isleofavalon | Songs For All

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Songs For All - OTA

🧙 WHO: Donovan and whomever
⚔️️ WHAT: Not being barred from being the Bard (Catch-all)
🕒 WHEN: Jan-Feb
🗺️ WHERE: Any public tavern, bar, or inn like building that will allow a bard to lay a pan and perform.
⚠️ WARNINGS: Bad puns. Possible violence/gore mentions. And bad puns. No. Seriously bad puns. You have been warned.

The white haired man in the bright pink pants stepped off the stage and collected his tip bowl. After giving the owner's their share, he settled in for his supper, open seats all around him. Feel free to join the guitarist who just more than earned his keep with amazing songs of far off worlds sung in a deep rich wonderful voice?

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"A pretty boy idol named Ren Jinguji is organizing it. I'm sure they're looking for more talent, so you should hit him up." As for the other talent, Crow shrugs his shoulders as he thinks off the top of his head. "There's probably another band playing, and some solo artists of different music genres too."

He then bears a smug grin as he points a thumb at himself."And of course, yours truly here! I'll be playing some rock music, too!"

"How would I find him to sign up?" he asked. Then he grinned at the other. "We could do a jam session if you wanted, I think this crowd could take it."

Crow pulls out his phone and shows it to Donovan. "You can just text him? Don't you have one of these? Or maybe, you don't know how to use it?"

The redhead perks up at the suggestion of a jam session. His tail starts to wag back and forth in excitement. "Yeah, I'll be totally down. I even have my guitar here since I just came from practice."

"Oh! That's the thing Zelda told me to turn over. It's been mostly quiet since then...." He said. Yeah, no, the old dude had no clue how to use his phone. But his guitar? He could rock that. "Want me to go clear it with the owner?"

Crow raises an eyebrow. Turn over? Quiet? That sounds weird. “Are you sure it’s even turned on?”

Despite, his rudeness, Crow is still anxious to perform. “Yeah! Do you just want to do guitar solos or do you want to add vocals too? My voice is pretty amazing,too! But I don’t know any of the songs you sung.”

"That thing turns on?" he asked, seemingly amazed. "Never seen magic quite like it before."

"I don't have any of the magical scores we used for the battle of Barthis, but I could write up a few of the songs from memory if you have paper and pen. Solos are great, but the best music always comes from playing together," he said with a grin. "And if you want to write up some of yours, we can jam out to each other's tunes together."

"Wait? You're joking, right?"

There's no way, no one knows how to turn on their phone. He gives Donovan a look to discern whether he's joking or not. He must be!

What's the Battle of Barthis, anyway?" Crow questions, but he does like old man's idea. Crow didn't have a paper, but he does have a handful of napkins and a pen he borrows from the bartender.

"Yeah, I can totally write out my band's songs, since I'm the one who wrote them, to begin with!"

"Nope," he said. "I was just given this ting, I thought it was a paperweight till it made noise once." He had once kept up a bluff of ignorance for DECADES because it was funny. He could keep this up till it was explained to him, especially since the ignorance was only half feigned this time. He had figured out enough to guess it was like a crystal ball, but... that was about it. He still wasn't sure how to activate it, or if he was even correct.

"The battle for Barthis, huh?" he asked, grinning as he leaned back. "It was a number of years ago when a cabal of wizards had come to the sleepy town of Barthis to enact a dark ritual of sacrificial magic. An oracle named Dominic, his talking cat Spark, his assistant Luna, a white mage named Gregory, a Spellwolf and a priestess and a knight of the realm came together to stop them. And after a great battle where the cabal was betrayed by a necromancer pretending to be one of their own. In the end nearly all of them died and the town seemed to be saved. But at cost. The heroes took heavy losses, and while the white mage Gregory could heal some of what was lost, not everything could be so easily repaired." He gave a solemn nod over his drink and took a sip before continuing, to give that proper dramatic beat.

