Fedal

Pianos were never really my thing…

If it was speed, we were even.

If it was power, we were even.

If it was technique, we were even.

What had separated us thus far was our understanding of combat. Even though we had the same tools, he was selecting the right ones at the right time while successfully predicting my own choices. I had never engaged in any sort of one on one competition before…even back on Earth. Fighting games were my most hated type of online game because I felt like my opponents could read my mind every time. It felt the same right now.

Every pattern I had was easily predictable. Advances into retreats, retreats into advances…simply going from move one to move two with no steps in between. I had to make my body move in a different way, my moves flow in a weird way…from one to two to three to three to one…in a way that felt natural. But like Carr had told me, it was hard to get your body to listen to you out of nowhere. It’s hard for the human brain to follow non-simple patterns. If you are told to memorize the numbers “1, 2, 5, 14, 41” you might need a second to do it. But if you are told to memorize a sequence of five numbers, determined by multiplying the last number by three and subtracting it by one, you would be able to remember it—or at least rationalize it—immediately.

In other words…if I’m not good at creating random rhythms in my head…I’ll just use something to guide me.

The music.

That said…it’s easier said than done. How do I tie the music to fencing? I had to imagine a guideline for it, a sort of translating layer between the two. The haunted piano has been playing the same song on loop the whole time…it starts slow, then near the end it speeds up. Is that fine? Just fencing slow and then speeding up at the end?

One way to find out.

I reduced the pace of my attacks and fenced defensively now, keeping distance between us. Even if he was the superior fencer, he was still human. If I increased the distance between us, he couldn’t land an attack, and if I was still at least good enough to threaten him, he wouldn’t close in the distance without a plan. Defending without attacking is easy. There’s no way to block every advance if I don’t give him a reason to fear me, but I can turn what would be ten attacks into one or two…this will work. Wait it out…until it’s time to change rhythms.

“What’s the matter, coward?” Martim screamed. Anger beckoned him forward, and his strikes became more furious, less elegant. “I was starting to gain respect for you. What’s the matter? Why are you throwing away our beautiful deathmatch?” His voice nearly cracked there at the end. “Surrender your skill to Lord Johan and stop fighting!”

Ah…so this guy had a romanticized view of fighting to the death, did he now?

It was funny. I was always bad at reading people. To me, a simple word was generally enough to define who they were as people. Carr was a psycho, Valle was dramatic, Isabella was insane…and Martim was an assassin. But it wasn’t like that. Carr had some serious passion, trauma and dreams that intersected to create the weird person he was. Valle was a bit of a drama queen, but he truly loved his hometown and would rather die than betray his own honour. Isabella was insane, but she was also doing her best trying to figure out what to do in this world.

And Martim was an assassin, sure. And he wanted to bring me to Johan. But there was more to him than that, surely. He thinks that deathmatches are glorious. He was enjoying when we got right in front of each other and attacked to see who was going to drop first. I wonder what kind of life he had to make him like that? But that wasn’t something I could find out right now. Instead, what did that tell me about him? That he was more prone to attacking than defending…that he favoured fencing in a closer range than from further away. Ah…there’s so much he was telling me about himself that I didn’t pay attention to until now.

Was the world always this...wide?

“DIE!” Martim screamed. He walked forward a few more times, the tip of his blade pointed at me. When I attempted at beating it away, however, he would keep the tip in place but shift both elbows, changing the angle the sword approached it from. My solution to this was to keep distance and using the time between angle changes to step away, but he naturally got a few small hits, while I barely scratched him.

[Fedal]

[HP]: 92 → 78

[Martim]

[HP]: 48 → 45

This was fine. I didn’t want to win by relying on my [HP]…I wanted to prove to myself that I could win with my own effort! Wait…was that really it? No. I’m not that noble of a person. I just wanted to win my own way. There were no lessons or goals. I just wanted to feel like myself. That was all and that was enough.

