act29side

It didn't take me long to learn to row a boat today. All I had to do was row it through the thick fog to the island in the center of the lake.

A song comes from the far shore.

Are you singing?

It's a folk song popular with buskers on this street. Heh, it's got a nice sound to it, but I'm a little tone-deaf, so...

When Jan would come home after being bullied, I'd comfort him with this song.

Thank you.

You mentioned 'this street' just now?

Oh, ja, Karl Schmidt Street. The people of Zwillingstürme also call it Marigold Alley.

Seniora Schüler, you haven't answered my question.

According to the records of the Zwillingstürme Gendarmerie, Freiherr Fynn engaged in combat with a suspect to stop a kidnapping on Karl Schmidt Street in the autumn of 1085.

The Baron was injured and unconscious for a period. When he awoke, both the suspect and the abducted Caprinae woman, twenty-seven-year-old Yulia Schüler, were missing.

Loris Bordin took over the case and conducted a series of investigations, finding no promising leads.

He found the Baron's testimony suspicious, with the only certainty being that the Baron was the last person to see you.

He strongly believed that a secret laid hidden within. Something like the Witch King's later experiments on Infected civilians, and that you had become the target of the Baron.

But under pressure from above, the Gendarmerie halted any subsequent investigation and closed the case as an 'accidental disappearance.'

Loris Bordin took the case file back to his residence, and over the course of fifteen years, it has grown increasingly thick.

He never gave up on investigating the truth, and never gave up on looking for you. Despite several clues indicating that Yulia Schüler was already deceased.

Hm...

You have just informed me that this here is Karl Schmidt Street.

In other words, you came to the Genesis Horn posthumously, and currently exist as a form of 'consciousness.'

In your cognition, you have never left the scene of the incident.

So please tell me, what exactly happened in the course of that incident?

This is indeed Marigold Alley. We're standing in front of the piano studio at the intersection.

Oh, Herr Executor, we've wasted so much time. I really have to place these Arts devices in their proper places, quickly!

Those masked men will be coming soon.

Do you mean to say that the Witch King's remains appear at various locations in Kargereich, according to some knowable set of rules?

Ah, are they the Witch King's remains?

No, they're not the ones in reality, sowing chaos in the name of the Witch King. What you see are but manifestations of the Witch King's craft, the 'Echoes of Herkunftshorn' in a truer sense.

...Klängenfolgen, to follow the sounds. That's the way to see the Witch King.

Why would the Witch King be in Zwillingstürme?

Although I suppose it makes sense. I'm already dead, and the Witch King is too. So we're in the same place, that's logical enough.

It would also explain all these strange happenings...

Perhaps, having lost the sound of music, I can no longer perceive what you see in your eyes. Why do you call this place 'Zwillingstürme'?

...Are you blind too?

Frau Giallo, do you see the Musikinstrumententürme?

The what?

Arturia looks in the direction the Caprinae woman is pointing, and sees nothing but vague light and shadow.

Reichsmusikhochschule has towers, die Musikinstrumententürme. But only eleven.

Reichsmusikhochschule is the most famous landmark in Bachshof. Each spire of the royal academy is inspired by a musical instrument, and was named for it upon completion.

There are eleven instruments, and when Herr Bach presided over his 'Glorreiches Kapitalprojekt,' a grand urban plan, he added eleven more.

Twenty-two instrument spires corresponding to the twenty-two districts of Zwillingstürme, like a perfect symphony orchestra.

Hah, you know your stuff.

Ja, but there are only eleven Musikinstrumententürme here. This is not the Reichsmusikhochschule of Zwillingstürme, but that of the Witch King's time.

And behind us... is a tilted spire, circular, the color of jade.

'Der Schiefer Turm der Ewigkeit.' The Leaning Tower of Eternity?

It was originally the spire of some Kurfürst or other. It began to lean due to changes in the strata, and with the support of the magnificent Arts of the spire casters, it maintained its baffling tilt without collapsing.

This miracle of Leithanian architecture was destroyed in a Catastrophe, four centuries ago...

Not only that. I see Der Wiener Uhrturm, Das auf den Kopf gestellte Strafgebäude, Die Tür des Wissens, Der Schönbrunnturm...

Countless spires of different eras, forms, and functions. I've only read about them in books, or heard of them in stories from my elders...

But here, they all stand.

This isn't Zwillingstürme, but it's not Vedunien either. I think the most proper name for it would be... 'Leithanien.'

The only part that feels familiar is the Marigold Alley beneath my feet. At the intersection sits a piano studio, at the end of the street is an art gallery, and right in the middle is my cafe.

I'm glad they're still here. I've rediscovered them.

Here, I can still live just the way I used to. So, unfamiliar as this place is, I would still rather call it Zwillingstürme.

Maybe you haven't rediscovered your old life.

Rather, it's because of your life that you came to be here.

Oh!

There are only nine Musikinstrumententürme left... When did the Klavierturm and the Waldhornturm vanish?

(Herr Fremont was right, the Genesis Horn is accelerating its collapse...)

Frau Giallo, do you... see it now?