The day the music died Junius 6th, 2282

Wait... what day is it?

Junius 6th, 2282 or more fondly known as boom, boom, bye, bye, they both get blown to shit today... day.

Now if that isn’t the most ominous start I’ve had in a while I don’t know what is.  Well let’s see here I’m standing on a stage all alone.  Surrounded by the silence and a number of odd and bizarre musical instruments.  Yeah for once I didn’t enter the scene into a shit storm or shit show where everything is out to fucking kill me.  





It’s a good look for me, although I'll confess, a bit too efemininte for my taste.  But what can I do? Fate has her own sense of humor when it comes to me and life.  So here I am about to put on the end all show of a lifetime in Galideno City… and it hits, in a few minutes this place is going to be another fucking crator on the face of Galiavan.  Just my luck, well the show must go on… for like five minutes before it all burns to the ground, ash and dust, all that shit.  

But the show must go on like it’s not the end of the world as we know it and the beginning of a desert of aging and death… So take the stage all alone and begin to infuse the musical instruments with my very Essence….

Wait, wait, wait.  No. Fuck that we’re going back to the beginning.




Fade out and



BAM!

Insert running like a crazy mofo!  FOR MY LIFE!

Yes I didn’t have to…

But sometimes it’s just fun.

Running I mean, making people chase you.  The looks and feelings, the emotions and sentiments thrown at your back as they try to catch you and murder you.  I’ll be honest I have no idea what I did to have a small army of mercenaries chasing after me.. Ahem.

Well you know besides destroying their means of transportation face first…

I know… right!  How rude, trying to run a guy over in the middle of nowhere.  Sure I just happened to turn around and step into their vehicle, but hey inter-dimensional travel isn’t exactly …

Waving hands around in circles looking for the right descriptive words here…

Safe?!?  Shrugs and carries on with this segway into a more on point topic.  So I’m looking like a … again and I reiterate way too effeminate for my liking





No hat, my shades as always and a lot less clothes covering my body than I’d like but it works for what I’m feeling as I run.  These guys are pissssssssed.  Hehe.

So of course I stop running because I’m laughing too hard.  You would be too if you realized my sunglasses alone weigh like 400 pounds, and are damn near indestructible.  I know I made sure they were.

Honestly I should have named this when rock goes wrong, no seriously you’ll get that punch line in a minute or so.  But when my shades break a mercenary band’s uhaul full of crazy military types hauling musical instruments of all things, and my nose.  400 pounds indestructible yeah my face is breaking too.  All hell is going to… break





They seem like a nice bunch of wild unruly crazy men, and I was busy running for my life.  Because it’s fun and funny. No, no scratch that, we have to start at the proper beginning.


Now picture this…

A nice little old lady standing behind a kitchen counter clearing cooking something or another.  A friendly neighbor passing by her window going about some outside yard work..  Everything is in black and white, and there is a smell in the air.  The light sugary scent of baking cookies.  

I’m out of place hee sitting at a table only a few feet away, I feel like I’m positioned intentionally for a scripted scene. And she speaks up holding up a tray of cookies.  “How about a Tollhouse Cookie deary?”... and cut someone shouts.  It starts all over again.  The old lady and the neighbor, the baking cookies, “How about a Tollhouse Cookie deary?”, and caught.  Again and again it repeats the same terrifying repetition of a nice old lady, the neighbor, the cookies, the smell.  The mind numbing madness of Groundhog Day.  Of course I hit the homicidal point way sooner than good old Bill Murray did.  I shove the baking tray down her throat.  Strangler her and force the cookies down her throat, the neighbor, I beat them with the tray, the rolling pin, the counter top, the open window.  I drag the neighbor through it slamming his head in the window again and again, the old lady’s… but “How about a Tollhouse Cookie deary?” and cut and reset over and over again it keeps repeating.

An endless cycle of madness and sweet cookie baking goodness, but somehow the cookies haven’t changed; they're the same damn batch from the first shoot, the newer ones just being dumped off to the side of the set.  The camera just laughs as he calls out cut time and time again,  The freaking sock puppet comes out of nowhere nibbling on cookies, and then “How about a Tollhouse Cookie deary?” cut repeat again and again it just doesn't stop.  

I’m trapped in an endless cycle of the worst 30 seconds in commercial history, in a never ending cycle  of “How about a Tollhouse Cookie deary?” So you'll excuse me if I saw an opening and thought hey, why not, I can escape by taking this oversized uhaul face first!

…

Which brings me back to running for fun, hell antogonizing a bunch of trigger happy mercs is worlds of fun compared to the granny Tollhouse torture I’d be enduring for maybe six months straight no sleep no rest, no breaks, no food other than stale Tollhouse Chocolate Chip Cookies.  You can’t blame a guy for taking a face first truck stop to get away.  Apparently though these mercs certainly wanted to blame me.  

Well they caught, to be fair I was laughing.  Really fucking hard.  I was cookie high!  Now come on, that is a real thing.  Trust me six months of stale Tollhouse and you’ll understand cookie high!  It makes you do crazy things, like stab sock puppets and choke old old bitches with cookie trays and use them for batter..errrr testers.  

So anyway these Mercs drag me all the way back to their wreck kicking and beating me the whole way, but I can’t stop laughing it’s too fucking funny… again I’m cookie high!   It’s a great excuse; try it sometime hahaha.

So kicking and screaming.  Them not me obviously I can’t stop laughing, I’m free.  





