Euripides part 2

This is the second part of my story, I’ll attempt to put one out every 2 days if possible.

Part 2

The bard landed on the floor smoothly and slid across it to the maid who was laying senselessly on the ground.

“Well, I suppose looking this good does have its cost,” The Bard exclaimed to no one in particular. “Having maidens swooning at my mere appearance is sometimes a bit annoying, but I do it for the good of the kingdom! Why, just th-”

“Enough!” Sir Draco bellowed as he stood abruptly, knocking the table back a bit. The Bard made a quick ducking motion barely avoiding Sir Dracos thrown teacup that had been aimed at his head.

The chancellor looked appalled at the turn of events. “Please control yourself Sir Draco, I know you don’t like William very much, but that is no excuse for violence!”

Clearing his throat, the king tapped his glass with his spoon to get everyones attention. “I am afraid chancellor, that although your attempt to help is appreciated, we banished William the Bard from this city. Despite being quite heroic and popular, he has had one too many run ins with others from my court, and the situation had grown out of hand.”

Turning his piercing gaze on the bard, the count looked quite unhappy as he spoke. “He’s lucky he only got exiled from the city, if I’d of had any say in the matter…”

“I say, isn’t anyone going to help this poor maid here!” The bard inquired.

The King motioned his hand for the maid to be brought over. “No need to take her to the doctor, I’ll just use my power on her.”

The bard attempted to lift her, but found her to be surprisingly heavy. After a moment of thought, he simply drug her up to the beverage cart she had brought, and set her on that. He then rolled her over to the king.

Sir Draco glared at the bard as he did this. “Pathetic, you can’t even lift a maiden in need of help by yourself! And to think the people considered you a hero once, preposterous!” As the king was healing the maid, Sir Draco turned to him and got down on one knee. “I humbly request that your majesty allow me to dispatch this ruffian and escort him from these premises.”

The bard smiled openly at this. “I’d like to see you try to remove me from the premises! I propose a duel then, if you beat me, I’ll leave the city, no, the kingdom itself for good! However, if I beat you, which I will of course, then my exile shall be lifted”

Sir Draco and William turned to the king expectantly awaiting his verdict.

The king motioned for the maid whom he had healed to be rolled away and then he considered his options. After appearing to be deep in thought for about 2 minutes, he finally stood. “I have decided, that although I dislike duels of this kind, because we are pressed for time by other more important matter, we have no other options. Whoever submits first will lose, or if one of you is knocked out you will automatically lose. Count, you take care of the rest of the rules.”

At a motion from the count, the servants moved furniture, paintings, and various artifacts out of the way to leave a nice wide open space for dueling. “The rules are quite simple,” the count stated. “All magic is to be allowed, all weapons are to be allowed, and if either of you make any moves that appear to threaten the king, I shall dispatch you myself.”

The count, chancellor, and king sat down on chairs set up at the edge of the room so they could view the duel safely. Sir Draco and William the Bard stood at opposite sides of the room from each other and faced off.

The king sighed to himself as he looked at his coffee, wishing he had picked something just a bit stronger. “On the count of 3, the duel shall commence! 1…. 2…. 3! Fight!”

“I think it’s high time someone teaches you some manners, my good Sir Draco!” The bard shouted as he leapt towards Draco, lunging with his dueling sword held in one hand.

Draco raised his large shield, blocking Williams thrust with it, and shoved it forwards, forcing the bard to jump back. “I’ve defeated numerous trolls in my lifetime, so chopping you up should present no problems at all,” Draco growled as he swung his large sword sideways, aiming for the bards head.

However, right before striking, the bard leapt nimbly into the air, propelled by magic. He landed gracefully behind Draco and kicked his back, causing him to stumble forward. He then leapt forward striking expertly with his sword, hitting a chink in the armor at Draco’s shoulder.

Draco groaned in pain and turned quickly to block, but the Bard had already walked out of his range. “Using cheap and cowardly magic still I see. You never could win a fight head on could you? Fine then, you wish to fight with magic? So be it!”

Throwing his shield to the side, Draco took his great sword in both hands and concentrated only on the sword. The sword was suddenly engulfed in white flames that moved wildly around the blade, barely contained.

