I saw a siren singing, shifting through the shots-a ringing (part XLI)

(Roleplay entry. Continued from part XL. Written by Rosedrop Rust.)

The next day, the poet took a port into GearHaven. It had been a long day...and he soon discovered he was under attack!

"What the hell? It’s moving with me. Some kinda...black...blobby...tendrelly thing!" He headed downstairs to see if he could shake it.

"Okay, that worked, but I can hear it on the roof. Damn! That is other-worldly. I wonder if Emilly knows of this thing. I swear it felt like it was following me."

Rusty checked for damage, and thankfully, wasn't specifically damaged, but he also agreed he was shaken up.

"Wait a minute!" he cried out. "Those were Justine's rooms. I wonder if it is attacking other parts of the upstairs!"

Rusty paced a little. Standing still didn't seem like a good idea yet.

"I could just hang out in the music room. There is a piano. Somehow, I don't think music...hmmm...some songs are demon chasers...and I have been experimenting with a composition suggested by physics to have some power possibilities..."

Rusty headed for the music room.

"This would be too easy..."

About then it occured to him he had been talking out loud, and became embarrassed at babbling in the face of danger.

"And I am actually toying with the idea of seeing if playing the piano would help. Okay, it usually helps me..."

He wanders into the music room and sat down at the piano. He tried to remember the combination of notes the computer spit out that correlated to that theory of frequency-based power generation. He played some of the tune he remembered. He realized there was more to it. Luckily, once he's heard a tune he retained it. He and his friends had won a fair amount of bets insisting they could tell what town someone was from just by how they hum a simple tune. He had the ability to read the soul of a person by how they played. It was like handwriting analysis, or lie detectors, but he was rarely, let's say never, wrong. He was told he had psychic powers, but he just knew what was being said when someone played an instrument. Their desires, confidence, and anxieties. He could tell when they were born, likely what city, from the phrases they picked up coming into maturity in certain places. People used to sit around and watch him do it at parties.

After a while, it became a bore. He was not convinced he had any "powers", he was surprised everyone couldn't hear it. It helped him know what to play to best complement just about any composition. Producers lined up around his studio to try to book him. It began to get on his nerves.

Right now, he had a monster on the roof and wasn't sure if he could read it like he was able to read frat boys. He needed a plan. In the meantime there was this computer-generated composition. He began to play and the sheet music on the piano stated to rattle.

"What the hell?"

He kept playing, and a strange glow started coming off the strings. It rose above the strings in what looked like a glowing ball. He stopped and stood. He reached for the ball. He could move it. It was a bit like holding an angry cat, he thought, as he held it out from him.

Then the tentacle-whatever crashed through the door of the music room, and he threw up the glowing ball in front of him like a shield. The thing hissed, flailing, but didn't seem to be able to get past the curve. He hit the comm, set it to wideband, and yelled.

"Help! I'm trapped in the music room!"

(Continued in part XLII.)