Chapter 44

The hauntingly beautiful notes of the first movement of Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata” resonated in the minds of every sentient mind in Pearlview, halting all thought and motion.

The music was both like and unlike every rendition before it: while the notes stayed the same, it had never before been performed through telepathy.

Sirena, Requiem, Fey, and Blade were gathered in the top floor of Pearlview’s performing arts guild, along with Songsmistress Gwenna and the quest-giver Wellia. The NPCs were as enraptured as the rest of the town as Sirena and Requiem wove music into magic.

It was a masterful performance. At Fey’s request (she’s such a softie), Sirena had arranged a piece of music to be performed as a duet with Requiem so that they could simultaneously complete the quest. Requiem’s part was much simpler, barely complex enough to fulfill the overlimit requirements for Siren’s Song and within his mental limits for creating harmonic lines.

Over his steady accompaniment, Sirena played with the melody. Intuitively matching the mood of the music, she smoothly transitioned in instrumentation, tone, volume, and harmony. At times, she sang with the pure sweetness of a single violin, then swelled into a full orchestra. She borrowed the crystal clarity of Fey’s idealized voice, then dazzled with the brilliance of a four-part choir. Mesmerizing and powerful, the music held all who heard it under its sway until the very last note faded away into silence.

Throughout Pearlview, players buzzed over the town-wide system notice.

In the guild, Wellia was the first to speak. :That was it. You did it, boy, and your friend there, too. I—:

The older merdame was almost knocked over by Songmistress Gwenna’s enthusiasm as the master bard rushed towards Sirena and Requiem. Seizing a hand from each player, she clasped them together excitedly. :I can’t believe it! This is amazing! Literally the stuff of legends! You brought back a lost art!:

Sirena has gained the title Siren Returned!>

Sirena gingerly attempted to rescue her hand. :Glad to help, songsmistress.:

Gwenna let them go and took a deep breath (or whatever mermaids did), visibly calming herself. :There’s only one way to reward such a deed. I will summon each of you a companion music sprite.:

:What’s that?: asked Sirena.

:They are spirits of music that strengthen and aid their chosen. They are a mark of true mastery, as only great skill can summon them.: The songsmistress petted the necklet of pearls she wore, a mesh net piece that covered her neck, shoulders, and upper chest in nacreous iridescence.

:Those pearls are a music sprite?: asked Requiem.

Gwenna nodded. :They take a form that harmonizes with their chosen.:

:Do they get one?: Sirena asked, gesturing to Fey and Blade. :We couldn’t have solved the quest without them.: (Well, Fey anyways.)

The songmistress pursed her lips in consideration. :I do not know if a sprite would agree to accompany them. I will open the door, and if the sprites find music in their souls, they will bond.:

Fey shrugged at the fancy way of saying, ‘I’ll try, but don’t get your hopes up.’ She had not expected to gain great rewards from a merfolk racial quest. :Anything we need to do?:

:Please gather together and stay quiet.: Gwenna raised her arms as if welcoming something from above. A clear, continuous ringing note began, as if someone drew circles along the rim of a fine wineglass. A second and a third joined it, forming an eerie chord.

Tension built as the chord grew in volume. Finally, Gwenna joined in with a wordless melody.

The space above the master bard began to ripple and distort, opening a spherical gate to another dimension. Four sparks of light drifted out from the sphere, each travelling towards a different player. Upon contact, they flashed and transformed.

Gwenna lowered her arms and let the music fade away, allowing the dimensional rift to shrink away into nothingness. :I’ve never summoned four at once before,: she remarked with satisfaction. :The muses are smiling upon us today.:

The players examined their new sprite-items:

Requiem took a small, gold circlet off his head. :A tiara?: he complained.

Gwenna looked offended at his griping. :The outer form matters little, sir. Do not insult your soul-bound companion.:

He opened the item description:

Requiem shut up and placed the circlet back on his head.

Sirena examined the new, intricate arm ring spiralling around her left biceps (and triceps) with much more pleasure. Delicately-wrought silver metal formed the five lines of a musical score, decorated by the notes of a short melody. :Twinkle twinkle little star?: she recognized. :How silly.:

At her words, the notes rearranged themselves into the opening of “Für Elise”. She laughed and patted her new accessory.

:You rock, buddy,: said Sirena to her sprite. It replied by shifting to display the melody associated with winning a battle in a popular classic RPG.

Blade turned his left arm this way and that, examining the sleeve that now encased it from palm to shoulder. It looked and felt like thin, black metal, but the sleeve had full flexibility at the joints without any visible hinges or breaks in its material.

“Cool,” was Blade’s laconic assessment.

:Where’s mine?: asked Fey. She had definitely seen a sprite spark touch her, but there was no new item on her person.

Sirena glanced over at her friend and smiled in amusement. :You’ve got a little eighth note next to your flower.: Instead of tapping the equivalent spot on her own face, she poked Fey’s face where new tattoo had appeared. (‘Personal boundaries’? She knows not what you speak of.) The music note appeared to have nudged the mana blossom sideways so that the two tattoos harmoniously centred around Fey’s left eye.

