[AT] Cursed Piano...
[After Transition]
I continue on towards the grand piano to analyse it better and when I do, I can tell that the piano itself is very old but I can't tell much with the key lid/fallboard covering the piano keys and so I move my hand towards it to lift it up, but before I can even get a finger on it, I am interrupted by a loud shout. "DON'T TOUCH THAT PIANO! That is the cursed piano played here at the concert the day that Aaron died..." At the entrance to the big hall is Harold the butler/aid who most likely ran down here to fetch me and escort upstairs to see the mayor but when he came to fetch me from the bench in the hallway I was sitting on he realised that I was no longer there and see the door open at the end of the hall he correctly presumed that I was inside this hall with only this singular grand piano inside, he's telling me not to touch this grand piano because it was the same piano played by Aaron Kane on the day that he died but surely this piano wouldn't be cursed would it because the last piano Aaron Kane played before he died was the grand piano inside his house that he played as he was burned alive and if any piano was going to be cursed by the dead man then surely it would be the one he last used and he even played it at the time of his death so if he Truly did curse an object with his dying breath then it would be his own piano but even then that would've been burnt to ashes in the fire but this butler must've said it was cursed for a reason so there must be something going on here and some big incident must've occurred for them to think this piano is cursed or at least some people have to have bad luck after touching this piano for it to be known as cursed. "Surely this piano isn't cursed, why would it be? Unless it keeps playing music by itself or something, that would be creepy and cursed."
"Actually, that incident with Aaron Kane wasn't the only thing that happened. Something similar actually happened to the previous mayor of this town, to Isaac Kingston." Wait so something did actually happen to the previous mayor of this town and by the way this guy mentioned it I can only assume that it had something to do with this grand piano next me which I nearly touched, I quickly begin to scoot away from it not wanting to be anywhere near it since I know for a fact that magic, ghosts and spirits are real in this universe and it is highly likely for this piano to actually be cursed if this guy is saying that other incidents have occurred around it and for him to say that the previous mayor was also affected by this just makes me even more worried since today is actually his memorial service and the anniversary of his death so I could not have arrived on a more auspicious say to investigate Aaron Kane and since this might actually be related to the supernatural then I can't rule out anything and I can't be sure of anything either which includes my arrival on this island since I coincidentally arrived on the same day as the memorial service but it's not like I picked the day I was arriving since Batman actually booked my ferry ticket and gave it to me out of the blue while telling me to investigate so maybe I'm here on this specific day for a reason and this memorial somehow involves Aaron Kane. "That incident, it happened two years ago. On that night the moon was full just like it was on the night of the Aaron Kane incident, I just happened to be passing nearby when I heard the sound of the piano coming from the supposedly empty community centre that should've been deserted. I thought someone was there and so I called out to them but when I did so the sound from the piano abruptly stopped playing. When I ventured inside and entered the room, I saw him. Isaac was leaning against the keys of the piano, dead. The cause of death was a heart attack and most horrifyingly, the piece that had been playing right up until his death was the same piece that Aaron Kane played amidst the inferno of his own house, the 'Moonlight Sonata'. Ever since that night people have started calling this the cursed piano, the people of the town are too afraid to touch it."
With the butler in a daze from the story I begin to become intrigued by this so called 'cursed' piano which has caused another person to die but then my rational mind kicks back in again and gets rid of the fear of the supernatural since I realise that the first death associated with associated with this grand piano was more than 10 years ago which was the death of Aaron Kane and if we assume that that was when this piano was cursed at that moment in time then it sure is suspicious that it was only 8 years later that another death occurred involving this grand piano which I feel is a little too long for a cursed object to wait as I assume that a cursed object is malicious and blood hungry and I would at least expect it to affect people in those 8 years and make people injure themselves or just generally have bad luck since quite a lot of people must have touched it during those 8 years but it was only on the second death of Isaac Kingston that this piano was branded as cursed and so most like there is no curse at all and Isaac Kingston coincidentally died of a heart attack though it is suspicious that he died sitting in front of the piano and after that everyone somehow unanimously believed that the piano was cursed which is equally just as suspicious, I now get the feeling that there is more to this situation than the eye can see and now that my fear has been dispelled as I know it's unlikely to be mystical in nature and even if it is I know that I can regenerate from anything (sometimes I forget, I just haven't been visibly injured and so I haven't properly seen my healing in progress and I forget, plus I am the dominant personality after the merge and I didn't have such healing before the merge so I forget sometimes) even if the injury is magical in nature (most likely, probably) so I'm not so cautious of the piano anymore and if I want this investigation to go any further I will have to analyse the cursed object in question and so with Harold still in a daze from the story I lift open the key lid and begin to play a simple tune on it to test it out and see what I can see but after only about ten seconds of playing Harold breaks out of his fugue and rushes over when he sees me playing the piano and grabs me and pulls me out of the room with him before closing the door behind him. "In any case, please wait outside until the memorial service is over. After that you can come back inside, the mayor will talk with you then."
