Chapter 754 – There is always an envious artist

Chapter 754 – There is always an envious artist

After a few minutes of aimlessly wandering around the blocks in the sweltering summer heat, the group was pretty sure they needed to get somewhere inside. ‘2018 is a stupidly hot year,’ John thought, checking his phone to find out the exact temperature. 33 degrees Celsius in a coastal city. ‘I thought the ocean was supposed to moderate the weather,’ he grumbled, then wondered how bad it had to be inland. Going with the middle of the country, he looked for the current weather in Nebraska. It was colder. John was offended.

His annoyance with the fact that weather was nicer elsewhere aside, he still needed shade. By pure chance, the group stumbled by a music shop and decided that was as good a place to check out as anywhere else. It was a family run shop of the variety that was already hard to manoeuvre with just four customers in the room at the same time.

This was only partly owed to the size of the shop, the majority of difficulties came from the absurd amount of merchandise stacked onto shelves and isles. A store clerk smiled and waved when they answered, but otherwise left them to their own devices as they checked out the items on display. She was a brunette of average looks who seemed content with her life and with reading things on her phone behind the counter for most of the day. John found that admirable, particularly because this meant they could get along splendidly without actually knowing each other.

Despite its cramped state, the shop was rather well sorted, with areas dedicated to different kinds of instruments. Primarily guitars, electric pianos and drum kits. Siena clicked her tongue, likely because she couldn’t show off. “No violins whatsoever.”

“Not quite true.” John pointed out and picked up a guide book for violins that stood among others for various instruments. Waving it in her direction, he admitted, “I mean, no physical violins, but maybe you can imagine things.”

“Given how fucking good she is at pretending she is some piece of hot ass and not hot garbage, I think Shadow the Edgehog here can almost imagine a violin into existence,” Eliza pointed out, while Undine pressed a key on one of the pianos and drew her hand back when a high sound rung through the room.

Siena just chuckled at the insult, as if it was below her to answer, which caused the blood mage to hiss and John to follow the entire thing with bemusement. Those three had a much more aggressive friendship than most other people John knew. Not in the physical sense, Metra and Salamander took the cake there, but when it came to throwing word shivs at each other.

Even Undine was caught up in that. “You are both walking insecurities.”

“I am feeling very secure.” Siena smirked. “But if I tell you you are wrong, you are telling me I am deflecting, and if I tell you are right, you are just going to claim you are absolutely right.”

“That is how the pitfall goes,” Undine admitted.

“Also,” Eliza growled, “YOU don’t get to tell me who is fucking insecure!”

“A viewer doesn’t have to know how to run perfectly themself to tell an athlete they need to jump when trying to win at hurdling,” Undine pushed back.

“Why are you even fighting?” John wondered, although he knew the answer.

“Because it’s entertaining.” Siena walked by her summoner and ran a finger over his chin. “A lot more entertaining than agreeing all the time, at least.”

“Also, let’s not forget what happens when Siena tries to help people,” the pretty little psycho spoke up and gestured at Undine.

In her singing voice, the abysstide elemental said, “It wasn’t a total disaster.”

“I disagree vehemently,” John spoke up, but didn’t go into detail thanks to the clerk being around. Instead, he looked to the moonshade elemental that now passed him. For a moment, genuine regret hushed over her face, then the amount of time that laid between then and now put a considerable ease on the emotion.

“You should get some new insults already, that one is boring me,” she stated in a sharp tone, tossing some hair over her shoulder.

“Oh, I am sorry, star-queen MacMoonshit.” Eliza threw herself down on a stool that was likely meant for people that wanted to test some of the guitars. “Did you suddenly get better at helping people? Do I need to remind you of two weeks ago at the candle store?!”

The moonshade elemental visibly shrunk back, looked over to John and hastily let out a clear, “No.”

John perked up, he had no idea what this was about and the reaction only made him want to hear this more. “Do tell me what happened!” he demanded. Siena hissed and Eliza started to tell the story.