So of course my internal sound track is picking up a bit, and I’m all for it.  A nice slow start...

Well I do have to stop laughing between the kidney shots and face kicks.  They are starting to sink in, just a little.  Ok enough.  Fifty to one, fifteen to one, I’m not really counting but I am out numbered and half beaten already and still cookie high as fuck…

That’s really high by the by, and these guys were looking funny, I think I was being assaulted by Spiderman and friends. I mean there was the rhino, and the scorpion, and the bitchy black cat lady, oh and a troll…  wait did Spidey ever fight a troll.  

I’m counting the Tollhouse lady then.  Creepy old Cookie Bat.  So it’s off to the races against a mob of mercenary thugs.  From the ground I do a classic spinout shouting out both my legs to clear them back as I twist up off the ground back onto my feet for the first time in this fight with the mercs.  It was all hips, waist, and legs rotating around in a full circle above my head to clear them before rolling onto one hip followed by a shoulder then snap back to my hip to bounce up to my feet and glare.  I couldn’t wait.  I had to move.  And keep moving.  One step ahead of the next strike, barely a flinch beyond taking a harder strike.  Well I guess that brings us to the start of what this is all about.

Glissando Cantata!

Now before I get ahead of myself here, let me just take a moment and explain. This isn’t the first time I’ve cracked out Glissando Cantata.  In fact I’ve spread it across Galiavan once or twice before, maybe even after.  It’s a deep art of combat, but it’s basis is in a very particular set of skills.  Odd as well.  The first layer of depth comes from the ones I was starting with dancing.  All forms of dance are a foundation piece of Glissando Cantata.  Movement, defense, offensive, and evasive each have their place in the art.  The second layer is music.  Be it vocalization, or audio projection of sound, music.  The core element though is performance, alone the first two parts are individual and functional on their own, but it is the element of performance which increases the power of each and every skill of Glissando Cantata.

Of course this is about how the term Battle Bard became the common term for practitioners of Glissando Cantata.  A flourish to draw their attention as I rise from the ground up to my feet.  It’s as much about showmanship as the actual skills, the next step is to bring up the music, and these guys were providing all the instrumentation a Glissando Cantata practitioner could ask for, en masse.

Ah hell with it, let’s make some noise unlike anything this world has heard before I figure as I spin on one foot dragging my other off the ground in a reverse spin bouncing once I make a complete rotation around to prep a hop to my other foot kicking the grounded one into a tight spin kick as well.  A third and fourth rotation to move closer to the instruments scattered all over the road.  My fifth rotation is a twist, spinning in the opposite direction into the air with a double rotation roundhouse kick to make them jump back out of my way.

I nearly botch the landing as my first foot down slips on the edge of a busted instrument on the ground.  I’ve got the room I need and more than enough space to begin with the twist to Glissando Cantata that only someone like myself can do.



Concerto Imperio Exspiravit- Symphony of Ghosts


You see I have the ability to become a one man band, a one man orchestra.  It’s a gift of the extremely powerful, although I suppose anyone with enough control over air or a very skilled psychokinetic individual could pull off something on a smaller scale to my level.  I begin by snapping my fingers and shifting my weight from foot to foot, and swaying my hips.  It’s all about the showmanship, as I pulse my vibe and Essence into the scattered and abused instruments all lying about the road.  

I’m getting the dirtiest looks I have ever seen as I stop swaying and switch to nodding and tapping a single foot on the ground as the instruments begin to stir to life as it were.





I’m amping up my vocals as they finally realize shit is getting seriously cookie high, I mean serious. They come at me, but not before the music begins and so do I.  Now my internal sound track is being broadcast live via the Symphony of Ghost to my enemies on hand.  I stop tapping my foot and slam it down, flipping up the instrument I nearly slipped on as I came down from my double rotation roundhouse kick.  I get a feel for it as it flips up into the air behind my back, I know exactly what it is, well, was before it was destroyed in the head on truck collision.  I breathe new life into it as I sing the words just short of two minutes ito the song

“Can’t you, can’t you trip like I do”

Right as the music speeds up and the instrument flips one last time.  I reach behind me swinging it forward as a new beast reborn in the flow of my power.





It’s also when I first notice him out of the corner of my eye slinking around behind the broken down truck.   Picking through the instruments trying to hide from sight and not get caught up in the madness.  He’s nodding his head to the beat and rhythm the same as I am but trying to stay out of it all.  





But the music has a life of its own once it begins,and the world bends to it’s will that is the heart of the art of Glissando Cantata.

Switch!





What; everybody loves a classic… bastard!

Galaivan, meet Footloose, foot tapping, fingering snapping, ass shaking, head bobbing, ass kicking music. And I cut loose, to Footloose. Sometimes you just have to move to the music.

Step in, block the fist of an overgrown merc who looks a bit more like a walking mountain than a man, with the flat side of the battle axe, before slinging it over my shoulder. Step out, snap my fingers with the music the instruments are banging out. Step into another attack striking at the elbow joint of a second biggin swinging wide for me in close quarters to the mountain.. Step back snap my fingers, do a little tap dance with my arms up like a dumb ass trying to move his feet quick to the music.

Snap jab, straight to the mountain’s face, once, twice, three times right cross to his partner. Back step snap my fingers again moving with the beat of the music. That snare drum, making the perfect rhythm for this fight so far. Counter with my left hand making a resoundingly loud clap on the mountain’s hand than the other merc’s as well with a back and forth swing of my hands and arms to the music, each loud clap matched with the beat of the drum at the end of the song.

