Chapter 2 - Discordant Overture

The Lord’s retinue pressed onward toward the capital, the banners of House Goldenvale flapping loudly in the cold wind. Elanor, now a captive, walked among them.

For the first two days, she was merely watched. Escorted under armed supervision, treated like fragile property.

The first time they stopped for a rest, she said she needed to relieve herself and tried escaping through the woods, only to be immediately caught by a guard who’d been following her in stealth.

The second time she tried to escape, Lord Goldenvale slapped her himself. He didn’t bother to take off his metal gauntlet, and the gash left on her cheek didn’t stop bleeding until far after her tears ceased to fall.

After the third time she tried to slip away, they shackled her in one of the wagons. The six passengers she displaced were forced to walk the remainder of the journey out in the winter cold, grumbling bitterly under their frosty breath.

When they finally reached Myrrindel, the towering capital of Allovia, Elanor was unceremoniously thrown into a frozen stone cellar beneath one of Goldenvale’s properties. Her instruments were gingerly set on the floor—more care shown to them than to her.

A bucket in the corner served as a chamberpot. A single change of clothes was provided each day, though the garments were coarse and ill-fitting. And itchy. Always so itchy.

Every night, she was dressed in silk and brocade, and forced to perform.

Taverns, banquet halls, private salons. Wherever Lord Goldenvale and his associates wished to drink and be entertained, Elanor was dragged in and made to play. The crowd never saw the shackles hidden beneath her sleeves. They never saw the bruises covering her body from the endless beatings she endured. No, those were hidden by the beautiful robes.

They heard only the music. That gorgeous, aching, sorrowful music that touched their very souls. They saw only the girl who could make grown men weep with her sad, haunting melodies.

When her voice grew hoarse from overuse, she was returned to the cellar, stripped bare, and lashed with a thin leather strap until blood ran down her thighs and pooled beneath her feet, screaming in agony all the while.

At least after those punishments, they allowed her three nights to recover her voice.

When her fingers bled from plucking strings for hours without rest, when she could no longer plug the keyholes in her flute with calloused, trembling hands, she was whipped just as savagely.

And so it went.

Night after night. Song after song.

Blood for applause.

This continued for two years.

In Allovia, the System governed one’s power, ability, and fate. It shaped a person’s potential, offering stats, skills, and class paths beginning on their tenth birthday. At such a young age, the System provided little: weak stats, no combat options, no grand destiny. It waited, watching, adapting as life shaped the soul beneath.

Elanor’s path should have been one of song. Of beautiful music and the purity and joy of entertaining others.

But the System had also seen her pain. That never-ending anguish her soul had been subjected to. In return for the genius she brought to the world, it had until now returned to her only a litany of suffering.

And so it was.
Talent and trauma.
Two discordant forces spiraled like a maelstrom at the core of her life. But on the morning of her fourteenth birthday, the tones began to change.

It was summer again. At least the cold stone floor she slept on was comforting this time of year. She got up that morning, stretching her aching muscles. Sleeping on a stone floor wasn’t only cold. The hardness didn’t help alleviate the pain from the daily beatings.

But this particular morning, a new melody awakened at the edges of her mind.

She began to hum it, and picked up the lute, quietly strumming the notes.
Unbidden, the lyrics spilled out of her, and she snatched up the quill and parchment provided for this purpose.

She’d be punished for it, but she knew she had to sing it anyway.
She named it “Ashes of a Golden Lie.”

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I sang for kings with broken crowns,
For laughing wolves in silken gowns,
You drank my notes like ruby wine,
Then cracked the cup and called it mine.

Rest your heads, the night grows long,
Surrender to the binding song,
Close your eyes, let go your breath,
Find your peace in silent death.

I danced where no light dared to creep,
A puppet doll that dared not weep,
You pulled my strings with bloody grace,
And carved false smiles upon my face.

Rest your heads, the night grows long,
Surrender to the binding song,
Close your eyes, let go your breath,
Find your peace in silent death.

My lullabies were chains in bloom,
Their petals steeped in ash and gloom,
The harp I held was not my own,
Its strings were made of splintered bone.

Rest your heads, the night grows long,
Surrender to the binding song,
Close your eyes, let go your breath,
Find your peace in silent death.

But summer came, and in its heat,
I found a rhythm dark and sweet,
A song not sung for coin or praise,
But forged to set your world ablaze.

Rest your heads, the night grows long,
Surrender to the binding song,
Close your eyes, let go your breath,
Find your peace in silent death.
Rest your heads... in silent death.

