl opens her eyes that she had been forcing shut and the bard says, 

"Please do not! Don't want that!" Zilo hefts the girl off of his body and stands, dusting himself off and says, "I would never force anyone to do something they don't want to do, and strangely you don't seem to want to do it." The bard speaks a silent thought "Like how I don't want to do it or Aria would kill me."

The girl takes a minute to think about Zilo's words and she smiles up at him and says, "You're a good man Zilo Realms." And with that last smile, one more genuine than the ones she flash him yesterday, the bard's doubts were cleared. This girl means him no harm.

For the rest of the week leading up to the ball Zilo spent a bit more time than he had before at the Rai residence now that Ai seemed to have changed her outlook a bit. Finally the last night had come as she dressed in a very elegant silk kimono and Zilo cleaned and styled his usual attire as he would to attend any formal event.

The lord and lady of the house wished them a lovely evening and after a few hours one of the guards approached the heads of the house with a look of fear in his eyes.

"Lord and Lady, it seems the grounds keeper has found... you'd both best come with me." The two lords followed the guard to the small lake in the courtyard and they see a waterlogged body laying on the edge of the water. It was bloated and discolored, making it hard to recognize, but after a few minutes of the lord talking with the guard about the body, the lady finished looking over the body and comes to a grim conclusion as she jumps back toward her husband.

The lord knelt to comfort her as she screams and turns to him with tears in her eyes before she speaks, "It's-it's Ai! Someone murdered my girl!"

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Master of Strings Ch 135: Escape the Lair

 In the other realm, the man in the hat, the one known as Dave, the woman, and the man with the tattoos all celebrate the defeating of the warriors of the Black Daimyo, with the man known as Jones looking over some papers behind a small screen.

The man in the hat speaks to the one known as Dave, "That was incredible Dave! What did you call that class!?"

"Holy Vindicator, Jones let me start leveling in it after we left the Storm State." Answers Dave.

The woman speaks,"Why haven't you used it then?"

Dave lifts up the sheet that records Cruxis' abilities and says, "If I use it I have permanent bleed damage, so I saved it for when we needed it."

The conversations are silenced by the rattle and tumble of a few dice from the direction of the one called Jones. The four friends all widen their eyes as Jones writes down the result behind his screen. The man in the tattoos is the one to speak, "Jones... What are you rolling?"

Jones fiddles with something behind his screen and then looks to the man saying, "Who knows? Maybe a perception check will find out.

They all roll with varying degrees of reaction. The man in the hat is the first to speak with his head in his hands, "Negative one."

The woman goes next, "fourteen... Negative one! you need to level your perception."

The man in the hat looks up from his slump and smiles, "But it's way funnier this way."

The one called Dave and the man with the tattoos both state their rolls, but none beat the woman's roll. The one known as Jones proceeded to take out his phone and set a timer as the player's attention returned to the table. With that May looks about the room that had just been the site of their duel with their enemies. She saw that the ceiling slowly was beginning to drop a series of rocks and dust. 

"Guys I think the ceiling is..."

"Hey guys, that Tinker guy left his cool staff!" Shouted Zilo over May's deduction. Maldrek began to look it over before saying, "Well it looks to be fire based, might make a good present for Sparky."

"Guys, we should really-"

Cruxis comes over to the staff and asks,"What does it do?"

Zilo shakes it a bit and says, "Well he waved it a bit then-"

"GUYS!" All four of them turned to May who pointed at a crack growing on the ceiling of the room. All but Zilo reacted with fear and shock.

"Was that always there?" Asks Zilo as Cruxis turns to a sweating Maldrek and the paladin asks, "Tell me you have another Teleport spell!"

Maldrek shakes his head and says, "I came for a fight, not for express shipping! RUN!" Maldrek, May, and Cruxis begin running out of the room, with a befuddled Zilo trailing behind beginning to put together the danger.

They bolted out of the war room and into the throne room where the rest of the columns from the previous fight had fallen, Making the ceiling begin to warp. Rubble from the columns looked to be blocking the way. May lightly hops up onto a column and reaches down to help up Cruxis since Zilo and Maldrek are resourceful enough to figure it out themselves. Zilo proves this by also flipping up over the column

Meanwhile Maldrek snaps up a Fly spell and shouts, "I'll scout ahead and keep you up to date on what's ahead." Maldrek begins to gracefully swoop about in the caverns past the throne room as he began to hear some echoing music coming up behind him.

He tilted his head to see Zilo, May, and Cruxis running at double their normal speed from a Haste spell as Zilo's violin ghost performed a song to Inspire Competence so that they might more easily avoid obstacles as the ceiling fell above them. 

The group high tailed it through the dungeon room that had held May, Cruxis, and Maldrek onto a room that Zilo had not yet seen. It seemed to be a hallway with two ways to go, and Maldrek stopped looking down both ways. Zilo looked behind them to see the dungeon room cave in on itself and shouted,

"Come on now which way did you all go!"

May shouted back, "We were captured and blindfolded! Who the hell would know!"

Cruxis just immediately decides to run down the left passage way, and the rest of them in panic decide to follow. They come to a perfectly square long hallway with a lever at the entryway Maldrek stops and floats in front of the lever and says, "This probably-"

He is interrupted as Zilo grabs his robe and pulls him into the long hallway. The moment that they step into the hall arrows begin to fire from all angles of the walls, and May shouts. "These things knocked us out! Don't get hit!"

May and Zilo begin to cartwheel and spin through the hallway, avoiding the poison on the arrows. Cruxis lifts his shield and uses it to cover his face as he just keeps running. Luckily the arrows all manage to harmlessly bounce off his protection.

Maldrek actually was the safest since his flight prevented him from touching the pressure plates in the hall. Zilo and May's Dexterity made it simple to dodge any arrows that came their way. The crew continued to run as fast as possible. 

The group began to make some headway against the collapsing tunnels behind them. They came to a new room and Zilo could see all his friends past Maldrek starting the next room off with a jump off. Zilo mimicked the jump, but as he looked down he could see a room full of a bubbling green liquid. 

To the left and right of the room were slanted platforms to hop scotch between, but Zilo had leapt into the exact center while May and Cruxis took off jumping between them. Zilo thought fast and acted faster thanks to the Haste. He cut his buckler off by the straps, wounding himself a little and threw his buckler down with a spin. 

As the buckler hit the surface of the acid Zilo stomped onto it making an indent in the acid's surface and made a feeble hop to reach one of the platforms. He stabbed his sword into the surface giving himself just enough purchase to stand away from the liquid. 

