Eldritch Guidance

A day had gone by since the incident with Cris. Inside the waiting room of the laboratory building J-44 was Alan and Sere.

This was the building that housed the person Jafar said might be able to decode the note they got from Cid’s room. Jafar was in talks with the person right now while the others waited.

Alan had his leg up on a nearby table with Sere looking carefully at it. Her hands glowed with the bright golden light of vito's energy, as she waved them around his leg. Sere was using healing magic on Alan to help the strain he put on his muscles recover faster.

Alan: “Thanks again, for healing me.” he said graciously.

Sere: “Thank you for letting me get some practice in. Although, I don't really like practicing my healing magic on my friends. I’d rather you not hurt yourself.”

Alan: “I’m sorry.”

Sere: “Just… don’t push yourself too hard, but I get it.”

Alan: “Yeah…ow.” he yelped out.

Sere: “Whoops, sorry. Used a little too much aether there.” she said as the glow from her hands lessened, as she adjusted the amount of aether she was using.

Alan: “I thought healing magic wasn't supposed to hurt.”

Sere: “It shouldn't, if you apply it right. That's why healing mages like us gotta practice. So, that we get it right and not hurt our patients.”

Alan: “Well, I guess you should be thankful you’re training as a proper healing mage, otherwise this might have been a lot more painful.”

Sere was in the Silverwing college. The majority of the Silverwing student body and facility were healing mages. It was the college that focused on religious studies and medicine. People who knew that would expect anyone wearing blue robes in Graheel to be proficient in healing magic.

Sere entered that college to try and move away from being a combat mage, like her family expected. Her faith in the Church of Light doctrine motivated her to become a healing mage. She looked up to the healing mages in the church and wanted to become one. She trained and studied and it eventually paid off, getting her into the Silverwing college. It also helped that she was attuned to vitos, water, and earth elements that are all extremely useful for healing magic.

Sere: “You should be extra thankful and count yourself really lucky. A healing mage’s services aren't cheap, and you're getting treated by one for free.”

Alan: “I will add that you're not fully licensed and your healing me is still part of your training. So maybe you should be thanking— OW!” he yelped out again as a sharp pain shot up his leg.

Sere: “Sorry, what was that. You were thanking me?” she said with a smile that hid her intentions.

Alan could read the situation. Sere could make this hurt a lot more, so he was not inclined to give her any more sass at the moment.

Alan: “Y-yeah, thanks…”

Sere: “You're welcome,” she said while smiling, followed by her expression turning more serious and solemn. “About what happened to Cris yesterday…Is he…OK?”

Alan had an incredibly pained look to him when he was asked that question.

Alan: “Um, it was pretty bad. They have been treating him since yesterday. They managed to close the wound and everything, they were even lucky enough to reattach his arm. He should have woken up by now, the doctors said, but he hasn't. They're not entirely sure why, and are still worried if he will even make it at this stage.”

Sere: “I'm so sorry.”

Alan: “I hate that I can't do anything for him right now. All I can do is wait and hope he makes it.”

Sere: “You’re not doing nothing. You’re working towards stopping Cid. Once we get enough evidence, we’ll make sure nothing like this happens again.”

Alan: “Yeah…”

There was an awkward silence that arose between them. Feeling uncomfortable, Sere spoke up.

Sere: “Um, I hate to ask, but do you know what exactly happened yesterday? How did Cris get hurt? Jafar said it had something to do with Cid, but I wasn't told much else. Um, if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine. I’ll just ask Jafar about it later.”

Alan: “That’s OK. What happened was that Cris's ward broke during a practice match with Samson Rill, a senior student in the Lionhearts.”

Sere: “Oh, was the attack magic he used on Cris too strong?”

Alan: “No, there was a mishap. The practice ward Cris was using was faulty. It didn’t work right, and when Samson managed to hit him with a spell, it went through the ward like paper. It didn’t protect him at all.”