Hold on…just a little bit longer. He’s getting used to my slow pace. Let it go…let it go…

The piano struck louder and faster. NOW!

There was no delay between my last step and the next—the song had repeated itself enough that I knew it was about to change. No, it was more than that. I always loved music. I was never good at it, but I did enjoy playing it…there was always something soothing about it. People talk about how music is an art form, but to me it has always been more of a science. You can feel it, when a song is begging for a transition, when you have stretched a note beyond a certain point and just listening to it feels like it hurts to have it go on without changing…

Some music needs more effort to understand than others. This doesn’t make it better or worse, it’s just how it is. But some songs are architected in a way where the first few notes are repeated in a simple pattern, almost teaching you how to interpret it. A lot of pop music works like that, but you can find it in more classical works too. Piano pieces are specially good at that, in my opinion. Violin can be more undecipherable for your average person, I find. But pianos are easy to follow…to a degree.

This made it easier to time my lunge to a song I hardly knew.

“YOU BASTA—” Martim cut himself off, stepping back, blood dripping from his shoulder. I had landed a hit straight through his shoulders at that time. He was perfectly capable of dodging my attack, and his blade was in position to block my thrust. But it was such a sudden change in rhythm that he simply wasn’t expecting it and let the attack go unanswered.

[Martim]

[HP]: 48 → 28

Here, he expected me to ease off, to back down. That’s what I wanted to do. It was my personality to try not to overextend my lead. But I wasn’t following my instincts this time, I was following the music. The rhythm was still telling me to advance, and I pressed the advantage. No, calling it an advantage was too much—I just pressed on regardless.

We were standing across from each other at a safe distance. He held his sword in a two-handed stance, hands low, tip high, and I stood in a typical fencing en garde. I advanced and went at beating his blade. He waved it sideways, and I disengaged at his body. To my surprise, he did not step back—instead he took this chance to slash at me with his own blade. My attack landed on his arm, which accidentally blocked the deep lunge as he moved himself into position for an attack, and his attack lightly cut my forearm.

[Fedal]

[HP]: 78 → 49

[Martim]

[HP]: 28 → 17

Of course…he likes to duke it out. I’m so close to winning. I just have to keep attacking…he’s so close…

His blade swung and nearly cut off my head.

It wasn’t that easy. He was almost down, but my [HP] was low enough that one good attack from him would be enough to kill me. What should I do? Should I ease off? No. This was no time to be timid. I was going to let the piano guide me. Attack, attack, attack, atta—

The music looped back to the start, and the rhythm dropped. Begrudgingly, I dropped my speed as well. This gave Martim time to adjust. This wasn’t good; I needed the music to have a rhythm he couldn’t predict but I couldn’t wait until it sped up again. I was forced into the defensive again, and before I knew it, he managed a few small cuts against me.

[Fedal]

[HP]: 49 → 36

[Martim]

[HP]: 17

This is too amateurish…I can’t rely on just the music to have a good rhythm. Or could I?

Sure, this song wasn’t enough, but I had played music for a lot of my life. I was never any good at it, but…I did like it, didn’t I? Why had I forgotten it for so long? Because I wasn’t good at it. And I ran away from it because I thought I looked lame trying to play an instrument and not being good at it. This wasn’t the time to worry about looking lame anymore. I still remembered the songs I liked to play. More than the piano, it was the violin that I loved.

Fast, slow…Martim is getting used to that switch. I need a different rhythm. Something that will appear completely random to him. What could I… Martim’s sword came at me and I barely blocked it: he had stepped forward and brought it down vertically, and I held my sword over my head horizontally to slow it down, but it still landed on my shoulder. I NEED SOMETHING!

In a panic, I pushed him off me, and soon as we had enough distance built up between us lunged without any consideration for rhythm—it was a mistake, for he anticipated this and blocked my attack with a sideways motion, maintained his tip aimed at me and stepped forward with a thrust through my chest. It was shallow, but the attack surely connected.

