>>5626815[2hits, 1 crit vs threshold 2, str 4. resist with 2.
[1 crit effectively]
Keen eyes. Your report will be worth it to Ryona, once she tries to strike the patrols. And I think you might have just about spotted a lapse in their patrol routes.
The flute trills soft notes throughout the rafters of this creaking ship. Oddly, no spiders up here. Only a hammock, strung out in the space between beans and the soft breath of a man you understand is only pretending to be asleep because his breaths are just slightly off. Knowing that you know that he's only pretending, Pen rolls out of the hammock and slumps to his haunches, listening to your fluting.
Tilts his head one her, then the other. Reaches into the hammock and rustles for a while.
Ah, accompaniment. Not the usual kind for a bawdy barroom brawl, but nice. You could go on tour.
Music is so very inspiring, motivational, joyous. And they don't call it Songs of Resonance for nothing, the Theurges - chants and tones is the Old Way to speak. They say a song is what lured a Star, once.
And Bonded Steel, resonating, humming, wanting to be of use, of joy, of purpose - ah, bound in its little corners and the thing that might once have been a soul: the desire to dance. Every sword wants to sing. Every scythe yearns to join the choir. What are we, flesh and blood and bone, but alone until we join our hands in song? A city, softsoul, is all voices together and society is just the music we make. Or so a poet might say.
The House of the Bonded is bound in Song, the ocean is all backing drums to the orchestra of fish, and what is a fist-fight but a dance? Your kicks are the high notes in the Flow and--- ah, you see it. This kind of thing is apt to drive one to a peculiar kind of madness.
The notes shift.
The Scourgebreaker vibrates, gently, the span-head flattens for a moment as a tone spreads across its surface...
Play. Sing. What shape do your steelsoul want this little seed to bloom into?
>Hey, it's listening! You've got something here!>But the stanzas that bind is the tricky part... Authority and you become too confining. Manipulation? What tool would trust a manipulative user? >Play a song... play a song that /shapes/ what you want the metal to be. 