Unlike most nights, the patrons of the Haunted Horn tavern were silent. They could not force themselves to utter a single syllabyle and chance breaking the spell of the beautiful melody flowing from the strings of the beautiful silver harp. The young sentient playing the gorgeous instrument smiled inside the shadow of his dark cloak. This was one of his finer moments in life, complete acceptance, as long as his fingers were moving on strings. Yet even if he didn't have an audience, the player would revel in the simple joy of the music his fingers made. It's sound ruled his very existence and caused him to forsake his vile people...
The song rose to a crescendo, and petered off. For half a moment, the crowd was silent then as one they all burst into a thunderous round of applause. The bard bowed low, and thanked his audience. He hopped gracefully off of the raised platform and made his way along the wall to the darkest corner table of the tavern, and joined the two others sitting at table.
As he sat down in his chair, he couldn't help himself "So what did you think?" He asked his companions.
The first to answer was a golden skinned elf-maid, "As always, it was lovely." She smiled at the young bard and took his hand in her delicate fingers. She played with his fingers, turnde his hand over and noticed that one of his left glove had been ripped, and one of his dark fingers was bleeding. "You did it again, Lyric."
The relatively young musician looked down at his hand, "What?" he groaned, "now I'll have to buy new gloves." Lyric paused for a moment to think, "Wait, how long was I playing?"
The other party at the table spoke up then, "Well over two hours, Ravensong." The speaker was a rough and tumble gnome called Sparky. He drank loudly of the ale in front of him.
Lyric ground his perfectly white teeth, "Do you have to drink so loudly? You know I can't stand that."
Sparky backed the cup away from his mouth, causing ale to run down his small yellow pointy beard, and winked around the cup. "That's why I do it."
The elf-maid shook her head, causing her black hair to shift on her leather top. "One of these days Sparky, he's going to lose it. Then you'll find yourself thrown overboard and us sailing off into the sunset without you."
The bard laughed. "That doesn't sound like a bad idea Mialee, but I think I'd tie him to a barrel first."
The gnome joined his laughter, "Good, I couldn't think of a worse fate than dyin' without a drink."
Then Lyric threw back his and laughed at the mental image this conjured, inadvertently throwing off his hood. Suddenly the bar became deathly quiet, except for the sound of their laughter. Mialee gasped out, suddenly fearful. "Lyric, your hood!", but it was too late.
One of the men who had been so receptive to Lyric's music suddenly screamed out,"Drow!"   Lyric sighed as the first of the men charged him. He was a big man and assumed that the drow had no chance to hurt him in his position. As his fist drove toward the drow however,he felt a pain in his stomach. and suddenly found himself flying toward the back wall of the bar. Lyric had used the man's own momentum against him, using only a little of his strength to heve the man over himself and Mialee, to thud against the wall. The big man didn't stir.
Lyric stood and pulled a tiny crossbow from a fold in his cloak. Though he had no intention of using it, the people were so intimadated that they cleared a path for the party to the door. Sparky groaned something about a waste of good gold. Mialee only tightened her grip on Lyric's hand. As they walked out, one of the patrons threw a piece a boiled chicken at the drow.
Lyric took the blow stoically, as it hit the side of his face and left bits of sauce in his white hair and on his dark cheek. Mialee reached out and tenderly wiped the slime from his face and wiped it on her pants.
As they walked into the night streets of Waterdeep, she turned back on the now jeering crowd and said, "You have wronged him. He tried to bring a bit of beauty into your dark and depressing lives and you return his kindness with mockery, and hatred."
Just then a man in a ragtag outfit came up and asked, "Oy, what happened? I thought we were staying there tonight." This man was named Insidious Blackwood.
Sparky said calmly, "They didn't like his music." then the thre and a half foot tal gnome shouted angrily "What do you think happened 'Sid? They found out Ravensong was a drow!"
"Those bloody bastards!" Insidious shrugged then. "Oh well I guess it's good we're leaving, We might not want to be in port for much longer, the gaurds are after me."
This shocked the rest of the crew. As they continued to walk down the street to the docks, Lyric asked dejectedly, "Why are they after you?"
The captain smiled, "Well I kissed a judges daughter."
Sparky shrugged, "You didn't force her did you?"
Sid's smile dropped, "You insult me good cleric. I may be a pirate but I do respect women."
"Then what's the problem? You kissed her with her permission. That's not against the law." said Mialee, perplexed.
Sid's smile returned, bigger than ever. "Well, you see, I use the term 'kiss' loosely."
Lyric shook his head and sighed. "Ah 'Sid. You manage to get in as much trouble as I do. Except you do it on purpose."