He then pulled out his blade and easily jumped over to the tunnel his friends had went through. As they began to flee into the next room as May decided this time to slows down a bit to run parallel with Zilo and shouts,

"Zilo jump in 3, 2, 1, NOW!" As the two of them leap and Zilo looks to see a pit of spikes downward as the hallway opens and he suddenly slams into a sheer slick slope. May during the leap had taken out some daggers and began to climb her way up the slope. Zilo didn't quite have the heads up to begin to climb so he began to wobble backward as Maldrek flew past him with Cruxis hanging below the flying wizard.

Zilo acted fast and snapped out his whip to crack it out and snatch it onto Maldrek's leg. The wizard lost a lot of his momentum and the whip jolted, making Zilo lose his grip and making him need to snatch the whip again before firmly grasping it.

Maldrek now getting use to the weight strained his way up the slope holding Cruxis and being tied off by Zilo. As Maldrek reached the top he let down the paladin and Cruxis grabbed the whip and yanked Zilo up the rest of the slope in one pull.

The friends stood in the familiar spike trap room that separated them when they entered the dungeon. the pressure plate was given a wide berth and looked up at the way out... which was blocked by a giant boulder.

May shouted, "Cruxis, You're the muscle move it!" 

"You are crazy, I can't push a boulder off a hole from inside the hole!"

Zilo looks up at it still catching his breath and says, "Maybe magic!?"

Maldrek whips out his spellbook and says, "I got it!"

The tunnels behind them slowly begin to make their way over to the heroes until it looks like their room is next when Maldrek snaps up his hand and shouts to Summon Monster and then out of a gate of pure magic forms a large sized Earth Elemental.

Maldrek points up to the boulder frantically and orders,

"Dig us out! and make something to climb!"

The giant rock being spirals upward and crashes into the boulder making a perfect hole in it, as well as deforming the sides enough for hands and feet to get a grip on and let the group climb out.

The heroes frantically climb up and into the room they first entered before darting around the entryway and diving headlong into the waterway. Finally they surface outside as the new morning sun greets them for escaping the lair of the Black Daimyo.

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Master of Strings Ch 134: Black Samurai Vs Holy Vindicator

Cruxis and the Samurai stand staring at each other as Zilo retreats over to May who is knelt down healing Maldrek. The head of the Black Daimyo, the Black Samurai steps forward and twirls his blade before clasping it with both hands and speaks in his deep intimidating voice.

"By the blade that swings for glory and the true honor of a warrior, General Susumu will lead me to victory in this duel."

The samurai's eyes beneath his helm narrow and his presence expands to silence all other noise in the room. Zilo, May, and the barely conscious Maldrek freeze, scared to even twitch in fear that the tall blade master would strike them down from across the room. Despite his heavy armor, in a flash, the man slices at Cruxis.

Cruxis isn't ready for the attack and is blasted backward by the strike on his chest plate. He stands again just in time to block an overhead cleave by the samurai then try and thrust back. His heavily magicked sword, Permafrost was just barely enough to pierce the thick armor on the Samurai, but he is immediately knocked off balance by the hulking opponent with a sweeping kick.

Cruxis rolls to the side narrowly avoiding another swipe by the samurai, but as he rose he was beset upon by another flurry of advancing slashes. He continued to make his movement backward away from the samurai. Cruxis tries to mount an opposed attack, with two swings at the samurai's midsection, but after taking the first strike and barely reacting to it, the samurai flicks his wrist up and cuts along Cruxis' wrist to force the attack to falter.

The counter forced Cruxis to lose his grip on his blade and it flew past the samurai about 2 meters away. Seeing the blood flow from his wrist, the paladin Laid on his hands to stem the flow before attempting to make his way back over to his blade. The samurai tries to cut down the paladin, but Cruxis manages to deflect the swing with his shield.

As Cruxis recovers Permafrost the samurai changes his stance, where he had held it forward with both hands, he now let it come to rest by his hip pointed back and down with both hands in the same grip. Cruxis moved, shield forward.

Time seemed to stop as the samurai performed a dash forward intended to Strike True. Zilo had experienced a much weaker version of this strike, but this man did it with much more devastating results. Cruxis' blood exploded from his chest as his plate mail fell from his shoulders, cleaved clean in twain.

The samurai back to advance toward May and Zilo who both rose until another sound was heard. From behind the samurai the sound of a dagger being unsheathed was heard. The samurai turned to see Cruxis once again, with one hand on his wound using more of his Lay on Hands knitting together into a scar, and the other hand grasping a knife while his sword and shield lay on the ground.

Zilo shouted "Cruxis! Stay down! I can-"

"NO!" Shouted the wounded half-orc. As he stared at the Black Samurai he continued, "I can do this, but you have to promise you will not try to help! I do not know if I can avoid hitting you!"

Zilo's eyes narrowed as Cruxis lifted the knife and plunged it into his own palm, but where normally blood would shoot from the hand, instead there was a crimson light. The samurai fully turned back to his old opponent, and Cruxis pulled out the knife and stabbed his other hand. Cruxis held out his hands and his shield and sword shoot off the ground back to his hands before he shouted,

"I bare the Stigmata of Freya! I am Cruxis Valior, Holy Vindicator and you will fall before me!" Cruxis' eyes explode with a similar crimson red light and his wounds that he held disappeared as he cast a cure spell to a degree he had never been able to heal before. The wounds that glowed on his palms however continued to bleed their crimson light.

The samurai ran at the warrior and as he tried to slash at him Cruxis blocked with shield before his hand shot forward with sword in tow. The light on his hands sparked forward and also pierced through the samurai's guard leaving a series of wounds on the man's hip. For the first time since the beginning of this encounter, the Black Samurai reacted to the wound with a grunt.

The samurai jumped back off the blade and held his sword shaking. Cruxis flicked the blood from Permafrost as he lifted his shield up and shouted, "A Vindicator's Shield never falters!" And his shield began to glow the same crimson light as his hands.

The samurai charged and sliced with the shield deflecting the attack, only this time it was Cruxis' turn to hold no reaction as his guard didn't budge a centimeter while the katana of the samurai was bounced off by a great force. Cruxis stepped forward and slashed at the Samurai. The samurai only barely manged to deflect the blade as it swung along his own blade mere inches from his face.

Cruxis followed up the swing with a bash from his shield, forcing the warrior back. The Black Samurai was now the one on the back pedal and began to step backward as he breathed calmly and closed his eyes. In a flash he stepped in, and looked to be trying to shatter Cruxis's shield arm with a hard swing, but the warrior managed to move fast enough to avoid the shield arm entirely and slash across Cruxis's unguarded chest.

