Chapter IV: The Bard
"You are a Half-Elf. Half-elves, for a long time, were loathed by both races that birthed them. But as tensions died between human and moon elf society, they grew to be accepted, and then even welcomed by their parent races. They enjoy the longevity, fair features, and wisdom of their elven ancestors, while still retaining the ingenuity and cunning of the humans."
A young girl was walking through the forest. Her brown hair in a short pixie cut, her face sporting many freckles, and her purple outfit helped her to stand out among the crowd.
Unlike Luna Loud, though, this girl had pointed ears, golden yellow eyes, and a medieval lute strapped to her back.
The half-elf bard Arwena Fairsong stood in Oakshire, examining the beautiful atmosphere . For a video game, it was actually pretty cool.
"Alright, now that I finished that weird tutorial, I should figure out where I can go to meet up with Lincoln."
As she looked around, a purple elf with white hair ran up and stopped.
"Oh, that guy might be him!" Luna said. She went down to her keyboard and typed out.
"What's up, dude?" Arwena said as she waved.
The guy stood there for a moment, before saying:
"Hello." and then walking off.
"Hey, wait!" Luna said to herself, moving to follow him.
She had wanted to find Lincoln in the game to catch him by surprise. Just going to his room and telling him she got the game wouldn't be as much fun.
Ignoring the questgiver, Arwena went into the forest, where she last saw that elf going. Luna found herself distracted by the atmosphere again.
"Man, what a wonderful world. I never knew video games could be so pretty..."
Her thoughts were interrupted by some odd sounds. Something like a gang of dogs or hyenas snarling, along with the grunts and groans of a man being hit.
Luna turned Arwena around, looking for what that sound might be coming from. Behind a tree, she found a bunch of dog-men things... guh-nolls or something? And they were all beating something up.
But it wasn't just any somebody, it was that elf from before! He was trying to fight them back with his bow, keeping them away from a tiger that was laying unconcious behind him.
"Oh man! Who let the dogs out?" Luna thought to herself. "Wait, what button was that thing the dude taught me? Healing Hymn?"
In Lincoln's room...
"Cliff, no!"
Lana found herself yelling after the virtual tiger was knocked out by the gnolls. Barelor managed to kill one of them, but since Cliff was already weak, the rest of the herd took him out.
"Your pet is in critical condition, protect him before he dies!" a message that popped up said.
Feeling he had no choice, Barelor had charged in to fight in a melee. He began swatting at a gnoll with his bow, which got their attention. He was hurting one, but not faster than all of them were hurting him.
"Crap, I'm done for!" Lincoln grumbled to himself. Lana had looked away entirely, not able to stand seeing even a fake animal in a video game hurt.
"Uhh, Lincoln? What's will the music notes?" Lola chimed in.
Lincoln looked around, seeing nothing but angry gnolls and forest scenery. "What music notes?"
"Those ones, right there!" Lola pointed to the bottom of the screen. Sure enough, although they faded as soon as they appeared, music notes were floating around.
Drawn in by the confusion, Lana turned and look back at the screen again. "Lincoln, look! Cliff is all better!"
Sure enough, Cliff was back on his feet. Although he still looked quite beaten and worn out, he was fighting again.
"It's not just that..." Lincoln said. "His health is going back up! Mine is too!"
Cliff had already killed the gnoll Barelor had been fighting with his bow, and turned to attack the next one. All the gnolls went back to fighting Cliff, but his health remained stable, healing back about as fast as it was damaged.
Barelor fell back so that he could begin shooting with his bow again. As he did, Lincoln noticed the music notes again, having forgotten them in the excitement. He now saw the source: that half-elf player from before was standing there, playing an instrument that was shooting out waves of magic in the form of music notes.
"Wow, that girl's so good you can see her tunes!" Lana said.
"She's a bard. They're magicians who learn how to channel their magic through their instruments." Lincoln replied as he shot one gnoll with a Focus Arrow, and gave Cliff a Kill Command on another, taking them both out at nearly the same time.
One gnoll remained. It was weakened and under attack by Cliff, so it began to run away from the fight. Barelor prepared to fire on it when...
