Netori: Stealing The Hero's Party!

An army of Coppalicons charged through the desert with Mino riding at its head. Maine, Regalia, and even the centaurians followed right behind her. And although Amelia and Ophelia were far from battle-ready, they'd been meaning to help in battle for the longest time and charting the desert felt like the perfect opportunity.

"I see something up ahead! Soldiers, weapons at the ready!" Raising a spear flag with the sigil of Athenia's idol fluttering in the wind, the spirit lord minotaur queen led the army closer to the still oasis in the desert.

The large bird's webbed feet paddled through the sand, and thanks to Aerin's breeding and training, they moved more effectively than any ship could on such coarse waves. Rushing through the dunes and jumping off the tallest waves, it took but a few minutes for the Coppalicons to cover about ten miles and arrive at the oasis.

Getting off of her armoured bird, the spirit lord–Mino, her body now tall and yet even more defined as a mature woman, led a handful of her soldiers forward. A lone man dressed in a white, scaly outfit with half a golden mask covering his face sat by the root of a tree. His back leaning to the stump, he lifted his head to the crowd while playing a gentle melody on the harp in his hands.

"And so you have arrived…" He said before closing his eyes and focusing on the gentle string of tones instead.

His play, however soothing it may have been, was quickly cut short as Mino slammed her spear against the ground and Regalia used the power of her new part patron to slap the harp out of his hands.

Being assaulted by a strange hand emerging from thin air, the prince opened his eyes, but instead of rage, he handled the situation with grace and a smile.

"Who are you?" Maine asked, slithering closer to the man and ready to coil him within her enlarged tail. The lamia's powers have grown since she'd devoured part of her mother, and her size had experienced the same change, so much so that the prince was cast more in the lamia's shade than he was in that of the tree right behind him.

"I am the god of this desert, you can call me the prince of Nile–that's what my people used to worship me as before that general killed them all…"

"A god, you say?" Directing her spear at his throat, Mino stepped forward to push the tip into his skin. But as a trail of gold flowed through the cut, her eyes widened, and a wave of gasps rippled through the soldiers. Pulling the spear back, Mino stared at the man with her eyes quivering in shock. "By the goddess. You're not lying, are you?"

Instead of an answer, the god picked up his harp and began to play yet again. A gentle melody crackled through the instrument like the crackling of fire on a chilly winter night. Listening cautiously to his song, Mino and the rest felt the gentle embrace of a god sheltering them from the harshest sun in all of Atlaria.

As the song lulled in comfort, the girls watched a group of translucent golden cupids emerge from thin air with harps of their own clutched within their tiny fingers. Wearing the wings of fairies and the dress of a little child, they harmonised with their god and before anyone knew, the sun went down and night arrived.

Holding his smile as brimming with light as ever, the prince of Nile lifted his head and looked through the many faces in front of him. While doing so, his harp shattered into golden shards of light and disappeared, for it emerged only when it wished to be played by the most gracious of hands.

"It appears that even Pathfinder heard my song tonight." Shifting his attention briefly to the moon, he chuckled to himself, his radiant appearance as bright as moonlight. "I'm sure you've heard of him by now, the dead god that separates the night from day, dawn from dusk, all for the sake of his daughter."

"Not exactly, the goddess doesn't reel us into affairs that we don't need to know about," Ophelia replied, barely holding a smile to the gracious performance.

"Again…" Taking a seat, once again, Mino decided to ask the man. "Are you truly a god, and if so, what in the hells are you doing down here?"

"I got kicked out of heaven." Laughing at himself, the god gave a heart laugh while the others simply watched him in utter confusion. As his laughter settled, however, he quickly corrected his posture and explained further. "Heaven's no place for a bard, they want fighters, conspirators, and anyone that they can use for their own gain–the council kicked me under the crime of being aloof, or so they said."

Despite his explanation making some sense, nobody knew what to make of the god. Why was he here, in a desert of all places? And was there anything that he was planning to do, or just sit there and play his harp? Even more importantly, where were his people, his devout?

"You said the general killed your people." Walking closer to the man with her hands tightly folded, Regalia glared at the god. "Well, we have him hostage, so we'll know soon if you're telling us the truth or not."

"So be it, I'll be here until you do–waiting for your leader, for the hero to arrive," and with that said, the god conjured his harp again and began playing just as he had before. The melody nearly entranced everyone once more, but with Mino's stomping of her spear, the soldiers were brought back to their senses and made to rally back to the army camp.

In his own company again, the god watched the army heading back to their leader. He'd been waiting for his arrival for long, and now that it seemed that he would arrive soon enough, the prince of Nile continued to play his harp. By the end of his performance, the dune waves finally settled.

"Come to me and I shall ease your heart~" A lesser god he may have been, but his intentions were far more noble than anyone currently sitting on the council. Much like Lantherem–the god of light, he too was cast out of the heavens for the mere crime of not playing the council's game.

And yet, with grace, the prince played a song–a song that would guide the hero back to him. But it wasn't just the hero that he'd been dying to meet, but also the woman on his finger, slumbering for so long.