Patches, the Bard

This chapter removes the constraints that only allow female party members to be affected, making all genders eligible.

Fated on this day alone was your party to be accosted by the mountain's heaping blizzard. You were hesitant to follow them through the dead of winter, but knowing what was at stake, and the stories that this adventure would tell for generations, gave the determination you needed to see it's entirety through. Starving serfs, the kingdom's laborers, all without food for these cold months. The urgency of this mission brought forth a band of fearless warriors, and you alongside them.

Gargandrogan, the Winter Warrior! When called upon by the king's men, his was the first name to sign on. His beard woven, tightly bound with the fresh cloth of his forefathers. The gruff man relentlessly trudges down the snow-trodden path, holding the torch to guide you and your other followers.

"Is it here?!" Gargandrogan yells, splitting your ears as he calls to the only one who could've guided your troupe this far.

"Not far!" the tepid voice of the elven sorceress rings back. Vasha, the only mage amongst the king's army versed with the sky, well renowned for her magical talent, and the only one with the ability to complete this harrowing quest, and warm the lands. Her words spread a magical warmth resounding past the sheer cliffs your party hastened by, stopping just short of a clearing of trees ahead. "There!"

Through the pines, the mountains drop into a graded canyon, shielding your party from the storm the deeper you went. Only as the downfall subsided could you see the massive structure nestled within the rock; the ruins from an ancient civilization, hidden for millennia by the harsh tundra. You could see in your party's eyes the visible mood change as their gaze set upon the weathered rock and stone, carvings which depict long-forgotten stories, or an unbridled creativity. If the weather were nicer you'd spend the time to examine these ruins further; but now was not the time. You all hurried into the forgotten architecture, in hopes to find the artifact lost to the ages; to retrieve the fabled Sun Stone.

An audible grazing of stone caught your attention as you entered. You turn only to find another member of your party engrossed by the inspired stonework. Stargo, a scholar of language much like yourself, but similarities ending there. The shape-shifting druid pondering in his hands the crumbled dust left by the collapsed column, the gears in his head turning much like the ones that used to within these ruins, decorating the walls and crevices braced by rubble here in this cavern. You tap his shoulder lightly, amused by his enthusiasm over the simple supports that dot the room. He smiles, visibly embarrassed that he was caught in his favorite pastime.

"Haha, I know you of all people understand my... vagrancy for the unremarkable," Stargo glimmers towards you, bringing his eyes back towards the feeble buttresses above you, "No doubt you wish to write songs about such a civilization who would live under the mountains such as these."

"Oi!" Gargandrogan simmers from down the hall, "You may got balls in the game of stone-appreciatin', but there's starving peasants that need a magical sun-stone! So appreciate that 'un instead!"

Stargo quickly hurries ahead at Gargandrogan's remarks, leaving you to bump shoulders (quite literally) with another of your party - the orc.

Zuraugh scoffs at your flamboyance, his own ego trying to play off the two sparkling swords on his back. "You got balls, Bard?"

"Figurative, or literal?" you query, quite unassumingly too.

"Tsch, just save your cockeyed singing for the taverns, Bard." Zuraugh scoffs, following suit behind Stargo and the rest.

You get the impression he sees you as a drain on party resources, when only a couple days ago he was enjoying your venison cooking with quite an appetite. Clearly combat is not your strongest asset, but countless enemies have been lulled into a false sense of security by your melodious... melodies. You grip your patchwork lute with a stern gaze as you watch Zuraugh swagger off. You take a minute to pluck lightly at one of the strings, with the intention for inspiration only to be met with the footsteps of the two hapless woman taking up the rear of your party. Quickly, you swing the lute around your back, trying to regain your composure the altercation with Zuraugh had shook from you.

"Illyana. Belmara."

Illyana steps forward, placing a hand on your shoulder as she walks past. "He really doesn't like a good tune," the huntress cackles in jest.

"Oh please, Zuraugh's just green he can't perform as wonderfully as me," you resound with slight offense.

Belmara swiftly steps around you, playfully taking her finger to your throat, "Just don't wake him with one of your songs while he's sleeping, otherwise..." She gestures a dagger slicing through your jugular before leaping away, leaving you facing the empty arch you came through, and the blizzard on the other side. Hmmph!

You turn to follow your troupe, into the large atrium ahead. Gargandrogan is looking up at a platform where Stargo remains perched, pulling a notably rusted lever which opens a large metal door on the other side of the room. You watch in awe as Stargo leaps from the platform, taking the sporadic form of an owl before landing alongside the rest of your group, unscathed. Vasha remains alert by the atrium's pylons, using her magic to detect any ancient traps or spells that may have been placed to harm intruders; thankfully, none appear. It is at the door Stargo opened your party regroups, taking a minute to levy supplies and prepare for what's to come.

"Freezing?" Gargandrogan questions the group unspecifically.

"Freezing." Belmara shivers, wrapping herself tighter in her cloak.

"Not for too long now," Vasha speaks up, pointing ahead down the dark passage, "The sun-stone is this way, I can feel it."

