The stew wasn’t good.
It was hot, salty, and sloshy in the way that suggested it had lived more than one life before ending up in his bowl. The bread was a little stale, and the vegetables weren’t crisp.
Nick ate every bite anyway.
Grease clung to the spoon. His hand moved on autopilot while his mind replayed the interaction with the Goddess of Beauty. Now that he was actually taking a moment to reflect on the experience, he couldn’t help but shudder.
Her voice belonged to something older than he could imagine.
Beauty itself had reached out and touched him.
He scraped the bottom of the bowl. A soft clink answered, signaling the end of his lunch.
Tabitha had wandered off to terrorize another customer. Delia’s laugh floated in from the kitchen where she was trying her hardest to learn to cook properly. The tavern noise had settled into a comfortable low buzz: dice cups rattled, chairs scraped, and there were faint thuds of boots on the floorboards overhead.
Nick set the spoon down and looked at his hands.
They looked the same as they had for years:
Worn, with a handful of scars across his knuckles.
Nothing about them looked particularly beautiful.
He let out a slow breath and pushed the bowl away.
“Done brooding?” Tabitha called from down the bar.
“Temporarily,” he said.
“Good. If anyone tries to propose on the street, turn them down nice and public so I can hear about it.”
“You looking for blackmail?”
“I’m looking for tea. It’s different.”
“Sure it is.”
He gave her a two-fingered salute and pushed through the tavern door.
The streets hit him like a wave. The smell shifted from stew and smoke to spice and sweat. Market stalls spilled into the road, canvas awnings flapping lazily. Housewives argued over fish. A pair of apprentices hauled a crate between them like it contained something heavier than their future prospects. Somewhere, a dog barked like it had beef with everything else in the world.
Nick stepped into the flow of people and almost immediately felt it.
Stares.
He was used to being noticed. He’d been the center of attention on more than one occasion in his previous life. Being a hero made you stand out.
But this…
This was different.
No one here knew who he was. He pulled his hood up to hide his face.
Yet still, heads turned.
A woman carrying a basket of laundry glanced up, locked eyes with him, and froze. The color drained from her face as if she’d seen a ghost, then flooded back twice as strong. She clutched at her scarf and mumbled something that he couldn’t pick up over the surrounding noise.
He sidestepped a pair of children playing in the street. One of them, a little boy with freckles and a missing front tooth, stopped mid-chase and stared as Nick passed.
“Whoa…” the kid whispered.
Nick almost tripped.
The boy’s friend elbowed him. “Don’t stare, you idiot. He’s probably a noble or something.”
“I’m not a noble,” Nick said.
They bolted.
He sighed. “This is annoying,” he muttered.
Then he continued walking.
Near a fruit stall, a young man unloading crates glanced over and promptly dropped an entire tray of apples. They scattered across the cobblestones in a bright, rolling wave.
“S-sorry!” the man blurted.
“Why?” Nick asked.
The man opened his mouth. Then closed it. He looked at the apples like they might answer for him. “I…uh…I don’t know,” he admitted.
Nick groaned. “It’s fine,” he said, and kept walking.
A cluster of traders coming the other direction parted around him without seeming to realize they did. Some kept their eyes down, cheeks flushing. Others risked quick, guilty glances the way people look at religious iconography—half awe, half confusion, and a little bit of discomfort.
He paused at a corner to let a carriage rattle past. The coachman stared at him and straightened reflexively, tightening his grip on the reins.
Nick sighed again and turned away from the main road, slipping into a narrower side street. The alley dipped between crooked buildings, deep shadows hiding the denizens within. Someone had strung laundry lines overhead. Sheets billowed in the faint breeze.
The noise of the market dulled behind him.
His footsteps echoed in the sudden quiet.
“Fantastic,” he muttered. “This stupid skill turned me into a walking social stress test.”
People reacted to whatever the blessing had done in various ways. The confident straightened; the insecure flinched; the devout whispered something under their breath and tried not to look more than three times.
He was beautiful.
The goddess called it a blessing but turned him into a social hazard.
“Damn it,” he cursed.
How was he supposed to operate quietly if everything he did drew this much attention?
