The sound of a thousand trumpets blaring, hundreds of drums pounding, dozens of strings humming all poured into me and the world around me dissolved into noise and pain. The shear force of the sound stripped me of all my senses plunging me into darkness as notes of all kinds tried to force their way into my brain. Perhaps if it had just been noise then I could have endured it but the sound was far more than just random notes. The noise was a thousand different melodies assaulting me all at once. A thousand melodies, a thousand songs and they were all broken. The world was broken.

Lost in the overwhelming sound and despair that filled me at the knowledge of how broken everything was I lost the fight for consciousness and fell into the darkness.

Some time later I woke yet again to an overwhelming assault of sound. In desperation I tried to cover my ears to block it out but that did nothing. Next, I tried to call on my magic to create a barrier of mana to dampen the sounds.

“Ahhhh!” The instant my mana started to flow an ear piercing shriek rent the air causing me to cry out in pain. Ouuuch. O-okay don’t… use … mana. Need… to think. How can… I stop this? My thoughts muddled by pain and overwhelming stimuli I tried to organize a train of thought and think of a way to get through this.

It all started- uhhg- when I got that new class. So- ahg- they must be connected- ouch. If this class is anything like the others this must be the active- uhg- portion of the skills and there should be a way to tune it out or change its effects. Worth a shot. So the part bothering me the most at the moment is either the intensity or the broken songs. The broken ones might be important and I don’t want to risk loosing them so first I’ve got to try and lower the intensity of this reaction.

With a semblance of a plan I ever so slowly started to bring my consciousness inward to search for the source of this new power. As my mind drifts further and further inside myself the noises of the outside world begin to fade only to be replaced by the loudest and most mangled collection of tones and notes that couldn’t even generously be called a melody.

What is that noise? It’s coming from inside of me. Could this be the sound that my soul is making? The system did say that it was pretty badly damaged so that could be why it sounds as bad as it does. If I learn how to better use this new power would I maybe be able to start fixing myself? If so that would probably be a good idea. I don’t really have any idea what side effects having such a damaged would is having on me- no stop that. I need to stay focused on the immediate issue. I can’t afford to get side tracked right now. I’ve got to learn what this new power is and how to control it before I can think about using it on myself.

Putting my mind back on track I start pushing the thoughts and noise to the periphery of my awareness and focus on finding the source of my spellsinger powers. After a little looking around I find the familiar presences of both my druidic defender and orionian archer powers and sitting alongside them is a new source that is both somewhat familiar and completely alien.

Reaching into the new node of power I focus my will on its intensity. Working as slowly and delicately as I can I start to tune down the powers intensity. From what the source communicated into my mind this will reduce its effectiveness but until I get a better hold on how to control the flow of information it gives me I will have to tune it down just to be able to function.

Once I have tuned the source to operate at about ten percent of its regular intensity I start to drift out of my mental plane. What was earlier an overwhelming discordance is now only a lot of faint whispers. It now feels like there are a lot of really bad musicians playing their instruments as quietly as they can just out of my sight. The feeling is a bit unnerving but no longer completely paralyzing.

“Whew okay Mel that was a bit stressful and I still don’t really know all of what’s going on so let’s check out what this new class can do.” Focusing on the blinking dot at the edge of my vision I bring up the waiting notifications.

Legendary Class Acquired

Spellsinger

For ages bards have known that there is a connection between magic and music but you have dived even deeper than that. Storms, plants, even the very world itself each have their own song. Spellsingers have learned to listen to the songs of the world and when they sing reality itself is bent to their will.

Skills gained: Resonance, Singer’s Wisdom

+2 Intelligence, +2 Wisdom per class level

Resonance – you have learned the art of infusing your voice with mana allowing your songs to resonate with the world around you greatly increasing their effectiveness. With this ability it is even possible to overwrite something to make it resonate to a different tune.

Singer’s Wisdom – The knowledge of the ancient spellsingers is now yours. The power to bend reality with song is great but so is its cost. With this knowledge you gain not only an understanding of how to read, compose, and overwrite song’s but also the costs that come along with such actions.

You have already discovered and are able to sing four of the primal songs, for this achievement Spellsinger has been raised to a starting level of 8!

It takes me some time to go over all the new information as I read it several times to ensure that I am able to comprehend all of it. With the class description and the small amount of information I am taking from the singer’s wisdom skill I finally am able to see what was happening to me.

When I accepted the new class I was instantly able to hear the melodies of the world. Not the songs of the primal forces like the ones I had already discovered but the songs of the world around me. Each rock and tree everything has its own unique song. With all of them hitting me at once it was overwhelming my mental capacity. Even with the intensity turned down as low as it is the amount of information that is flowing into me is still astronomical.

The most startling thing of all is that none of it, not one single song is perfect. Everything lacks symmetry and at some points the songs are disjointed or stuttering. The desire to fix it wells up inside me. I want the songs to be perfect just like the primal ones. The brokenness of it bothers me and I’m not entirely sure why. Determined to try out my new powers and fix start fixing this problem I reach out and grab a small rock from the crater beside me.

