GH - 202

I found Kezo sitting on the fluffy snow as he perused a floating screen. Three Snowy Swinelings headbutted his armored flank in vain; he must’ve disturbed the peaceful cloud-puff piglets somehow for them to attack him. The little monsters poofed into Essence and Gli when the edge of the AoE of my [Blight Cloud] reached them. At the death of their fellows, other Snowy Swinelings waddled over to attack me, angrily grunting—more needless deaths.

“Hi there, Kezo. Am I the first to answer the call of the ancestors?”

Waving away the screen, Kezo looked up at me with a smile. “Herald, I’m not that old to be counted as an ancestor. Don’t I need to have descendants to be one? My wife and I want financial stability first before adding a little one.”

I blinked. I didn’t know he had a wife. Not that I had asked before.

Or cared.

Knowing the personal information of my party mates felt… weird.

Another odd thing—though I was in my thirties and many men around my age had families, my view of ‘gamers’ was still stuck around my high school days. It was like getting surprised, as a student, that my teachers also had kids and families of their own.

“Probably requires more than just one generation to be considered an ancestor,” I said, not wanting to talk more about Kezo’s real life. “I think anything past a grandfather can be considered an ancestor.”

Kezo laughed. “I’m far off from that. Anyway, Paritor’s coming soon. Melonomi is brewing potions, but she said she’ll stop when Megan and Nitana log on. Those two will be here in about fifteen minutes—they messaged me on Missive.

They’re in contact outside of the game? I hadn’t given much thought to making friends with Mother Core Online players in the real world. Meeting them personally was an even further thought. Keeping this side of mine sequestered in the virtual world of Hierakon was instinctive.

Why was that? Am I avoiding—?

“What’s that?” Kezo asked, cutting my rare self-introspection short. He pointed at the oud’s fingerboard poking over my shoulder.

“A musical instrument.” I forgot to unequip it. I explained to him where I got it and the mini-concert at the crimson goat’s hut.

“That was the music from earlier? I caught the tail end of it when I got on. I thought it was just the NPCs celebrating the end of the Blighted world quest.” Kezo stood up and walked around me to see more of the [Lowan Oud]. “Been a while since I’ve seen a musical instrument here.”

“Here? You’ve seen them in this village before?” Were those players who said that Eugenius was the first to discover musical instruments on Mardukryon mountain wrong? “Or do you mean NPCs playing drums for rituals or something like that?”

“In the early days of MCO, before the Mardukryon player population started dwindling,” Kezo said, “a group discovered where to get musical instruments but didn’t want to share how. They wouldn’t even sell the information to the Expeditionary Legion. I think Chimi tried buying it from them too. He wanted to make a DPS musician. There’s some performer Ocadules leaning more on the DPS side, but they’re middling at best. Chimi was thinking—”

“Let me guess,” I cut in. “Chimi planned to throw money at the build to show off that he made something that shouldn’t work become competitive.”

“Not just competitive. Dominant. He aimed to top the DPS charts with a musician build. Crazy idea, but he could afford it.”

“The meta of money. Eccentric whale goals,” I murmured, chuckling. I’m one to talk. I had done many inefficient and costly things for showing off’s sake too. “There are bragging rights if Chimi managed to pull it off. An underdog narrative right there, even if an underdog isn’t supposed to have bottomless pockets.”

“But those guys wouldn’t sell to Chimi,” said Kezo. “Or anyone else, as far as I know. They were waiting for the way off of this mountain to be discovered so they could fetch a higher price.”

I raised a brow. “How come? There are musical instruments all over Hierakon. Wouldn’t they get higher bids if they sold their secret before Mardukryon players got connected to—? Wait, I think I get it. They found Mardukryon-made instruments. Better to have more bidders for those, I suppose.”

“You’re right.” Kezo gave me a thumbs-up. “Instruments and Skill Shards. No one found musical Ocadules yet if they were telling the truth.”

“If there are Skills Shards, there are bound to be Ocadules. Just makes sense that there are Mardukryon-composed songs. Where are those players now?”

Kezo shrugged. “They vanished some time back, barely a month after flaunting their find.”

“Didn’t have enough patience, huh? Or maybe they realized that the longer they waited to sell, the higher the chance of other people stumbling on what they had found. Hedging their bets, they should’ve tried to look for more musical secrets while waiting for me—I mean, while waiting for our Gate to get Linked.”

“Are you going to look for musical Ocadules?” Kezo asked. “Is that going to be your next build? If your goal is tanking, musical Ocadules are abundant with defensive skills. There are many synergies with other skills too.”

“Like what?” A tiny flame of interest flared again.

