>>5825139“Can barely even heard the singing all the way back here,” Testa pouted.
“Good,” said Blanchette and Efron as one, causing Pearce to openly crack up laughing.
You, however, were waiting. The crowd filled in, the lights dimmed as torches were snuffed apart from those which served to illuminate the performers upon the raised stage. This was done by bullseye lantern, and rented magical augmentation you noted, albeit rather shoddy enchantments. And speaking of magic…
“Did I miss much?” whispered Izzy
Zith-Zi, who was actively pinning her ears down and grimacing as the first duet began, now jumped and produced a small knife which she hid upon her person for this trip. The others all cheered Izzy’s arrival—with Muffins surreptitiously scooting in between you and the other mage-prodigy.
“No,” you said with a smile, stroking the scruffs where lion and goat necks met the shared torso of your pet.
“How…?” asked Blanchette.
Izzy placed a fine finger to her glossy lips, smiling slyly, and said: “A mage doesn’t reveal her secrets.”
<Dimension Door> was a hell of a secret, you noted. Nobody would expect even a gifted student like her to know such an effective transportation spell… Except, perhaps, for the half-elven mage who had tutored under her and been her closest companion for years.
The play proved competently executed, if a little predictable, and eventually the strength of the performances and even a little dramatic swordplay between the disapproving baron-father and the young lord for his right to marry a commoner served to win over virtually the whole of your party… Well, except Zith-Zi.
“Sloppy footwork,” she muttered. “Could have gutted him with a stroke three times already. They’re just waving those pigstickers about.”
“Well it IS a play,” Pearce noted.
“The music’s wonderful, though, isn’t it?” Testa asked.
“Don’t ask me,” Zith-Zi sniffed. “Music’s human shit. It’s all just noise, noise, noise to goblins.”
“Is that really true, or are you just being a shit?” asked Pearce.
Zith-Zi grinned, and shrugged, not answering.
You glanced over at Izzy, curious if she was enjoying it… And found her, to your surprise, easily the MOST enraptured of all. It warmed your heart a little to see such childlike wonder on her normally troubled, distant features.