"After that, Barthis became something of a magnet for ne'er do wells, dark mages, bigots, and worse, lawyers." He winked.

"The priestess and the Spellwolf went with the knight from the town to deal with the changes within them, the loss of identity and power and self. The seer stayed for a while, then left, and would return again several times before eventually making his home there, after the Battle for Barthis was settled. His assistant and cat stayed by his side, but the White mage, Gregory, he stayed in Barthis. He helped to defend it against the hardships that came for the town. But a great evil came to Barthis after a time. Gregory's phenomenal powers and good heart led him to being able to protect the people of Barthis, though to do so the homes were destroyed."

"The townsfolk struggled, trying to figure out how to rebuild. That was when the lawyer arrived..." he sipped his drink again to give another beat and to get a read on his audience.

"What? Seriously? How do you function without a phone?!" Okay, Boomer! Get your shit together! Crow wouldn't mind sitting down with Donovan and showing him how to use the device, but he isn't really the most patient person in the universe. "I guess I could show you a few tricks later."

Crow then listens to the older man's story and he's not really expecting much. Though, he receives an epic tale of sorts. This town of Barthis has really been through it, even wizards, destruction, and lawyers. Crow's tail swishes behind him as he waits for Donovan to finish, but the man just pauses for dramatic effect to sip his drink.

"And then what? You can't just stop the story there? What happened with the lawyer? Everyone was sued, right?" Isn't that what money hungry attornies are good for?

"Phoney? I thought it was real? Sure feels real." Yes, that time he was deliberately misunderstanding, and he smirked as if he couldn't help it. "Thanks, I'd appreciate the help," he said smoothing his expression into a more genuine smile.

He grinned internally at the eager reply and set down his drink. He kept his face solemn as he spoke, so as to not give away the ending. "The lawyer claimed that the white mage was responsible for failing to save the buildings and for the deaths of the few people who died before he was able to mount a defense. He claimed that young Gregory had to repay all the damages or go to debtors prison. And somehow he also claimed that he was going to claim the land Barthis had been on and build a memorial stadium to one of the bigots that the white mage had driven from the town previously that had been killed by a powerful seer elsewhere not long after."

He still was not sure if he was privileged to know the details of that particular death or not, but he knew and nothing could change that now. One of the curses of a vivid imagination, however, was that with the details he had, he may as well have witnessed it as his son had.

Again he took a sip to gauge interest in his continuing.

"Phoney? That's a super lame joke!" Despite himself, Crow cracks a smile.

The redhead quiets down as Donovan continues. Of course, he wants to charge them for the damages and the deaths. Though a memorial stadium, too? That's not gonna fly...probably?

"So, did the lawyer charge them for those outlandish claims? Clearly, anyone with a brain can see through his plan!"

Good, the joke landed.

To the other, he chuckled lightly. "It may have escaped your notice, but the law can be used by the devious to make the irrational true. However in this case..." he gave a small smile that wasn't quite as benign as his usual smiles.

"This is where I entered the story. We weren't in Barthis when we found out about the situation. Our middle son was staying with us while he was fitted for his prosthetics, and my wife could not leave her students again until she was sure that her absence wouldn't once more weaken the school such that it could be attacked. So I was the one who could leave, without their help. But there were others who I could call upon. The Seer's talking cat was one. A Necromantic golem named Quilt with the best sense of humour one could ask for. But still I needed more help. So I spoke with my best friend. Lars Strutz. Accountant." He grinned as if he had been announcing a superhero. As though being an accountant was more exciting than say, the necromantic golem he had mentioned.

"I had thought the battle would have been one of numbers and laws. It never occurred to me that as much as Lars would be able to help the town with finances and law... it was his connection to his son that would prove to be even more relevant..."

Crow nods his head. He knows the law can be twisted around to one's benefit. People who know the law are aware of where they distort the truth. He continues to listen to Donovan's story, there's certainly a cast of interesting people. Not so much the talking cat, but the golem and this accountant that seems to be the savior for them all.

