Community [Isekai Hell] January 2024 community event - Resonating rock music

[Tellussoil]

My entry for the January 2024 Community Event
This is a short story in the world of Isekai Hell involving my character Noelle
Skill to learn: Magic #targets

 

[Tellussoil]

Noelle Nichi
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Such a peaceful day. Noelle was in the training cave of The Celestine Academy. The same one where she also had the introduction test earlier in the year. She was dragging around a couple of those magic resonating stones until she got all five of them in a semi-circle pattern with enough space between them to prevent them from resonating with each other when she cast her magic at one.

" Phew… that should do it" she said to herself when she had put the last stone in place. with everything set, she can start with her own special “training”. Noelle went and took her position before the rocks and took her lute in hand.

"Focus… concentrate" she said as she strummed one string making the leftmost stone vibrate with a low sound. a second string and the 2nd most left stone vibrated giving a bit higher sound. the third string strummed and the middle stone vibrated again with a higher tune and so forth until she made all the stones resonate at their designated tone. "Good good. They are tuned correctly" She let out a deep sigh focusing again on the rocks. Now comes the real training. she was trying to resonate multiple of the stones at will. so far she had little success in making them resonate simultaneously.

She was getting close to figuring it out though. and if she finally managed to control it she could use the rocks as a sort of instrument. and it would be so cool if she could perform a show with these singing stones providing some background rhythm to her music. At least that is the idea in her head. " Concentration… you can do it" She starts strumming making the stones react in a 1-1-2-3 to a 5-5-4-3 rhythm back and forth. getting into the rhythm Noelle decided to do it now for real and combine the two rhythms to play at the same time. The mirrored rhythm should be easier to pull off and after that, she can see if she can do some irregular combinations, the little mermaid bard concentrates on the two outer stones and strums her lyre. the fifth stone reacted as it should while the first stone did seem to react but not as intensely as the fifth. "argggg!!! so close" she moaned before taking a deep breath. "It’s okay. let’s try it again"

She Went on to attempt to have the two outer stones react to her magical sound. Some attempts were more fruitful than others. but still, she just could not get it right. Often she did get the two to stir, but not yet “react” in the way she was aiming for. It was already an achievement that she figured out in some way to target multiple targets at the same time. It was not an easy job and the girl spent a good few afternoons practising to even get to the point she is at now. The only thing left is to get it to the point where she can split her concentration towards multiple targets so that her magic can affect them. but still in a way that the spell does not lose any of its potency being spread over multiple targets.

Another attempt. Although the two targeted stones resonated in a somewhat even amount, the second stone also stirred a little bit. "Almost" she said out of breath before she sat down and subsequently laid down on her back exhausted from the training. She laughed and started humming a relaxing tune while she recovered for a bit.

suddenly she thrusted up her arms. "Enough rest! "Time to do this!" Noelle said before she almost jumped up. She was confident that she could do it. With a confident chuckle, Noelle took up her instrument again. this was going to be the one. She took a breath and concentrated. "Only one and five. none of the others. just let those two sing" She started to pluck strings. her concentration switching between the two stones in a metronomic fashion. letting rock one and five sing in sequence. with each back and forth the pace sped up till they almost were resonating in sync. Noelle kept it up for a few seconds at the highest speed she could achieve before she stopped. "Now" She concentrated on the two stones and plucked two stings on her lute. The two outer stones both reacted simultaneously with the same intensity. "Yes… I DID IT!" The little mermaid kept hitting the same cord keeping the two stones vibrating. She finally managed to affect two objects at the same time.

Over the next couple of days, Noelle played a bit more with this new skill. letting different combinations of stones resonate and eventually upping it to include another stone into the mix. Eventually, she added a few more stones to line up to test how many she could affect at the same time. In the end, she got no further than five targets. and admirable performance that she is sure will help her tremendously in her endeavours ahead.
as for her plan to use the stones for musical purposes. while it was a good idea at first. she came to realize that she couldn’t drag these things around properly, not to mention she didn’t even own the stones she was training with. So that idea was short-lived. Well, at least she had fun and learned something new. In the end that was all that mattered when it came to training.​