“So, we went out to buy a gift for Salamander, because we are good fellow submissive gal pals and all that shit,” Eliza started, already grinning ear to ear. “Since we had absolutely no fucking clue what to get, we decided to just go to the concrete tube place. After like thirty minutes, we found that candle store and were like ‘Sally likes to burn things, so that shit will do’ and went in. Turns out, there was some elderly fucker already in there, unable to decide whether he wanted to have a yellow or a beige candle. Siena then... hihiaahahaha... Siena... hehehehe...”

Eliza broke out into loud laughter and, no matter how often she tried to continue the story, couldn’t control herself. Only by desperately holding onto the stool was she even able to remain seated. Her upper body shook with spasms while her insane cackling ran its course.

“Implying I have that,” John laughed and put the drum down. “Why don’t you try something?”

“Because I can’t, I’m a useless bitch without any artistic talent!”

“Eliza, I have seen your paintings,” John stated and crossed his arms. “Please don’t insult the tens of thousands of artists worse than you like that. You draw beautiful things.”

“No!” Eliza exclaimed, then slowly shrunk down as three people stared her down. “Maybe!” she conceded. “I still can’t sing for shit though!”

“You can rap decently,” Siena pushed against that as well.

“No, I can’t, shut up,” Eliza grumbled and shifted uncomfortably on the stool. The compliments were stressing her for some reason. “Fuck you, stop liking me! I’m big fucking trash!”

“That’s not possible,” John sighed and walked over. “You’re too adorable. Come here.”

“No... noooooo,” she weakly complained as John embraced her, pulled her up, and gave her an intense squeeze. First in the ‘tight hug’ sense, then in the ‘touching her butt’ sense. “Don’t give me what I want, you will make me even more needy!” the blood mage warned.

“I think that ship has sailed,” the Gamer said and hugged her some more.

They continued to test some instruments. John in a purely joking fashion, while Siena and Undine actually browsed through the display with genuine interest. By the end, both of them wanted new instruments. While Siena got a guitar and everything needed to transport it right there, Undine had to hold off on buying a piano. They COULD have gotten it in this store, but there was no easy way to get it back home. Better to just order it via the Abyss Auction later.

No matter the amount of prodding, Eliza couldn’t be brought to actually display those rapping abilities she was supposed to have. John was left curious on that front, but there were worse things to not know. ‘I’m going to hear it eventually,’ he thought as they headed for the exit. Given enough time, he was bound to catch the pretty little psycho on a day she was in a sharing mood. He planned to spend a very, very long time with Eliza going forwards. Statistically, he was bound to succeed at some point.

They left the small shop and were back on the street.

“Music is so much fucking better than painting,” the (currently) brunette exclaimed while they searched for some place to eat a little bit at. “I can’t carry a bunch of fucking paintings with me to show off whenever. All you need for music is an instrument,” she looked at Undine, “if even that.”

“Music is fleeting,” the abysstide elemental’s voice resonated with her disagreement. “No song can ever be made again. Pictures are forever, a finished thing that the world can profit from forever.”

“I am pretty fucking certain you can write notes and lyrics down, goo brain.”

“That’s not the same.” Undine shook her head. “Every performance is unique, every interpretation new. Music is fleeting, a specific moment in time you can never get back. Paintings carry forwards into the future and maintain their meaning.” The water spirit brushed some of her black hair behind her ear. “They have more value than my voice could ever have.”

“Also, Eliza,” Siena chimed in, “you can just pick up a pencil and a sketchbook, not that much different.” Crossing her arms under her boobs, she pushed them up and made yet another man that was walking by them lose focus on what was ahead of him. To John’s satisfaction, that guy ran into a lamppost. “Although I think the sweet caress of music has more value than your skills.”

“Are all three of you forgetting that the internet is a thing?” John asked. “Paintings can be recreated a thousand times and one certain music number can be recorded and spread as often as wanted.”

“A close, but imperfect, copy of the real,” Undine stated.

“Yeah, that shit isn’t the same.”

“What those two said.”

“I am not saying the recording is as good as the original, just that your rules of reach are antiquated,” John clarified.



They continued to have disagreements about this for the entire date.