"His son?" Crow raises an eyebrow. "How is the accountant's son important?"

"Everyone is important," he said, a little too casually. "But I am guessing you meant how is he relevant in this context, yes?"

He grinned a bit. "As for that, well, that starts because I might have lost my temper. See, we were just getting into town in time to hear the lawyer trying to goad the white mage into throwing a punch that would get him arrested for assault on top of everything else. Thankfully someone with a more level head was close enough to stop him and got to the boy first. But we were close enough to witness it while the lawyer's bodyguards tried to stop us from joining the conversation. So I decided to give them a little autograph, a memento to recall the time they failed to stop the famous Bard Donovan Deegan. So I signed their clothes. With my sword. They did let us through after that," he said with a bit of a smug grin.

The grin faded. "The lawyer recognized me, which was good. He tried poking at me, which was fine. As you well know, being a performer requires a thick skin. None of his barbs were sharp enough to cut at me. At least, not the ones aimed my way. Unfortunately, however, he also knew Lars. Or specifically, and relevantly to your question, Lars' son."

He sighed and sipped his drink. "Szark is generally a good boy, but like many people did, he went through a dark period in his life. He briefly lost his fight with the demon wound in his side and gave into some more... demonic impulses. Well the lawyer made some crude innuendo about Szark needing some new pants every time he dueled," killed someone, but that was beside the point, "so I informed the lawyer that he would need new pants every time he insulted my friend. And I did it by signing his pants the way I signed the guard's shirts. He wasn't on the fence about being foiled, but I got the point across and he withdrew for the time being."

He sipped his drink again to gauge the reaction so far.

Edited (HTML fail) 2021-02-17 06:54 (UTC)

There's one phrase that gets stuck in Crow's head. It isn't what's been said about Lars's son, which was pretty fucked up, but the redhead can accept that information well enough. Once Donovan stops, he decides to point it out.

"So when you say you signed their clothes with your sword? You're cutting away at them...in broad daylight?! So they're walking around naked?! That's cruel!"

He then laughs, bringing attention to all the puns inserted into that one sentence. "Did you just stick three puns in one sentence? That's weak! So, you stopped them from using the accountant's son against him? Or did they come up with some other scheme?"

"I signed their clothes. They stayed on, just with big D shaped holes," he said, a little too innocently. "They might have deserved worse, but the poor people of Barthis had already suffered enough, who was I to force the to see that?"

Yes, he is a good aligned troll, why ever do you ask?

"No, if I stuck one in every day, that would have been week," he corrected signaling for a refill. Once he had it, he took a sip then continued his tale.

"Oh, the lawyer had plenty of schemes," he said. "But so did we. Or at least, we would. Later. For the time being, the White Mage needed something to lift his spirits so he could come up with the will and brains to fight. Thankfully I knew exactly the right tone to set when we spoke. And I'd been prepared. I'd brought a pair of axes." He touched his guitar to make it clear what sort of axe he meant. "I won't string you along, though. We got to rocking out. It had been too long since we had a good jam session, anyway. We were so in the zone the White Mage didn't even realize we'd drawn a crowd till we finished. I knew, but then I always had a good sense for when I had an audience. Comes from having a son who is one of the strongest Seers in the planes." He grinned, and wondered if his current audience would start to pick up on some of the hints.

"Well, it didn't take long for us to realize that the crowd was the answer to the dilemma of the money. I was well known enough as a Bard," he said, in what had to be the understatement of the century. Saying he was well known enough was like saying Merlin dabbled in magic. He was known in every part of his world, even the ones that did not permit or welcome humans, and he was known on other worlds as well. "And with my skill and his, and some help from a few specific people... we formed a plan. The battle for Barthis." He grinned. "A benefit concert. Of course, the lawyer wasn't about to let us get away with that without a fight..."

He sipped is drink again.

Edited 2021-03-23 09:58 (UTC)

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Songs For All - OTA

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Spoiler warning.

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cw: crude innuendo

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