It was starting to get good, the music to the dance steps, to the combat being flipped in with each movement. But the instruments werebanging about for something a little different, and yet well I had a feeling of the perfect step to and move to pull out nice.





Back stepping out of their reach I let the music flow out, while striking it up a notch of two, with what I could only describe as a

Crescendo Rondo Mutus: Silent Hook Rising

What you have to build up to silence, you can’t just cast a stupid spell and go poof you can’t talk. Well not if you want it to look good. Sound Good, and be cool! I mean who doesn’t want the music to be good, and to look good doing it. If you don’t then you have no business in show business. And of course that means Glissando Cantata... is definitely not for you. This is a showboating fighting style, slash, musical style, slash dance and or otherwise combat style.

So the mountain is coming closer and I’m back stepping to the music as I put on my best Steven Tyler, and start belting out Walk This Way getting the mountain and his buddy to chase me further and further. But you know that voice, that sound, something about those words and the way they come out. WALK THIS WAY… and give me a kiss. Backflip kick slamming my foot into the mountain’s mouth. Nail the landing and float around from one foot to the other spinning out of the mountains line of sight around his partner. You know just a simple spin step, nothing fancy, like all arts there are basics. And the simplest of dance steps can be the most effective counter moves.

But this was all just a distraction from my real purpose. Now this whole time they were shouting and communicating with each other, getting louder and louder with each step, dodge, or counter strike. But that was the trick to it. It doesn’t matter what the music is, in fact I could have done it with silence and merely danced around my opponents. Of course there is so little showmanship in that…

Crescendo Rondo Mutus, the Silent Hook Rising. It’s all in the name, Rising… Crescendo… The build up; what I was doing in this instance was using the music’s natural build and my own movements in tandem. Rondo… Hook… both the music and the dance moves have their own catchy bits. The quick steps, the flashy movements and the riff line playing over and over again keeping the pace as much as the simple dance moves. Mutus… Silent… It’s the irony here, because instead of making everyone go quiet creating a silence muting the world so nothing can be heard.

In fact this would be better described as silence through chaos. A noise so deafening that you can’t hear yourself think, forget being able to hear any other sound not made by yourself.

Sonus Diminuendo: Diminishing Sound

I was capping the sound on my end of things, a sound barrier so to speak, muffling the excess noise to a dull roar for me. I could have done things the other way around too if I felt like it. The skills themselves aren’t strictly a one way street or strictly offensive or defensive. It’s all in how you use them, the truly skilled can twist an ability from its purpose and use it in inventive ways. Take for instance the way I used Sonus Diminuendo to silence the excess noise from around me rather than silence my enemies. And alternately Crescendo Rondo Mutus, to increase their voices to deafen them rather than using it for its base purpose increasing the sound of my own music and the effects of their effects.

You get the effect. On a more serious note this fight was dragging on and there were more than two mercs to deal with. So I did what any sensible man would do, er… sensible bard would do. I begin by striking up a new tune as I slip in between the rest of the mercs not attacking, but moving, it’s time to end this particular fight and preferably with the least hassle and blood shed.





Oh come on you knew this was coming I literally just said I…

Oh wait, no I didn't actually say that yet. Wait for it, it should hit you naturally as things go forward. I mean come on I literally just… oh no no I didn’t.

Ok I should start this properly, let me introduce Thriller and zombies. Is the picture forming yet? Thriller…

Zombies…

Zombies…

Thriller.

And watch it, think about it.

Thriller, zombies, zombies, thriller. Zombies…

Is the picture forming yet for you? This one is a named

Mancipium: Possession

Again like all things involving Glissando Cantata there is more than one way to skin a cat. Possession of mind and body. It could be either way, it could be of yourself, of others. Possession, mancipium, it’s almost an ultimate technique. It uses the depth of Concerto Imperio Exspiravit, the same basis, of possessing something unnaturally.

And what better way to do this skill but with Thriller. And since once isn’t enough I strike up a reprise with a little more flash for the emphasis on just what I have these mercs doing. I move to the music, and the music moves to the merc who can hear it. All but the mountain apparently who is just raging in his self induced deafness. Lucky bastard Thriller is a horrible dance number just watch it again to get my point or watch it like this…





I moved the mercs to my beat… and I hated every thrilling minute of it. But sometimes you have to choke on the worm to get the drink down. So as you should be able to see right now, the mercs are dancing along to the choreography. It’s scary man seeing two dozen merc doing thrillers dance. Moving right along with me. Of course I was pushing the ability well beyond what normal folk could do. I’m special like that and these guys really didn’t deserve to die just for a little hit and run.

Son of a bitch they nicked my sunglasses a little. Time for a guitar solo with mountain over there. He is pissed and looking to kill, but then he’s the only one not moving to the moves of thriller and the Mancipium. Well one little mountain is no problem to overcome, might as well start these zombies doing something useful while I focus on the Mountain.





I put the mercs to work fixing their vehicle and boy is that tedious and others I made gather up all the instruments but the ones belting out the songs I was playing.

With Axe in hand I focus back on the big bastard with the strong mind and the dumb face. I go in full tilt ripping out cords as it were with each swing of the Axe, guitars’ll do that when you swing them. Shooting out unintentional sounds, making a discordant harmony with the sound of rage and the echoes of the big lugs screams finally breaking through my skills.

