Pirated and Authentic

Just as Arthur thought he was going to die by the hands of this strange woman, Miss S. did something totally unexpected. She shrugged and clapped her hands. "Well done, you do know how to make use of the resources at your disposal, you'll do well at this job."

"Huh?!" The sudden turn in the course of conversation confused Arthur. The young man did not think he would ever get used to the conversational gymnastics that Miss S. tended to do. In any case, he asked to double-check, "Does that mean you don't mind me recording your voice in the Whispering?"

"Of course, not. How else do I expect you to complete this petition?" Miss S. confirmed.

'Wait a minute, doesn't this mean she already knows about the difficulty that I'm going to face and provided me with the solution to solve it? So this is really as she said, a test?' Arthur tried to process the revelation that was provided by Miss S. 'But why would she do this? What is her connection to the Midnight Emporium that she felt the need to lay out an assignment to test my capability... Also, wasn't she looking through the Book of Thoth earlier? Is there a connection that I'm not seeing?"

Arthur did not have the chance to clarify these questions because Miss S. leaned close to him and said, "Now, it's time for your reward since you've completed my petition. You might feel a tingle or two. Don't count on my charity often so don't get used to this."

Before Arthur could understand what was going on, Miss S. closed her eyes and started to hum a melody. The melody did not seem familiar but for some reason, he felt like he had heard it somewhere before in his memory.

Miss S. continued to hum and after a while, the volume picked up to almost double the intensity. Arthur thought she was being unnecessarily loud but then he realized her lips or nostrils hadn't really moved any bigger to suggest that she had amplified the volume of her humming.

With a frown, Arthur realized with a shock that he was actually humming along with her and the increase in volume was all his doing. As the unfamiliar notes kept coming out from his face, Arthur felt rather detached to the whole scene. It was as if he was merely a spectator.

This continued for a while longer until the young man felt a shift in the air. The air stood still like something magical was about to happen.

The melody echoed in Arthur's mind to the point where the sound eclipsed all of his other senses. He closed his eyes from the displeasure, it felt like his head was going to explode from the deafening music in his brain. Just as Arthur thought he was about to faint from the auditory overload, the melody stopped and the world returned to silence.

Arthur touched his body and spoke a few words but it did not seem like anything had changed. He opened his eyes and turned to look at Miss S. who stood opposite from him. She though looked quite worse for wear. Sweat was falling down her face and she was grasping for air like she had just completed a marathon.

As a gentleman, Arthur sought out a chair for the lady to sit on but he realized he did not know where the things were inside the Midnight Emporium. By then, Miss S. was more or less herself already.

She had a curious little smile on her face as she said, "That's the authentic Siren's Song. Treasure it, I took years for me to perfect the technique but you only took several seconds to inherit its magical powers..." Then she added under her breath like she was talking to herself, "It is as I thought, a greater power is at work here... Perhaps he's the one that can finally help Sis..."

Realizing she had spoken more than she should, Miss S. coughed and hurriedly changed the subject by explaining the power she just granted Arthur, "The Siren's Song allows you to enter the mind of a member of the opposite sex and control them to do your bidding from within. With further practice, the duration of control will get longer and the number of people you can control simultaneously will increase as well. If you have any other question, go look at that book, it'll explain everything you need to know." Miss S. pointed at Book of Thoth that sat on the shop counter.

Arthur was in such awe of his new magical power that he did not notice the second half of what she said. "That's wonderful! But why does the power only affects the minds of the opposite sex?"

Miss S. shrugged, "Who knows. Perhaps that's nature's limitation."

Then, Arthur asked a second question, "Then why is it pirated earlier? What's the difference?"

"It's tagged as pirated because you only stole my voice but none of its power. That means that you would be able to sound like me but unable to access the magical power that is inherent within the voice. To turn a pirated voice authentic, you'll need to learn the magical properties that it may carry. Normally, the process will take years to master but I suppose you're a very special case. Of course, not all voices have magical power so those that are just normal voice wouldn't have the tag," Miss S. explained.

Arthur thought back to the details that he had read on The Whispering within the Book of Thoth and he realized the description did match Miss S' explanation. His parents' voices, before they were deleted, did not carry any tags, meaning they're just normal voices.

Arthur was thankful that he did not run into any situation that called for the use of the Siren's Song during the mission because he would have very disappointed, not to mention very dead, to find out the power was just half-baked.

'Wait a minute...' It just occurred to Arthur. 'The voices for the girl, the prince and the woman all carry the pirated tags. This means that their original version actually possess magical powers? I wonder if there's a way for me to unlock that.'

Arthur mulled over it.