Cruxis spat up blood and fell to his knee as the Black Samurai hopped back again. While the Vindicator had unleashed his new power, he was still mortal and had lost a significant amount of blood. With each passing moment more blood flowed from his palms. He stood and healed himself again with the last of his cure spells to undo his body's damage, and still, his palms bled.

As Cruxis looked at the Samurai he could tell that this man was on his last legs. Cruxis stepped forward with the poise and authority of a holy warrior and as the Samurai moved to swing, Cruxis swung his sword upward and the katana flew from the Samurai's grip before Cruxis had thrust Permafrost into the chest of the Black Samurai. It was over.

As Cruxis drew his blade out he felt a grip as the eyes of the Black Samurai flashed back to life and punched the unprepared paladin in his jaw. Through an Unstoppable Resolve the samurai was making an Honorable Stand as he pulled Cuxis' blade from his own chest and moved to decapitate the dazed paladin.

But as he went to strike he stopped and fell to the ground, with a Cruxis' knife planted between his legs. Cruxis's crimson light dissipated as May and Zilo rushed over to heal him. Once May arrived at his side Cruxis whispered with half closed eyes, "Good tip May, a bit of underhanded tactic might be good here and there."

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Master of Strings Ch 133: The Black Daimyo

Zilo and his friends steeled themselves to enter the last room in the Lair of the Black Daimyo. The room they enter looked to be a war room with a long black table carved from stone. The room is extremely long, likely to allow for the entire order to gather and plan.

The black clad samurai, the woman in the kimono, and Ryogi the Tinkerer stand at the other end of the table as the four heroes enter. The table is covered in parchment with sprawling drawings and notes on the city of Kakusareta Kyōi.

The three look up from the table and the woman swipes the air and a fine mist of liquid is dashed onto the table. Ryogi then picks up the trailblazer staff and taps it on the table. In a flash all the papers on the table ignite and fill the room with heat and light. 

Maldrek shouts, "Take'em down!" and the battle is begun.

Maldrek dashes along the right side of the table to intercept a flanking maneuver and he spots the woman running the full length of the table. Maldrek snaps out his hand and unleashes a barrage of Scorching Rays, but as the woman runs her form shifts into a Blink Dash and all the rays but one fly astray. The one that did hit landed on the woman's forearm, but she refused to halt her charge.

Cruxis made his way forward on the left side, but was suddenly beset upon by the Black Samurai leaping off the flaming table and cleaving into the paladin. Cruxis managed to just barely block the attack, but his arm strained under the force.

Zilo takes aim at the Samurai and lets loose two shots, both impact into the man, but he doesn't slow or even react, he merely begins to deflect a swing from Cruxis. May had already slipped under the table to hide and then stab the samurai when he lowered his guard, but she found that she was not the only person under the table, as Ryogi had also ducked under and stared down the table at her.

As May took out a poisoned knife to throw at him, the Tinkerer retrieved a tiny watch and used his Weird Science to cast a combination of Mage Armor, and Lightning Bolt. May is blasted out of the back of the table. 

The woman charging at Maldrek snapped out her hands and retrieved her blades ready to pounce on Maldrek. The wizard was not about to let her get that close and he snaps out a Lightning Bolt to blast her advance, but as he does the woman passes right through the bolt and then through Maldrek he turns as the Split Shadow of a woman.

As soon as his back turns to look at it go the woman snaps out from the flames and cleaves into each of Maldrek's shoulders with each blade in a devastating Sneak Attack. Cruxis ducked under another swipe from the Black Samurai before slamming his shield into his opponent's face. Yet still the Samurai stood unfazed as he whipped his blade up and knocked away Cruxis' followup swing before planting his boot in the paladin's chest and pushed him to the wall.

Zilo looked to the side to see May hurt on the ground, so in return he began to cast some musical spells with his violin. He began with a round of Haste for his allies followed by a Cure Serious Wounds to fix May's damage right to his side. May stood, beginning to feel a bit better as the Tinker emerged from under the table and held aloft a matchbook, as he snapped it open a blast of a Fireball flew from it and Zilo and May were engulfed in the explosion.

While Zilo couldn't avoid the explosion, May reacted fast and came flying out of the fire with a sweep of her Scythe putting a huge gash into Ryogi's temple. Meanwhile on the right side of the table, Maldrek's eyes rose from his hung head and he turned to face the woman. His right hand collected a ball of frost and he blasted forth a plume of the spell, Cone of Cold. followed by a second blast of the spell with his other hand from the haste.

In a quick one-two flash, the room went silent as the flames on the table, the woman, the Black Samurai, and Cruxis were frozen still with a coat of ice. As the room quieted the Black Samurai's ice shell cracked and broke the silence as he turned to the flames frozen on the table and flipping it up and over to crush Maldrek and the woman in one maneuver.

The man in the Armor turned to May and the burnt Zilo. Before beginning to advance. May hopped back and let out a Channel Energy to fix some of the damage from the fireball, as Zilo took out his blade and blasted forth.

With his speed far exceeding Cruxis' he let loose a flurry of rapid strikes with the blade. Two of the four strikes were blocked by the Samurai, but Zilo did get two light grazes in on the titan of a man. Meanwhile the Tinkerer looked to the trapped body of Maldrek and rose his hand to take out a handkerchief and point it at the Tiefling.

May snapped in front of the shot with a horizontal slash which the Tinkerer tried to leap over with a kick off the turned table leg, but it was all a feint and with a snap of the wrist May's horizontal slash turned vertical at an angle and removed the handkerchief and hand from the Tinker's arm.

The Tinker fell back and shouted in pain, wrapping his arm in his robe. He reaches down to his belt, dropping the trailblazer staff in the process and took out a compass before he is warped away by a Dimension Door spell. May sighs and turns her attention to the samurai just as a blade comes flying by her shoulder.

Ahead of her a disarmed Zilo raises his arms in surrender as the Black Samurai holds his blade aloft to the bard's neck. Suddenly a voice shouts from behind the two of them.

"MAY! ZILO! Stand down, this man is mine! Tend to Maldrek!" The Black Samurai, May, and Zilo all turn to see Cruxis, still shivering and holding his blade up, igniting it with an aura of righteous power and cold enchantments.

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Master of Strings Ch 132: Last Line

Now reunited the 4 heroes readied themselves to proceed further into the lair of the Order of the Black Daimyo. The trap rooms from before were a pain, but since they were now in a prison section of the base, the rooms ahead were dedicated to the living areas of the samurai that desired the fall of the ruling Umie.

They opened the next few door to find  empty living spaces before finding a large cavernous area with a high ceiling looking similar to a throne room. The columns were carved to hold insignia of a black Pegasus and the banners mimicked the look.

