#a liar an evil clone and a gambler

[flingpoly]

Hi same anon as the HypMic quest idea I asked earlier here. What do you think of a HypMic quest story where Gentaro is a bard and a liar playing lyre who has beautiful beloved tunes. Dice is a wandering gamber (as always) who travels with Gentaro. And Ramuda is a cute but terrifying dragon lord. Together they all team up to defeat the evil demon lord Jakurai.

this is a really good idea so i ended up writing quite a bit, so i’m gonna put this under cut!

i joked about ramuda being similar to toothless from the httyd books, but i think there could actually be a fun parallel here. to reflect ramuda having a lot of clones in canon, i think ramuda would be, on all technical terms, average. a very common dragon hybrid. he’s probably declared himself dragon lord and hyped up his abilities, but where he comes from (whatever magical land represents chuuoku), he’s nothing special. but he’s not in his land; he’s traveling to find some people he finds particularly interesting to help him on a quest.

i think it would be fun if, similar to reflecting canon, jakurai and ramuda had some sort of past together. there’s something ramuda knows that makes him believe they need to take jakurai down before he gains power, OR he’s already taken power and ramuda knows how to stop him.

i love the idea that gentaro is some sort of microcelebrity due to his talents sort of like how he’s the beloved author yumeno-sensei in canon. i also think he would be a little too eager for trouble and agree to ramuda’s quest fairly quickly, similar to his attitude in the most recent drama track when he said that, as an author, he was intrigued to meet someone who scared ramuda. i feel as though bard gentaro would view ramuda as his manic pixie dream dragon and just let him take him on this adventure.

dice totally believes that ramuda is some hot shit powerful guy. i think that, following the original hypmic quest story, he was gentaro’s assistant already. he probably initially joined him due to debt, but thought gentaro was fun and thrills seemed to follow him. gentaro doesn’t mind the company. he prides himself in his luck and claims that’s his real magic ability. gentaro and ramuda both find him VERY charming so he’s kinda stuck with these two guys draped across his lap constantly and he doesn’t know how it happened. he also unfortunately has to do a lot of the heavy work because ramuda and gentaro are mediocre at survival (gestures towards the ameyume camping event in ARB and how they both absolutely sucked at it). it would also be neat if dice became the party’s healer somewhere down the line, since in canon he plays a large support role by being the one to hold ramuda’s candies and picking both his teammates up.

so we have a playful dragon lord burdened with a serious quest, a curious bard, and a gambler after a thrill. i think ramuda doesn’t plan to get attached to the two (especially if he’s experienced betrayal in the past at the hands of the demon lord), but he kinda accidentally does, and yet they prove their loyalty throughout the journey in little ways. defeating jakurai wasn’t necessarily a righteous quest, ramuda was just hurt and betrayed and maybe even wanted revenge. but now he’s found something he wants to protect, and is a bit surprised when he finds that even after their goal is achieved, his partners want to continue their journey together.

also a headcanon dump because i love dragon ramuda:

- ramuda has some sort of dragon magic but also i think he can have wings and a tail as a treat. this part is non-negotiable. his teal scales look like a shimmering purple (similar to his hair tips) in certain light.

- gentaro’s lyre is fantastic at taming large beasts. he likes playing it at their camp sometimes to unwind at night. ramuda keeps waking up in the bard’s lap, really groggy and confused.

- ramuda trains them a lot in their downtime while traveling. he had to train a lot in chuuoku, and he wants his comrades to be well prepared. he’s surprised that training becomes fun with these two.

- whenever they pass through a town, dice goes to gamble at local taverns. his winnings keep mysteriously disappearing, and it may or may not be because a certain dragon keeps seeing the bags of gold laying around and taking them. gentaro knows what’s happening but thinks it’s funny so he doesn’t say anything.