Special Presentation. Death and all of her friends. Part 1.

Hello again, my loyal Readers! 

And welcome back to the gates of Enverdolmal. 

I hope -as always- that this finds you well. 

I am sorry that I couldn't get the cover art for Volume two done by today as I would have liked...

But I will make it up to you all, you have my word. 

I commission my character and book art from a young lady way over in London (as I am not one for drawing, so much as the occasional sketch), and I can only assume that she has either been busy or has yet to finish my piece yet lbvs.

Such is life, yeah?

Thank you all for being so patient.

It means the world to me.

I will leave you at that and let you dive into this newest (and most likely the last) chunk of our tale in Volume 1: Embers!

It is honestly a part that I had let slip to the back of my mind, and a character who should have been introduced a bit ago as you all will undoubtedly see lol. 

Catch you all on the flip side.

Enjoy.

-----

Volta strode along at a leisurely pace, the lush, green forest slowly slipping by on either side of him as he sauntered down the trail.

He wasn't really in a hurry.

Although...

He could stand to reach his destination a bit sooner than he projected he would at this rate.

His night was bound to be...interesting, to say the least.

He supposed that it couldn't get much more interesting than the bulk of the day before it had been thus far.

What had made it so interesting, you ask?

Fack...

Where to start?

His guildmates had turned on him over breakfast...

His "best friend" had tried to kill him over lunch...

And he was almost positive that dinner would be far from uneventful...

Volta was a Bard.

A Bard Mercenary now, to be a bit more specific.

An ex-Guild Master, to be even more specific....

What a day it had been, indeed.

What a night it would be.

He hoped that at least his one last friend would stay true.

He had precious few options outside of this gamble.

He hoped more than anything that the lead that he had gotten was accurate...

Lucasa was a hard man to track down, and Volta knew that even if the tip was accurate to the letter, his fellow Bard and ex-apprentice was quite nomadic.

It would be just his luck if the establishment that Lucasa was supposed to be at was either non-existent, or some collapsible tent concoction that Lucasa had built himself and had left town with already. 

Resigned to whatever fate would bring, Volta drew forth his legendary lute, and he played and hummed.

He scraped his heels against the packed trail as he walked, setting a nice, moderate tempo for himself.

A subconscious, mellow metronome.

With his melody set, he began to sing softly to no one in particular.

"I used to rule the guild...

Knees would bend before blood would be spilled.

Now in the mornings I hunt alone...

Hunt the men I used to own."

His fingers strummed the Aetheral strings of his enchanted lute, his loot, whose name was Lowla Viva. The soft, airy notes permeated the forest around him.

He closed his eyes and played as he walked, his voice acting as an echo-location technique as its Aether-saturated notes floated among the flora and fauna.

"No need to roll the dice...

Fool me once? It was out with his eyes!

Kind of ironic how the scales can lean...

Now, 'an eye for an eye' does have a ring."

His mind began to replay the events of the morning...

The false and hollow smiles of his men...

The soft hiss of steel blades being drawn behind cloth...

The sting of betrayal from those he thought closest to him...

Sellouts, the whole lot of them...

"One minute I bore the crown...

Next, the walls would all fall down.

And I discovered that my guild was built

Upon pillars of ash and pillars of silt..."

As much as he hated to admit to it, the betrayals, one and all, had hurt him profoundly...

He had invested his time, money, sweat, and blood into that guild.

Into those men and women...

Rigormortus Mantichorus was HIS baby...HIS creation.

And they had taken it from him...

He would have his revenge...

He sang a bit louder, with a bit more emotion.

His Aether poured from his fingertips, melding with and into the strings of his beautiful instrument.

A spell of vengeance began to weave itself between his wounded words.

Hot tears rolled down his face, hissing as they evaporated against the searing-hot Aether strings.

"I hear those cowardly bards are coming!

Try their hands, because I'm not running!

Volta's sword and Lucasa's shield!

A lethal duet that will never yield!"

His falsetto cracked just a bit as emotions threatened to invade his rage-tempered ballad.

'Death for treason!' they all exclaimed!

Of that treason, I'll clear my name...

Nary a drop was spilled...

But that was when I ruled the guild..."

He strummed and drummed his lute with a series of light and rapid taps.

He hummed out a second verse, memorizing it as we wrote it in his head.

This would make for quite the performance someday.

He really liked the melody, and maybe Lucasa would as well.

Maybe he would leave the second verse to him.

Hmm.

As he rounded the bend in the path, he could hear between his own notes a few that were not in fact his.

He pulled his hand away from his Aetheral strings, they evaporated in an instant as he dispelled the magic that held them to this plane.

He stood as still as death, letting the faint notes carry into his pointed ears.

It wasn't just a series of notes, it was a song.

A song that he was familiar with!

"This is the story

Of a lad and a lass...

Of a love long lost.

Of a spring long past..."

It was one of Lucasa's love songs!

He knew that song because he had written nearly half of it, and if it was being played, there was no other person in the world who could play perfectly the second verse! 

Volta threw his lute over his shoulder and took off full-tilt in the direction of that fatal melody.

-----

I hope that his surprise finds you all well!

I love you all for your loyalty and mutual love!

Before any of us know it, we will have a physical copy of this book on our shelves, yeah?

A boy can dream lol.

Safe travels, folks. I will see you all back here soon enough.

As always:

Stay safe.

Stay healthy.

Stay vigilant.

-Redd.