Isaac and Lenna were not awake and moving until late into the morning. They had missed regular breakfast time but that did not mean that there wasn't food to be had. In the dining hall of the hotel/embassy, the staff still managed to scrape together a breakfast worthy of late sleeping royals. Fresh fruits and cured meats, with breads that were made only a few hours prior, complete with butter and sauces made of minorly medicinal berries and herbs just in case their guests were hungover from a late night in their royal suite. The duo very much enjoyed their brunch in the nearly empty dining hall before they headed out to explore what music the concert halls had to offer.

—

Isaac's eyes went wide at the sight of an organ the size of a house fit for a small family. There were pipes across an impressive sixteen feet of wall space that reached almost the entire way to the top of the nearly thirty foot high ceiling at their highest. The bench was just barely large enough for the woman playing as she had two assistants who would work the knobs and switches on the board to allow her to keep playing without slowing any more than was absolutely necessary. Her hands moved up in a fast but rhythmic wave as they danced from key to key while her feet worked the pedals. She did not need the rest of an orchestra for her organ was enough to play the heartstrings of any who heard its powerful and commanding melodies.

The duo had been pulled in and took their seats, without even realizing it, by the organist and her mighty thrumming machine. The two felt as though they were snapped out of a trance as her first song ended and they looked at each other with widened eyes in awe, surprise, and a hint of fear of the unknown. "Was that a bard or an organist?" Isaac asked Lenna with a hint of concern in his voice. The trance-like state that the two had found themselves in during the performance felt supernatural even if it was almost impossible to know if it was or not.

"She is definitely a bard." Lenna replied. "But I am not sure if she used any of her skills on us or not."

"Want to meet her and ask?" Isaac wondered. There were very few places on or in Primatia that could properly keep Isaac out, and the back rooms of a concert hall were not on that list.

Lenna shrugged. "We have an hour and a half after her performances are finished before our meeting with the Fatebreaker." She reminded him. "And we will have to find either Gypsy, which is basically impossible, or Walter first."

"That sounds like a pleasant half an hour conversation with a master of the art that we have just started our path in." Isaac commented just as the next key-falls silenced the concert hall.

In a blink, Isaac was flying through the sky. He twirled like a sparrow dodging a hawk as he spun out of the way of a cone of fire so hot that the air itself threatened to ignite in its wake. His glaive was heavy in his hand as he spun and dove. The blade had trailed behind him just enough for it to get caught in the flames and the black metal was now giving off heatwaves so intense that the blade almost seemed to vanish from sight. He felt the heat against his side as he lined up for an attack that would go down in history. He grabbed the haft with both hands and, with all of the speed his Flight enhanced dive could give him backed by all of his strength, he swung downwards in an effort to cleave the Frost Emperor Ancient Dragon's head from his neck.

The dragon noticed him coming a moment too late. It turned its head to tilt an eye up to see what was coming towards him only for it to go wide from pain as the mythical Vorpal weapon cleaved straight through its neck without slowing. The intense heat that still clung to the blade would have cauterized any other wound but, for the ancient white dragon, it vaporized the blood and turned the flesh to liquid instead. Someone else, his long time partner and friend, appeared with a pulse and flash of magic on the other side of the dragon's neck and finished the job with a massive downward swing of his greatsword. The head of the Frost Emperor had been taken. One down, two to go, because the metallic dragons were ganging up, five versus two, against the green and black draconic generals.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Isaac blinked and he was back in his seat. His hands were shaking with adrenalin and he turned to lock eyes with Lenna again. "That was bard magic." Lenna told him. "Without a shadow of a doubt."

"I want to fight them." Isaac told her while he was practically vibrating in his seat. "I could feel the power, the awe-inspiring majestic power of a king among dragons." Isaac shook his head. "No, I need to fight one."

"Breathe." Lenna told Isaac. "Sit and breathe." She repeated. "The song amplified feelings that you already had. Yes, you want to fight ancient dragons, but you know that you are not ready yet. Why aren't you ready yet?" Lenna questioned him.

Isaac took a deep breath and did as she told him. "I'm not back up to full strength and we don't know where one is that I can fight." He replied without much thought.

"And?" Lenna pressed.

Isaac paused and actually had to think about it for a moment. His head was steadily clearing from the song as the organist was preparing for the next one. "I should probably be level twenty first." He told her.

"And?" Lenna continued.

"I need better gear and probably some consumable items." He added with a sigh. "Okay, I think I am back to normal now."

Lenna nodded. "Good." She said with a nod just as the next piece began.

Isaac was standing over a freshly filled grave. The dirt was still upturned even as the first drops of rain started to fall. It was a grave that he had dug and filled himself. He had just buried his best friend, in an unmarked grave, overlooking the ocean, just like he had wanted. They didn't have the money for a resurrection, even combined and after taking out the biggest loan that anyone would give them, they would still be short at least half of the costs of the materials alone. So, instead, Isaac had been forced to bury him alone. His friend had always wanted to see the sea, so Isaac did the only thing he could.

Isaac had sold everything they both owned to buy a Bottomless Bag and put the corpse of his best friend inside it. He used what little money remained to pay for transportation and a shovel. It had been a very long three months to get to the sea, but it was worth every hardship along the way. Now, not only had they both made it to the ocean, but his best friend would overlook it until the sea swallowed the coast and then he would still get to be inside of it.

Isaac blinked away the tears that had started to form. He felt like he had actually lost someone and had buried them there, overlooking an ocean that only existed in his mind. It was a cathartic agony of heartbreak and loss. So many people that he had known but no longer could imagine had been buried there on that seaside cliff. So much loss that he had no way to actually know how much had been laid to rest under the cloudy sky as the first bits of rain started to fall. Everyone he had ever known in his first life, everyone he had ever loved too, all of them were resting there, overlooking the majesty of nature in all of its calmness and fury. He looked back at Lenna to see her helmeted face. She could feel the agonizing sorrow as the wounds from the death of her old teammates were ripped open and reburied again over the span of a few minutes.

"Ouch." Isaac said and rubbed his chest. The emotional pain was so intense that it was indistinguishable from physical pain.

Lenna nodded. "Yes." She agreed. "This woman, she does not pull her punches it seems."

Isaac shook his head. "No, I sort of get the feeling that she is more of a guide than an active force. She is picking the pieces to play, but the songs themselves chose the destinations and the visions." He turned back to watch as she got ready to start another song. "I just hope we are still together enough by the end of this to remember what we wanted to talk to her about." And so the next vision began.

—

Lenna helped Isaac to his feet. How she was still standing she had no idea. Both of them had been wrung dry of every emotion across the entire spectrum. The organist had taken their hearts out, shredded them, and then put them back together like they were children's puzzles. "I think," Isaac began with a slight wobble to his steps. "That we should wait until later to talk to her."

Lenna nodded. "Agreed." She told him. "And I need water."

"And something sweet." Isaac added. "I think I saw shredded ice with syrup downstairs."

Lenna nodded again. "Downstairs it is." She agreed. They hadn't even been to the Fatebreaker yet and they were already wrung dry. Hopefully they could recover enough to be mostly normal by the time of their scheduled meeting. Anything else would just be embarrassing, considering all of the distance that they had traveled to get there.

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