Would his other avatar suffer from this same curse?
A faint sound drifted into the alley, barely noticeable beneath the distant market noise.
It was… a note.
Then another, slightly off, bending around the pitch it meant to hit.
Nick stopped.
The alley opened ahead into a small courtyard, one of those spaces cities grow in their bones when no architect is paying attention. A cracked stone fountain sat in the center, a dry basin that likely hadn’t seen water in years. Someone had tucked a few potted plants along the far wall. Sunlight fell here in loose, lazy shards.
On the fountain’s edge sat a man with an instrument across his lap.
The instrument was roughly the size of a guitar, though the body was narrower and the neck a little longer. Eight strings ran across a dark wooden frame, each anchored by small brass pegs. The body was carved with simple leaf patterns, worn smooth in places where hands had rested often.
The man’s clothes had seen better days. The sleeves were rolled up to the elbows, showing weathered forearms, and his boots had been resoled at least twice. His hair was probably dark once, but it lost the war against streaks of grey. Lines framed his mouth in a way that suggested he laughed often and slept poorly.
There was something easy in the way he occupied the stone ledge, like he’d sat there a hundred times and the stone had decided to accept him as its own.
The fingers moved over the strings.
The sound that came out wasn’t perfect. The notes wavered occasionally. A string buzzed when his finger didn’t land clean. He fumbled a chord once, frowned, then continued into the next bar.
People existed around the edges of the courtyard: a woman hanging out a second-floor window, shaking a rug. A boy sitting on a stool, chewing on something and pretending not to listen. A guard off-duty leaned against a wall in the shade, eyes half-closed.
No one stared at Nick.
Their attention was elsewhere.
Nick let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.
The musician glanced up mid-phrase.
His hands kept playing. His brows rose a fraction as he studied Nick.
He looked surprised, then mildly amused.
“You look like trouble,” the man said, fingers never pausing.
“Can’t really deny it,” Nick admitted.
The man tilted his head, listening. “You planning to stand there and brood, or are you going to sit? The stones don’t care which, and I’d rather not have to crane my neck while I play.”
Nick hesitated.
He wasn’t much of a music person. He was the kind of guy who drove his car with the radio turned off. He played video games without background music sometimes. He didn’t dislike music, it just didn’t speak to him like it did to others. Music was just pretty noise.
But, strangely enough, that thought resonated with him right now.
Because of this damn curse.
Nick walked over and sat. The stone was warm from long exposure to the sun. The musician’s melody washed around him, threatening to catch his attention in a meaningful way.
“What instrument is that?” he asked after a moment.
The man smiled. “This old thing? A luthen. Poor cousin of the fancier stage models. Cheaper to repair, harder to make sound pretty.” He angled it slightly so Nick could see. “You’ve never seen one?”
“I’m from out of town,” Nick said. “Very out of town.”
“Ah,” the man’s mouth curved. “Let me guess: one of those places off the side of the map where they don’t have good cartographers?”
“I’m not actually sure if we still have cartographers,” Nick mused. “I guess Google counts?”
The man looked down at his hands and adjusted a finger on the fretboard, chasing a cleaner note.
“You play?” the man asked.
Nick huffed a quiet laugh. “I learned a little guitar as a kid, but nothing special. I can play some piano as well, and I was on my high school drumline for a few years, but no, I don’t play.”
The man’s brows rose. “Piano? Guitar? Those are fancy instruments for someone wandering the back alleys of a border city. You a noble or something?”
Nick snorted. “Do I look like a noble?”
The man gave him a slow once-over, taking in the old hoodie, the modern boots, and the way he sat like he trusted the wall behind him less than the people in front.
“No,” the man decided. “You look like a fish out of water. Nobles believe they are the water.”
“So I’m not arrogant enough?”
“It’s not a matter of arrogance. You simply don’t believe that you belong here. Considering that gloomy aura you had around you earlier, I’m not convinced you believe that you belong anywhere.”
“That’s… not inaccurate,” Nick admitted.
The man’s smile widened. “Name’s Mortimer Perseus Raventon.”
“That’s one hell of a name. I’m Nick.”
