Song of the Piper

::12:: The Pied Piper

Music is a Lady Maria of the Astral Clocktower from the Bloodborne OST. Play it!

******

I didn't have time to thank Seeker Magdalena for allowing me to perform the ritual. Elise dragged me away from the courtyard almost immediately after I returned to the physical world. As per usual, my protests fell deaf on her ears, and only when she threw me into the music room did she finally seem to pay attention to me.

"What is your Affinity?" she demanded.

I carefully sat down on a stool to dull the ache in my bad leg. I didn't take my eyes off her. She looked excited—worried. I couldn't tell which was which. Would there be any consequences if I told her anything but the truth? In the end, I decided not to risk it. Who knew what spells Elise could cast on me while I was caught off guard? Hadn't Josef said that Magi didn't need truthteller potions? "Mind control," I said quietly.

All the colour immediately leeched from her face. "No—of course, I should have expected it. But why you?"

Something in her voice made my heart break. Was she using any magic? No, even our influence over others' emotions had their limits.

Elise was afraid.

"Is there something wrong with my Affinity?" I proceeded cautiously. She looked like a spooked cat which just had its tail stepped on.

"Yes, there is." Her eyes blazed. Don't you understand? Your power is just like the Pied Piper's."

So I wasn't the only one who thought of that. "Is it dangerous?"

"The ability itself is not dangerous. It's what others might perceive of you that's dangerous. Klaudia, just in case you don't know, mind control is an extremely rare Affinity. The last recorded wielder was Lord Adolf Weilsterhein, last lord of the Erstürnach province, which is now considered barren. And that was over two hundred years ago."

Erstürnach. That didn't sound remotely familiar. I didn't need to convey my question through words—my blank expression did just that. Elise heaved a sigh. "Of course you wouldn't have heard of it. Most have forgotten the city by now," she explained. "It was a place of glory in its era. Even more so than Heidelberg today. No one knows what caused its collapse."

"How did you come to know of it?"

A superior grin lit up her face. "Basic history of our lands, Klaudia. If you went to the library more often, pluck a random book out of the shelves, chances are seven in ten of non-fiction works are theories on why Erstürnach had fallen."

"How did it fall, exactly?"

The grin dropped and gave way to something more serious. "As I said, no one knows the exact cause. What we do know is that its Fountain was stripped of magic. With that, all of its sorcerers were useless. It was a magically powerful province, so the people had relied on their Fountain far too much. After that, it was no wonder that the city was so easily consumed by monsters."

"Didn't anyone survive?" It was hard to believe that a city as strong as Heidelburg could just get...obliterated.

"Of course there were. It would be a failure on part of the king if he hadn't managed to salvage something from Erstürnach." Her eyes took on a distant, faraway look. "The Council hadn't existed back then—all power was in the hands of the monarchy."

"Didn't the survivors know anything about what had happened to the Fountain?"

"Unfortunately, no. The first people to die were the sorcerers. Probably because they were so used to having their magic that they just became...addicted to it. The survivors were only regular folk. They couldn't know of anything to do with magic."