Focusing on it I listen to its song while trying to tune out all the others. As my attention focuses on the rock the world around me seems to fade from my perceptions with the rock and its song becoming the only thing I know. I listen to its song that speaks of dark and sturdy things shot through with bright spots and jarring cracks. I listen as the small melody repeats itself several times and then I begin to humm back to the rock.

I start by humming the same melody and as the two of us sing together a strange and indescribable connection forms between us. Once I feel that we are fully connected I start to change the tune I am humming ever so slowly. I start smoothing out the cracks in the tune and altering pieces so that each will flow into the next. Eventually both the rock and I are humming a new song, a perfect song.

With the rock now singing a perfect song I am certain that whatever was wrong with it must be fixed so I stop humming and open my eyes, not even sure when I closed them, to see my handiwork. Instantly I can tell something is wrong.

“What the…” I gasp as I look in horror at what is in my hand. The rock that I had been holding is no longer a rock. Well it is still a rock but not really. Something about it is wrong. It feels strange and alien. Whatever it is that I did fundamentally changed it and now it no longer fits in nature. The rock feels oily except that even oil would feel better than holding whatever this- this thing is. What was once just an ordinary rock is now an unnatural stain, a blight on this world.

Shuddering in revulsion I summon up my mana and deconstruct the “rock” until it is nothing but dust then I summon water to wash away and absorb the unnatural dust before boiling it all away with an intense ball of lightning. Only once I am completely satisfied that absolutely nothing of that abomination remains do I calm down and attempt to analyze what went wrong.

“So Mel do you have any idea at all what just happened there?” I ask in a shaky voice. All I get in response is an indignant huff and silence. Tones that sound both irritated and exasperated radiate from her. “Hey don’t go getting all huffy on me now! I really need your help to figure out what it is that I did wrong!” I shout back half pleading half pouting. Mel only remains stoically silent.

With it obvious that no help will be coming from Mel I let out a small huff of annoyance and pick up another rock and begin to examine it closely while listening to its song. The song comes to me strong and clear but there are several burrs in the music that make me crinkle my brow in annoyance. I want desperately to fix the brokenness of it but the last time I did that I created some kind of horror so now I am trying to figure out what’s wrong with the rock.

I look intently at it and try to follow the song through the rock tracing it for where the burrs in the song are, and I find nothing. As far as I can tell there is absolutely nothing wrong with this rock! “If there is nothing wrong with this stupid rock then why is the song not right!” I finally shout in frustration.

I am about to throw the rock across the crater I am in when a new song catches my attention. This one is far more complex but still just as broken. However, despite being a broken song it is still somehow one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. Looking down I can see that the song is coming from the phoenix egg sitting in my lap.

“How is this possible?” I ask, my voice barely above a whisper. “How can it be that your song is so beautiful and yet imperfect?” As I stare at the egg the answer hits me with the force of a stampeding drake. “It’s beautiful because it’s not perfect.”

The answer is so simple and yet so obvious. How is it possible that I didn’t see it before? Nothing in nature is ever truly perfect. No tree will ever grow just right or exactly evenly. In fact perfect things are so unnatural that the world itself seems to reject them like the creation I accidentally made earlier. It is the imperfections in things that make them beautiful and allow them to fit into the natural order.

This realization causes several things to click into place in my mind and everything changes. The songs that were once unnatural and broken to me are now sounding just right. Now rather than being surrounded by a cacophony I am drifting in a sea of pleasant melodies.

“I get it now Mel. I understand what it is that I did wrong.” I say excitedly. Mel seems to let out a weary sigh before sending me feelings of happiness. “Well now that we’ve figured that out I think it’s time to start making our way back to the Twilight Grove and to figure out what we should do with all the stuff that Cindra left us.”

Looking around I take in the egg, the scattered feathers, the pools of blood, and the body of the Broodmother surrounding me. Reaching out I gingerly pick up one of Cindra’s feathers and start to examine it. Where once it had been red it is now jet black. The feather is long, slender, and oh so soft. IT is extremely light and yet somehow seems to hold some kind of strength. The shaft of the feather is hollow and my enchanter instincts are almost jumping with joy almost begging me to start enchanting it.

Doing my best to suppress the instinct to dive straight in and start pla- working with the new to- resource I store the feather in my spatial belt and quickly summon the rest with small threads of mana before the temptation can set in again. It would not be wise to start experimenting on such a rare and valuable resource until I know what I want to do with it.

The next thing I focus on is the phoenix blood pooled around me. At first it just seemed like blood but now that I focus on it the blood almost seems to hum with power. Using both earth and spatial magic I create a small vial out of a clear hard gemstone that is much larger on the inside and use my mana to put all of the blood inside it while removing any impurities I am able to detect. Also not sure what to do with this I simply store it and decide to figure it out later.