"Oh, It's you, Nicholas. So did you get what you wanted, were you able to meet with the mayor?" Doctor Alex Nichols questions as she spots and walks up to me just outside of the room with the cursed piano and I notice that she is no longer wearing the clothes or the doctor's coat she was wearing earlier and instead she is was a nice black dress that goes up along her neck like a turtle neck and around her neck is a necklace which holds a big blue jewel, following behind her is a black-haired, tanned man who seems to be in his forties and he is wearing a black suit much like many of the other people gathered here today but he seems a bit familiar to me for some reason. "No, not yet. Are you here for the service, Doctor Nichols?" I ask her just making conversation and trying to stay in the building a bit longer before I'm kicked out by Harold the butler, it seems to be working as well as Harold stands next to us silently waiting for us to finish our conversation and I feel like it's more out of a respect for Alex than anything else so I guess she is quite heavily respected on the island probably for being one of the only doctors on this island. "You can just call me Alex, and yeah I am here for the memorial. Mr Kingston's was the first body I examined after coming back to the island once I graduated from university, couldn't really advance my studies on this island, could I? I thought I should at least pay my respects for him at the memorial service tonight since he was my first patient though he wasn't alive at the time. Oh right, this is one of the mayoral candidates I mentioned to you earlier." She introduces me to the man who was following behind her who was actually one of the mayoral candidates she showed me which is why he seemed so familiar to me but I don't pay much attention to him paying more attention to what Alex just said, she was actually the one who examined Isaac Kingston's body after his death two years ago and so she should have intimate details on the case and how he died which will have to be an avenue I exploit to learn more about the situation and help me solve whatever it is I am supposed to be investigating here.
"Hello, it's nice to meet you. I'm Shaun Masters, a pleasure. If you would excuse me, the memorial is about to start." This was the guy who had a truck driving around town with speakers phones blaring sound out and if I remember correctly they were blaring out 'Residents of Moonshade Island, in order to protect the island's fishing grounds, vote for me, Shaun Masters' so this guy must genuinely care about this town or he's a big liar but either way, it doesn't look like he's going to win but he looks alright for a guy that's currently losing the election, after greeting me he walks off and enters a room only a few doors down the hallway away from the room with the cursed piano and I get a glimpse inside to the room holding the memorial with Alex soon saying goodbye to me as well and following him into the room and Harold realising that the memorial is going to start soon begins to push me out of the side entrance in this hallway since he doesn't have time and before I leave I manage to get a few words out to Alex before I lose sight of her. "Ah, you can call me Nick. Okay, okay I'm going." And so, I sit outside on the steps next to the side entrance thinking about everything I've learned so far and what the fuck I'm doing at the moment all the while the memorial service inside is going on and it is also dark now and I take a moment to enjoy the quiet as the protestors from earlier have dispersed due to the memorial but after a few minutes of enjoying the quiet, I get antsy feeling unproductive knowing that Batman sent me here to investigate and he expects me to solve it as he has most likely solved it back in the Batcave and I feel like I should be doing my all to prove myself and so I decided to eavesdrop on the meeting with my enhanced senses which Batman has taught me to use properly as he knows I have enhanced senses but he just doesn't know how enhanced.
Listening in to the memorial service I can hear Karl Tate the current mayor quietly whispering to his opponent Kevin Hale and accusing him of all sorts with the main accusation being that he invited me. the Wayne Enterprises guy, here so that he can cut some kind of deal or something but Kevin Hale merely disregards his accusations and leaves the room to go to the toilet but I'm not that bothered about him as I am more focused on the current mayor as he is the most likely person to have had some involvement with the previous mayor's death since he took his post, I continue to focus on the memorial room but it's not long after that that the silence is pierced by the sound of a piano playing Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata' and everyone begins to panic, hearing the song I'm shocked since everyone thinks it's cursed and I remember that the last two times this song was heard deaths occurred and so I quickly get up and run inside through the side entrance and through the hallway past the people who had come out to investigate the sound and I burst through the door at the end of the hallway. Only to find Kevin Hale sat in front of the piano with his face down against the piano keys, and yet Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata' continued to ring through the air...
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