[Fedal]

[HP]: 36 → 9

[Martim]

[HP]: 17

I hadn’t realized how much momentum and rhythm could change a fight at the drop of a dime. I had no choice left. I had to find a way to create a rhythm in my head I could follow…Devil’s Trill, second movement, Allegro moderato. The sound of violins filled my head and I was back in my room, playing the violin by myself while life passed me by. This movement wasn’t simply ‘fast’ or ‘slow.’ It built on itself, then stopped abruptly, then slowed and sped up, and maintained a high tension. If I have a mental image of what I need…if I can imagine the song in my head…I can apply it to my moments.

Our blades clashed one more time. Music wasn’t guiding me, but it was my internal rhythm. Some people decide on internal rhythm based on arduous drills that make their muscle memory respect the pattern. For me, music felt more natural. If I just switched what song I was playing in my head depending on the situation…I could establish my own rhythm, so long as I was good enough to prevent my opponent from interrupting it. Is it fine to be so self-indulgent? To just let my interests take over how I act?

Yeah. It was.

I had always called them ‘interests.’ Not even ‘hobbies,’ because that would imply that I had dedicated myself to them, and at that point I would have no excuse for failing. Even now, I was afraid of admitting it. I had always wondered what changed something from an ‘interest’ into a ‘passion.’ Was it the degree of love you had for the subject in question? No, I believed otherwise. It was how much you were willing to surrender your entire body to it.

Surrendering has always been what I’ve been best at.

Music, take over my body.

My footwork and advances confused Martim. It sped up, then slowed, then slowed further, then sped up a little, then more, even more still, and then dropped back. If Tschaikowsky can use cannons for instruments, no reason I can’t use a sword. Throughout our exchange, I kept thinking back to the Devil’s Trill.

The song had a peculiar history. Giuseppe Tartini had said he dreamt of making a pact with the devil for his soul, and the lord of the underworld became his faithful servant in exchange. Upon being asked to play the violin for his master, however, the devil played a song beyond the realms of fantasy. Upon waking, Tartini grasped his own violin and played the song the devil played in his dreams, trying to recapture its magic at least in part. The result was the Devil's Trill Sonata, a devilishly difficult song to play.

It was the last bit of the last movement that seemed absurdly hard. To play it properly, you had to basically vibrate or twitch your hand to get the range of notes down correctly, playing over four octaves of G, while your hands stretch over three octaves. It's absurd. Playing the song at all was difficult. How could I match that to footwork? Why had I chosen that song to set my inner rhythm?

Because I wanted to.

It didn’t matter if it was difficult. It didn’t matter if it was painful. It didn’t matter if it was impossible. If I loved it enough to suffer it, then the suffering itself was a blessing. Somehow, this revelation made it all make sense to me. It mattered not that I was weak, or that I wasn’t born to stand out. There were things I wanted to do. I would probably look lame attempting them, surely. But I still wanted to try. No, to hell with that—trying had nothing to do with it. Quality be damned, I was going to do it.

PLAY WITH ME, MARTIM!

I advanced at him, my sword threatening a disengage the entire time. He advanced in return, his blade thrusting directly at my heart. Here I brought my sword against his and threatened a parry. He feels the contact of my blade. If I block it, he might be in trouble. If he’s threatened by it, he’ll pull back. But if I’m bluffing and can’t really parry from this angle, he’ll only expose himself to danger by backing away.

My blade hugged his and he moved it slightly upwards, as if retreating, then brought it back in place. Again steel brushed against steel and this time his nerves lost out—he moved his hand. I GOT YOU!

The music was still playing in my head as he dropped his blade. If I can think of a few different songs in my head to match my rhythm to…I’ll become pretty good, won’t I? He avoided my false parry, but by doing so exposed his chest to a direct thrust.

