Ah yes, the familiar festival. The time right before one of the major fights of the series. But before that, the question remains: What exactly is Tlopfest going to do for the festival? Read on and find out!

Chapter 7: The Familiar Festival

The next day, Tlopfest was smacked awake by Louise while laying in his bed of hay. "Gah! Really Louise? What in blazes is your problem?"

"What's my problem? What's my problem?!" Louise was in hysterics it seemed. "I completely forgot about the familiar festival! We gotta figure out what to make you do for it!"

"Oi, slow down there pink bullet. Is this about what happened last night?"

"..." Louise just stared at Tlopfest, worry and a slight bit of anger in her eyes.

Soon after the trio had gotten back to the academy, Siesta had split off to go to the servant's quarters to sleep, while Louise and Tlopfest headed back to Louise's room.

"Criminy…remind me to try to figure out a faster way of travel besides horse" Tlopfest warily said. "I don't think I'll survive just walking everywhere here…" Louise could only nod in agreement, also being tired from the journey to and from Mott's estate. Yet, fate had decided to toy with them just a little more, for as soon as the duo made it to her room, they spotted a hooded figure near the windowsill.

"Oh for the love of…first dealing with Mott, now a thief?!" Tlopfest pulled out his pan and aimed it at the intruder. "Alright, I'm only gonna ask this once, who are you and what are you doing here?"

Yet the hooded figure just chuckled at that some. "So this is the famous familiar I've heard so much about. You really have gotten yourself someone special Louise."

Louise perked up when she heard the intruder's voice. "Wait..I know that voice!"

Said intruder quickly pulled back their hood, revealing a young woman with purple hair and a tiara on top of her head. "It's good to see you again Louise."

"Princess!" Louise quickly bowed towards her, pulling Tlopfest along, much to his protest. "W-what are you doing out here, and so late as well?"

"Oh Louise, you know you don't have to do that. We're friends, remember? And you can still call me by my name."

"O-Of course…Henrietta.." Louise stood up after that.

Tlopfest got out of Louise's grip. "So, you're the princess of this country?"

"Indeed." Henrietta turned to look out the window, a hint of sadness on her face. "It really has been quite some time since we have seen each other, eh Louise?"

Tlopfest just looked at the two. "Ok, so how the devil do you two actually know each other?"

"I played with her a lot when we were kids," Louise replied. "But, what are you doing here so late and alone yo-Henrietta?"

Turning back, Henrietta smiled at the duo. "Why, I came to see the familiar that has been the talk of the palace as of late. As such, it is good to finally meet you Mr. Familiar."

"It's Tlopfest, Tlop for short." Right as he finished that, Louise pulled him down again. "Oi, Louise, what's gotten into you tonight?"

"First you go after Mott, and now you're disrespecting the princess?! Learn some manners you stupid pig!"

Henrietta laughed at that. "Oh, it's alright Louise. It does seem that you summoned a great familiar however." She comes closer to the two as they stand back up. "A being that seems like a corpse, yet can talk and walk among us as easily as anyone."

"Well, if you don't count most being spooked at the first sighting of me, yeah," Tlopfest responded.

After that, Louise and Henrietta chatted some more, reminiscing on the past and catching up on each other's lives. However, as it became the middle of the night, the princess realized that she needed to go to ensure no one got worried about her.

"It was great catching up with you Louise, as well as meeting you Tlopfest." The princess bowed slightly in their direction, of which the duo returned the favor, Tlopfest more due to Louise's pulling on his shirt. "I certainly wish you two the best of luck in the festival that is coming up. I'm looking forward to seeing what you can do."

"Of course it's that you stupid familiar! We only have a few days until the festival, and we have no idea what to do!" Back in the present, Louise continued her hysteria, pacing around the room in worry. "Not only do we need to impress the rest of my class, but the princess will be there too! We gotta make sure you can do something to really impress her!"

Tlopfest sighed at that. "Louise, even though I may be your familiar, I'm not something to just 'show off' to others when you feel like it. I'll see what I can come up with, but in the meantime, you gotta calm down." Tlopfest got up and put his hand on her shoulder, stopping her in her pacing. "Go ahead and get ready for the day. Go to class, maybe learn something. Doing something else with this thought in the back of your head may help you come up with an idea. While you're doing that, I'll head to the library and look around the campus for inspiration too, alright?"

Louise worriedly looked at Tlopfest. "Are you sure you can figure something out?"

"Louise, I've gone across dozens of dimensions, seen things that you couldn't imagine, and you're asking if I can handle coming up with something to show off to your class?" Tlopfest shook his head in amusement. "This'll be a piece of cake."

