Chapter 852 – The performing troupe (Patreon)

The troupe made it halfway through the opening melody before the bearfolk slapped Rik off the worktable. His tiny violin landed beside him, bouncing twice on the stone floor. His yellow body was stomped into a shapeless puddle beneath the carpenter’s boot before he could pick the wooden instrument up.

“Go bother somebody else,” the bearfolk grumbled, scraping his sole against the ground before returning to his work.

With a sigh, Percy and the other troupe members hopped off the table as well, rushing to their teammate’s aid. Rik didn’t really need help recovering from his physical “injury”, but he could probably use some emotional support. Getting flattened was quite rude, and it wasn’t even the first time that day.

Rik’s tiny arms emerged first, followed by his head and the rest of his body, though it took him another couple of seconds to peel his gelatinous legs off the floor.

His violin hadn’t fared as well. Examining his teammate’s shattered instrument, Percy passed him his own ocarina. “Use that for now. I’ll make you a new violin later.”

“What about you?” Rik asked.

“I’ll be acting with Micky during the evening performance anyway, so I won’t be needing it,” Percy reminded him.

Watching Rik inflate himself back into shape reminded Percy of how similar their current bodies were to Micky’s fist-sized sentries, though they weren’t made of spiritual blood. The Huehuan’s minions were too precious and limited to be wasted on such a low-stakes mission. They were better off spying on the people of greater springs.

Not that Percy’s work on this lesser spring was unimportant – it was arguably his most important operation, in fact – but he didn’t need to go all out scouting the planet either. He’d already found what he needed years ago, so he and his fellow aspects just had to patiently fulfil their roles until they were ready to claim their prize.

Percy’s body was bipedal and humanoid, though it was dark grey and its features were far less detailed than a human’s. Not to mention that he was barely eight centimetres tall.

“I don’t think we’ll be convincing this guy to sign our petition anytime soon,” Kal groaned.

He was half a head taller than Rik and Percy. He was also significantly chubbier and coloured cyan. After tying his four wooden drums around his waist using a rolled-up blade of grass, he began walking towards the exit. At least the bearfolk had left the door open a crack, so they wouldn’t need to crawl under it this time.

“Still, he didn’t have to be such a jerk about it!” Sha puffed her cheeks, shaking her tiny fist angrily at the oblivious carpenter.

The green sprite wasn’t carrying any musical instruments, as she was the singer of their little group. Percy had actually been pleasantly surprised the first time he’d heard his would-be teammate’s crisp voice.

Unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately – the bearfolk was too immersed in his work to spare the furious singer another glance.

“Come on, guys,” Pav said, gesturing for everyone to follow him out of the oversized shop. “We’re better off doubling down on our existing audience than trying to win random villagers over. Anyone who’s not a fan of our work yet is probably too much of a grouch anyway.”

The pink sprite was the troupe’s leader. Percy could have placed himself in charge of the group, but he didn’t want to boss his new friends around. He’d decided to assume a more supportive role and just assist the tiny performers in whatever way they needed.

“Cheer up, guys!” Micky said. “Why does everyone look like our forest just caught fire? We just got kicked out by an idiot, that’s all. We’ve still got over fifty people dying to know how ‘A Gladiator’s Tale’ ends. And if today’s anything like our last three performances, I bet our audience will bring even more family members to watch us.”

Percy rolled his eyes. “You’re just excited about it because you’re the main character.” Leaning closer to his friend, he whispered, “Don’t lose sight of what our goal is.”

“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying our act!” the Huehuan protested. “If anything, it makes us better at it!”

Micky occupied the same sort of simple, monochromatic body as the other sprites, though his was dark blue and he was the only one who had felt more comfortable sprouting a second pair of arms. His four hands allowed him to play his miniature kik’lit, though he’d lent the instrument to Pav and taught him how to play simpler songs with only two hands for “A Gladiator’s Tale”. They’d probably switch roles once they got started on “The Slumbering Kingdom”.

“Better hurry up, or we’ll keep the audience waiting. The villagers have probably started gathering in the pub already,” Nephthys warned everyone.

She was as tall as Kal, though she had given herself a deep red body and a much more slender frame. A thin, translucent veil was draped over her face. She wasn’t carrying any musical instruments either, as her job was to produce various visual effects for their performances using the concept of Illusion. She was, however, dragging a bearfolk-sized roll of parchment behind her – the very petition they had been trying so hard to get the natives to sign.

Had any deities been watching them, they might have noticed how much stranger this troupe was than the other groups of forest sprites scattered around the planet. Percy wasn’t too worried about revealing some of his abilities in a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. Even if the whole planet learned about him, it wasn’t like the bearfolk could do anything to hurt him. He doubted their gods were even strong enough to travel to the nearest Sapphire Pavilion branch safely.

After exiting the carpenter’s shop, the seven sprites ran toward the western edge of the village, where the pub was located. Their tiny feet pounded against the packed dirt as they stayed close to the towering walls of the buildings, trying not to get stepped on by the passersby. Getting flattened again would only delay them by a few seconds, but they couldn’t afford to let any more of their instruments – or, Phoebe forbid, the petition – get damaged.

In theory, they could ditch their temporary bodies and form new avatars of karma mana, but they would start off even farther away from their destination and wouldn’t keep their equipment. Percy could also use his domain to carry them to the pub much faster – or use his abilities to solve all of the troupe’s problems in a million other ways – but he’d promised to help his host achieve their goal without cheating.

Host – as in, singular.

Pav, Kal, Sha, and Rik were essentially the same person. They possessed four distinct personalities, though they shared a soul. They were somewhat similar to the Lone Wanderer’s aspects in that regard, except that the forest sprites had been born in their merged state.

The sun had nearly set when they reached the front door of “The Empty Mug”, painting the sky in all sorts of colourful gradients. Unlike the carpenter’s door, the pub’s wasn’t open, and the gap beneath its colossal leaves was a touch too narrow for the sprites to slide under, so they had no choice but to wait for the next group of patrons to open it for them. Luckily, it only took a handful of minutes for a family of three to enter the pub.

“The Empty Mug” was a lot louder inside. There were over a hundred bearfolk already partying – about half the population of the small village. Not that strange, considering that the pub was the settlement’s only recreational centre.

When the troupe had first started performing here, the adult bearfolk hadn’t paid them much attention. They’d treated the sprites no differently from how the carpenter had earlier, because most people on the planet had grown used to the tiny pests trying to perform for them and begging the giants to spare their homes.

Percy and his friends had initially played for the cubs instead. The adults often brought their children along because they had nowhere else to leave them.

Making their way through a maze of enormous table and chair legs, and even wider bearfolk boots, the colourful performers headed for a quieter corner, where over twenty bearfolk of all ages were already waiting for them.

The younger cubs cheered upon spotting the tiny performers, while the adults they had brought along merely smiled at the sprites. One of the more enthusiastic children knelt in front of Percy’s group with open palms, offering to pick up the magical musicians.

After carefully lifting the sprites a couple at a time, the cub gently placed them atop the central one of nine barrels that had been arranged next to one another as a makeshift stage. Dozens of giant chairs surrounded the barrels, with most of them occupied by bearfolk.

Noticing the commotion, more patrons broke off their conversations and dragged their own chairs over, quickly more than doubling the troupe’s audience. Before long, half the pub was seated around the tiny artists, eagerly waiting for them to begin the fourth and final act of their play.