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You couldn’t help but find the Silence somewhat musical. None of your friends shared the sentiment during the little time they spent on your land- to their ears the Silence was simply silence, and it unnerved them to the point that you rarely had company. Your Seer felt it was a bad omen, a circumstance of unlucky generation twice over- not only were the themes of your Land contradictory, they matched your equally paradoxical Title. You felt they were simply annoyed that their aspect was entirely at odds with their land, while yours was simply perfect. After all, what could be a better planet than the Land of Melody and Silence for the Bard of Hush? There was a musicality in the very impossibility of your land that just made you feel at peace, and if the others found it creepy, that just meant there were fewer distractions.
As you left the village of your consorts, waving to a friendly, dark green Skink, you looked at the path ahead and decided that distractions were the absolute last thing you needed. The road before you was a challenging one, although it was, unfortunately, metaphorical as well. As much as you loved your Land, as much as it was MADE for you, it still provided its share of challenges. Rather than an actual path, you stood at the edge of a massive, almost rocky cliff of cobalt glass, all of LOMAS’s trapped noise bouncing back and forth impotently beneath your feet. Your destination was a spire nearly as tall as your house, reaching up out of the staticy void which by all means should have made your goal unreachable. You had experimented enough to discover that anything touching the static- which a talkative consort had inaptly dubbed The Din- would be irreparably destroyed. Still, the faint blue glow you could make out from atop the spire gave you no doubt that it was your goal. You glanced at the glass on which you stood, nearly losing yourself in the beauty of the paradox for which your land was named. The planet was certainly silent; the only sounds that could be heard were created by your players, and only within a ten foot radius. Anything else simply formed in the glass. The sound, the music, manifested as pitch black lines and waves, dancing and tangling under the glass that composed your world, aching to be heard. Their blue prison was impenetrable though, at least without direction.
Your teammates didn’t understand, but you certainly did. Your land needed direction, your land needed YOU.
It was time to direct.
You closed your eyes, and your breathing slowed as the Conducterror, your trusty baton, materialized from your Strife Specibus into your hand. You gripped the handle tightly, and raised it to the air, ready to begin. For a perfect second, your breath stopped, and you felt the metaphorical choir invisible focus on you. A second later the baton dropped, and the symphony of silence began.
As you began to direct, five strands of music burst forward, breaking through the cobalt, and spiraling in a parallel formation up into the sky, they encircled the spire before you. Smaller sounds, taking the form of light blue ovals, formed between the original black lines, occasionally met by other , even smaller strands as the music flowed through you and you guided them into place. Four and a half minutes later, you brought your hand crashing down once again, this time adding a small flick of the wrist which transferred the baton back into the Strife Deck, and finally opened your eyes. A small smile etched the corners of your mouth as you looked at your work, an actual, black and blue musical staff leading you all the way to the top of the spire. Satisfied, you ran across the glowing blue notes, each sound finally escaping as you stepped on it. Your ascent through The Din was accompanied by a cheerful, upbeat tune, and by the time you reached the summit of the spire, you knew that you were home free.
You couldn’t help but stare at the Glow Shape before you, transfixed. The light that had broken through the staticy clouds of your land came from a larger version of the symbol that was almost ubiquitous throughout it; a quarter rest connected to half of a treble clef. Directly below the emblem were four much smaller spires, each with an orb at the top. More importantly, however, was the slab of stone between them- your Quest Bed.
You sat on the cold rock, actual legitmate stone rather than the glass to which you’d become accustomed, to once again tap into the Silence. Once again, your breath stopped, but this time there was no opening note- THIS symphony began with a held rest. A little over two minutes later, and the fermata ended along with your life. The last thing you saw was the light of your symbol, the calming glow of Hush.
==>BARD OF HUSH: RISE UP.
You awoke on your back, arms dangling in the air, as you were no longer on your Quest Bed, but feet above it, where the Glow Shape once was. Through your closed eyes you could still see an intense shine, but you knew it came from yourself, from your Ascension, both musical and divine. You heard voices swirling around you, practically lifting you up in song. Five minutes ago, hearing a song that you hadn’t created would have been as distressing as your friends found the silence, but this... this was right. Just this once. Both the glow and the music faded as you slowly opened your eyes, and for the first time you could really see your land’s music. It wasn’t black, smoke under the cobalt glass. No. The music was radiant, shining every color of the rainbow. You righted yourself in the air, grinning with glee, as you finally understood. It was time for to you to face the Music.