Fey took a screenshot of herself and examined her face with a grimace. :A flower and a music note. All I need is a little heart and I’ll be all set to join a magical girl squad.: After a pause, she added, :Please let the powers that be not take that as a suggestion.: (As if. She totally doomed herself.)

:…“Cannot be removed”? Why couldn’t I have gotten a nice little hair tie or something?:

:It’s probably a commentary on your propensity to lose things that aren’t physically attached,: said Sirena.

:I don’t lose things that often.:

:At least one umbrella and one to two neck-warmers(1) every year I’ve known you, not to mention gloves and socks.:

:…Nothing important, anyways.: Reminded of her tendency to lose small accessories, Fey was rather glad that her sprite had made sure she could not earn the wrath of the muses. Instead of admitting it, she said, :Oh well. At least it doesn’t take up an equipment spot.:

Politely waiting for the players to finish examining their sprites, Gwenna spoke. :Thank you for your effort and diligence. If you ever need any assistance regarding the arts, you will always be welcome here.:

Blade blinked in startlement at the sudden reversal of level rankings. Before starting the quest, his level had been the highest in the party, and now, at level 28, it was the lowest. Even Fey’s pets had out-levelled him. His experience reward for the quest was low because of his lack of contribution to its completion. He would have to work hard to catch up to his party-mates.

:Yay, level 30,: Fey cheered, referring to the merfolk players. :Now we can get out of here.: (*convenient*)

Bidding goodbye to the NPCs, the party swam out into Pearlview. They passed quite a few players going in the opposite direction, aiming to learn the newly-unlocked racial ability. Fey was thankful that their avatar names were not displayed to the public, or she doubted they would be able to get away from people wanting to talk to Requiem and Sirena.

:So how do you transform into a two-legger, anyways?: asked Fey.

:Go see the sea witch, duh,: said Sirena.

:Straight out of the fairy tale, I see. So where does the sea witch live?:

Sirena made a vague motion that encompassed many directions. :Out in the middle of nowhere. Actually, I don’t think you can do the quest while in a party. I’m going to go get my level 30 advancement and then do the quest. I’ll definitely be ready to go by the end of today. See you later, guys!:

Sirena’s words jolted Requiem into action. :I’d better get my stuff done, too. I’ll message you when I’m done, Fey. Bye.:

Fey looked at her remaining party member. They had logged on just prior to turning in the quest, so there was a whole game day ahead of them. :Train?:

Blade resettled his grip on his trident. It was time to catch up. :I’ll find us a party.:

By the time Sirena rejoined the party in the early afternoon, Fey and Blade had both reached level 30. By the time Requiem was ready to go, Sirena, Fey, and Blade had all reached level 31. Fey and Blade decided to postpone their warrior advancements until they returned to land due to the fact that the available subclasses in Pearlview were geared towards merfolk aptitudes.

:Sorry for the wait,: said Requiem as he swam towards the party. :I had to do a few warrior feats before I could unlock my next skill.:

Sirena tsked judgementally. She had quite a few mage feat points saved up due to the fact that she often chose a feat to work on while hunting. Class advancement for her meant simply visiting the mage trainers for a few minutes to learn a new spell.

As planned (all the way back in Chapter 23), Sirena had begun to specialize in god-sourced magic, declaring her allegiance to Thrain, god of storms. The power of spells related to wind, water, and lightning were strengthened, while all others were weakened. Her newest spell was Splash Heal, a water-element healing spell.

:So what did you specialize in?: asked Fey.

:Pole arms.: Requiem twirled his spear to emphasize the point. (Pun unintentional.) :My new skill is called Heavy Sweep.:

:Nice.: Fey’s tone was fairly interested, but she was already swimming towards the shallows, eager to get back to land. (*Priorities*)

They stopped when it was shallow enough for Fey to stand and have her face above the water. :Do your thing.: She was curious to see what the developers had done for the transformation process.

Sirena and Requiem began at the same time. Out of nowhere came a wordless vocalization (a tune that would be familiar to anyone who had watched a certain Disney movie featuring a certain red-headed mermaid *copyright infringement*). Veils of light coalesced and wrapped themselves around the merfolk, turning them into featureless sculptures of light. At the peak of the music, their tails split into legs and the light began to dim.

Sirena and Requiem’s new forms were revealed. They retained their blue skin, but otherwise looked human, the webbing between their fingers and gills on their necks having disappeared. Shimmery silver garments that brought to mind the transformative veils of light (and the dress at the end of the Little Mermaid movie) covered the (bare) minimum required to conform to public decency laws in North America.

The party sloshed out of the water, taking deep breaths of fresh air. Boris trotted happily along the sand, once again able to move under his own power. The glooms reverted to their normal rabbit shapes and hopped along beside him. The pets ended up making wobbly circles around the party as the players walked at a slower pace off the beach, resulting in a bizarre pattern of footprints, flipper prints, hoof-prints, and paw-prints sure to give any potential tracker a headache.