"Well, I said that, but really, what on earth am I gonna do to impress the rest of the audience?" Tlopfest was in the library, browsing some of the books while brainstorming ideas to do for the show. "A golem of some sort? Nah, I don't have chimerite or any Thaum golem materials to work with. A drone? Maybe if I can find something similar to redstone and stuff. Then again, where am I gonna get the power to even use them?" Tlopfest groaned and put his head down on the table. "One of the greatest geniuses in all of Minecraftia, and you can't come up with one, GOOD idea to show to a bunch of kids? Some genius you are.."

Getting up from his seat, Tlopfest continued to browse the shelves of the library for inspiration. Eventually, he came across a book about the history of music in Tristan. "Music huh? That…actually gives me a bit of an idea. Just gotta find the right instrument. Or would it be instruments for this…?"

After asking some of the faculty and students about the instruments, Tlopfest eventually finds his way over to the storage area of the campus. Here, most of the classical instruments (namely the violin, viola, cello, and bass) were available. "Hmm, no percussion huh? Guess I'll either have to make them myself or settle for these." Putting his goggles back onto his eyes, Tlopfest scrolls through his music list that he and his friends had compiled a while ago to listen to. "There's gotta be something here that could be used to blow their socks off. Sweden? Little mellow, but possible. Bad Apple, epic orchestral remix? Would require the other instruments. That and I'm unsure as to how well that would be received here…Although that does remind me." Tlopfest turned his gaze back to the bundle of string instruments. "How am I gonna put together any of this music on my own? Ugh..this may be rougher than I originally thought…"

Meanwhile, Louise was in class, not fully paying attention to the lecture in hopes of trying to come up with an idea for the festival. "Maybe…juggling? It'd have to be something flashy…swords? Torches?" Looking at the rest of the class, Louise could just feel the teasing coming on for what would occur. "Grr…there has to be something that familiar of mine can do to impress the princess. And the class, but mainly the princess. Now come on brain, work!"

As she continued thinking, Louise eventually noticed the rings that were on the teacher's hand as they were talking. Most of them were typical brass rings, but one stood out as an amethyst ring, giving it a purple shine.

"Rings….that's it!"

Later that night, after classes were over, Tlopfest and Louise were back in her room, discussing what to do about the festival.

"So, you come up with any ideas Louise?"

"Were you not to come up with your own ideas familiar?" Louise asked tauntingly.

"Oi, I did come up with something. Playing some music to show off to your class. What about you?" Tlopfest raised an eyebrow towards her. "You come up with an idea?"

"Actually yes. While in class, I figured that you could use or create something similar to that." Louise pointed towards Tlopfest's cloudstepper ring. "I'm sure the class would be interested to see something else you created."

Tlopfest glanced down at his ring, sighing after a moment. "Louise, I told you, I don't know if Thaumaturgy is even possible here in this world. Even if it is, I don't think there are many other items I could create and actually show off to your class. Most of them are just utility items for the wearer, not many things that are flashy." Looking back at Louise, Tlopfest continued. "Also, if I could actually practice Thaumaturgy here, I would have to gather quite a few materials, melt some stuff down, get a new altar setup…I just don't think there's enough time to do that."

Louise sighed at that. "Well, how exactly are you going to make or play music to show off to the class?"

"Well, thankfully, some of your fellow students and faculty were able to point me to the school's storage facility where you kept your instruments. Apparently there was an orchestra or something here at one point, but they never stayed with the times, so now they're in storage."

"What are you even going to play anyways, if this is what you go with?"

"Well I…..I'm not sure."

Louise groaned at this and sat down on the bed, face in her hands. "So, we have no plan, at all. The festival is in two days, and we do not have a thing to work with."

"Hey, hey." Tlopfest sat down next to her. "I didn't say we have no plan. Sure, we don't have much to go off of, but we do have something, right? I just gotta find the right song to play to knock your classmate's socks off, you know?"

Louise looked at Tlopfest. "Are you absolutely sure that you can figure this out? The fact that you took all day just to come up with playing music does not bode well."

"Yeah, I can figure it out, no big deal."

"Me and my big mouth…"

The day of the festival had arrived, and Tlopfest was still struggling to figure out what to play, his eye glowing a squeamish purple-green. Of course, to keep Louise calm, Tlopfest continued to convince her that he had it under control and he was just keeping it a surprise. In reality, Tlopfest was panicking like mad on the inside. As it stands, Louise and Tlopfest were set to go last in the competition. In an act of desperation, Tlopfest had grabbed a single instrument from the storage - a viola to be precise. "Criminy, something, someone, PLEASE give me some sort of inspiration to do this right!"