Axe to fist, flat edge to knuckles, backhand to Axe shaft. The cords twang out at the force of the impact, as this knuckle dragger racked the back of his hand across the guitar strings. Did I forget to mention they’re razor sharp? So that shit had to hurt a normal knuckle dragger like him, even a big one too.

Blood squirts into my eyes but honestly I’m only seeing the next three steps coming anyway, no need to see what’s going to happen. I’m staggering just a bit from the blood. Clearly I need to wipe it out and he’s going to charge straight in. Step one: Take the hit, force his actions to follow my path. And son of a bitch it feels like I just got hit by a second speeding truck.

Step two: lock him in to my pace, even if it’s his own idea. He’s raining blows down on me like a runaway freight train, slamming against my skull time and time again. I’ll tell you another thing, having pudding for brains sucks massive donkey balls. It makes it very hard to focus on the ending of this fight. My brains; oozing around my head, I’m pretty sure that’s not just blood pouring out of my ears. On the upside I can’t see shit, but with this monster on top of me who needs eyes to find my footing for the coup de grace. I still manage to keep a grip on my Axe but it’s hanging limply from my hand and so is my hand and arm, and well everything from the brain stem down. Hell, even my hair is hanging a bit limp. Ok it was down to begin with.

Step three: the coup de grace. I roll out to the side as he leans back, shifting all of his weight away for his coup de grace, hoping my twizzler pull and peel legs can hold my weight long enough to make one last swing…

I step over only having half an eye to see through as his strike misses burying his arms into the ground up to his wrist. And I leap up not trusting my legs to hold me up any longer. I swing down burying my Axe into his thick neck, my wobbly legs and feet planted on his shoulders. The blade of Axe biting deep into his neck. And the bastard stands up. He just stands straight up shaking his head to like I’m a flea he can just shake off. Well I feel it all coming to a climax this performance and the fight all at once. My legs start to buckle under the fierce shaking and I get the sinking feeling this is going to be the end.

And that’s when it hits me as I sink a little further and a little further. Just then in that moment I have the perfect song to play if this is going to be the end of it all.





Pop goes the Weasel’s…

Head!

In case you were wondering…

Heads flying off spray a lot of fucking blood, especially at the poor bastard standing/jumping off the shoulders of the decapitated freak slowly crumpling up onto the ground below.  Even more so when said poor bastard's axe snagged on said freaks' overgrown shoulder blade.  

Eww gross, I hate blood baths.  I’m not a vampire being drenched in fresh blood is not a fucking turn on or a prelude to a sexual encounter, well not so much by choice anyway.  Seriously I need a shower, some nice fresh hot water, soap, garlic, a little vinegar, and maybe some burning coals to wash this blood off.  Burn my skin clean!

Now then where was I?  Shower with Blood Type B, it opens up your veins and improves circulation one thousand percent.  People are losing their heads over this shampoo and bodywash in one.  





Try Blood Type A for sensitive skin care, and Type O for everybody else.





I’m sorry I can’t help it.  I have issues… and most of them involve repressed boredom and excess intelligence.  Waving hands index fingers only extended back and forth, bad combination that, I swear.  So clipped the mountain top, blood everywhere I mean I’ll be washing Blood Type B out of ass crack for weeks, but on the bright side at least I didn’t get any in my mouth.

THIS TIME!  Lizardman blood still doesn’t taste like Mountain Dew!

So a band of mercenaries dancing to thrill before my zombie slaves for a while a strange guy who’s only half way under the effects of Mancipium, and the broke back… mountain.  Ok that joke was a little gay, not the happy kind either.  See, who said learning isn’t fun, it’s a bloody good time.

Well Thriller is a bit of an evil thing to make people dance but you know desperate times call for massive humiliation, shame we didn’t have a camera to record this.  I’m sure it would have broken all kinds of records too.  Mancipium has its uses, primarily it can be used as I did to make others bend to your will to make them move and physically act as you want them to.  The greatest part of it though is the trauma such weak minds will feel afterwards when the effects wear off and they can move under their own direction again.  The shame and truth of their weakness of mind, it can break a person and be far more damaging than the physical control over their body.  

Speaking of trauma I had the perfect song for them to work too as well.





Then there was the truck loading and repair, well, what they could manage that is, after all, four hundred pound sunglasses will leave one hell of a dent in a vehicle when you slam face first into them.  But thankfully it held up, just a small dent shaped a lot like my face!

So once they instruments were all packed back up and in and the mercs were off to the side I figured I might as make them, act out the song man.  I was singing it, they might as well do it.

Besides I needed some back up singers for this one, unlike Thriller.  And of course we would need some water to manage a good old fashion car wash.  I guess that means I have to crack out one of those crafty variations I was mentioning before about the skills and abilities of Glissando Cantata.  I let my axe rest for a bit, mostly so it could be hosed off and dried off before Blood Type B had a chance to dry and rust it.  

Disco’s dead!  But I start doing a little 70’s club step leading the mercs in the nasty nightmare of disco dancing.  

Motu Elementum Manus- Kinetic Elemental Hand

To begin with Manus which means hand, is the root and foundation of the terms manipulation and manipulate meaning to physically handle objects, in this case though.  It’s the more literal and modern term of manipulation implied here, control over the active energies of the elements.  