---

When she finished the last note, her vision went black for a moment.
Then it was filled with a screen similar to the one she’d seen when she turned ten.

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System Message

Elanor Veralyn
You have faced suffering beyond measure, yet your unbroken will sings.
Your essence is divided: one half stirs hearts to rise, the other silences them forever.

Dual paths are perilous. Few survive the dissonance.
But you, Elanor Veralyn, are not like the others.

Title Gained:
Songweaver: The purity of your heart and clarity of your purpose echo in every note. Both your lyrical and instrumental performances resonate deeply, inspiring those who listen to acts of courage, sorrow or wrath.
Effect: +10 to all stats

Dual Classes Assigned:

—Discordant Virtuoso —
A master of emotional manipulation through melody. You channel power through your performance, weaving harmony into a weapon and rhythm into resolve. Your voice can stir revolutions, or single out the doomed.

Skills:

· Elegy’s Mark (Active):

o Mark a target during a live performance.

o Synergizes with Closing Note.

o This mark persists until touched by sunlight.

o Higher levels allow multiple targets to be marked simultaneously.

o Current maximum number of targets: 1

· Resonant Verse (Passive):

o Infuse your music with precise emotional signatures.

o Listeners affected will feel compelled to act in alignment with your intent.

o Emotional resonance scales with Charisma and class level.

—Nocturne of Silence—
When the curtain falls on one performance, you are the bringer of the final note, the stillness after the final chord. Your blade is unseen. Your footsteps do not echo. Those marked for silence shall hear no encore.

Skills:

· Closing Note (Active):

o Execute a target branded with Elegy’s Mark.

o If delivered from stealth, guarantees a critical hit.

o Marked targets must be silenced before the following dawn.

· Staccato Step (Active):

o Flash forward in total silence.

o While obscured, you are undetectable by sight or hearing.

o Distance moved increases with level and Dexterity.

[Quest Initiated: Broken Chains]
Escape your captivity to begin composing your future.

[Quest Initiated: Magnum Opus]
Your masterwork has begun.
Every performance, every righteous execution, every act of intent brings you closer to your first crescendo.
Progress: 0.0%

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Well then, Elanor thought, I guess it’s time to claim my freedom.

For the first time in two years, her heart soared.

There had never been a reason for hope.
Not one.
Not until now.

She knew exactly what to do.
She practiced Ashes of a Golden Lie in her chamber, her fingers ghosting over the strings of her lute, her voice barely above a breath. This would not be a plea for mercy.

It would be a dirge.
A requiem for the deserved.
And tonight, she would play it for all those the Lord brought together.

The guard assigned for today’s beating walked down the wide hall, boots echoing off the cold stone floor and walls. He’d never enjoyed the task of beating the kid, but the one time he went too easy on her, Lord Goldenvale docked his pay for two weeks.

That had been enough.
Now he played his part.
Loyal, numb and efficient.

At least he didn’t draw it out like some of the other guards who relished the opportunity to play out their dark fantasies on an entirely undeserving child.

As he walked down the hallway toward the prison cell at the end of the hall, he heard it.

A melody he’d never heard the girl play before.

It sounds… pretty—

It was the last coherent thought he had in this life.

She finished the last note and restarted the tune again, practicing it to perfection as she did with her other tunes.

Elanor had tears streaming down her face. The anger boiled up again.
On my birthday of all days, he’s making me play again.

He’d also hinted that once she reached fourteen, her entertainment was to escalate to more than just her music, and that he would pass her around to his friends. After of course forcefully taking her maidenhead himself.

The anguish seared into her notes as she practiced the song over and over.

The guard was still a dozen paces away from her cell when blood began pouring out of his ears.

He covered his ears, panicking, trying to block the sound, but it just kept coming through, penetrating his very soul. Tunneling through his skull. His bloodstream.

He felt his balance falter as his ear drums shattered.

He fell to the ground and, on all fours as he tried standing again, his bones began to vibrate, resonating with a frequency the human frame was never meant to endure.

Finally he screamed out in agony as every one of the 206 bones in his body broke at the same time, shattering to dust inside his skin.

A second guard came, drawn by the scream, and slowed as he neared the cell.

He stopped.
And stared, trying to decipher the scene before him.

All that remained of his comrade was a heap of crimson-stained fabric, a loose husk of skin, and a glistening pool of red pulp oozing from the armor.

Moments later, he joined his friend.

---

System Message

You have slain Manor Guard, human, Level 10.
You have slain Manor Guard, human, Level 10.

400 experience points have been awarded.

You are now Level 2.

Magnum Opus Progress: 0.8%

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