In the room were a about 14 well equipped and intimidating looking samurai warriors. Each one of them wore a combination of traditional linked plate armor with longbows across their backs and katanas at their hips.

In addition there were three individuals in three raised platform chairs. The first in the middle of the three was a man clad in jet black intricate samurai armor. Next to him, is Ryoji the Tinker, now not sitting down in his right most chair, but pointing to the entering heroes. Last is a young woman seated on the left chair, also in black, but she dresses in only a kimono with twin Wakizashi short swords on her lower back.

The woman motions the other two to another room behind the throne and the man in the middle stands and begins to follow with Ryogi along behind, but then the armored man speaks in a deep echoing voice, "Warriors of General Susumu, kill the intruders."

With that he and his two allies make their way into the back room. All the warriors take out their bows and aim at the four heroes. They all spring into action with May and Maldrek darting to cover behind a pillar to the left and Zilo and Cruxis doing the same on the right.

Arrows fly around the pillars as Maldrek and Zilo lock eyes, and they both nod. Maldrek begins to look through his spellbook as Zilo flings himself from the safety of the pillar and fires a volley of his own arrows. The shots aren't super accurate as the bard's eyes are flickering around rather than focusing on his shots.

For his lack of aim he is punished with a wound to the bicep, making his arm fall lifeless. He retreats back behind the pillar and Cruxis begins to use Lay on Hands to repair the damage. As the paladin gets to work Zilo shouts, "Line up along the right of the pillars!"

Maldrek nods and extends his hand to line up parallel to the pillars and fires a Lightning Bolt spell. The archers stop their volley as their bodies course with pain, but just as the front two kneel in pain, May appears from the side of the pillars and with a swift spin of her scythe, and both of them fall to the ground lifeless.

The remaining 12 warriors begin to line up shots on the assassin, only for Cruxis to make a charge at one of the right most ones and slam him into his pillar with his shield. From the back of the room Zilo began to play his dulcet tones of battle, empowering his allies. Maldrek dashes over to the right side pillars in front of Zilo and shouts in the orc language for Cruxis to duck.

The paladin hits the deck and above him streaks another Bolt of Lightning. The warriors now begin to take aim again, firing at the exposed heroes, both Maldrek and May get peppered a bit from being out of cover, but one of the samurais forwent his arrows to try and stab through the prone Cruxis.

Cruxis rolls off to the side before hopping back to his feet and avoids the attack and he swings his own blade connecting with a block from the samurai, but with a quick twist of the wrist, Cruxis turns his blade down and nails the enemy in the section between the plates on his hip.

May retrieves a few daggers from her belt and throws them at two more of the Warriors in the left line. she only does superficial damage, but the sheaths she had them in were soaked with Blue Whinnis poison and the two guards fall to the ground unconscious.

Zilo follows by letting his music linger and firing with Harmony at the guard on the right. All the shots nail the guard and crack through his armor, making the man fall to the ground. Maldrek follows next by casting a fireball that engulfed the last 3 standing guards on the left side, turning them to ash in an instant.

Seeing their allies go down, the last 4 samurai reach to their belts and each chug down a potion. Their bodies course with unnatural power and then slash into the stone pillar they each hid behind. The last one did so in addition to a spinning kick to his pillar forcing it to begin falling.

The giant pillars became a deadly game of dominoes and blew up a cloud of dust from crumbling stone on the right side of the room with a falling ceiling. The warriors ran to the left side as Cruxis, Maldrek, and Zilo were left behind in the rubble.

With that, May was alone versus the 4 strength enhanced samurai, so she spun about with her scythe and dropped into a defensive stance. The 4 men charged and swung their blades, but May hopped, skipped, and flipped backward to avoid all their attempts.

After she landed from a backward cartwheel she snapped out her scythe and managed to just barely connect with the neck of the closest guard, making him crumble. Her offense was swiftly cut down though as a katana connected with her unguarded back from a flanked position.

The blade cut deep and she was just barely able to avoid another swing before a kick to her gut forced her to the ground from the third assailant. Not seeing a good way out she spun and tripped two of her opponents before bolting over to the right side of the room, but as she did the third struck her shoulder with a gout of blood exploding from her wound.

She arrived at the safer side of the room, but she would not last much longer. The two men on the ground rose up as the standing one flicked May's blood from his blade and charged at her, intending to end the fight with an overhead cleave. At the last moment before impact Cruxis covered in dust bashed into the airborne opponent and once he knocked him away he quickly cut him with a devastating horizontal slash.

The last two began to move as well, but were quickly cut down by a a silver arrow and a flurry of Magic Missiles, May turned to see Zilo and Maldrek had also recovered from the collapsing ceiling. May beamed with delight as Maldrek began to bark orders,

"Cruxis, I'm willing to bet those were Potions of Bull Strength, gather those up. May, are you alright."

May began to conjure up a Cure Wounds spell and spoke, " Gimme a minute and sure, I'll be fine."

Maldrek gives her a look over and says, "Zilo, help her she lost a lot of blood. We'll need to be in top form before we face those leaders."

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Master of Strings Ch 131: The Trap Maker

Zilo stares down the hallway examining his surroundings. Unlike the tunnels at the entrance of the hideout, these ones are much more runic, like this room with the former golem. Zilo stopped a minute and hunkered down with his legs crossed and began talking to himself,

"Okay, no trapI can see, so we are on a good track. This room's rune probably released the others and I'll bet that I can find them if I go further in."

The bard turns his head toward the turn around the corridor and continues, "But this magic hallway is probably far more dangerous than just some spikes. Maldrek always told me that rune masters can make explosions from enough study so now I need to wonder." He closes his eyes and furrows his brow before speaking,

 "How explosion proof am I?"

Zilo spends some time weighing his odds and determines that he is probably more explosion proof than Leo, but less so than Sparky. That little goblin earned a whole heap of points from being exposed to fire daily, and Leo had been knocked out from the necklace of fireballs fiasco, unlike Zilo. So this guess was his estimate.

With his guess settled he stood back up and continued down the hall. Luckily for him no more traps were around the corner, and Zilo found an ajar door with the sound of metal on stone and faint whistling from behind the door.

The curious bard stealthily moved the door open to see a man hunched over a desk of shaped stone with the sounds echoing around the room. The interesting part of the room was the other objects in the room. There were wands, staves, clockworks, magical relics, and a numerous amount other fascinating objects.

Zilo became immediately distracted by how cool all the items looked and opened the door to look around some more. The man at the desk had not looked up from the desk, but remarked his entrance with an indifferent grunt.

