Oracle of Tao

CHAPTER 9: In which the group goes out of their way for fine music and good food.

AMBROSIAExploring Opening some more, we discovered a young girl near a lake in the upper corner of town. “Hi there,” she pleaded, “I wonder if you could help me out? You see, I traded away my Crystal Trophy. An old Japanese woman showed me this stuff called sushi, and said that if I give her it, she'd teach me.” I asked, “So what should we do to get it back?” She shook her head, “That might be difficult to get back though. Kinda. Sorta.” I said flatly, “What.” She hastily replied, “But you can help me reclaim it! Get me some rice, seaweed, and some seafood. Then come back.” I picked up some of that shark meat from earlier, and then I kinda sorta went to a nearby farm in the dead of night, and took a little bit of rice from the corner. It's not stealing, it's gleaning! Completely okay. As for seaweed, I turned my fishing pole into a seaweed rake, and started skimming the pond where the little girl stood. She chopped it up, scaring me with her knife skills, then prepped the rice, then added the shark meat. “Okay,” she said after making a plate, “looks like you got it. Deliver this to the old woman in Goji, will you?”

Goji?!? That's halfway around the world! We stuffed the sushi in our Preserver, and boarded our ship. The water was rough, but we had experience sailing around the world several times to get where we wanted. After several weeks, we arrived in Goji, tired and worn out. Next time, as long it was something non-perishable, we'd take Bahamut.

AZRAEL

We arrived in Goji, and I explored my old haunts once again. While the others

AMBROSIA

I wanted to do a sidequest, come to think of it. Aqorm asked, “Hey, do you think maybe we could train me? Not for battle, I want to learn some more music so after this journey, I'll have a marketable skill.” I was going to protest, but she whispered in my ear that she had figured out what I was doing, and probably everyone but Lilith, Zoe, and Nevras was sharp enough that they also knew. And I knew Nevras would have figured it out, if he wasn't so blinded as to trust me completely. I sighed, “Okay.”

To ease some of the tension, Azrael also said, “Hey can we just check out major libraries, and then Aqorm can practice the songs in bars? That way, I can also read books and improve my Exorcism.” When she said it that way, it sounded like a good idea.

AQORM

According to legend, there were four ancient song sheets that had to be found, in order to become a master musician of any sort. These sacred songs were written be master geomancers, and in the right hands, could greatly increase the power of someone like me. Azrael found all the books she needed almost right away. Kushiyama's library, along with the Great Library, yielded results just by requesting help from the librarians. Now that Yazim Jianne had the ability to teleport us around, our trip to all the many libraries in the world was done in a matter of days. However, he had to stop for awhile. “I can only do this so many times in a short time, especially if I'm teleporting all of you guys,” said Yazim Jianne, “give me a break!” I hadn't found my song sheets, looking in the normal way. So, then we decided to do abnormal things.

We looked everywhere, solving bizarre puzzles or riddles, and finding them in peculiar places. Having read some old legend, I noticed that there was a painting in Zuran that had always bugged me as to how real it looked. I went back to the inn and stared at it, getting closer and closer, looking at details. It was a landscape picture that was big enough to fit my entire body into, with a forest in the background, and a piece of reddish-brown vellum paper resting on a tree stump. I tried to make out what the sheet of paper said, but as I couldn't. I just kept moving closer to it, until I noticed something. The grass was moving as if by an unseen wind. I backed up in surprise and no longer saw any movement. I must have been imagining things! I moved steadily closer. It was blowing after all! But where was the wind blowing from?