Sere: “That’s awful”

Alan: “Yeah, and the protection magic in the arena, which could have also prevented this, wasn't working right either. The aether crystals in the arena were cracked and malfunctioning, so it didn’t activate like it was supposed to. No one noticed it was broken because the crystals were cracked in a way that it couldn’t clearly be seen, and most of the other functions of the arena were still working normally, just the critical function of preventing serious harm wasn't. At least, that’s what Samson said.”

Sere: “You talked to Samson?”

Alan: “Yeah, he was at the hospital with me. Waiting to hear if Cris was OK. He was…begging for my forgiveness the whole time we were waiting there.”

Sere: “I mean, it’s not like he meant to hurt Cris.”

Alan: “I know. I don’t hold anything against Samson, it's Cid who’s to blame.”

Sere: “How do we know it was him?”

Sere: “Jafar saw him, and as far as I know, this has never happened before in a training arena. All the safety measures that were in place failed all at once. What are the chances of that? Unless, It was him, Cid, making it look conveniently like an accident. I don't know how he did it, but I just know that it was him somehow.”

Sere: “We’ll get him…for Cris”

As they finished up their conversation, the door to the waiting room swung open, and out walked Jafar.

Jafar: “Everything is ready and good to go.”

Sere: “Ok, but, um do you mind telling us what exactly we’re doing?” she said as she stopped applying healing magic on Alan’s leg and stood up.

Jafar: “Sure, but let’s walk and talk.” he said while gesturing for his friends to follow him.

Alan and Sere followed behind Jafar as they walked through the hallways of J-44.

Alan: “So who is this guy you said you think could decode Cid’s note?”

Jafar: “That guy is a girl named Marie Su-Bin. She is the head student researcher in the advanced numerology research team.

Sere: “Numerology? You mean that magic that’s just a calculator.”

Jafar: “It is much more than just a calculator. Numerology can make highly advanced predictions of the future through mathematical equations.”

Sere: “I was always under the impression that numerology magic was incredibly unreliable in making predictions. You're better off asking a Seer of Argon to predict the future.”

Jafar: “The limitation on numerology is the amount of information you can feed into it. If you have enough data points to punch into numerology calculation, you can predict the future with some degree of accuracy. At least, that’s what Marie has told me in the past.”

Alan: “OK, but what of using numerology magic to predict the future is relevant to decoding Cid’s notes.”

Jafar: “Using numerology to predict the future is irrelevant. The point is that everyone in the advanced numerology research team is are genius in mathematics, and Marie was nice enough to help out with decoding Cid’s note, under one condition.”

Alan: “And that condition?”

There was a brief moment of hesitation from Jafar, but he then blurted out the condition.

Jafar: “She has bad allergies, and I may have said she could come to you Sere to get some relief from them every once in a while.”

Sere: “Did you seriously offer up to use my healing magic, FOR ALLERGIES.” she said, sounding a little resentful.

Jafar: “Are you not going to do it? Cause, you're free to try and decode this note yourself. It will only take you a couple years I’m sure,” he said sarcastically.

Sere arms were crossed and she looked grumpy.

Sere: “Fiiiiine. I guess it can be considered practice.” she said with a grumble.

Alan: “It is for a good cause, besides. Don’t people in the Silverwing College have to heal so many people before they're allowed to even graduate?” he said, trying to placate his friend.

Alan was referring to one of the main tenets of the Silverwing collage, charity. That college was founded by a highly religious archmage that enshrined rules that required students to heal so many people with their magic for free, failing to do so prevents one from being able to graduate. The idea of doing this is supposed to teach Silverwing students compassion and use their ability to heal and not harm others, and it correlates with many teachings and practices talked about in the Church of Light.

Sere: “Yeah… I just don’t know if… allergies count.”

Jafar: “Anyways, we’re here,” he said as he stopped in front of a door.

Jafar opens the door, entering inside first, with his other friends following behind. The room they were in was quite large, except there was a large metal box-like contraption that took up a little over half of the space. The machine had countless wires going in and out of it with a plethora of vacuum tubes sticking out the side.

In one corner of the room were desks for the people of the advanced numerology research team to work at, and sitting at one of those desks working away on a computer was a girl.

Jafar: “Hey Marie, I'm back,” he called out.

