Dinner settled in their stomachs as night did the same around them. Stars poked themselves into existence and the moons began their race across the sky. The small celestial objects appeared in the half-moon phase, making only the tendrils of the broken moon visible against the black-drop. Like a rogue paint streak across an abyss, the dark canvass of the night sparkled. The dying embers of the fire did little to obscure the beauty of it all.

Cici had wandered back into the cave while Kopius remained seated by the remaining warmth. A soft light emanated from the cavern's entrance. The beam of stone illuminating the inner chamber still glowed and Kopius knew if he went inside he would have reading light; he remained outside with the silence. There wasn't a river running nearby or any nocturnal sounds that came from animals scurrying around in the darkness. He was left with only an occasional crack or pop from an angry ember.

At some point, the sound of a musical instrument being tuned flowed out of the Hall. Something he had heard many times by this point in their journey, Kopius enjoyed the short concert as the acoustics of the cave amplified them. A sharp TWANG! escaped the entrance followed by a Cici yelp.

"You alright?" Kopius asked as he entered the illuminated space.

Cici, lying on an elaborate stone couch, was sucking the tip of his thumb with a flummoxed look on his face. He would pull it back to examine but then place it back in his mouth as if he were trying to remove poison. The big man shook his head at Kopius's question and gestured at his instrument. Three of the six strings were peeled back, having snapped in two. Cici shook his injured hand as if trying to remove a booger and picked up his Metem equivalent of a guitar.

"I should have changed these back on the trail," Cici admitted more to himself than speaking to Kopius.

"Is it hard to restring that?" Kopius asked, taking a seat on a half broken chair.

"Nah," Cici replied. "Stings is all." He looked at his thumb one more time and then pulled the sun dried horse hair from his pocket.

After removing the broken pieces the big guy separated four threads from the bundle of hair, slid them into the empty bridge pin and replaced the pin once there was enough length. Next he held two of the stings taught while wrapping the other strings around them. Once braided, Cici strung it through the correct turning peg and then twisted that tight. The process took about ten minutes and when he was done, Cici took a mighty swipe at the string and the thrum echoed inside their chamber.

Kopius was not versed in musical equipment so as he watched Cici work, he assumed that guitar strings on Earth were made from the same thing. Something in his gut made him second guess that thought but he was unsure why. Instead of internally debating something he knew nothing about he watched Cici do the work.

The Bard didn't use the same amount of string for the other two that had snapped. One had six threads and the other had eight. They both followed the same pattern of 'wrap around two taught threads' making these two thicker than the first. Cici would pull the entwined strings with noticeable strain and in some cases, with the right angle, the horse hair glittered in the soft light as if it were made of metal.

Cici finished his repairs, spun the instrument as if ready to play some mariachi and strummed a short but intense melody. The sounds raced around the cave looking for an exit but often collided with Kopius's ears. The noise was rhythmic and loud but not enough for earplugs. It reminded Kopius of any of the live rock concerts he had attended, where the guitarist would let it rip to every song.

"Too bad you don't have an amplifier," Kopius said.

"Eh?"

"Well, I guess you'd need an electric guitar." Kopius clarified.

"You gone mad again, boy?"

"Ha, no," Kopius answered with a chuckle. "We have instruments like that where I'm from," he said pointing at the musical apparatus. "Instead of hair for string, they use metal."

"I recall you saying that you don't play," the big man inquired.

"Oh, I don't," Kopius admitted freely. "But all that is pretty common knowledge. Where most people can't play music, almost everyone listens to it."

"Sounds about right," Cici replied with a scratch of his beard. "What of it then, why the metal?"

"Uhhh, it's louder?" Kopius answered, more as a question than a statement. "More durable."

"Louder than this?" Cici asked, by playing his new strings even harder and this time Kopius did cover an ear.

"I don't know," Kopius said. "If it were connected to an amplifier and speaker it would be."

"Do you know how to make those?" Cici asked sincerely, as if he had long been searching for a louder way.

"No," Kopus said plainly. Before he could elaborate further, a thought occurred to him. He summoned one of the grafeen rolls from his ring and gave it a more thoughtful inspection. Though the metallic string was slightly thicker than the sun dried horse hair it glimmered in the light the same as the entwined hair had. He offered the spool to Cici.

"Let's test it out, shall we?" Cici spoke rhetorically.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

He removed the three older cords and started the process of restringing his instrument with the grafeen. Cici moved with a slower efficiency given the new material but he still went about his business like a practiced professional. Once he had completed the installation, the three cords on top were hair and the three below them were grafeen. He glanced up at Kopius with a slight grin and then started to jam.

The grafeen cords definitely played a different type of tune than the hair did. Whether or not it was louder was a matter of debate; Cici was having a great time either way. The excitement in his eyes to the new sounds was only rivaled by the pace of his song. When the big man finished he let out a mountain of held breath and smiled wide.

"I think I'm going to leave it like this," Cici gushed, looking at the strings. "They make such lovely sounds, new sounds. Surely she will break." He said that last part mostly under his breath but Kopius still heard him.

"I hope so man," Kopius walked over and gave the big man a friendly pat on the back. "You still going to use that song I showed you?"

"Yes," Cici said confidently. "Yes, I am."

"Cool," Kopius said as a sour pang hit his stomach.

Where most people would feel flattered that their idea was going to be put into motion, Kopius was left with a sick feeling of doom. If Cici were to use his ideas and fail; that's what was dancing on his gut right now. He tried to push the feeling away but needed some fresh air to complete that task, so he headed outside. As he exited the cave, Cici had started to practice the wedding song and all of its new sounds.

