Magical Girl? I’m not sure about this.

“Professor,” Alex ended the doll possession and went back to the airship. “I should have told you this earlier, but we found a settlement of gnomes. They are a bit mechanized but a handful of them are back on the floating island. I talked to them about you and they said that they heard of your exile and think it was an injustice that was done to you.”

The sailor-dressed gnome climbed down from the airship. “Oh? That is good to know, but I’ve moved on. I never thought I’d have a place in my old community again.”

“We could set up a meeting?” Alex tried. “They think highly of your and your plans.”

“It has been so long.” Professor Copperpot slumped. “I don’t know if I can properly act gnomish anymore.”

“I doubt they are proper gnomes either.” Alex dusted off the toy airship. “They are very devout and would consider something like this a divine artefact.”

“Who would have guessed.” The gnome blinked in disbelief. “I was wrong to think they stuck to their old ways. No one really liked the classes that god gave because everyone thought that traditional magic and skills were better. Yes, inventors were well regarded but for most gnomes crossing the line to treating inventions like an object of worship was a step too far.”

“The other two toy ships in progress could be run by the gnomes.” Alex suggested. “They could help spread swine flu.”

Professor Copperpot nodded. “I’m sure you can handle that. Just hoping that when the demons start to fall in exponential numbers you’ll get the credit. Or at least someone that can use it.”

“Huh?” Alex sounded confused.

Fufi got it though. “I think that he is saying that he is level capped.”

“Isn’t that good though?” Alex tried to congratulate the gnome.

He looked down at his hands. “It is a reminder that I gained those levels by bird flu.”

Alex stood there speechless, taking a step back.

“I’m going back to my room.” The gnome made an abrupt exit, leaving everyone hanging.

Aqua popped out of the water. “Welcome back.”

“Uhhh.” Alex paused. “Hi Aqua. Were you listening the whole time?”

The nereid dodged the question. “Don’t be too hard on that old gnome. He hopefully will accept that the demons controlling him doesn’t count as something he has to atone for.”

Alex and Fufi went back though the portal pipe to the sky island. It was twilight by the time they returned. After getting dried off with a dusting of the feather duster, Alex went upstairs to see how things were going. The maids were doing maid things, the gnomes were working with the relatives of Zeke and Trudy to modify the in progress toy airships and Yvne’s family were discussing the political implications of recent events.

“How did things go with Grace?” Alex found the sea elf magical girl in the castle.

“We met and talked a bit.” Ariel turned to face the black-haired magical girl. “She seems nice though a bit sad. I was hoping to get the two of you to go out once the gnomes got the flying cloud, the big sized one running. We could raid some demons on coastal settlements.”

“Oh,” Alex blinked. “I suppose I should go check that out. I’m not quite sure how long it’ll take them to get it ready.”

“Her.” Ariel corrected. “No true sailor calls a ship an it.”

Ariel’s familiar gave her two cents. “We talked to Merumeru and she thinks that Grace should play the organ that she’s making. When that girl found out that Grace was a musical magical girl she really wanted to see her do her thing.”

“What instruments does she have experience with?” Alex asked.

“It doesn’t matter.” Fufi chuckled. “If she’s got good skills in music then it should help her enough to pick it up really fast. It will also help if the instrument is made cute.”

The pair of magical girls went down to the production area where the gnomes were going over the plans for the toy airships and examining the metals that they had.

Merumeru had some of the gnomish plans for the pipe organ that she was looking at and cheerfully testing out materials for pipes. She had made some stone reeds and had some wooden reeds and had made an air box out of rocks.

The slime girl pumped a bellows to test the sound of a single reed. First she tested the stone one.

Octavius watched her and shook his head. “I’m not sure that is going to sound right.”

When merumeru opened the valve the reed made a sound that didn’t match the organ at all. “Meru me me ruuu.”

“Yes,” Ariel agreed. “That sounds more like hmmm. What was it called. An Ocarina? Yes I haven’t seen someone play one in a long time. It isn’t bad but I don’t think that is what you were going for.”

“An ocarine might be easier to transport?” Alex thought.

Merumeru shook her blue head. She apparently didn’t think it sounded right.

She slotted the wooden reed in the air box and gave it another test. It sounded a whole lot more like a pipe organ would sound like.

Octavius handed her a billet of palladium. “Try this? It will sound more like the one the choir uses.”

Merumer made a ‘yuk’ face. “Ruuuuuu!”

“That metal tastes bad?” Ariel translated. “What a strange thing to say.”

“My brothers in faith could do it.” Octavius offered. “If the young lady so wishes.”

Merumeru shook her head and made a face that said ‘I will make my own pipes! Thank you very much!’