[Fedal]

[HP]: 9

[Martim]

[HP]: 17→ 0

The match was over. Martim was still conscious, but fading fast. He wouldn’t die if someone got to him quickly, but he would reach [Death] any time now. His desire to fight had faded, and he laid on the ground, motionless and coughing blood.

“You could have won this a lot easier, you know,” Martim said calmly. “If you had just decided to fight it out…you had more [HP] than me. Why fight like this?”

“Because…” I hesitated. Why did I? What was the right response? No. Don’t overthink it. Let your heart answer for once. “I wanted to beat you properly.”

“And that was worth risking your live over?”

“No.” There was no point defending that decision. “It’s just that…when I thought of the future, I thought it would suck if I stayed the same while everyone else changed. I…I have things I love too. Things I care about. Things I tried telling myself I didn’t. Fighting you helped me figure some things out.”

“Is that so?” He smiled. “I guess that’s a good death for me, then.”

“You don’t have to die!” I shouted. “If we get you someone with [Restoration] you can still recover.”

“And what? Die when Lord Johan finds out I have failed him?” Martim laughed. “No…it will be just fine if I don’t survive this. I’ll join Mauro in the next world.”

I hesitated. Normally, I wouldn’t have said anything, but today the words flowed from my mouth as if undeterred by usual fears. “Why?” I asked softly. “Why do you lot fight for Johan? For that psychopath?”

“You wouldn’t get it,” he replied, smirking. “I don’t care what he has done to you guys…but Lord Johan is a hero. I lost many of my friends last war, and would have lost more if not for him. He won impossible battle after impossible battle…and he used his own gold to pay for a lot of refugees to resettle, to live their lives again. Thousands draw breath because of him now.” He looked at me and scoffed. “So if you say he killed a few men, tortured some servants…what do I care? Nobles do that all the time. At least he puts himself on the line for us. Life in the capital improved a lot since he came around. So if you stand against him…I’ll drop you dead. I don’t give a shit about who’s right or wrong. Maybe you’re the good guys. Fine. I’ll be the devil if that’s what it takes to keep Lord Johan on the throne.”

“He only takes care of people to further his own goals!” I protested. “He doesn’t do that out of the kindness of his heart!”

“And am I supposed to care?” Martim coughed more blood. His time was nearing. “Who cares why he does what he does? He helps. People in the capital don’t go hungry anymore. Whether that’s because he’s an angel or because he doesn’t want starving corpses near his castle is of no concern to me. It was his actions that saved us, not his kindness or lack of thereof.”

He’ll kill a lot more people once he gets into power. “Get up. Let me—we can heal you.”

“Carr would kill me,” Martim replied. It was weak, nearly a whisper. “So would Valle. Isabella. Your friends…they would be merciless to an assassin.”

“I AM NOT CARR!” I screamed. “I don’t care if it’s the smart thing or not. I don’t want to see someone die in front of me!”

Martim smiled weakly and extended his hand at me. Slowly, he touched the side of my face. “You have a kind heart, hero. Don’t let them take it away from you.” I opened my mouth to give him a stern reply, but before I could say another word, Martim’s eyes closed and his hand fell limp.

[Death]

Martim could still be saved. This man was an assassin that would come after us again, surely, but still—! I couldn’t just let him die. I wouldn’t let him die. No! I couldn’t be like the others, so callous about life and death. More than that, I didn’t want to be like them.

Spare me your kindness, kid.

The voice spoke inside of my head, and were I not so exhausted, I would surely have trashed about in a panic.

I..appreciate it. But don’t waste it on me. I’ll leave this world soon. Just remember…our fight isn’t done yet.

It will continue. Not today. Not tomorrow. But it will continue.

Long after my death.

Because you’ve fulfilled the activation requirements of my skill.

[The Unicorn Murders]

His skill! I had completely forgotten he had a legendary skill hidden. What had he done to me? In desperation, I checked my own stats.

[Fedal the Hero]

[Curses]:

The Unicorn Murders