After thirty or so minutes of strolling, Kopius returned to the soft murmurings of Cici who had tucked himself in and drifted off to sleep. The ceiling beam had dimmed considerably to the point that it was more a hallway night light than a fluorescent office light. Kopius spied the room for a comfortable place to rest, eventually selecting a place on the ground to lay down.

He stared at the ceiling for a time, marveling at the carvings adorned there. When he would turn on his side, his gaze fell upon the other intricate work and the noticeable missing chunks that people had ruined. Given the day's events, Kopius was a bit surprised that he couldn't get comfortable or fall asleep. Whether it was the carvings all over, the menagerie of statues lining the hall, or the thought of an angry mountain spirit; he just wasn't falling asleep.

Kopius sat up and leaned back against the stone chair he was next to. For a while he just looked around the room, not particularly interested in anything. His eyes moved from pristine carving to blotched and broken pieces, before his focus landed on the central piece. The sculpted replica of Dashwrath's love. Why someone would come and destroy such a beautiful creation wasn't so hard to figure out. People tend to hate beautiful things, especially if it isn't theirs, or they didn't create it. Jealousy is a hell of a drug; one Cory had his fill of–more than once.

Before Kopius could dive into his well of past mistakes, he stood up and approached the central sculpture. He tentatively ran his hands along the diagonal cut. It was smooth, like a single swipe had severed the piece in two. Neither man had yet to find the head of the statue; something Kopius was going to search for now. It was more to give him a task rather than a burning curiosity. He wandered the cave in relative silence, avoiding chucks of stone and smaller debris. His search revealed nothing and ended with him staring down the Hall of Dashwrath.

In the lower light, Kopius could only see the first set of statues: the bear/beaver crossover. When he activated his Night Vision he could see a little further than normal given the ambient light from behind. More duplicate statues ran the length of the hall, all depicting an animal of sorts; maybe some mythical creatures too. His search for the statue's head had ended as a new thought occurred to him.

Kopius opened his interface and navigated to his map. A slight grin stretched out as he saw that the purple 'X' indicating the last known location of the other half of the C.O.M.A. appeared to be close by. With the map visible, Kopius spun in place to be sure he was facing the right direction. After his test was completed he concluded that the device was either in the Hall or on top of the mountain above. Either way, he started to walk down the Hall to investigate.

With his nerves on high alert due to the thought that all the stone sculptures would come alive and pummel him to death, he stepped forward. The further he moved away from the light in the cave the more Kopius relied on his Night Vision. The details of the statues became more obscured though he could still see the details if he moved closer to them.

At one point he came to another bear/beaver statue which made him turn around to get his bearings. Looking back down the long tunnel, the faint glow of light at the end gave the impression of a train coming down the tracks. It was practically cartoonish.

Returning his gaze the way he was heading and he noticed that the statue immediately after the bear was in the shape of a nondescript rock golem; this one was made of smooth, oblong boulders and stood at least ten feet tall. On further review, all the additional statues that followed were the same. It was like the mountain spirit had run out of creatures and just copy/pasted this one the rest of the way.

A couple deep breaths to calm his nerves and Kopius pulled up his map again. He was close; relatively speaking. The purple X appeared to be no more than a couple hundred yards down the Hall. For good measure, Kopius armed himself with the two kunai-type weapons he had recently purchased.

The space wasn't large enough to use either of his swords unless he was going to poke at things. With his Harness of Sharpening, the twin blades were remarkably razor-like. He wasn't going to slay a rock golem with them but anything else that came his way would get a little slice and dice. Keeping an eye on his map while simultaneously eye-balling every duplicate statue, Kopius slowed his pace while still creeping forward.

Roughly ten minutes later, Kopius was practically standing on the purple X. He was a bit off center, the X resting somewhere behind the statue on his right. The rock form had no odd blemishes, out of the ordinary marking, or noticeable levers. It looked the same as every other statue he had walked past. He even inspected the four statues that were nearby to see if he'd missed a clue: nothing.

While waiting for his moment of clarity, Kopius yawned. It was a long, drawn out yawn that he had to shake off after it was completed. It was followed by smaller, less intrusive yawns and the message was clear: sleepy time was upon him. Before he headed back to the cave, Kopius wanted to put down some visual reminder of where the X was.

At first he was going to leave one of the sacks of clothes behind but he was planning to use it as a pillow. He considered leaving the red whips stinger but nixed those plans because he felt the smell might attract others. Paranoid or not, he was going to play it safe. On a whim he knelt down to get a better idea of the stone floor. It lacked the cobblestone appearance and other intricate designs that were in the cave. Instead it was a solid, smooth piece of rock running the entire length of the Hall.

Using one of the throwing knives, Kopius was surprised that he could cut a shallow line in the stone. He wiped at the line he carved to see if it could be rubbed away but it remained the same way someone keying a car might look. Taking it a step further, Kopius etched another line across the original, creating his own X on the ground. Putting some of that magical 'elbow grease' his grandfather was always talking about, Kopius made the lines thicker and deeper until he could plainly see the X when he stood. His blade was noticeably dull where it had been used and he returned both to the sheath.

Content that his marker was visible enough, Kopius turned back towards the light and started walking. I need better light, Kopius mused internally; another yawn forming. His Night Vision was, well, leaving him in the dark. If there was something he was missing, he needed better illumination. These thoughts and others occupied the time it took to reach the cave and fall asleep.

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