Normally a highly skilled practitioner could control two maybe three separate but compatible elements with this skill, highly skilled I repeat.  Most would find trouble with using two at once let alone for a prolonged period of time, and not nearly on the scale and range over which I was about to use several different variations of the Motu Elementum Manus

It’s a dance, like all dances in Glissando Cantata the steps themselves are irrelevant, it makes no difference if it’s a tango, a waltz, a square dance or the toe tapping of tap dance.  It’s the repetitive motion to focus the practitioner's energy to channel the element they are trying to work.  Most only ever manage a single element limited by preconceived notions of magical aptitude and natural magical infinities and the like.  But what I was about to do was a full scale breakdown of the elemental spectrum, water, light, heat, earth, metal, wind probably a few others I can’t think of at the moment as they tend to be innocuous elements to begin with.  So I dance the dance of the car wash prance.  And my back up singers keep a good rhythm of their own as I begin melding the forces of nature all around into a well obviously a carwash… duh.  Starting with water, pulled straight from the air, then heat to raise the temperature of the water, then air to move it around to wash down the mercs giant truck uhaul vehicle of ungainly proportions.  Those not in the back up dancers start stripping their shirts off to wash down the vehicle, their upper bodies all scarred and mangled and manly soon drenched in water.  The whole group moving with the music and washing and dancing in their own steps a bizarre line dance circling the vehicle scrubbing and twirling and working at the car wash.

That’s when I step it up, pulling some metals from the ground and some water from the air, making a globe with the metal inside, refracting light all around.  A disco ball to set the mood just a little more as the work progresses.  

Working at the car wash.  What?  It’s catchy and contagious, like a bad rash that just just keeps itching.

Disco is dead, but these guys are beat, sun beaten, mentally beaten, physically beaten, I guess they can have one for the road as I have them get to steppin.  I start up solo dance step moving to the next songs groove and set the mercs to stepping in the best fashion possible





Hit the road jack.  And they danced on away, away, away… to the music, and who knows how far it would go before they stopped dancing off into the sunset, sunrise, whatever.  It’s relative, and doesn’t really matter anymore, they were gone, goose stepping and out of mind.  Not my problem, but the young buck in red with the half weak mind was gapping in astonishment at everything going on.  His hand caught in the proverbial cookie jar at that.  He was eyeballin and trying to snatch an instrument from the vehicle when I finished up with the mercs, finally noticing that he was still here and not trotting off hot and fast behind the mercs.





So we had some quick introductions which got interrupted and he for some bizarre reason started calling me The Doss.  Honestly I really don’t know why, but I was feeling a lawsuit vibe from BS, you know the Boss…

Bruce Springstien…?

Heathens, learn yourselves some education.  Anyway, the long and the short of it was that his name was Aoidos and he fancied himself a musician.  I say fancied because he liked to think he sounded like this.





When in fact he sounded pretty much like this!





I’m telling you it was a lot more than twelve seconds of my life that I’ll never get back, my ears are still bleeding.  I didn’t even have to use Muto Elementum Manus to manipulate air and water to make my ears bleed.  Yes that’s a thing.   A clever practitioner of Glassando Cantata can rupture a person's blood vessels manipulating water and air, even potentially using metal instead, if they know their anatomy well enough.  Also you could use water or air separately if you think about it, fire as well in a pinch.  It’s just a matter of skill, perspective and the will power to see it through really.  Glissando Cantata is not a restricted art form.  Like each dance step, and every musical note which conveys the power of Glissando Cantata inspiration, ability, and result all flow in and out fluidly no beginning no end, just the ever flowing motion of Glissando Cantata.

Well I took it upon myself to take this horrid musician under my wing, and maybe help my ears to stop bleeding, I knew for a fact that he was not going to leave me alone after witnessing first hand Glissando Cantata in action.  He fancied himself a Battle Bard.  Not because he was one mind you, but because he couldn’t pay for a glass of free water with his musical skills.  Which left him with his discordant nausea-inducing musical skills on the battlefield.  You’d be surprised what shrieking noise will do to even the toughest of opponents when it doesn’t stop.  

And he wanted to learn what I was doing.  He wasn’t just impressed, he was in his own Nirvana.  Well I couldn’t say no, he was a leech, a fucking leech, but at least he wasn’t a blood sucking leech

So I loaded him into the band wagon and got to know his attempts at music ad-nauseum, and I made him stop.  Reiterate bleedin ears, and if you forgot what it sounds like refer to the 12 seconds of ear wrenchign torture from before.

To be honest he wasn’t really that bad, but after a short while it could seem like it.  He was just trying way too damn hard.  So I went back to the basics, with him, play and repeat.  It turns out he had what some would consider the primary ability of a practitioner of Glissando Cantata

Imito Da capo - Mimic Repeat

The supernatural ability of a Battle Bard to hear and play any sound having heard it only once.  Which made Nirvana a great choice, singing on the other hand he had to work on.  Like his playing he sang way too hard, not really feeling the music just blaring it out.  Fundamentally he had the pieces, he just couldn’t put them together for some reason, not in the right order on his own.  

That would be Aoidos’s greatest challenge in becoming a true Battle Bard, learning to relax and chill the fuck out.





So I started up another song for him to practice with.  Something that would slow him down naturally and force him to keep pace with me rather than himself.  On a side note, the vehicle was basically driving itself under Concerto Imperio Exspiravit I’m so awesome hehe, kiddy Battle Bards don’t try this at home distracted driving dings sunglasses.