Once Zilo had examined all the cool inventions he made his way over to the man at the desk and looked over his shoulder at what he was working on. He was working on staff that was honestly more like the size of a rod, but curved with a lantern-like iron container hooked onto the end of a scythe shaped curvature at the end.

"What's that there?"

The man became tense for a moment, and after a moment or so he turned his head to see Zilo. He had a chin covered by a jet black beard that trailed up to his balding head of medium length hair. His eyes had a yellow tinge of a spark that blinked staring at Zilo. His voice trembled as he spoke,

"Uh um I call it the Trailblazer staff."

"What does it do."

"Who are you?"

"Tells you who you are? Weird ability for what it's named"

"No tell me who you are."

"Oh! My name is Zilo Realms, the Master of Strings, pleasure to meet you."

"That guy who's staying with the Rai family?"

"The very same"

"Ah... say want me to show you what the staff can do?"

"But you already told me. "

"No I, but."

"What's your name friend?"

"I...I'm Ryoji the Tinker. I'm an Artificer"

"Neat, I have a bestfriend who loves to make magic stuff. He made me a lot of the gear I have."

"How did you get past Mamoru?"

"Who?... The golem? I disconnected the magic from room with a bit of magic counter songs."

"Fascinating, I didn't know a bard was among the invaders we caught."

Zilo snaps his fingers and says, "Oh yeah, I forgot that's why I was here. Can you please surrender?"

"... Yeah sure, but first let me show you how the staff works."

"Fine but I'm pretty self assured so I don't know what it will tell me." Zilo takes a few steps back and the artificer stands and twirls the counterclockwise making a full rotation and making it come to rest parallel to the ground.

The man immediately takes off toward the wall that opens with a quick motion of his hand. As the staff moves a trail of hovering fire occupies the space that the iron container was in as the artificer moves with it. This leaves a snaking trail of fire behind as the artificer makes his escape.

Zilo is stood there silent for a moment before remarking, "Okay that is a much more appropriate ability for a name like that." Zilo examines the trail and works his way around the hot streak of flames left in the air. He finds that he isn't able to move at full speed as the trail spirals and zigzags all around the hallway forcing him to need to pull some fancy acrobatics down the hall to proceed.

Eventuality the hall came to a stone staircase that made its way upward with the fire trail still streaking along. Zilo eventually is slowed down enough that the fire trail begins to retreat along  the air trail and leave the hall behind. It seemed there was a limit on how far the trail can extend from the staff.

With a much more clear pathway Zilo began running down the hall again and eventually came to a doorway that had a door that was burned through as it looked to have been closed on the stationary trail, leaving a horizontal burning chuck left in it.

The door was locked, but thanks to the hole in it, Zilo easily could reach through and unlock it. Once the door opened Zilo looked about the room to see two guards pointing bows at him, and behind them was Maldrek, Cruxis, and May connected to the wall, trapped in irons. The bard looked disappointed and shouted,

"How did you get caught guys!? come on!"

Cruxis perks up to see the bard and says, " Ceiling trap, it fell and I had to hold it up, but then some poison gas made us all weak."

May interrupts, "It didn't make us weak, it put us asleep. It was Dreaming Death gas"

Maldrek grit his teeth and cut off May saying, "Enough! Zilo, take out the guards and get the keys already."

Zilo nodded with a quick sidestep to dodge two arrows. Zilo darted forward and in a devastating flash of speed he halved the wooden arms of both of the guard's bows. The guards stepped back in hesitation before Zilo spun about again and knocked one of them in the head with the flat of his blade. This forced the two helmeted guards to collide heads and fall to the ground.

As he unlocked his friends Zilo remarked, "How did this much happened in such a short time."

May looked to Zilo quizzically and said, "Its been like an hour since you went down that hole? What were you doing that whole time?"

Zilo throws the keys over his shoulder to hit one of the unconscious guards in the head as he asks, "If you guys had to say, just how explosion proof would you say I am?"

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Master of Strings Ch 130: The Ritual Room

Zilo fell into the dark shaft and after a few moments, the fall turned into a slide and he was deposited in a stone worked room with glowing white runes lining the walls and floor in an intricate design and a humming noise. Zilo surveyed the room and pulled from what he had put together about Lidan Knowledge of Arcana since arriving in the city.

As he looked over the markings and leylines of the walls it was clear that this was a ritual room of some sort, but for what he couldn't be sure. He did find that one of the leylines seemed linked to the passage he fell through, and it made its way over to a rune at the epicenter of the room with the many other leylines extending outward.

Zilo proceeded over and examined the rune. After a minute of study he took out his violin and tried to synchronize a note with the magical frequency of the humming leyline rune. It took a few tries but he eventually matched the rune's energy then severed it with a Countersong. This removed the glow from the leyline that led back up to his friend's room to the room his friends were held in.

He put his violin away as he saw the leyline vanish, but he tensed up as he saw the rest of the magic lines turn a crimson color in response to his magic music. He heard stone grind on stone from the passage he slid down, and he was now trapped by a door falling shut in the passage.

He once again heard stone grind on stone as a large passageway appeared opposite from him. In the passageway, a looming figure entered the room clad in solid stone samurai armor and a demonic stone face-guard and helm. The top of the helm was decorated by obsidian black wings and the symbol carved into the figure's chest was a pegasus also cast from obsidian.

The figure stood around 3 meters tall and in both arms were held stone katanas. The figure's body was composed completely of solid stone and it's gaze lock onto Zilo as it began to lumber forward. Zilo was stock-still and spoke, "Of course there was another trap."

The bard flicked out Harmony and fired an arrow at the approaching Stone Golem. As the silver streak flew across the room and impacted the golem, the streak suddenly vanished from the air and its shining trail died with the arrow. The actual arrow itself flipped ineffectively to the ground, not leaving a mark on the huge construct.

The bard was dumbfounded, but as the golem got closer Zilo suddenly felt his limbs grow heavy and as he looked to his body he saw that there was an aura similar to the leylines shackling him and making him Slow. Before he could process this new feeling, the golem brought down its massive left blade and broke Zilo's left shoulder with a thunderous crack.

Not wishing to remain near the giant, Zilo snapped out a Haste spell and his movement ability had returned to him, for the most part. He tumbled and maneuvered his way around the statue's blades and retreated to the other side of the room.

"That hurt you jerk, but I'm willing to forgive you if you'd just let me leave!"

The Golem wordlessly turned and began to walk it's way over to Zilo. Thankfully the size and weight of the golem made him slow enough that Zilo had some time to get ready. First, he unleashed a second Haste spell to make his speed rise, then he cured his broken shoulder with a Cure Moderate Wounds spell.