Mortimer nodded toward the luthen. “Well, Nick-who-isn’t-a-noble, since you apparently have an entire orchestra in your past, I’m going to make an unreasonable request.”
“I’m afraid I don’t have a piano or guitar here to humor you,” Nick said.
Mortimer held the instrument out. “Here. Make a mess.”
Nick stared at the luthen like it was a ‘scam likely’ call on his phone demanding an immediate answer.
“I’d rather not, thanks.”
“Come on,” Mortimer said. “What’s the worst that can happen?”
Nick almost repeated his rejection on principle. He was supposed to be keeping a low profile, not playing street music like some discount protagonist.
But.
The world now stared at him for something he hadn’t chosen. In here, people were ignoring him in favor of a man with an instrument and a half-decent melody.
And if he was honest, he was starting to get tired.
Even though he hadn’t been in this world for very long, it was a lot of fighting and killing.
And before he died and came here, it was even worse.
He took the luthen.
It was heavier than he expected and warm from Mortimer’s hands. The wood had the smooth, slightly oily feel of an instrument that had been played more often than it had rested.
His fingers settled around the neck in an old, forgotten shape. The spacing felt wrong; too close in some places, too far in others.
“Move your left hand a bit,” Mortimer said, scooting close enough to nudge Nick’s knuckles into place. “Relax. You’re not strangling a monster, you’re convincing a cat to sit in your lap.”
“That’s a very specific metaphor,” Nick said. “And also, I feel like the cat would be more difficult.”
“Not if you’re a cat person. Which I am not, by the way. Infernal creatures. Evil by all definitions.”
“Noted.”
Mortimer repositioned Nick’s right hand over the strings. “And here. We’re not aiming for art, we’re aiming for sound. Swipe across, all at once.”
Nick dragged his fingers down.
The resulting chord sounded like garbage. Complete and utter trash of a sound.
The boy on the stool winced. The woman at the window made a face. Even the off-duty guard’s eyebrow twitched.
Mortimer’s grin widened. “Excellent. The more offensive the first note, the more receptive they are to the mediocre performance that follows.”
Nick adjusted his grip and tried a lighter stroke. The second chord still buzzed, but it held together. The notes ran into each other instead of actively clashing.
A faint ding resonated in his mind and a screen popped up in front of his face.
=New Skill Acquired: Luthen Mastery=
=Luthen Mastery=
-Passive Skill-
->Mana: N/A
->Rank: 1/100
->Description: You are learning to play the luthen but your level is still low. Your fingers are confused, but they mean well. +1% to luthen handling, performance quality, and musicality.
Even the gods flinched at your first note.
“Better,” Mortimer said. “You have a talent for this. Probably.”
Nick huffed. “Talent my ass.”
Mortimer laughed. “You’ve got a handsome face, my friend. Handsome enough to make people stupid when they look at you.”
Nick grimaced. “It wasn’t that way when I woke up this morning.”
The bard tapped idly on the stone beside him. “There’s an old saying about Beauty—capital B, by the way. Heard it from a priest who was three cups into confessional. He said “Her blessing makes the world see what they want to be, and reminds them what they aren’t.”
“That priest sounds like he was going through something.”
“Oh, absolutely. He’s in jail, last I heard. Doesn’t mean he was wrong, though.”
He pointed lazily at the luthen. “You want my advice?”
“No.”
“If you can’t take the blessing off, then put something on top of it. Give people something else to look at. A song. A story. A joke. If you want people to look past what’s on the surface, show them a little of what’s on the inside. They’ll get confused, and the dumb ones will filter themselves out.”
Nick shook his head.
It was a simple idea that looped right through feeling profound and all the way back to stupid again. He’d been a symbol before, and he wasn’t interested in becoming a poster boy for a goddess who thought it was appropriate to curse someone with ‘beauty’ without consent.
But still…
It was worth thinking about. At least a little bit.
Except he was from another world and knew the reality.
“You think being a music star will make people stop caring about my appearance?”
That was obviously not the case.
Ask literally any music star or idol.
“Gods no. If you become a star, then you’re only making the problem ten times worse,” Mortimer shuddered. “Settle for mediocrity. Be genuine. Be yourself. That should be enough.”