Zuraugh enters the passage first, taking out one of his long-swords to scrape the bygone walls. Vasha appears peeved by the orc's methods and quickly follows suit, casting a spell of illumination to draw out any unforeseen foes. Soon followed by Belmara, Stargo and Illyana, Gargandrogan takes a second and turns to approach you, handing you his torch to carry.

"Why're you handing me this?"

Gargandrogan sneers, "In case the rats start bitin' at your toes, I don't expect you to smash 'em with your pretty little lute."

That's the second time someone's taken a jab at your lute-playing skills - you're a great bard! Perhaps you're not as honed in your craft as much as Gargandrogan is in his, but you could clearly best the Winter Warrior in a bout of haikus. Okay, maybe comparing combat skills and musical ability are not a worthwhile test of greatness, there's no reason to lose your calm over such a silly disagreement. Still, you simmered as you followed behind the group, holding the torch to the ghastly cobwebs that litter the cracks in the brickwork.

Down the reverberating halls your party went, deeper into the labyrinth of stone. Many a locked doors you pass, glancing in to see the bones of its former occupants, more and more frequently the deeper you trudge. Eventually, you stop in front of a small incline of steps, leading to an fascinatingly ornate door of stone, one your friend Stargo remains eminently intrigued by.

"This is it." Vasha quietly looms on the carvings, tracing a pattern which faintly lights each crevice with a magical glow.

The door screeches against the stone floor as it slides open, your party soon greeted by a magnificent reliquary, doomed by dust and shattered belongings. Saved however, is one large glowing stone upon a pedestal in the center of the room, misaligned in some reflective apparatus with machinery that appears adjoining to another room. Somehow, the sun-stone remained completely untouched by the collapsing rubble, and daring undead that lurk these ruin's halls. Stargo is the first to step forward, hobbling quickly to the center of the room to feast his eyes on the prized artifact.

"It's magnificent!" he exclaims, careful to not so much as breathe on the device in question. "How do we remove it? I don't dare touch it while it's in it's cubicle."

"Untouched, unguarded... this reeks of treachery!" Zuraugh growls under his breath, kicking aside rotten wood fallen from the support beams above.

"I think I can use the sun-stone's own power to free it from the machine's grasp." Vasha pointedly summarizes, "It's said to have limitless energy."

She takes a hand toward the sun-stone, smiling as the heat begins to radiates throughout her body. Her hands stop short, fondling the air around the stone as an ethereal tether connects them both together. "I can feel it's warmth - it's love..." she murmurs outwardly. A choice of words that leaves the rest of the group otherwise confused. Illyana hovers from behind, hesitant to distract Vasha from a supposedly dangerous incantation.

"Vasha, what's happening?"

"I... I'm not sure. Something is wrong."

Vasha's breath grows uneasy. While not in pain, she appears to sense an otherworldly presence as part of the sun-stone. A terrific heat begins to radiate from the center of the room, warming you and your comrades still standing by the door. The sun-stone's light grows in intensity, refracting through the focused machinery above, and causing the metal which makes up the pedestal begin to glow in extraordinary heat. A magical beam emerges from the sun-stone, quickening through the resounding focal lenses. You hear a cackle of laughter emanate from the ceiling, quickly you look up and are met with the magical beam focused through the machines instruments, directly at where you're standing.

***

The connection is instantaneous. There is no feeling where you are, and despite being enveloped in a radiant world of light, it seems tranquil. Are you dead?

No.

Who spoke just now? Was it you?

The bard tells stories that are not their own.

That... voice, it was not felt the way sound is normally. It remains a part of you, and yet, it seems to know more.

I shall take what is mine, and give you another in it's place.

Wait. What did you take from me? What is given in it's place?

***

A rush of roaring wind bellows as you come to your senses. Slumped on a log, outside, surrounded by your peers, you watch as Vasha clutches the sun-stone daringly on the edge of the cliff-side. She raises her hands to the sky, channeling its energy through the clouds and down to the countryside. A thunderous shock-wave resounds throughout the valley, and in almost an instant, you can feel the temperature change accordingly, the blizzard subsiding as the sun-stone's power warms the land below. It feels as though the snow you were lying on has begun to melt, leaving your back drenched in slush and sweat. You groggily sit up, Belmara's hand stopping you halfway to ease you back onto the log to assess your injuries - though, there appear to be none.

"What... what happened." you churn, trying to fight the gentle hand of the rogue.

"Some idiot bard was standing in the wrong place at the wrong time, that's what."

"Oh... okay."

With that said, you retreated back to your log in question. Too tired to stand up for your musical prowess, you just hope you have the hands to play your lute after this frostbitten journey. You reposition yourself, sitting up against the log to assess your damages. Belmara pats you on the back before getting off the ground, joining Vasha by the cliff-side, clearly spent. You take your lute off your back and begin to pluck at the strings again. Only, as you take your fingers to each chord, you can't seem to remember how to play anymore. A tale of the bard who lost their musical talent - a tale only you could tell with such whimsical vigor; that is, if you were not the bard in question.