As the show went on, the different students had gone up and shown off their familiars, many doing simple tricks such as fetching, sitting, etc. Although some of the more spectacular ones were Kirche and her salamander doing some fire tricks together and Tabitha flying around on her dragon. Finally, it was Louise and Tlopfest's turn to take the stage.

"Oh, it's the Zero. You want to bet there will be fireworks to show off?" "Maybe we should go back a bit, don't want the Zero and her corpse to blow us up huh?" Louise, for her part, was taking it quite well, ignoring the snide remarks about her reputation.

"...Geez, they watched me easily take down one of their own and are still giving Louise grief? They never learn, do they?"

"Hello classmates. I'm Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière, and my familiar here, Tlopfest, will be playing a song." Louise looked confidently, if somewhat nervously, towards Tlopfest.

"R-right. I will be playing one called, uh…" Tlopfest looked around quickly, before remembering his lab's name. "Called 'The Festivian's Wrath.'" He quickly put the viola in the playing position on his shoulder, bow at the ready. "Let's get this over with," Tlopfest muttered under his breath. With that, Tlopfest started playing, although it was more of an amalgamation of notes and scales. Tlopfest did his best to recall some of his past, channeling those thoughts into the music to try to push it out to the audience. After a few minutes Tlopfest finished his song, nervously looking towards the crowd. "Not my best work, but I think I did decent at least…"

A moment later, the entire crowd started laughing at the duo. "What kind of music was that?" "Is that what plebeians think of music nowadays?" It seemed, no matter what Tlopfest tried, Louise's classmates just wouldn't accept anything. Embarrassed, Louise quickly walked off of the stage, struggling to contain her emotions.

"Louise!" Tlopfest quickly ran after her, all the while most of the audience just laughed at them, save for a few.

"Louise…" Henrietta said sadly, looking towards her friend.

A few minutes later, Tlopfest was able to catch up to Louise, who at this point was starting to cry from humiliation away from the crowd. "Louise, I-I'm so sorry. I tried but even then-"

Louise just held a hand in front of Tlopfest's face. "Just…stop, familiar. I should have known better than to put that kind of faith in you." She proceeded to continue towards the dorm tower. "I'm going to my room, just…leave me alone for a bit, alright?"

Tlopfest, ashamed at his idiocy for not figuring something out, stood there as he watched her walk away. He then turned back towards the stage, yet he didn't move. "Arugh, you stupid, son of a wither!" Tlopfest grabbed his head with his hands and started, basically, throwing a small tantrum. "You should have figured something out! You know you don't work well with making stuff up on the fly! Stupid, stupid, stupid pigman!" In his anger, Tlopfest punched the wall of the tower, injuring him for a couple of hearts. Yet, when he did, an explosion was heard nearby. "Ow…ok, I'm pretty sure I didn't hit it that hard to cause that. What happened?" Curious, Tlopfest walked around the tower to see what appeared to be a giant golem made of dirt, along with Louise staring up at it, wand out.

"G-Get away from the tower, thief! I'm serious!"

"Louise!" Tlopfest ran over to her. "What the devil are you doing?!" As he ran over to her however, parts of the tower seemed to crack, having been hit by Louise's "fireball" spell. Seemingly wasting no time, the golem attacked the tower, breaking it open and letting a person run in to it. "And what is going on here?"

"It's a thief! They're getting into the vault of the tower!"

"You guys have a vault?"

The thief in question ran back out with a box of some sort tucked under their arm. "Thank you for the assistance! For now, I shall take my leave." The golem started to turn away from the tower, having one of its feet about to crush Louise and Tlopfest.

"Move!" Tlopfest pulled Louise just out of harm's way, both getting away with just the dust from the golem's step being stirred up. It quickly walked over the academy wall and went away.

"Come on Tlopfest, we gotta go after them!"

"What?!" Tlopfest hung on to her arm. "You're kidding me, right? You want to after that giant golem, which, need I mention, just about crushed us not even a minute ago!?" Tlopfest's eye was burning red-blue now, showing his worry for Louise and her wishes.

"Of course! It's a nobel's duty to go after anyone such as that thief!"

"Duty or no, that is no excuse to go on what is effectively a suicide mission!" Tlopfest turned Louise towards him, making her face him entirely. "Noble or no, I'm not going to let a friend of mine go effectively throw themselves off of a cliff for no reason!"

"Let go of me familiar! I command you as your master!"

"I don't care! Until you promise to not go after that thing alone, I'm not letting you leave my sight!"

As the two were arguing, some of the students and faculty came to see what was going on, only to see the hole in the tower. "Oh Founder…this is not good," Colbert muttered under his breath.

Alright, another chapter down. Not great results for the festival, but at least the duo didn't get crushed under that golem or anything. Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! If you noticed something wrong with the characters or other mistakes, feel free to leave a review or PM me!