[Dylan] Shadow Bard of Newtown

You woke up with a terrible hangover from dreaming of getting dumped by Veronica but instead of waking up in your room, you woke up in a room in a wooden cabin. Not the cabin you've been to earlier, this one's well maintained. You are in someone's bed but there's no one beside you. It's a simple room with nothing more than a bed, a drawer, a sidetable with a lamp on top of it.

Your not sure what time it is but it is afternoon. Outside the window, you can see the forest and a few other cabins.

There's a note on the side table saying.

"If you're hungry there's food on the table. I'll be at the adventurer's guild."

Looking outside there are trees, other wooden cabins, gardens and backyard farms. There are other people, humans and those that aren't exactly humans like anthropomorphic beings, elves, and gnomes.

Looking around the room, you found no clue aside from it's minimal and neat. You did see a quiver of arrows and a bow in the living room.

Dylan walks outside of the house,
to the left the cabins get fewer and there are more trees,
to the right buildings get bigger and denser.

The people around doesn't mind you.

You ask someone, a slender man who's got the head of a dog, a black labrador, dressed in simple farm clothes. You understand that this person belong to a race called dogkin.

"You gotta walk this path straight and then turn left..." The dog-man gives you a detailed yet simple instruction on how to get where you wanted to go. He says that Newtown's quite small and that you wouldn't miss it.

"New to Newtown?" The dog-man asks.

[ PERSUASION ] Dog-man INDIFFERENT >> FAVORABLE!

"Ah, an aspiring bard I see. There's a watering hole in town called Sunrise Tavern. Matter of fact I'm on my way there. Care to join me?" The dogkin says with a cordial smile and a pat on Dylan's shoulder.

The dogkin introduces himself as Falca Furoro, a farmer. He's headed for the tavern for obvious reasons, to get a drink.

Falca says that though the adventurers were able to slay the blue goblin captain that turned into a monstrous snake, they did so at the cost of losing four adventurers. The head of the guild regrets his decision of sending D rank adventurers thinking that it would just be a walk in the park since the enemies were just goblins.

Falca introduces you to Newtown, says there's nothing much going on around this place. Newtown is a village connecting the main land to the Bezelbebe peninsula where the Bezelbebe forest is. Newtown's a place that thrives on fishing and forestry. Also, its a town responsible for protecting the forest of Bezelbebe.

---

You arrive at the Sunrise Bar. It is more vintage than the usual bar where Dylan performs and in the afternoon, there aren't much patrons in Sunrise. Most seats are empty. The place is quiet. Falca tells you that people will come a little later.

Falca sits on a chair and asks for a pint of ale.

Aside from Falca there's only one other guest in the bar. A lady drinking beer alone on one corner.

"Good to here there are still performers who'd come visit Newtown. Sure I'd even lend you some instruments if you need em."

The barkeep asks the other workers in Sunrise Tavern to help out set a stage where you can perform and also gave you some instruments they found in the store room. The instruments were a bit dusty that the crew had to clean them first. There's some bongos, a lute, a harp, and even a marimba. Instruments in the other world don't differ from instruments on earth. These instruments are not used for some time, Dylan may need to tune them before he can use them.

"Give us a good performance tonight will ya." The barkeep says.

"Play something cheerful. The day's been quite gloomy." Falca suggests.

It took some time before Dylan could tune the lute. He practiced singing, playing the lute and playing the drums at the same time while singing the song. The few audience are enthralled by the practice set, some of the passersby outside caught interest of the music and started to enter the Sunrise tavern. More audience, more customers for the tavern, and more customers makes the barkeep happy.

The audience applauds Dylan's performance.

"What's the name of that song?" Asks a tiny humanoid, a gnome, from the audience.

Your first set was successful, more patrons came and the patrons who are around are enjoying their booze. They won't get drunk easy because of your songs and they are happy, at least for this moment, they could just enjoy food, ale, and music without worry for their lives. The barkeep and the tavern's staff are busy, serving the guests, but you can see in their faces that they appreciate what you are doing for them.

Your first sent ended and the guests gladly tossed a coin for your performance. (+2 equipment points)

You have to take a break from performing for now. The bar owner offered you beer and some food as compensation.

The gnome who asked the question earlier approached you.