By the time he finished the golem had gotten on top of him again and let loose it's slowness power again, but Zilo managed to resist it this time before it brought its arm about to swing at the bard. Zilo managed to duck under this attack, but the force of the blow demolished the corner of the entryway it had come from.

Zilo didn't want to confirm the answer to the question about which of them was stronger, so he retreated back to the opposite end of the room again, only this time while he made his way over the golem swung and nailed the bard in his shield arm. It didn't break the arm, but it did send him flying about 4 meters and forced him to tuck and roll to keep moving.

"So you're not the talkative type, I get it, how about this then!"

The bard spun around and fired three more arrows at the massive golem, only to have the same result as before and have all three of them pitifully lose their magic and hit the ground. Zilo grit his teeth and mumbled, "We'll then looks like someone took their anti-magic vitamins this morning. Figured that was just a one-time thing."

The golem began making it's way over to Zilo again and once again it swung, but this time, right before it struck the wall it halted it's weapon's strike. Zilo furrowed his brow examining the wall, but in his distracted state he was a sitting duck for the golem to bash his chest with a sweeping strike. The bard flipped backward and slid along the ground before hacking a bit and speaking,

"URH. I think that was a rib... or three, one second." Zilo used a Cure Serious Wounds to regain the ability to stand before the golem came in for another slam of his sword. Zilo sidestepped the attack and saw what made the golem's sword stop attacking. If it continued then it would have shattered the leylines along the wall and floor.

Zilo didn't know why it cared about keeping the leylines working, but he couldn't make a dent in the thing at the moment, so this seemed like his only option. He returned Harmony to it's bo form and began to match frequencies with any leylines he could. He managed to connect with one right away and snapped it's power.

He didn't have time to celebrate as the golem advanced and tried to flatten him. He continued to move to the far corners of the room to keep making use of the golem's lack of speed. and piece by piece he removed more and more leylines from the room, but the golem still looked to be moving along just fine.

Meanwhile, Zilo wasn't able to avoid all the attacks, and the limb shattering damage of a 2 meter long stone sword was not something that could be walked off, forcing Zilo to continue curing each blow in order to keep in the fight.

After almost a full minute of this game of cat and mouse, Zilo was down to the last leyline and he frantically worked to match it's frequency then sever it. He did so and the golem made one last swing intending to crush Zilo's skull, but the attack stopped inches from the bard's head.

Zilo used Detect Magic and saw that the golem's life force lingered a bit, but was dwindling to almost nothing. The bard let out a heavy sigh and turned to the passage the golem came from. Without a better route to take he made his way down the passage, hoping his friends were freed from the spiked room above.

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Master of Strings Ch 129: Check for Traps

With the door shut Maldrek began to look it over for any kind of weaknesses. After a few moments he turns round to his fellows, who had finished looting the defeated samurai and he spoke, "Anyone else have any ideas? Cause I don't have a spell for this."

Cruxis makes his way over to the door and gives it an experimental push and speaks, "This isn't something I could break, too sturdy." May is the last to approach the door, taking a pair of thin metal tools from her bag, she kneels down in front of the door, then freezes in place. She stands back up and points to the sides of the door and says,

"They made this door one way only and the mechanism is on the other side I think." Now that the three of them had tried their ideas they looked at Zilo and the bard hesitated before saying, "You want ME to think of something?"

Cruxis, May, and Maldrek all stare at each other for a moment to question their own sanity then they look back and Cruxis says, "What's the harm?"

Zilo looks around the room for a moment, then points off to the archway to the right of the room that led to darkness. The bard says, "Well since May still has Darkvision we can check in there, maybe there's another path."

They all look to the archway and after exchanging a few glances they shrug and proceed into the dark. After a few steps there is snapping sound from below their feet and the rock floor collapses out underneath them.

They fall and the tunnel shaft narrows into a choke point that they all clog and pile into with Cruxis at the bottom of them all held from falling by a misplaced leg. He pushes them up a bit and says, "Get off! I fell on my leg and I think I broke it or something!" Maldrek looks down to see Cruxis fell into a small hole with only one leg through it from the fall.

May looks up and says, "Cruxis! In the hole NOW!" Cruxis looks up to see what she saw, a mass of suspended boulders beginning to come loose. Cruxis pushed with all his might to lift the three of them off. Luckily the three of them aren't that heavy and he manages to slip his stuck leg.

The paladin then quickly flies between the edges of the hole with Zilo's slim frame falling through butt first and knocking his head on the edge. Maldrek and May have a bit more trouble, halting each other from making it through the hole.

"GO!" Shouts May slamming Maldrek downward as she tilts back on the hole's rim. Maldrek flies through the hole and the above entryway is covered in the dirt and dust of the boulder's impact. Maldrek lands and with a limping Cruxis and a head rubbing Zilo, they all look up to the dust cloud and shout in unison,

"May!"

"Gkk!" Came a grunting noise from the dust cloud. Maldrek raised an eyebrow and after a flap of his robe the dust cleared above their heads and there was May, being choked by her own cloak. Maldrek acts quickly and hurls his sword telekineticly up to cut her Cloak of Resistance. Since he himself had made the magic cloth, he knew just how to cut it to save her.

She fell and landed on her butt, and just as she did, another noise began to fill the room, along with her complaining. The sound of stone rubbing stone as May shouts, "Damnit Maldrek! That was my 3rd favorite Cloak!"

A loud clunk radiates the room and suddenly the left and right walls form into spikes. May stands up and Zilo gets down to fix Cruxis's broken leg with a spell. Maldrek looks at the walls and says, "Exit! Guys we gotta find an exit now, the walls are closing in."

The others all snap to attention to see that the spikes on the walls indeed were closing in. Maldrek shakes his head and shouts, "Zilo, Cruxis, hold the walls!" Cruxis dashes off the ground and grips the sides of two of the spikes before digging his feet into the ground. Zilo needs a bit more of a moment, but he gets up and does the same on the opposite wall.

May and Maldrek begin to scan the room to see if there are any loose areas on the walls, or if there are any in the cut stone floor. They soon come to realize that the only weird section of the room besides the spiked walls is the pressure plate that activated the walls.

Zilo and Cruxis wince as the spikes begin to weave in-between each other to poke them and give less ground. May finally spots something off, the pressure plate wasn't solid stone. Housed in it's surface was a hollowed out section with a grip in it, not caring what might happen she grabs it and yanks it up, pulling the pressure plate out and back into it's resting position.

And just like that, the wall stopped moving, but it seemed that they were all stuck in awkward positions. May looked down to her grip and said, "Hey guys, I think I can pull this a bit more."