An hour later, everybody was properly dressed and equipped for adventuring on land. Sirena purchased a blue mage robe that boosted her affinity to water. (She didn’t go with the white wind robe or yellow lightning robe because the colours would clash with her skin. *shallow*). Requiem equipped himself in heavy leather and chain mail, medium-level armour that fell in between Fey’s reinforced leather and Blade’s metal plate.

Blade also took Firefly out of stasis. Fey’s pets regarded the level 15 fyrfalcon with bemused pity.

Amethyst squeaked in an undertone, careful not to let Firefly hear. (“Birdy’s been frozen this whole time; how boring.” Yes, she knows how to use semicolons now.)

Obsidian squeaked in agreement. (“Waste of training time, too.”)

Boris grunted pragmatically. (“It’s not like she could go underwater.”)

Midnight chimed in with a squeak. (“Birdy could’ve gone with Lee-Lee like Magic.”)

Boris countered. (“But then she’d be gone like Magic.”)

All the Feypets acknowledged the point. They saw nothing wrong with Magic’s migration away from them, but could see how it would be inconvenient for Blade if his only pet was gone.

Amethyst squeaked. (“Fey-Fey wouldn’t go somewhere if she had to put us in storage.”)

The Feypets nodded sagely, confident in their owner’s superiority over Firefly’s.

Blade regarded the conversing pets with suspicion. “What are they talking about?” he asked Fey.

“Oh, just about how I’m a much better pet owner than you are,” she said airily.

He snorted. “What are they really talking about?”

Fey gave him a look. “It’s not like I actually understand squeaking. If you don’t like my translation, just make one up yourself.”

Amethyst jumped onto Fey’s head and squeaked earnestly at Blade. (“Fey-Fey is a much better owner than you.”)

Blade attempted to translate. “Um… ‘I’m sorry for poisoning you so much’?”

Fey and all of her pets snorted in unison.

Sirena walked up with Requiem, holding a huge bag of coins. :Sold all of the bubble spells,: she said cheerfully (see Chapter 30 if you don’t remember). She had made Requiem aid her in selling the magical air bubbles they had brought from Pearlview due to the fact that their blue skin lent authenticity to the sales pitch.

“You have vocal cords now,” Fey pointed out. “Use them.”

Sirena swung the bag of coins in front of Fey’s face. “I would think you’d be distracted from nit-picking by all of this gold.” Her physical voice sounded exactly the same as her telepathic one unless she made an effort to change it.

“If I could be distracted from nit-picking, I wouldn’t be me,” said Fey tilting her face out of the way of the bag. “You sold all of them already?” The party had invested almost all their savings (not including the million extra gold in Fey’s account that she resolutely pretended wasn’t there) into the spells, buying about a thousand.

Requiem answered. “Most people bought batches of ten to twenty.” Not-so-modestly, he added, “Bard skills are pretty useful for attracting buyers.”

Fey frowned in confusion. “Why so many?” (*ignore boasting*)

“They only last a day,” Sirena pointed out.

“Yeah, but you only need one to last you until you get to Pearlview, where you can buy more.”

“Ssssh.” Sirena melodramatically looked around as if to make sure nobody else had heard Fey’s sensible words. “Honestly, it’s a good thing I didn’t bring you. You’re such a horrible salesperson.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Fey said loftily.

Amethyst squeaked. (“What’s a nit?”)

Due to the lateness of the question relative to the conversational flow, Fey misinterpreted the slime’s question for the first time, answering instead, ‘What’s bad about salespeople?’

“They’re persistent annoyances that are hard to shake off.”

Serendipitously, her explanation fit both nits and salespeople quite well.

“Excuse me, but I happen to be an excellent salesperson,” said Sirena.

“And I haven’t managed to shake you off for ten years,” Fey pointed out.

“Ladies, ladies,” Requiem said in a soothing tone, trying to calm a situation that was not tense to begin with.

Both girls turned their heads to look at him. “Just who are you calling a lady?” Sirena said in a highly offended tone.

“Uhh… Sorry?” Requiem apologized confusedly, wondering when ‘lady’ had made it onto the list of terms that could offend people.

“You’d better be,” Sirena scolded. “How would you like it if I called you a ‘gentleman’?”

“…Okay?...” Requiem was practically spouting question marks above his head. He looked to Blade for help.

“Don’t look at me, man,” Blade said, holding a hand up defensively.

Fey smiled fondly. Blade had come such a long way from constantly getting tangled in verbal snarls when she had first met him (*nostalgia*).

“Hmph.” Sirena flounced off towards the bank with her gold.

“She’s twenty to thirty percent joking,” Fey reassured Requiem (leaving 70-80% unexplained) before catching up to Sirena and saying, “That’d better not be all going into your account.”

Blade gave Requiem a sympathetic look, feeling slightly guilty at the relief he got from being the target of the girls’ dizzying conversational turns. “Just stay out of it,” he advised, following the girls towards the bank.

“Out of what?” Requiem pressed, wanting specifics.

“…You’ll figure it out.” (Eventually. Maybe.)

Footnotes:

(1)Neck-warmers are Fey’s (and the author’s) preferred alternative to scarves. A single tube of fabric, they cover the neck and lower face without the hassle of wrapping and tying a scarf.