The girl stopped working at her desk got up and approached Jaffar.

The girl who was presumed to be Marie, had black hair tied into a ponytail wore a white lab coat, and was quite tall at six foot three (1.905 meters). She had freckles and wore thick glasses that made her eyes look bigger than they really were. The magnifying effect of her glasses on her eyes made it really easy for everyone to see how red and puffy her eyes were, a clear sign of an individual suffering from allergies.

Marie: “Oh hey, so these are your friends.”

Jafar: “Yeah. This is Alan, and this is Sere, he said, gesturing to each of them as he said their names.”

Marie: “Great. So, which one of them was it that could use healing magic?”

The three of them there thought that Sere blue robes were an obvious statement of who the healing mage was, so they were quite surprised by her question.

Both Alan and Jafar turned their heads towards Sere.

Sere: “Um, that would be me,” she said awkwardly.

Marie: “Oh thank the light. Can you heal my allergies right now? I’ve taken too many antihistamine medications this week and can’t take them anymore, but my allergies are killing me. It's so bad I can barely see or concentrate.”

Sere: “Oh, Ok. Um, just hold still for me. And, I just want to apologize if this hurts. I’ve never used my magic to heal allergies before.”

Marie: “I don’t care if it hurts at this point, as long as I can get some relief.”

Sere nodded and approached Marie.

Sere made a hand gesture while muttering an incantation and a golden light began to emanate from her hands, similar to when she was healing Alan. She then waved her hand around a few inches away from Marie's head.

Both Alan and Jafar watched in silence off to the side while Sere was applying her healing magic. Marie had her eyes closed and made no indication that there was any pain, so Sere continued to use her magic as she was. A few minutes went by and the puffiness and redness in her eyes began to recede. Eventually, her eyes returned to normal.

Sere: “And there. I think you should be good for at least a little while,” she said while ending her magic and backing away from Marie.

Marie: “Oh that hurt so much, but at least I have some sweet relief.”

Sere: “What!? That hurt? And you didn’t say anything?”

Marie: “Was I supposed to?”

Sere: “Yes! It is not supposed to hurt.”

Marie: “Oh…well it hurts…extremely,” she said, completely deadpan.

Sere: “Ugh, well next time tell me if it hurts. I’m supposed to practice using healing magic so that it doesn't, and I can't correct myself if you don’t tell me.”

Marie: “Oh, Ok. I'm sorry. I didn’t know I was being bad experimental material for you.”

Sere: “It’s not experimental material, I mean I guess it kinda is, but not really. I guess, um—” she was cut off by Jafar.

Jafar: “Sere, don’t even try. And Marie, next time you ask to be healed, be sure to let Sere know if it’s hurting.”

Marie: “OK.” she said, nonchalantly.

Alan then leaned down and whispered into Jafar's ear, trying to make sure Marie couldn't hear.

Alan: “Um, Jafar. What’s the deal with Marie?” he whispered.

Jafar: “She is a bit of an eccentric, don’t worry about it,” he whispered back.

Marie: “Well thanks for helping,” she said to Sere, before walking back to her desk and working away on her computer.

Jafar: “Um, Marie. Are you forgetting something?”

Marie: “Hm? I’m I?” she said, stopping what she was doing and starting to ponder.

Jafar: “You were supposed to help us.”

Marie: “Oh right. You had some sort of math problem. OK, I have time. I can tutor you guys and help you work through your problems.

Jafar: “N-no, we need to solve a math equation and help determine if there are any secret messages in it.”

Marie: “Oh, OK. That will be even quicker and easier than tutoring you.”

That comment somehow felt like an insult to Jafar, even though he knew that she meant nothing by it. For as long as he knew Marie, she had no filter and would just say anything that came to her mind.

Marie: “Let me see this equation you want solved.”

Jafar: “Here,” he said as he handed her the note he took from Cid’s room.

Marie took the note and looked over it for a minute. As she was doing that, the deadpan expression she had maintained the entire time finally broke. She had a look of confusion that then turned to disbelief as she looked up at Cid.

Marie: “What in the world is this?”