So he starts to get it, but every time I let him go on his own he tries to speed up way too much and force the sound rather than feel the flow of the music.  I think maybe training him to dance might be a better starting point as it gives a better feel for tempo and pace but we’re driving and this thing is packed without an inch of spare space let alone enough room to swing and move.  

So I set him to practicing little songs and ditties, like London Bridge, and Ring Around the Rosie, and Pop goes the Weasel, children’s songs without much difficulty to learn to pace himself and keep the pace.  To get him to see the thing he is missing in the simplicity of the sound itself.  Meanwhile I think about the other half of the last skill I was using on the mercenaries, Muto Elementum Manus

Or rather

Muto Proelior Manus - Kinetic War Hands

Where the former uses the elements of nature, as extension of the body, the latter uses weapons, physical solid masses as extensions of the body.  First of all this is a much deeper set of skills.  Weapons on their own, have an art to their usage.  Making for unique fighting styles, or dances in Glissando Cantata, the most widely spread is Fan Dance fighting, but it is not the only one.  All weapons can be used in this fighting style, like Elements they have unique ways of motion and depth individual to the weapon itself.  The most basic is the Weapon Dance for a weapon.  

One does not need to be very skilled with any other part of Glissando Cantata to excel at a particular weapon dance but to master them, to excel and become truly skilled in them the Battle Bard must be able to perform Concerto Imperio Exspiravit The symphony of Ghosts, is the true technique which allows a Battle Bard to master Weapon Dances.  

To a lesser extent the Elemental dances of Muto Elementum Manus could be used to control the weapons but it is a far harder and less proficient method for performing a Weapon Dance.  Not only would you need to be able to perform the Elemental dance which corresponds with the weapon you are using you would also have to do the Weapon Dance at the same time, not so much a problem in itself, but it does require a split of concentration, where using the symphony of the ghost synchronizes the practitioner with the items they are enchanting into motion.

There is a value to being able to do it both ways, but some Battle Bards are not  capable of using the Symphony of Ghosts and others cannot use Elemental Dances.  Think of the symphony as swimming with the current and the Elemental dances as going against it in order to reach the same result.  One is naturally easier than the other, but both could get one to the desired result with enough effort.  

Again the basic weapon dances are just dance fighting styles with weapons in hand, where the master level Weapon Dances allow for the weapons to fly free of the practitioner’s hands and move enconcert with the user’s will and direction.  Allowing for increased range and the ability to create greater techniques to be used.  

For instance a chakra could be used to encircle the body sweeping out many feet from the user almost like telekinesis, only the source of the ability greatly differs.  Even though to the untrained it would appear to be mere telekinesis it is in fact not.  Another interesting Weapon Dance skill at the master level, is the Shield of Stars.

Throwing Star Weapon Dance, seemingly a useless weapon to use with the Weapon Dance throwing stars have a few particular advantages when used over other more traditional hand to hand combat weapons.  Their sheer lightness for one thing,  and the fact that a person could conceivably find it easier to control a half dozen throwing stars when a full sized sword in a weapon dance.  The Basic variation of the throwing star dance is little more than knife or fist weapon dance style.  

But when the master level is reached a true master could spin a dozen throwing stars in a dozen different patterns and directions while dancing in and out of the paths of the stars at the same time.  Or alternate they could spin an even greater number of throwing stars closer to their body with limited movements and create the Shield of Stars.  A defensive ability in which numerous throwing stars spin at high speeds blocking attacks like a barrier, a Shield of Stars.

A more basic technique of Battle Bard is the

Dynamics Sonus Fluctus - The Spectrum of Sound Waves

It is one of the easiest skills for a Battle Bard to learn.  The ability to manipulate soundwaves.  

There are a few immediately obvious skills related to this, the first one being weaponizing air through the use of sound waves.  It’s one of the reasons why the element of Air is often the first if not the only Elemental Dance many Battle Bards learn.  

The Spectrum of Sound Waves is literally the depth and peak to which sound waves can alter the air through which they travel.  One could shatter a rock by increasing the speed and pitch of a sound wave as it travels to vibrate a rock to pieces, or alternately, one could lower the pitch, to point where the air thickens and makes it hard for things to move within the area of effect.  One could also change the air pressure through sound waves  to make it hard to breathe.

And a true master could use sound waves to turn the very air a person breathes into liquified poison.  All with just Dynamics Sonus Fluctus and a little imagination.

The depth of Glissando Cantata is limitless, and it is not merely a Cheap Trick.  Of course for Aoidos, he was still just learning to breathe.

“You shot my horse!”





“I’m not a horse oouuch!”

“That man is not a horse!”

“Yes you are, yes he is, shut up!”

Ok, ok, this looks bad.  Let me explain for a moment why I was riding on Aoidos’s back and how he got shot!  On second thought, that's a bit too early; we need to go back and explain how this came about….

Do do do… do do do… do do do…

Thanks Wanye.  Thanks Grath.

So here’s the thing, Aoidos.  Fucking sucks at gambling… no I mean he’s really bad, like losing the shirt of your mothers back, bad.  Twice!  