The day passed and Merumeru, being as awesome as she was at things that were pipe-like, created her organ by sundown. It wasn’t without trouble. The gnomes measured the reeds and had to show her that they were not accurate enough in their dimensions and explained that the sound created had to match certain notes or they wouldn’t be right. But it was easy for her to fix things enough and improve precision to get the gnomes' approval.

The problem came with what to play on the organ. The gnomes were not musicians and they only knew the worshipful songs from their faith. They were not bad, but none of their songs seemed like the right kind that could reach Grace.

“Do you have any music from your world that is fitting?” Fufi asked.

Alex scrolled through the music on her phone. “It is mostly metal. There has got to be something softer around here somewhere.”

They went back to the cabin and looked around.

Seraphina joined them and went into a closet and pulled out what looked to be an old music box. “This thing plays a lovely song.”

The young noble daughter opened the box and a tiny ballerina popped up and the song green sleeves started playing. It sounded a bit flat.

“I had completely forgotten about that.” Alex accepted the music box from Seraphina. “I think it was my grandmother’s. This has got to be around a century old. I’m surprised it still works.”

Alex took her feather duster and dusted the musical item off, leaving it looking brand new in all of its Victorian glory. She wound up the key and it played a bright sound like a music box should.

“That sounds a lot better.” Seraphina observed. “Do you have sheet music of the song?”

“Sheet music?” Alex cringed, knowing that it would be easy to get as a free download. “I’m not a musician so no. I don’t know the first thing about reading music.”

“It is one of the requirements for noble ladies.” Seraphina explained. “No one wants a wife that cannot play an instrument fitting of their station.”

“Do men have to play instruments?” Alex asked.

Seraphina shook her head. “No, the system doesn’t like to give males skills for certain instruments. I’ve never seen a man have a harp skill, for example.”

Alex thought this was another indication that the system was in fact sexist.

After an awkward pause, the noble young lady continued. “Are there lyrics for the song?”

The magical girl’s attempt at singing wasn’t good. “Alas my love you do me wrong…Green sleeves was all I need, green sleeves was my delight. Errr… or something like that.”

Fufi shook her head. “I’m not sure you could be an idol magical girl.”

Alex shrugged. “Why do you need to know?”

“It is a well known fact that a song of love can heal a broken soul.” Fufi straightened her long neck, as if saying some divine nugget of wisdom.

“Fine.” Alex facepalmed. “Lets take this back to the castle and see if the gnomes can use their class skills to figure it out? They seemed to really like machines.”

The group took the music box back and showed it to the gnomes who looked impressed.

“What is this divine melody?” Octavian worshipfully regarded the spinning ballerina. “It sings of such longing.”

Alex thought it was a timeless song, but divine might be pushing it. “This song has lyrics to it. I can’t remember them though. We thought it might be something that could be played on Merumeru’s organ? It is okay if you can’t find them though. I don’t think they’ve been sung on this world ever.”

“Understood.” The gnome got serious. “Brothers, we must commune with this machine.”

The gnomes stopped what they were doing, took the music box with reverence to the table and gathered around in a circle. They bowed their heads and started singing what sounded like gregorian chants.

After a few awkward minutes they stopped their chanting and one of the gnomes turned the key and the music started playing.

The gnomes changed their chanting to keep beat with the music.

Octivian started singing with his eyes closed. “What child is this, who, laid to rest, on Mary’s lap is sleeping, Who angels greet with anthems sweet while shepherds watch are keeping?”

Alex interrupted. “I don’t think those are the original lyrics.”

The gnomes stopped, and all looked at the black-haired magical girl like she had committed some cardinal sin.

“The machine spirit speaks these lyrics.” Octivian said. “The purity of mechanical devices do not deceive.”

Alex waved her hands in front of her. “No, those lyric are indeed from my world but they are not the original lyrics. The church took the tune and turned it into a christmas song. It is about the coming of a savior. The original song is completely different.”

The gnomes got together and huddled amongst themselves.One gnome was scribbling something down on a scroll, likely the lyrics.

“We think this song could be prophetic.” He glanced at the music box. “Magical girl Cosmos’s mother was named Mary. This music box could be over 100 years old.”

Alex saw all kinds of problems with that. “Isn’t Cosmos older than that? And it is talking about a male baby.”

“How can we find the other lyrics?” Octivian said. “These words resonate so strongly. It is hard to believe that they are not the right ones. The lyrics are very pleasing to us.”

The gnomes took a moment to scribe the sheet music and hand it to Seraphina.

“My mother used to play harpsichord.” She took the music into the castle. “She might be the best person to play this.”

The humans lifted the organ and took it inside to the main room and set up the organ.

Yvne enter after a maid fetched her. She looked at the sheet music and after a brief inspection and explanation played the song.

Seraphina sang the lyrics that the gnomes gave her.

Alex tried to not look like she felt, that they were singing a christmas song in the spring, completely out of season.