Nick looked down at the luthen again.
“This isn’t me, though,” he said. “I’m not a musician. I don’t appreciate music. I can’t feel it.”
The bard smiled. “And that’s part of who you are right now. That’s okay. That doesn’t mean you can’t explore and learn more.”
He tapped the frets, guiding Nick’s fingers into a shape.
“Play this note first.”
Strum.
“Then this one.”
Strum.
“Then this.”
Strum.
“And finally here.”
Strum.
“Now do it in sequence.”
Time thinned.
The sun slid down the sky until the light in the courtyard turned soft. The boy on the stool eventually lay back, hands behind his head, eyes closed, listening without pretending otherwise. The guard drifted off entirely, chin dropped to his chest, still tapping his boot in time.
Another small window appeared and vanished as Nick dismissed it without looking.
=Level up! Luthen Mastery is now Rank 2/100=
-+1% to luthen handling, performance quality, and musicality.-
=Level up! Luthen Mastery is now Rank 3/100=
=Level up! Luthen Mastery…=
=Level up! Luthen Mastery…=
=Level up! Nimble Hands is now Rank 7/100=
His fingers burned in a new, oddly satisfying way. The calluses he once had faded long ago, so he had to go through the painful process of building them up again. But the strings on the luthen were similar to nylon rather than steel, so it wasn’t all that painful.
Eventually, Mortimer reached out and grabbed the luthen.
“Enough,” he said. “Any more and you’ll hate it tomorrow.”
“I already hate it,” Nick said, flexing his stiff fingers.
“Good. That means you’ll think about it when you’re supposed to be doing something else. Next time will come easier.”
“You’re assuming there’s a next time,” Nick said.
Mortimer grinned. “Sure there is. I’m the one who owns the luthen, not you.”
Nick pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the way his knees complained. The courtyard felt different now. The city was still outside it, loud and cluttered, but this little stone bowl in the middle of it had its own pace.
“Why play here?” he asked. “You could be in a tavern, making coin and dodging tomatoes. Do they throw tomatoes here?”
Mortimer settled the luthen back on his knee. “I do that when I have to. This is for me.”
He plucked a slow chord, dwelling on the sound for a moment. “And for the strays who wander by, I suppose.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “Do I have to pay for the lesson?”
“First one was free. After that, you pay in stories.”
Nick hesitated. “You don’t want money?”
“I’ll take coin if you insist on being boring. But stories are better. Coin is for buying bread. Stories buy reasons to bother waking up to eat it.”
That… sound like an awfully bard-like sentiment.
“Pretty sure I stole that from someone, but they’re not here to complain.”
As far as words of wisdom from dubious sources went, he had to admit that it sounded more profound than it probably was.
There were a lot of things that he had to do.
He could practically feel the Ember Hollow dungeon map from earlier metaphorically burning a hole in his pocket. There was the map of dungeons he got from Master Rambalt and Dr. Rathmore. He needed to check in on Ray and Lexi at some point. He needed to learn more about this world. Cain was probably going to wake up soon and he had to deal with the slaves in his wardrobe.
There were plenty of things that he was supposed to be dealing with right now. He didn’t have time to mess around with music and stories.
But maybe…
Maybe that was why he should do it anyway.
“Same time tomorrow?” Mortimer asked, as if they’d already agreed.
Nick wanted to say no.
“No.”
In fact, he did say no.
“Sounds good, see you then.”
But Mortimer vetoed his opinion cleanly.
Nick stepped toward the alley, then glanced back once more.
“Mortimer.”
“Hm?”
“Thanks.”
The bard shrugged one shoulder. “Don’t thank me yet. Wait until you can play badly in public without flinching. That’s when you’ll know you’re a real musician.”
Nick huffed a quiet laugh and slipped back into the narrow street.
The market’s roar rolled over him again. Voices, carts, distant bells. Faces turned his way, caught for a heartbeat by his passive skill.
This time, though, the pressure on him wasn’t quite as intense.
They were still staring at him.
He still didn’t want the attention.
But now, tucked awkwardly between those two facts, he had something else.
What it was, he wasn’t sure, but he could tell it was there.
Project Knightfall 