It took quite a bit of experimentation to figure out that my movements and my breathing was creating some wind. I even had to hold my breath once. But when I did, I tried to reach inside the painting. It felt like I was pushing my hand through a paint bucket, but once I did, my hand moved inside the painting. The paper was much father away than perspective let me believe though. Since I still couldn't reach it, I closed my eyes and mouth then I stumbled inside. The creepy sensation began again, then stopped. I was within a real forest. On the end that I had come from, I saw a multicolored square around the same size and shape as the frame I had stepped into. The forest continued for quite some way. If I strayed too far, I might have trouble finding my way back! I guess that I was lucky that this wasn't a painting of a scene in space. I picked up this piece of vellum, and read it. It was a huge sheet so it held a massive amount of music on just the front side. The song was called The Beds Are Burning, by Midnight Oil. I grabbed it and made it outside the painting, breathing in some paint on the way. The others stared. “That was the creepiest thing I've ever seen,” Nevras said. I sat down, and went to the inn's piano and started playing. It was a fairly simple song, but after playing I felt my understanding of fire-based geomancy increase. I was about to roll this up to pack it away, when I noticed strange markings on the back. I turned it over and saw what basically amounted to a map of the world. Only, it wasn't whole. In fact, this was just the sort of map that could probably only be completed when all pieces were discovered. There was, however, a map containing from Ghobli all the way over to where Galaxia and Gruumi were, and as far south as Phoenix. Looking at the map, I noticed a tiny mark to the northeast of Gruumi, where a forest was. There was tiny writing saying, «Knock three times on the ceiling.» I thought this was a strange thing to say, but then I remembered something about that. I realized the instructions were themselves lyrics to another song. Humming it briefly, I managed to get it stuck in my head.

We made our way to Gruumi by boat, then wandered toward the forest. Moving randomly through this forest, we fought off snakes and bears until we finally saw a small hut in the middle of the woods. The hut was fairly simple. It was a one-room house with a bed and a stove, a few supplies such as wood and salted meat, and a painting that had a picture of a pipe for smoking which said, «Ceci n'est pas une pipe.» For some reason, I had the idea of knocking on the ceiling three times. But nothing happened. Was I missing something?

Then Elias, went over where the painting was, and backhanded it twice. A chime sounded, and the painting spat out another vellum scroll, this one was green probably from mold. “Huh?” I said, “the instructions said to hit the ceiling. Why...?” Elias explained, “You understand that this is part of a song right?” I nodded, “Yes, but if you hit the pipe twice, that's if the answer is no. Why should that be the right answer?” Elias explained again, “Yes, but this painting is not a pipe, it's a representation of one. The artist even says so. So, even though we shouldn't be hitting the pipe, this isn't a pipe, so it's exactly what we should be hitting!” I think my brain exploded, working through the logic. Gradually though, I got a grip. I looked at the page.

It was called Earth Song and it was by Michael Jackson. I took it over to Gruumi to play. I noticed that the map on the back didn't appear until after I played, because the runes were activated by sound. The map showed the southeastern parts of New Earth, diagonal from the first map, all the way south to Hinata. The map this time pointed to Kushiyama, and the instructions mentioned an elaborate and rather embarrassing dance that needed to be performed. All of us learned this dance, but Lilith wasn't very good at remembering the moves. “It's just a jump to the left...?” she muttered, trying to remember the rest. “And a step to the right,” Elias explained, trying to jog her memory. I helped out too, “Put your hands on your hips...” Elias, finished the sentence for me, “And bring your knees in tight.” I sensed she would have no trouble with the pelvic thrust though.

We made it to town, but the huge size of this city made it difficult to find the precise location, so we wound up starting a flash mob in several points around the city hoping to find the exact spot where the dance would activate the puzzle. The crowd thought we were a bit odd, but then we taught them the dance steps and got them to help. Eventually we hit the right spot, and the song sheet popped up from the ground. The song was called Don't Tell the Wind by Zeno, and it was a long version with a lot of instrumental jam sessions. After our strange dancing, we had an absolutely huge audience of curious people. I was gonna have to ask these guys to help me advertise if ever I did become big. The next map appeared, but this one was tricky, because it pointed directly into the ocean. This one had no instructions. What were we supposed to do?