“Your majesty, you must stop this at once, things are way out of hand now!” The chancellor pleaded to the king. “Sir Draco has activated the extremely dangerous and holy power of the Sword of Moderation. It is said that if someone is slain by it, their memory is removed even from the Archives!”

An echoing scream came from somewhere in the castle at the last part of the Chancellor’s statement.

“What the heck was that? A banshee, a freed beast?” The king sounded somewhat anxious about either prospect.

“Do not worry yourself majesty,” The count intoned. “I suspect it was simply the head of the Archives, Professor Hawkins thinking of the prospect of the archives being damaged.”

“Oh, just him. For a second I was worried something had escaped, like the killer panda from that one circus,” The king said sounding relieved. “And I am afraid chancellor, that unless magic that threatens the universe itself is used in this duel, we cannot intervene. It shall continue.”

Although taken aback by the display of fire at first, the bard appeared to have regained his bearings, at least enough to poke fun at Sir Draco. “Although that is an impressive display you made there, I must say, it doesn’t seem to be doing anything eh? You probably can’t even con-”

The Bard cut off his sentence with a yelp as the holy flames from the Sword of Moderation rushed towards him. He cried out in pain as the flames managed to touch his sword hand, causing him to drop it as he jumped to safety. The sword was engulfed in the flames and no trace was left of it.

Sir Draco smiled in satisfaction at the bards brief look of panic as the flames nearly devoured him. “I plan to erase you forever from this realm, you won’t even be remembered! For Chatrollia!”

However, as Sir Draco raised his sword and commanded the flames to finish the bard, a shrill sound came from the bard. He began playing his flute, a bizarre hypnotic sounding melody coming from it. Using his magic he magnified the sound aiming it directly at Sir Draco. At first, Draco just stood stunned, then he screamed, although whether this was due to pain or horror is unknown.

Due to his concentration being broken, the flames around his sword vanished and he fell to the ground on one knee. Holding his head in his hands, apparently trying to block the sound out.

“The mighty paladin Sir Dwaco beaten by me, a ‘fake’ hero. Hmmph!” The bard looked down smiling at Draco, who was kneeling on the floor panting. The bard then turned to the 3 watchers. “Is that satisfactory, now can we get on to business?” He flashed the three of them his winning smile.

“I’m not done yet,” Draco panted in a pained voice. He reached for a small pouch at his belt, “I won’t let you win, even if it forces me to use this!”

However, as soon as Sir Draco reached for the pouch, the king stood up suddenly and in a voice that left no room for disagreement said, “Don’t you dare even think of using that Sir Draco. That is far too dangerous an artifact for you to be using over such trivial matters as this. For the official records, this duel will be a draw. William the Bard, your banishment is to be lifted and you may assist us as the chancellor wishes it. But I warn you, if you aren’t on your best behavior, you may find yourself banished from this city again.”

The bard nodded solemnly and appeared to take the king’s words seriously. No one in the room actually believed he took it seriously however.

“Now then, I believe the reason we wanted the bard to help us in the first place is that he was recently near where the Necromancer lives,” the count observed.

“Yes, I was recently near Jersey Hill and I noticed some strange happenings all around it,” the bard replied.

“Don’t you mean stranger than normal?” The chancellor inquired. “I mean, that place was already strange to begin with.”

“Very true, the populace there never seemed quite right, always trying to run me over with their horse and donkey carts. Anyways, back to the main subject,” The bard said yawning slightly.
After Sir Draco’s shoulder had been healed by the king, the bard began telling of the many happenings at Jersey Hill. After he recounted all of his tales the other 3 advisors and the king sat in silence for a good 5 minutes.

Finally, the king spoke, “Things are worse than even I anticipated. An undead army? Building factories that pump toxic waste into the rivers and damage the beaver belieber compounds? Even having the nerve to make wagons that break the speed limit with his undead horses! Although even I admit using unicorn fat for lubrication of the axle is ingenious. Quickly, we must get Professor Hawkins up here, we need his obscure and normally irrelevant knowledge for this situation!”

After a brief delay of playing rock paper scissors, the messenger who lost was sent down deep into the archives to locate the professor. Five days later, word went out to the council that the professor had been located and brought back from the depths of the archives. The council reformed, preparing to meet with the professor.