Finished with my resource collection and with my storages nearly full I pick up the egg and start to slowly make my way out of the crater. “Alright Mel lets get going. We have done all of the tasks that we are currently able to do from the list that the heart tree gave us. I still have a feeling that we are not ready to take on one of the queens so our best bet is to go home and get you ready to become the next heart tree while I try to learn the last two songs I need. Also I need to find a way to fix my magic”

At that last statement Mel send my a concerned and confused blast of emotion. “Don’t be too worried about it right now Mel but with this new class I am even able to hear the melodies behind my mana and spells. My mana itself has this pure and beautiful sound to it but every time I was using it something was just wrong. I think that if I work on the melodies my spells make I will greatly be able to improve my magic.” I respond cheerfully, eager at the idea of experimenting with new magic.

With nothing left to do here our long journey south towards the center of the forest begins. All day we walk and I loose myself in the melodies of the forest. Now that I am able to understand how the broken pieces of the songs are a necessity I am able to lose myself in their beauty and after the first day is almost over I am able to pick up small hints about the things that are actually wrong with some of the songs.

The first thing to catch my attention is a tree with a broken branch. After staring at it for a long while as I listen and trace its melody I find the spot where there is a break that shouldn’t be there. Working very carefully I begin to sing to the tree. I sing a song that slowly mends the broken piece and watch as the once cracked and barely hanging branch becomes sturdy once more. As soon as the branch is reattached and truly connected to the tree once more I stop. Knowing that my skill is still sitting at only ten percent perception and with the memory of the “rock” fiasco still fresh in my mind I don’t dare to do anything more.

I also find a small patch of undergrowth that is sick with some kind of disease I can’t identify and after almost an afternoon of study and listening I was able to sing to the plants and watch as the sickness faded from them. Despite my successes in these areas my favorite parts of the day were always the evenings when I would stop to make camp and practice my magic.

Before getting my new class I would have said that my skills were pretty good but after getting the class and being able to truly hear the magic I wanted to cry. The sounds produced were so poor and grating I started to wonder if I had ever truly known anything right at all.

The first two nights I did nothing but focus on producing my various mana blades and arrows. Through my melodies I learned how truly inefficient I had been and how lucky I had been that they had been working as well as they had. The best analogy I could come up with to describe it was as if someone had tried to build a shelter with only their fists. They would beat a tree until it splintered then take those shards and slather them with mana and stick them together. Yes it worked but it was slow, wasteful, and just downright sloppy.

After two nights of little sleep from overworking myself due to my resentment at doing such a poor job I was finally able to start crafting mana weapons that could be called decent. The melodies they were composed of were much simpler while at the same time being much more robust. This made them easier and faster to make while at the same time having a comparable or even better cutting abilities. I still knew they could be improved but I would need to make a great deal more progress as a spellsinger to be able to comprehend how to do it.

The next days were spent creating every mixture of mana types so that each I was able to produce was as pure as possible along with an endless line of spell circles that like my weapons all needed vast improvements.

I also spent a lot of time consulting the mark between my shoulder blades that Cindra gave me so that I could properly take care of her egg. I learned that for now everything was pretty simple and that the most important thing was keeping the egg warm. Every day I would wrap the egg in a shell of hot air while I walked, and every night I would settle it in my fire. The egg’s song was always beautiful and distracting but every time I put it in the fire it would seem to get much happier. I just hoped that once the phoenix was actually born I would be able to keep making her happy and that I would be able to keep my promise to Cindra.

Several days of walking after leaving the crater, not really sure how many I’ve been getting really distracted recently as every time I go to fix a song I seem to get lost in it for an unknown amount of time, I came to a small clearing with a single sickly tree at its center.

For some reason this tree had been calling out to me for several days now drawing me unknowingly to it. Just by looking at it I could tell that the tree had once stood tall and beautiful covered in flowers, but now it looked like it would die in a few short weeks. The song emitted by the tree was slow, sad, and nearly heartbreaking. Some instinct inside of me told me that I absolutely had to save this specific tree. Confused I looked inside myself for where the instinct was coming from but was unable to find any answers.

Shrugging to myself and deciding to go with my instincts I set the egg at the base of the tree and slowly began to circle around it as I listened and traced its melody. With the world around me slowly fading away I began to sing.

Just as I did with everything before I started off singing the same song as the tree until both our voices resonated in sync and then slowly began to alter and change my tune, leading the way and allowing the tree to follow my changes. I worked slowly not wanting anything to get lost between us or for too many changes to be made too quickly. Slowly the disease faded away, the tree began to stand straighter its trunk and bark reinforcing themselves, and finally life began to course through the branches. As everything began flowing smoothly once more a riot of pink blossoms shot through with streaks of red and gold began blooming all across the tree.

I brought my song to a close as I caressed one of the branches that drooped low enough for me to touch and admired the beauty of it. I took a deep breath enjoying the fragrant sent drifting from the blossoms before letting out a soft sigh and speaking loudly.

“You know it’s not polite to stare without coming out and introducing yourself.”