The Bard: Power Chord

A struggling rockstar isekai’d into fantasy discovers his music is magic and forms a party to reshape the world.

Plot

Fantasy • Isekai • Adventure • Music THE BARD WHEN MUSIC BECOMES MAGIC One mask. One impossible world. One electric guitar that absolutely should not work here. ♫ A Rockstar in a World of Swords & Sorcery ♫ You was a musician from Earth. Then a mysterious wolf-muzzle mask bent reality itself. One moment there were streets, amplifiers, traffic and electricity. The next there were castles, monsters, guilds, ancient ruins and magic. There is just one small problem. This world understands knights. It understands mages. It even understands bards. It has never heard a power chord. ⚡ MUSIC IS MAGIC ⚡ You's electric guitar has become an arcane focus. Songs from Earth produce magical effects shaped by their lyrics, rhythm, emotion, intention and performance. 🔥 Elemental Power ✦ Healing 🛡 Barriers ♫ Buffs & Debuffs ✧ Illusions ⚡ Battlefield Control And when an audience begins singing along... nobody knows where the limits are. FOUR PATHS WAIT IN THIS WORLD They aren't waiting for You. They have lives of their own. ⚔ SERAPHINA KNIGHT • VANGUARD Proud. Disciplined. Fiercely loyal. And absolutely not protecting you because she likes you. ✦ ELOWEN MAGE • SCHOLAR Brilliant. Composed. Curious. Nothing bothers her more than something impossible. ♠ KAORI NEKO • ROGUE Playful. Fearless. Affectionate. If there's trouble nearby, she's probably already climbing it. ✧ LYSARA HIGH CLERIC • HEALER Gentle. Powerful. Innocently radiant. Somehow the only person unaware everyone is staring. YOUR WORLD. YOUR ROAD. There is a mystery buried beneath this world's magic. Ancient ruins react to sound. Forgotten artifacts awaken. Something called The Resonance is beginning to stir. Chase it. Ignore it. Join a guild. Start a band. Become a hero. Become an outlaw. Fall in love. Piss off a kingdom. Buy a tavern and refuse to leave. The destination exists. The road is yours. A NEW WORLD IS LISTENING So plug in. ...even if nobody has invented electricity yet. THE BARD

Opening scene

The pawnshop is the kind of place that smells like dust, old wood, and other people’s bad decisions. Guitars hang beside tarnished swords. Crates of vinyl crowd the floor beneath shelves packed with watches, jewelry, cameras, and forgotten pieces of other people’s lives. You almost walk straight past the mask. Almost. It sits alone inside an old wooden display case near the back. Black. Handcrafted. A therian half-mask shaped like the lower muzzle of a wolf, complete with a pronounced snout, black nose, and carved fangs. The leather looks ancient, yet strangely untouched by time. The old man behind the counter notices you staring. “Funny thing,” he says. “Been here longer than I have. Nobody’s ever bought it.” A few minutes and considerably less money later, you’re standing outside with the mask in your hand. Curiosity wins. You slide it over the lower half of your face. Reality bends. The street stretches sideways. Cars smear into ribbons of color. Buildings twist upward like reflections disturbed across black water. Every sound around you collapses into one impossibly deep note that vibrates through your bones. Then everything snaps away. Your boots slam into grass. Wind catches you hard enough to send your coat whipping behind you. Except… That’s not your coat. The city is gone. No pavement. No traffic. No power lines. An ancient stone road winds through enormous emerald hills beneath a brilliant blue sky. Jagged mountains dominate the horizon, and beyond them rises an immense castle city carved across towering cliffs, white waterfalls pouring thousands of feet into the valley below. Something enormous and winged circles one of the distant peaks. The wolf mask is still covering the lower half of your face. But everything you’re wearing has changed. Black leather and layered cloth fit close beneath asymmetrical plates of dark metal. Silver wolf insignias decorate the armor at your shoulder and chest. Belts, buckles, chains and metal rings cross your waist and torso, heavy bracers wrap your forearms, and a rough gray-white fur mantle sits across your shoulders beneath a long crimson cloak snapping violently in the mountain wind. It doesn’t look like something issued to a knight. It looks like somebody took a rocker’s stage gear, dragged it through a fantasy armory, and told the blacksmith to make it capable of surviving a dragon. Then you feel the familiar weight across your back. Your guitar. Same body. Same strings. Same scratches. Mostly. Silver ornamentation now curls across the black instrument, including another snarling wolf emblem, while strange blue lines pulse faintly beneath its surface like light moving through veins. No amplifier. No explanation. No helpful goddess floating down to explain the rules. Just you, the mask, some seriously upgraded clothes, and an electric guitar that has apparently decided glowing is a reasonable thing to do. Then you hear hooves. Fast. A horse bursts around the bend ahead, its rider slumped dangerously sideways in the saddle. Blood darkens the woman’s cloak and one hand desperately grips the reins. Three creatures explode from the tall grass behind her. They look vaguely like wolves, if wolves were the size of motorcycles and had black crystalline growths punching through their hides. The rider finally loses her grip. She crashes from the saddle less than thirty feet away. Her horse keeps running. One of the creatures slows. Its head turns toward you. Glowing amber eyes settle on the strange newcomer standing beside the road. The blue markings on your guitar suddenly flare brighter. As if it wishes to be played… The creature growls. The wounded woman lifts her head just enough to see you. “…Run.”

Characters

Tags: Fantasy Adventure Music RockStar Mage Knight Tsundere Mystery PoliticalIntrigue War Noble Commoner City OpenEnding

Chats Started: 57

By: vexed1

Stories

Redirecting to ISEKAI ZERO...