The voice came from the buildings.
All of his men, with the exception of the runner and the men at the church had finally gathered up. They were starting to load the carts and were preparing to pack up and leave when the music started. Someone was playing a guitar from the shadows of one of the buildings. Everyone stopped what they were doing, drew weapons, and started looking around, preparing for an attack.
An attack that didn't come.
The music was low and melancholic, but had a strange reverb to it. Albaba had never heard anything like it before. Soon it was joined with words that echoed out from the shadows.
"They all laughed as I turned around slow."
"You ain't welcome round here."
"You might as well go."
From between two buildings a small figure started to walk out of the alley. He was dressed in black armor from his neck to feet. You couldn't make out any markings on it, but it was obvious it was very expensive. He wore no helmet, so it was easy to see as he started to walk into the light that he was a halfling. That wasn't what stood out.
He was playing a guitar made of ice.
The guitar was a six string that appeared to be made of strands of water. The water wasn't acting normal as you could visibly see the strands vibrating. It was if the strands were playing themselves. They looked like shivering waves as each strand seemed to be emitting a different instrument. Clearly it was magical, but how it was functioning made no sense. The halfling continued walking out into the open while looking at his guitar and strumming away.
"I wiped the blood from my face as I sat up on my knees."
"I said I'll be back when you least expect it."
"And hell's coming with me..."
He looked up with ice blue eyes.
"Hell's coming with me."
The music slowly faded away to silence. Everyone just stared in bewilderment. Now that he was out in the open, there was something that stood out about the guitar. On the body of the guitar was a symbol repeated on both sides of the strings on the body of the guitar.
The crest of the country of Eirin.
The halfling started strumming again but this time the music was much more cheerful. He started to bounce, skipping along as he sang.
"Oh there's a hill at the bottom of a valley!"
"Where the poor souls go when they die!"
"If you listen real close, You hear can hear 'em like a ghost!"
"Saying you'll never gonna make it out alive!"
The halfling continued to dance around, approaching groups, then skipping past. As he did, he had a big grin on his face. With a wink and a nod towards the prisoners, he was obviously trying to get everyone to come over to the prisoners. The halfling was unarmed, so nobody was taking him as a threat. People looked to Albaba for guidance.
He just shrugged.
"There is a town at the bottom of a hill!"
"They got a secret that they keep like a slave!"
"They got a black magic preacher, and he's the one who featured,"
"Behind the plot to put my mama in a grave!"
~Wait a minute. That suit of armor is custom and obviously expensive. This kid has money. Was this whole thing this halfling's revenge plot?~ Albaba folded his arms and looked mildly amused, ~Maybe if I just let him do, whatever he's about to do, I won't have to lift a finger?~
As Ryan pranced along, he slowly drew everyone closer. The three dwarven prisoners looked increasingly horrified as the song continued and Ryan brought everyone together.
"And I swear, down to my core!
"You line your pockets with money, that you steal from the poor!"
"And on your way down to Hell, you'll hear me ringin' a bell!"
"I'll pay the devil twice as much to keep your soul!"
The song was painting out a picture that made these dwarves look like they were evil. In fact, it sounded like he blamed the whole village. Albaba grinned as he inwardly mused, ~Oh this is just perfect.~
"There was a drifter passing through that little valley!"
"You see he had promised he was coming' back to town!"
"They didn't know me by my face, or by the sword upon my waist..."
"But I still came back to burn it down, to the ground!"
Ryan came to a stop in front of the prisoners as everyone drew closer. He focused on the High Priest in the middle as he continued strumming away and tapping his foot.
"First there'll be fire..."
"Then there'll be smoke..."
"Then a preacher man be hangin' from a rope!"
Ryan gave the terrified dwarves a most evil smirk.
"They all fell to their knees, and they begged him, begged him PLEASE!
"As he raised his fist up and spoke!"
The strings disappeared from his guitar and the music stopped. Ryan began to sing loud enough to echo off the mountain.
"I Am The Righteous Hand Of God!"
"I Am The Devil That You Forgot!"
"I kept my guarantee! I'm back again, as you can see!"
"And Hell's Coming!"
"HELL'S COMING!"
"Hell."
"Is."
"Coming..."
At that point, the guitar started to glow. For most people, this was a curiosity. A few were a little wary. One was greatly disturbed. Albaba to be specific.
You might think what was bothering him was that the reason the guitar was glowing was because of what was inside the ice. When Ryan had made the guitar, he put both wands at the end of the guitar neck. He used the parts from his helmet to connect it to the cylinder of mana potion that was hidden in the ice right below the guns. You'd think the glowing mana as the guns started to activate would be what was disturbing Albaba.
No.
Perhaps you might think it was the double bladed axe of Brune that Ryan had hidden inside the Ice Guitar? The glow from the cylinder in the neck of the guitar was enough to show the axe's outline, but no. That wasn't what was worrying Albaba. What was bothering him was that the glow was showing off the black etching on Ryan's chest plate. It was much easier to make out.
It was the symbol of the king of Lyonnesse.
Albaba was about to shout out orders to stop the halfling, but it was too late. Ryan had already activated his overcharged weapon and started shooting shards of Ice-7 into the crowd. Ryan burned his personal mana to speed up as he spun around. The soft 'poot' sound of his twin linked guns firing was quickly overshadowed by the sounds of Ice-7 slivers exploding inside people.
Chests exploded. Limbs went flying. Ryan aimed for center mass on his first go around the crowd. By the time he got back to where he started, his first victims were already collapsing, allowing Ryan a shot at those who were standing in the back. You see, because Ryan was shorter than everyone, and that the ones in front had only just begun to fall, Ryan couldn't take center mass shots any more.
He would have to make the rest all head shots.
As he had accelerated himself to the maximum, time was moving at a crawl from his perspective. He could see each individual shard of ice-7 as they shot forth. The guns alternated as they fired so as to give the other a moment to cool down. It wasn't helping much. Even with Ryan trying to reinforce the ice that made up the guitar, he knew this arrangement would over heat very quickly. Ryan had to make every shot count.
Ryan had an up close and personal view of each target as a shard penetrated someone's face. Each time there was a brief pause as the sliver came to rest inside their skull. Then it would explode sending a shower of brain matter onto the person next to them. A person who in the very next second would be experiencing the very same sensation.
After the second pass, Ryan jumped into the air, still spinning, making sure on his third rotation to get anyone who was only wounded. What was left of the pile of thirty odd corpses got sprayed with more shards, turning what was a horror of mangled bodies into a cloud of blood and viscera.
While he was in the air, the guitar finally overheated. The gun-wands were crackling with energy. The cylinder of mana shattered, spraying glowing blue fluid in all directions. The axe was freed and fell to the ground, imbedding itself in the dirt as Ryan landed next to it in a crouch.
The multiple explosions continued to echo off the mountains for several seconds. The sounds of birds could be heard in the distance as the continuous, rapid detonations had caused all wildlife in the area to flee. As the noice settled down, so too did the cloud of gore that was created. Ryan reached up to pull out a chunk of bone that had impaled itself in his cheek. He was covered with a fine layer of blood from head to toe.
Ryan put a hand on the axe hilt and yanked it out of the ground as he slowly stood up. He turned to look at the three, highly traumatized dwarven prisoners.
"With me."