We rolled into town, somewhere I can’t be bothered with details all the time, let’s it’s town A.  And Aoidos thinks hey why not go gamble we’re on a hot streak.  And by we he means I have a shiny new vehicle all polished and buffed and loaded with musical instruments and whatnot, and he gambles it away.  Loses it, but not before losing the clothes on his back, the instruments he did own, and every gilex he had to his family’s name.  THAn he bet my newly acquired toys, you can see why I would get a new mode of transportation out of him one way or another seeing as he refused to leave my side seeing as I was as he put “DAMN POWERFUL BATTLE BARD”  I really wanted to slap him when he said that.  FUCKING HARD!  You know til my hand hurts.

But no I said sure why not, tag along maybe you’ll learn something anyways.  One day I might just say no!

…

Yeah probably not, too lazy.  Anyway, so now you know why he was a mighty steed for the time being, and I made him carry me all the way to towns B and C, and he lost more gilex he didn’t have to this freak…





Who we shall forget from here on out, who hired this freak…





Who tracked us down, so this freak…





Could take the gilex out of his hide.   You know there are a lot of freaks in this post.  Hey no comments about me you!  Any of you!

So the wannabe Ghost Rider comes in all blue flame and cold steel, first he pegs Aoidos right in the face with a piece of chain breaking free of his well roasted chain whips.   So in other words he got shot in the face but a flaming blue balled bitch… with a skull for a face.  

But there’s no time to think the poor guy might end up scarred for life and that would ruin his dream of becoming a Battle Bard.  What a stupid name, I didn’t come up with this I swear it was somebody else idea I would have just called it choir and band and ndace practice and moved on.  I’m lazy remember, says the guy stepping in front of a blazing hot chain whip flying straight at Aoidos’s face.  With no time to react or rather think of a new skill to show off, cause the writer’s lazy this time I pull out an already disclosed trick

Motu Elementum Manus

You know Kinetic Elemental Hands, or as I like to call it fire dancing.  Just with somebody else playing with burning swingy things instead of me this time.  WAIT!  First of all it’s time to kick up the band, cause a Horse with No name is so over with right now, and I need something more fitting to fight to.  Forget that you know Battle bard we move to the music.





And really I was getting sick of getting hit in the face by those damn flaming chains.  Is there a sign on my forehead which says chain rack, please smack my face as much as you like?  No really is there?  I've caught about sixteen blows on my face and I’m really getting sick of it.

“If you’re sick…  If you’re sick…  If you’re sick…  If you’re sick of it…  If you’re sick…   If you’re sick…  IF YOU’RE SICK OF IT!”

Snap, I snatch the chains as they flick across my eyes cutting my face for the upteenth time exstiguishing the flames where my hands snag the chains.  Like I said there is more than one way to use the skills of the Battle Bard; of Glissando Cantata.  People tend to think only of the attack and support abilities used in combat, and more often than not they forget that there is a whole other set of linked abilities, like suppression, manipulation, and alteration.  Because mostly people think about the advantages in combat they look at the offense or out right defensive use of a skill.  Like a flaming chain, or a barrier of fire. They tend to overlook the much simpler and far more effective skills.  Basic abilities like extinguishing a flame created, or a slightly different approach manipulating the flame away from your own body, and lastly the most complicated one requiring mastery of multiple elements,  Altering it into a different element entirely.

So I’m going to play with this guy for a few minutes to teach Aoidos some of the uses of the Fire Dance combat.  Of any elemental dance skill really.  They can all do the same basic things so one is as good as another for the basics and whatnot.  

Blue Z Chains… great name right?  Yanked his chain free reigniting the spots I had put out with ease and swung them again, this time I slapped one away twisting a trail of blue fire off of it as I flipped over the other one as it followed up.  Dancing between his whip strikes while twisting my stolen blue flame around myself twirling a trail of fire into the air.  Sparking every single time it came into contact with its source upon the chain whips.

Fast I moved dancing between, over, under, and around his whip strikes spinning with every step, hop, and skip creating a blurring blue whirlwind of fire in the wake of my path.  The fire trailed behind me but I let it go, leaving it in my wake as I snatched his hands having come in close enough to fist fight with Blue Z Chains in close quarters.

He snapped the chains back at me, I took a shot straight to the mouth and the other hit my eye, I blinked, very…

Very…

Slowly.  That shit hurt, and I think he chipped a tooth or two too.  Not enough to’s toot toot.  Ok seriously though kind pissing me off with the whole whip to the face shit.  It’s getting annoying and I think it’s time for a song change anyway.  Spinning away, I snap the end of one of his chain whips, breaking the length I snagged in two, sliding one piece into each hand and begin swinging them in sync, twisting and turning his blue flames into true fire.  Which by the way is a form of alteration I was speaking of in which the fuel of the fire is altered to create the different flame colors and temperatures… mine were not as hot but I didn’t need them to be.





Short chain slapping longer chain whip away I twisting one stubbed whip into and around his longer one locking it up the two flames mingling and burning brighter as they spun around and into one another wrapping up and tangling together into a unlossening knot of flaming metal.  Yanking as hard as I could I ripped the chain whip free of his hand tossing the knots mass of flamed on metal away from the both of us.  

His was still longer than mine!  Ok that’s a lie, but in context his chain is a bit longer still than the broken end I was wielding in my left hand as he came at me.  So I did the only smart thing I a Battle Bard should, I outsmarted him as he came at me swinging his blue flamer as hard as he could trying to remove my head.  I ducked and intercepted the weapon with my right arm, twisting so the chain spun rapidly around my arm, knotting up and seizing the tail of it in my left hand, having tossed my chain piece away.  The entire chain whips blue flame winked out as it wrapped around my arm smothered for but a brief moment in regular fire, as I pivoted falling backward as I did so.  Yanking the flaming skull man back whipping him free of his grip on the end he still held of the broken chain whip.

