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Side A – Yasgrid

Yasgrid held her breath for a moment, in awe at the sight of the Village of Rising Stones spread out before her. 

They’d done it. She and Nia and a hoard of Shatter Drummers which Nia had assembled from what seemed like thin air, they’d done it! The village was saved. Everyone was alive.

Everyone?

The thought seemed wrong to her. Everyone should very definitely not be alive. Flame, Ruin, and Blood had killed some of them before Yasgrid had even arrived. Those people were lost, victims of Elshira’s senseless need for power.

Shining Heart and Starflame, the two former Troubled Hearts were orbiting around her ina  gleeful dance which swirled in closer as Yasgrid reached out with their shared senses to feel each of the various bits of life which flickered happily inside the villages residents. 

“Did you do this?” she asked, feeling a warm glow of pride from her two companions.

They didn’t have words to answer her question, so instead they showed her. In  her mind’s eye, images of the village as nothing but a dark tapestry spread before her. Here and there, hearts cried out in grief and fear.

They’d known those emotions all too well and had become what they were so as never to have feel them again. In so doing though they’d acquired an unexpected trait; empathy.

It wasn’t enough to be spared from the feeling of shredding pain they’d been created to embody, they needed to spare others from that torment as well.

So they had worked to fix things while the Stonelings had saved the rest of the town.

Some of the tormented were on one side of a veil, while the others were no more than a half step apart from them. None of the ‘dead’ had left yet. Their spirits were still too attached to the lives which had been cut short to look into the wondrous beyond. Yasgrid pulled her vision away there as well. There would always be time for the marvels of eternity later – no sense being drawn in before it was her time.

The nearly-departed hadn’t taken much magic to restore to their bodies, nor their bodies much magic to restore to full health.

In theory, the Shatter Drumming should have made that harder, but with Nia and Starflame guiding the song, the magic of the drumming had blended in with the Darkwood’s magic surprisingly well.

Yasgrid raised an eyebrow at that and  looked around the almost alien landscape wrought by the synthesis of the two forms of magic. ‘Surprisingly well’ still left a lot to be desired, but as losses went it was far preferable to the alternative they’d been presented with.

Not that the villagers had been left without any scars. 

“Who…what are you?” one of the men who’d been brought back ask as he stumbled out of his house, hands still shaking from fright.

Yasgrid considered that question. She was wreathed in flames which burned in every color of the rainbow. Two former troubles were circling her like joyous stars and she was pretty sure her eyes had become pools of an endless night sky.

“A friend,” she said, and let Shining Heart and Starflame carry her away.

Side B – Nia

Nia was hoping that she would pass out. She had a reasonably good history of losing consciousness after pulling off her…she was going to call them ‘questionable’ antics. Being unconscious was great for putting off the absolutely inevitable scolding she was going to receive. She couldn’t escape it of course, but delaying it until things weren’t quite so fresh in everyone’s mind seemed like an excellent idea.

So, of course, she finished the song she’d helped create, opened her eyes and found that her consciousness was firmly in place.

She felt more awake than ever in fact. In her bones the song that she’d crafted with her drummers still rang out. It was fading, and the parts which hadn’t been hers were elusive and growing silent the fastest but Nia was sure she would never fully lose the song they’d made. 

What was more surprising though was that, despite the titanic effort, she even felt like playing more. All reason told her that she should have been exhausted. They’d done the impossible and worked a miracle. Those weren’t the kinds of things that one just casually put into a longer play list. 

And yet, the energy that she and her drummers had generated was so profound, it had left her exhilarated rather than spent. 

At least in spirit.

Without meaning to, she let her hands drift towards the drum again, but Margrada intercepted the move and gently moved them away before Nia could sound out another note. Nia might be bursting with joy, but her body did need to catch at least a few breaths.

Also there were other matters which required her attention.

“I think we need you here,” Margrada said, gesturing to the auditorium with a nod.

The forested auditorium. The beautiful, thriving, growing, tree covered, shrub filled forested auditorium.

Nia was pretty sure that, when she’d started playing, the Shatter Band auditorium had been an ‘indoors’ sort of space. With the loss of the ceiling, it could still have been technically indoors, except that the walls were gone too, unless you counted the crystal hedges which stood roughly where the walls had been. 

One saving grace of the transformation; people were staring around at it and no one, beside Margrada, seemed to be looking at Nia yet.

“We should maybe leave?” Nia whispered to Margrada.

But that was not to be.

“Hah! I knew it!” Grash said, lifting Nia up as though she was still as light as a Darkwood Elf. “You won me a pile a money!”

Nia couldn’t help but laugh, and she wasn’t alone. There was a strange mania of camaraderie which seemed to be sweeping over the gathering.

Also beer. Kegs had appeared from somewhere. A lot of kegs.

“I won you money?” Nia asked as Horgi joined in tossing her into the air.

“We knew you’d do something!” Grash said.

“Yeah, we just didn’t have any idea it would be THIS!” Horgi said.

Shatter Drummers are not, as a rule, quiet folk, but even so, more than a few heard that particular exclamation and eyes began to turn in Nia’s direction all too quickly as a result.

“I don’t think we can leave,” Margrada said as a wave of Shatter Drummers descended on them.

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