Kezo ticked off his fingers. “There are items that give buffs while channeling, like certain Link Shards to connect to your song Skill Shard. Equipment too. You can also have a setup where you cast skills if you use Energy since you’re continually spending Energy while playing music anyway. Some buffs activate if you’re standing still.”

“I have a Band of Loamy Renewal,” I said with an air as if I already knew about his other suggestions as well.

“The ring from the monkey statue boss? Yes, it does have a buff while you’re stationary—it works with playing song spells. That’s just scratching the surface. You came up with Totem Juggling in, what was it, a day? I’m sure you can think of many, many things to do with song spells. Lean into making the downsides of performing as costs for bonuses.”

“That’s going to be the play… if I’ll build a musician. But I’d rather that I can move. The downsides are too much unless I manage to find a super-overpowered song.” I already knew this, so why were we having this conversation?

Was I trying to find an external source convincing me to stop my fruitless plan like looking for someone to tell me to start living healthily though I knew I should do that? Goes the same for most people, I assumed.

“Moving shouldn’t be a big problem,” Kezo said. “Higher Quality musical Ocadules have skills allowing you to move while performing. They can also give you the ability to play two songs at the same time. My friend, who made a minstrel werewolf, told me that.”

“Minstrel werewolf?” I asked incredulously.

“Girls like dogs. Girls like musical guys. Combine both, and voila. That’s his exact words, by the way.” We both laughed.

“That’s unshakeable logic from your friend that can make the ancestors proud,” I said, not focusing on the fact that there was a way to counter the song spells’ downsides. I didn’t want to get my hopes up.

“I’m not sure how that’s working out for him. But what I’m sure of is that it’s possible to move while channeling a song spell. If you can’t find anything now, I promise I’ll get a copy of his Ocadule when we leave the mountain—they can get quite expensive.”

“When we leave the mountain?” I smiled. “Not if?”

“We’ll be able to leave the mountain,” Kezo confidently replied, his four eyes filled with conviction. “Soon. Maybe as soon as this Great Hunt. I can feel it. You can start working on your musician build now—that’s how confident I am.”

“I’m just dabbling in music magic for a quest,” I said. “Good news there are ways to mitigate its downsides, but I still don’t think it’ll work for me.” I switched out my [Lowan Oud] to dual-wield shields again as I explained to Kezo that I was firm in being a tank. Getting aggro was the problem with musicians.

“That’s a problem alright,” he said. “Taunt Link Shards can’t be connected to channeling skills.”

“Is that so?” The world was confirming that what I thought was an unboxlike tingle was actually a stupid idea I should drop. A fine line between those two, with results at opposite ends of the usefulness spectrum. It wouldn’t be the first time I had a stupid idea—I’m Herald Stone enough to admit that.

Kezo patted my shoulder. “Continue with building a musician. You’ll figure out a way to maintain aggro. You always do. I’ve seen what you can do if you put your mind to it.”

You have only seen a tiny fraction of what I’m capable of, I smugly thought. And that wasn’t an exaggeration. If I wanted something to happen—it will. If I woke up one morning with the thought to change the direction the sun rises, I’d be able to find a way how to make the sun go up in the west.

An Aurastacking Plaguetank… musician? A performer making his audience sick? That was hilarious, and novel enough for me to pursue. I can’t abandon this!

But I didn’t tell Kezo that. I only said, “I’ll think about it…”

“We can ask the others if they know more about music magic. We’ll register for the Great Hunt when everyone is here. Look, Paritor is coming with a new outfit. And what’s that with him?”

“New outfit and new pet,” I said, examining Paritor. He was busy the short time we parted ways.

“Greetings!” Paritor shouted. “Thankfully, I wasn’t tardy to our meeting. I was occupied with some matters.”

With his right hand, Paritor carried a statue of a crouching monkey, reminding me of Moa Manot. It was a bit bigger than the coiled snake statue he had before. Covering his right hand, arm, and shoulders were curved interlocking plates similar to that sported by gladiators, the armor that only covered one side of their body. Paritor also had a new shield replacing his small buckler, a rectangular one as large as a table if that table was as big as a door, and that door was big enough to cover his left whole side above the knee. Pretty big, yeah.

If I were to guess, Paritor was doubling down on staying alive while his summons did their work—he had two new ones flanking him. On his right was a saber-toothed tiger lookalike but with six legs, its shoulder reaching Paritor’s chest. The other was a faceless humanoid with too long and too thin limbs holding what might be maces, with skulls for their heads. Both were made out of yellowish, almost white flames, streaked with blue that formed floating runes.

“Paritor, looks like you’ve met with the Big M,” I guessed.