Propelling him away from me as I slammed into the ground laughing as I finished the song's lyrics Fighting fire with fire!  He when stumbling passed me straight into the blue firestorm I had created with his own flames, bursting in flames himself, turning to ash and dust as the flames faded away with his life force, blowing away into the wind.

Still laughing I sang quietly one last song for the battle.

“Now this is how you do an outro hehe”

So we’re going to fast forward here for a bit, it’s all very dull and mundane for a long while, just rinse and repeat training for the glue stick following me around.  It’s a lot of learning and improving for him.  

Aoidos.





But it’s more than just him. Along the way, we came across a Fox with friends, Norbert Van Sturm, a kitsune with a remarkable set of ninetails.  And a split personality, more of a possession from a long dead Kitsune, or rather ‘the’ kitsune of kitsunes.  





He kind of sucks at playing music, but the toadies he brought along with him from the rival musical act he had formed on his way to Galideno City to try and steal our thunder were actually not half bad.

He did learn a bit of Glissando Cantata amazingly enough while we traveled toward Galideno City and made our two man act into a five man band.  Although honestly we could have done just as well without the three piece disaster but, sometimes it’s about the showmanship not the talent or lack thereof.  

So the two side pieces were Justin.





And Valentin.





Both brought a certain stage flare to the act, so we keep them, Norbert on the other hand, brought money and fucking lots of it.  If nothing else sir kitsune was loaded to the ninetails with gilex to spare.  So you could say he bought his way into our little two man act.

Truth… they all improved in ways as we toured, leading up to our biggest event, Janius 6th 2282, the Day the Music Died…

Irony would have it that my habits of being prompt, as in early was the deciding factor in our show still going on as scheduled.  You see the entire band got held up except Justin and Valentin, who frankly couldn’t string two notes together without someone giving them directions half the time.  Don’t get me wrong, once they got underway with someone guiding them by their noses they carried their own weight.

But we didn’t have time for that for the moment until Norbert and Aiodos arrived, and they were too far away to make it on time. It would be a good couple of hours before they could, flights being delayed and whatnot… the curtains rose but the normal line up wasn’t on stage.





Instead I walked out onto the stage, while thing one and thing two were beginning to kick things off.   But I decided to veto that and put on the ultimate stage show for our little act of AIODOS AND THE DOSS


Concerto Imperio Exspiravit - Symphony of the Ghosts.

To dance, to move, to blaze into life with flames upon my skin as I made a circuit of the stage drawing in the crowd's attention and gathering all eyes on me.  From one instrument to the next I moved, bestowing the spirits of the pan-ultimate technique of Glissando Cantata Mastery of body, mind and soul.  

In other words, the second to last technique of the Battle Bard is realizing the full potential of one's skills.  In my case I have no limit to what I can do, but for the sake of those who wish to learn, this is probably beyond all of you.  Two dozen different instruments including the ones Justin and Valentin had been playing I fed my own power into, through the Symphony of Ghosts.  Breathing the Battle Bards Mantra upon them as a means to accomplish this.  The Battle Bards Mantra… THE SHOW MUST GO ON!

Two dozen instruments began to float above the stage, off the ground, out of reach of Valentin and Justin, making them appear completely useless until they found their own rhythm as the music brought the crowd to its feet and they too danced along to the music I chose knowing that soon it would be…





I wasn’t even playing I mean seriously it was the final countdown but for them they thought it was all part of the show, just a great way to lead into Aiodos and Norbert making their appearance and of course The Doss putting on one hell of a show basically by himself to livin things up.

Little did they know, little did they guess just what fucking day it would be remmebred as.. Well in all truth how the fuck could they?  It’s not like they’d been to the future, and knew exactly what was about to happen in just a few more minutes, maybe just time enough, for a song or two more.  Well might as well add insult to annihilation.

Oh yeah I’m going out swinging.. For the metal fucking fences seeing as I just don’t have time to leave and live.  But the show must go on like it’s not the end of the world as we know it and the beginning of a desert of aging and death…  





Well it was just about time, but there was no reason these poor souls had to go out screaming at their sudden end.  So I say FUCK IT let’em ride the tide of mosh pit and headbanging…








































And that’s when it happens mid song, and Galideno City is wiped clean off the fucking map.  Meet the new desert and for some reason anyone who enters it starts rapidly aging until they die, or in the case of one very unlucky Pilot, the Ace known as the Bloody Baronett Norbert Van Sturm returning from a mission, crashing into the desert, a split personality, by the name of Groose, whom he started talking too while he was stuck in the sands of time to keep himself company as Inari Kitsune became something of a stick in the mud, and well boring to the Kitsune ace  pilot and philanthropist.  

Justin and Valentin were never heard from again, nor anyone else in the city for that matter.  Aiodos, continued on in a successful solo career having lost all members of Aiodos and the Doss except himself…  as for me…

Well I found myself free falling, and no I don’t need to segway into some Tom Petty here or even a nice cover of it.  Because where I ended up, started an entirely different revolution.


An entirely different legacy…


TO BE CONINUED…


In….




















































Pengiunbo 9 Oh Snatch it’s just the prequel