"Nice performance, you know, I heard Count Clauster's looking for entertainers for a ball he's hosting this week. You may want to apply, I heard the count's quite a generous patron." The gnome said.

A few moments after your performance, a blue skinned individual approaches you. You notice he wears clothes more common on earth than in Newtown. You also notice he has horns and a tail.

"Ah, so the bard decides to give his money to us willingly." Dylan hears someone say. Because he can see in the dark quite well, he saw three people hiding in the darkness. All three of them are humans, and they are armed. One has a dagger, the one has a club, the third one's got a sword.

"Come on now bard, if you want your life intact you better give us all earnings you got." Another guy says. You see them three move. They are going on different directions and they plan to flank you.

Seeing that Dylan's unfazed by their threats, the thieves advance.

"We did warn you kid. We'll just have to loot the money off of you after we kill you." One of them says.

All three thieves run towards Dylan to attack him but perhaps it is due to the darkness that they found it difficult to hit Dylan. They all missed their target, Dylan need not move much from his position to evade them.

Dylan conjures shadow tendrils from the ground that whip Dylan's enemies with a hard hit. The tendrils coil around the hooligans after hitting them.

"Ughh!"

"Uck!"

Try as they might they couldn't get out of the tentacles grasp. The one thief holding the club couldn't handle it. He was quickly knocked out. Darkness is indeed Dylan's turf.

The sword thief tried to slice off the tentacles but wasn't able to. The dagger thief made his dagger spark with electricity and attempted to slash at Dylan but his dagger misses.

So as not to kill the enemies, Dylan controlled the tightening. This prevented him from breaking their bones but also did not cause further damage to the thieves. Instead, the shadow tentacles hold of the enemies eventually lead to successfully incapacitating them.

Like the club thief, the two other hooligans turn unconscious. Dylan hears the sound of a bell's ring in his head. A notification!

Successfully defeated hooligans!
Acquired 3 power points.

What would Dylan do with these thieves now?

Dylan pulls the hooligans to the tavern. They were all unconscious, and heavy but thanks to the shadow tendrils, pulling them was a little easier. The people in the street avoid him but didn't ask what he was doing pulling three people with magic tentacles.

It still took some time before Dylan reached the tavern. Just as he hoped, the tavern's almost empty when he arrived. Apart from a few patrons who aren't quite done with their drinking. There's no one else, Falca must've gone home as well.

"What are you pulling there?" The barkeep asks as he ask the staff to aid you pulling what they thought were your friends.

"These good for nothings are really trouble here in Newtown. They prey on every new and vulnerable adventurer..." The barkeep explains how they were supposed to be hiding after hearing news that high ranking adventurers went to town but after hearing that those high ranking adventurers are gone, they came back to preying on every new face they find. They haven't killed anyone, even though they're armed, but that doesn't mean that they aren't trouble for they've sent a number of adventurers to the infirmary.

These are the Melek brothers. The staff knows who they are. Mar Melek's the oldest, he's the one with the dagger. Audi Melek is the second one, he's the one with the club. Declan Melek's the youngest, he's the one with the sword. The three of them have a younger sister named Fana. The staff says these thugs are doing the bad things they do for Fana.

As you were discussing with the barkeep and staff, Mar and his brothers wakes up.

"Wh-Wher-H-Hey!" Realizing that he's bound and they are caught, Mar stares menacingly at you.

"Trust me Bard, if I get out of here, I'd kill you, you hear me!" Declan says.

It is hard not to be afraid with those tentacles that was on their necks, specially cause those same tentacles were the reason they lost to Dylan. Their knees tremble and Dylan can see the fear in their eyes.

"Ww-We won't cause you trouble." Mar says as if pleading for mercy from Dylan not for himself but for his siblings.After you said your sales pitch, the brothers looked at each other. The presence of the crowd coercing them to take the deal pressured the Melek's to accept Dylan's proposition.

"As long as we get money for Fana..."

Both parties settled for a price (-5 gold each monthly). You can pay them partial for now (-3 gold).
As long as you pay them they will do what you ask but don't expect that they will sacrifice their lives for you. You'll meet them at the Sunrise tavern if you need them.The barkeep and the tavern staff are relieved that the discussion didn't cause much ruckus.

Dylan rests for the night.

cont. (HERE)