"Better that then being stuck here." Remarked Zilo.

May lifted the small plate and it suddenly came out from it's spot and in it's place was yet another hole into the dark depths. The four heroes stare at the hole and Zilo speaks. "Well May. You found it, you should do the honors."

May flinches and says, "I think our illustrious leader should be the one to take the plunge, besides I feel like I've been the scout too many times at this point."

Maldrek glances to one of the spikes and responds, "Not a bad idea, but If another of these traps go off then the one who goes will need to be able to takes some punishment. I think Cruxis is the right idea."

Cruxis tries to cross his arms, but the spikes get in the way and he snaps his head over saying, "I can't get anywhere near the hole Maldrek, I'm not as lithe as the rest of you, plus I'm built for fights, not traps. Maybe someone skilled for anything like Zilo would be a better call."

Zilo grits his teeth and says, "I'm honored, but as the saying goes, 'Ladies first.' So I think that May should-"

Maldrek stares daggers at Zilo, cutting off his speech and says, "Zilo your going, now."

The bard shrugs and says, "Fine, I'll see if there's a way to turn off the spikes, be back in a jiff." Zilo carefully flexes and weaves his way around the spikes with his thin frame and manages to fit his way down the hole and into the dark room below.

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Master of Strings Ch 128: Room One

Zilo and his friends marched along the torch-lit tunnel hidden beneath the lake. As they came to the end of the corridor they saw a wooden door with a barred window with light emanating from within. Zilo slid up to the door and took a peek.

In the room were eight men in an entryway type of room with stone-cut floors and wooden walls, unlike the tunnels the heroes skulked in. At the end of the room was a door and an archway was to another passage on the right side of the room. 

The walls had brightly lit torches along the walls and on each side of 4 wooden support beams spaced out in the middle of the rooms. The walls were full of hooks and stands for weapons and armor, though with around half of them empty.

The men in the room stood at attention in heavy armor similar to the sort on the wall, katanas at their sides, and all of them seemed to be looking toward the door that Zilo was peaking through. Luckily they didn't seem to notice. The bard slunk back to his friends and motioned them back down the corridor to relay the information safely.

Maldrek held his chin and closed his eyes beginning to throw together a plan. While he did so, Zilo spoke, "We could just Fireball them. It worked for us before."

"Samurai aren't normal guards, they are highly trained, one fireball won't do the job I think." Says Cruxis, pulling from his experience with the Lidan samurai patrols. Maldrek opened his eyes for a moment and included

"Not only that, but the wooden supports would burn away, and the last thing we need is a cave in over our heads, but I think I have an idea. May, feel up for another scouting mission?"

The men in the room looked to the door, curious as to when Junpei would return from looking into the splashes he had heard earlier. As minutes passed they stood, waiting, now in their combat attire. They had accepted by now that Junpei had come across something, but they didn't want to fall into the loop of sending another man in ill-prepared.

After some moments the door seemed to swing open, but they concluded that it must have only been the wind as no one was there. They closed it again when suddenly one of them said, "Hey, what is that?" As he pointed to one of the torches in the back corner of the room. It looked to have gone out.

"It was probably that breeze. That's not important right now, what if someone busts down the door while you're worrying over a burnt-out torch." The samurai at the torch countered back. "I just replace this one 10 minutes ago though, it can't be out... Look those ones are out too!" The man pointed to one of the supports that they had been distracted away from and saw that all four torches on it had similarly been snuffed out.

"What in the-?" The room seemed to be getting much darker slowly as they all looked away from one torch to another, one by one until they all looked to the last lit torch in the room, unsure what had been going on and unable to halt the problem.

In an instant there, by the torch stood a woman no longer veiled by a spell of Invisibility, in leathers with a large scythe on her back. She smiled and held aloft a half-empty waterskin with 4 more empty ones hooked on her belt. Her eyes seemed to flash a yellow glint, a sign of the Darkvision spell. She dumped the water onto the torch and the room went entirely dark.

The shuffling of feet could be heard all throughout the room, as well as shouts being let out to the effect of "Find the woman!" And "I'll slice her in two!" The shuffling was silenced as they heard the sound of wood splintering from the entryway.

Maldrek's plan worked like a charm, and with their group able to see with their darkvision and the samurai blinded, the numbers meant nothing. Zilo began going right to work nailing one of the guards in the shoulder and his second arrow grazing the pauldron of another as silver streaks of light dazzled the guards.

Cruxis steamrolled right into the wounded samurai, planting his blade right in between the links of his armor with a stab. He then spun and bashed his shield into the samurai that Zilo had missed. May had managed to round the Samurais that were making their way over to the torch she had put out and in a snap, she flicked out her scythe and removed the head of the samurai she had been studying in the room for a Death Attack.

Maldrek was the last to act, and he flicked out his longsword which had been covered in a cluster of glowing orange Fiery Runes. The wizard pointed to one of the samurai and using his Hand of the Apprentice to stay somewhat quiet he threw his blade and it corrected in mid-air to slice at the guard and transfer the energy of the runes into a gout of fire, burning him to the ground.

While effective the other guards began to see the location of their enemies using the fire that lit up their ally. The four guards that stood made their way to each of the heroes to unleash attacks of their own. The first found May and slashed at her with an overhead cut, managing to gash her arm as she attempted to deflect that blow with her scythe.

Cruxis was much more difficult to pin down as the guard who stepped to him found out. The man had his horizontal slash halted in its tracks by the shield of the paladin. Zilo's guard found better purchase as the bard tried to deflect the attack with his buckler, but the force of the blow still found flesh in Zilo's bicep. Maldrek's guard tried to thrust right into the unarmored wizard's torso but found the Mage Armor barrier there too difficult to pierce.

Zilo threw back the slice that damaged his arm and Harmony dropped from his grip. He gripped Scherzo at his hip and the sword's magic speed lent the bard enough power to fly out and knock the guard off balance with the first swing. The second swing was a quick strike back downward at the guard's exposed legs and nailed him right in the ankle at full force. With a spin, Zilo rose up from the low blow and finished the falling guard with a stab into an exposed section of armor in his chest. He was dead before he hit the floor.

Cruxis planed to prove to his opponent that paladin strength bested samurai strength, and winded back his blade for a very telegraphed version of the samurai's failed horizontal slash. The man held his blade aloft and tense ready to halt the sword as Cruxis had with his shield. However with crushing force, Cruxis shattered the man's guard and planted his blade into the Samurai's hip, felling him in an instant.