"Out of ammo!" Barelor's voice said.
"Aww man, he's gonna get away!" Lola said sadly.
Just then, the bard stopped playing her melody. Moving forward, she plucked her lute again, sending out a small wave of music that struck the gnoll, and killed it.
"Wow..." Lincoln said to himself, amazed. "That girl is awesome!"
Barelor ran to the closest gnoll, and clicked it to obtain his loot.
"From 3 gnoll footmen and 2 gnoll scouts, received: 1 silver coin, 30 copper coins, 1 tarnished dagger!"
"Oh, you can loot from all of them at once? That's pretty convenient."
"Lincoln!" Lola said, bonking her brother on the head.
"Yowch! What is it, Lola?"
The young girl pointed to the bard on the screen, who was standing there and watching Barelor. "You should always thank a lady when she helps you, brother."
"Yeah, you're right, Lola."
Lincoln clicked on the girl. "Arwena Fairsong? That's a pretty name." Lola said as he did.
"Thanks." Barelor said. He gave the half-elf girl a thumbs up.
The bard stood there unmoving. Lincoln considered walking away when he heard a familiar sound on his computer.
"Oh, someone's calling me on voice chat!" Lincoln said as he moved from the game window for a moment to check.
"MsSwagger02? Oh, Luna's calling! I wonder why?" Lincoln answered the call.
"Hey-ey-ey, what's going on?" Luna's voice came in through the computer.
"Hi, Luna!" Lincoln said.
"Hi, Luna!" the twins also said, almost in unison.
"Oh, what's up, dudettes! Didn't know you were there too! Hey Linc, what's the name of your dude in that game?"
"My 'dude'? Oh! His name is Barelor Shadowfall. Why do you ask?"
"That's what I thought! Check this out, bro!"
Lincoln listened, but Luna didn't say anything else. But before he spoke up to ask about it, he looked at the game screen, and saw Arwena the bard jumping around while playing her lute like an electric guitar. Doing that, she almost reminded Lincoln of...
"Wait..." Lincoln said. "Luna... Are you Arwena Fairsong?"
"Yup! That's me!"
The twins both gasped in surprise. Lincoln was stunned for a moment, but then smiled.
"You got the game, too? How come? Why didn't you tell me?"
"I wanted it to be a surprise, bro. I know you really like these games, and I figured maybe it wouldn't hurt to check one out. Something fun we can do together, ya know? I mean, if you want to."
"Are you kidding? Playing with other people is the whole reason I got the game. Who better than one of my sisters?"
"Rockin!"
Lincoln remembered reading online about inviting and being invited to groups so you could work together in the game world. Lincoln looked for the option, and found the button that said "Invite Arwena to Group."
"Ok, Luna, I sent you a thing so we can work together in the game."
After a moment, a message appeared that the invite was accepted, and Arwena Fairsong joined the group.
"Alright! Let's go kick some as-I mean butt, bro!" Luna remembered the twins were there and corrected herself.
"Yeah! ...Although I need to go get some more arrows first."
So, now we've got two of the Loud clan inside the world of Nazorroth. What kind of adventures shall they have together? Will anyone else join them? How overpowered are bards in this game? Perhaps we shall see as time goes on. This is still only the beginning.
"Well, we'll let you and Luna play, Linc. I got a tea party to attend, and Lana's got some mud to stuff down her pants or something." Lola said.
"Heh, I could use a good mud-butt right now." Lana said to herself.
"Ok. You two have fun!" Lincoln said as they walked out the door, focused on his game.
The two girls went to their room, and sat on their beds. Almost as if reflecting the other's movements, they both grabbed a piece of paper from their nightstands, and started writing on them.
Lana finished writing first, though, and looked up at Lola. "Are you doing what I think you're doing?"
Lola finished a moment later. "If you did what I think you did, then yeah." she said as she put the piece of paper back on her nightstand.
Lola's paper was full of elegant writing with as many curls as one could fit into each letter. Lana's writings were in the form of harsh, jagged lines drawn quickly, but still perfectly readable. The top of each said "Christmas List." The newest addition to each list was "Laptop" and "Realm of EverCraft."