May's opponent had gone for much more heavy armor than the rest, but to her assassin eye, she could spot one weak area. She spun her scythe about and swung forward with a maneuver to sweep his legs. The warrior saw it and hopped up to avoid it, but his counter was misjudged. May's forward foot kicked the flat of her scythe upward and forced the tip on a new course, right between the man's legs to his only area of unguarded armor. He could not stand after the attack.

Maldrek faced his opponent with wizardly indifference. He sheathed his blade and in a flash darted forward, his hand holding a rag he had retrieved from his pack. The cloth glowed a sickening green aura as Maldrek pressed the cloth to the man's chest and spoke, "Ghoul Touch!"

The man stood still, paralyzed and leaving Maldrek plenty of time to easily cut into him with his blade. The 4 of the heroes looked across the bodies and while May and Maldrek looked unperturbed, Zilo and Cruxis turned their heads in disgust. May opened her mouth to make fun of her allies when she also was forced to turn her head in sickness.

Maldrek realized the cause and undid his Ghoul Touch spell on the samurai that attacked him since the side effects cause an ungodly odor. With the effect gone, they could breathe easily again. Suddenly they heard the door at the other end of the room slam shut. The samurai that Cruxis knocked out with his shield had risen and snuck off to the doorway.

Looked like the enforced metal was gonna halt their progress into the depths of the lair.

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Master of Strings Ch 127: Surviving

The coming weeks for Zilo were a very tactical game of cat and mouse. He spent his days in town, playing music, winning the populous, and staying away from his new home for the month. Ai was very forward with her intentions for the bard, but she could only corner him before he left and after he returned.

She sometimes would try to follow him on his bardic sprees, but this was not Zilo first time. He had gotten very good at whipping a crowd into hysterics with a high energy song then slipping away from his biggest groupie.

Zilo's name finally began to earn some clout in the city and he began to speak with his fans about the information on the Order. The public obviously was not aware of much in the ways of secret groups, but they did help Zilo learn the areas of town that were avoided more often by people, namely the western area close to a nearby park and pond. Zilo would relay this information back to Maldrek via the spell Message each night.

One day only a week before the ball, Maldrek decided that it was time to strike. Cruxis had been reporting the activity of the samurai guard patrols along with Zilo's account of the populous. May was busy keeping an eye on the Umie household as a counter assassin.

Maldrek told Zilo to meet them in the part of town that Zilo had discovered. After avoiding Ai's advances by planting some pillows to act as his body Zilo snuck his way over to the park and met his three friends.

Once there, Maldrek nodded to him and said, "Alright, I got a spell ready for our search. Detect Secret Doors!" The Tiefling's eyes sparkled with a golden sheen as he began to scan the area around him.

"Nothing here. Let's move, this spell won't last forever."

They all began to follow and while searching May decided to have some fun and asked the bard, "So, how's the new girlfriend?" The bard sulked and responded.

"Relentless. Every second I spend in that house I think she is planning to get me alone with her."

May chuckles as Cruxis inquires, "Surely there are guards or family there to intervene."

"That's what I banked on the first week, but they turn a blind eye. I think her parents like the idea of her being with a rare race or something since they let me in right away."

May grins at him and asks, "Well, has she gotten anywhere then?"

"The Umbral Academy taught me well, you'd be shocked how easy it is to go unnoticed to the common human." Zilo points above his head and continues, "Most people never look up for someone and I'm quiet enough to get up in the roof foundations after a real quick distraction."

Cruxis crosses his arms and says, "The samurai have a word for your sort, they call you Ninjas. They sound like rogues like May, only more focused." May looks to Cruxis and says, "If the Order is here then their assassins will probably be trained as these Ninjas, so we better get used to looking up."

Ahead of the three of them Maldrek grins and chimes in, "Or looking down." The wizard kneels at the edge of the pond and stares down into the water.

"What do you mean buddy?"

"There's a passage down in the water covered up by something, so who feels like going for a swim?"

Zilo and Cruxis were quick on the draw, and both snapped their index fingers to their noses and shouted, "Not it!" Within a few seconds of each other. May glared at them and spoke, "Fine, I don't mind getting a bit wet. I'll be right back."

The assassin dove into the pond and in the murky water she was lost. Zilo turned to begin telling the handful of stories where Ai nearly caught him, but just as he got halfway through one a hand suddenly came from the water and pulled the bard in.

May emerged and spoke, "Just like you said, there was a wicker hatch covered in mud hiding a hole, it leads to a small tunnel lit with torches, that seems like our ticket into a lair." Zilo pops his head up and smiles shouts,

"May-!"

Maldrek cuts the bard off and says, "Well done, lead the way." Zilo pouts, but May motions for them to follow, and the four of them make their way down the hole in the pond, and the downward passage goes on for a few meters before slowly curving its way up and into an air pocket. Once surfaced they looked to be in a cavern with torches and a passage on land.

They emerge and begin to shake off the water, but as they do a man in eastern style leather made his way around the corner and is stunned still as he looks at them. For a few seconds the man and the group just stare at each other, the man turned to run, but before he could Zilo snaps out his bow and planted an arrow into his calf.

Now on the ground, the man held his calf and craned his neck to shout down the cavern, but as he opened his mouth he found the tip of May's scythe in his mouth along with her voice saying, "Don't even try it."

Cruxis tied the man up and placed him with his back to a wall. Maldrek knelt down and asked, "Is this the base of the Order of the Black Daimyo?"

"Black Daymio? What's that?"

As Maldrek opened his mouth to speak again Zilo placed his hand on the Wizard's shoulder and pulled him back. Zilo knelt down and spoke, "Look I get it. Ratting out allies is dishonorable, and I understand that, but let me ask you this. Were you there years ago when the Order lost their final battle?"

The man grit his teeth and turned his head dismissively and Zilo smiled, "Well, I'm sure you know that if this was the Order's lair then they must have retreated to return and fight again to get a victory in that battle, so what do you say we do that?" The man furrowed his brow as Zilo undoes the man's rope and stands him up. The bard points over at the passage and says,

"You head in, warn the rest of the Order we are coming, you prepare and we have an honorable fight." The man blinks twice an looks to Zilo's face. Zilo smiled genuinely and the man nodded and reached out his hand. Zilo shook the hand as the man spoke, "Agreed. I didn't think a foreigner would understand the ways of the Black Daimyo, but I'm happy to be proven wrong."

Zilo continues to smile and tightens his grip. The man can feel his hand being held a bit to tight before he is yanked forward into Zilo's other hand. The Fetchling cross punches the man clean in the jaw and knocks him out easily.

Zilo claps some dust off his hand as he turns to a smiling Maldrek and says, "Looks like we have the right place."

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