Jafar: “Ugh, don’t tell me my assumption was wrong, and it’s not actually a math equation.”

Marie: No, it's a mathematical equation. It’s just the most complicated equation I've ever seen. There are mathematical symbols in here that are from the eastern continent mixed in, and a bunch more that I have no idea about. However, those symbols I can’t identify, I'm still pretty sure there are some sort of mathematical principles behind it.

Alan: “How can you tell?”

Marie: “Well, if I apply elementary algebra to certain parts of the equation, I can still come to some rudimentary answers that would still be functional within the specific sequence of operations.”

The explanation she gave flew over Alan’s head. He had a look of confusion and turned towards Jafar, hoping that he would explain. Jafar ignored Alan and kept on asking Marie questions.

Jafar: “So can you solve it then?”

Marie: “No, I can’t. There are too many unknown variables and functions to this formula.”

Alan and his friend looked distraught at the answer they got. They were hoping that they could find enough evidence of Cid’s wrongdoing in this note and take it to the police. Now it was sounding like they were about to start back at square one.

Alan: “Damn it,” he mumbled.

Marie: “Sorry I can’t solve it for you, but if you want, I can run it through this NPA machine and get it solved for you,” she said while gesturing to the giant machine in the room.

Sere: “Wait, you said you couldn't solve it?”

Marie: “Yeah, that’s what I said.”

Sere was about to make another follow-up question, but was cut off by Jafar.

Jafar: “Can that machine help us?” he asked, while knowing the question Sere was about to ask would be pointless with someone like Marie.

Marie: “Probably, but I know you wanted me to solve this equation for you. So, I understand if you don’t want to use this.” she said as gestured towards the machine again.

Jafar: “No, no, no that's fine. As long as we can solve and decode it.”

Marie: “OK,” she said as she walked towards the giant metal machine.

She opened up what looked like an over door with a window on the side of the machine, and placed Cid’s note inside it. She then pressed a button on the side of the machine and a bunch of flashing lights started to emanate from the chamber from where the note was in. A minute went by and what sounded like a timer on a toaster rang out.

Marie reached into the machine and pulled out the note and handed it back to Jafar.

Marie: “Here you go.”

Jafar: “So where are you able to solve it?”

Marie: “Huh, no. I just scanned it. The machine working on it right now, and should output the results on this,” she said as she gestured to a printer on a nearby table that had a long cable connected that ran into the giant machine.

Jafar: “How long will this take?”

Marie: “Somewhere between ten and twenty minutes, I think.”

Sere: Um, Marie. Can I ask a question?

Marie: “Yup.”

Sere: “What exactly is this machine?”

Marie: “It’s an NPA machine.”

Sere: “OK…and what is an NPA machine?”

Marie: “It stands for Numerical Predictive Approximation. It is what me and the entire advanced numerology research team have been working on.”

Sere: “So, it’s a machine that uses numerology somehow, I take it?

Marie: “Yup. We put a special advanced numerology matrix inside and run it through an advanced computing system capable of compensating for the Verros principle by pure processing power.”

Everyone present looked confused by her explanation.

Jafar: “Marie could you explain what this is in simpler terms.”

Marie: “I thought I did?”

Jafar: “Even simpler, please.”

Marie: “Oh, OK, um. Well as you all probably know, numerology is a magic that is capable of predicting the future. The only problem is that it requires a lot of information to get any degree of useful predictions from it. If you don’t feed enough data into it, the accuracy of this magic’s prediction can easily be less than one percent. Does that make sense to all of you?

Everyone nodded in response.

Marie: “Good. Well, this machine is designed to fix the information quantity problem. It does this by using pure processing power to compensate for the lack of information. Meaning, we can use numerology magic to accurately predict the future even if we don’t have enough data.”

Sere: “Oooh, Ok. That makes sense.”

Jafar: “That sounds really amazing. I know you explained it to me before, but now I’m really starting to understand how impressive that is.”

Alan: “I'm still not sure I entirely get it, but I take it that this machine is impressive and can decode that note?”

Marie: “Yup. The parts of the note that can’t be properly identified, the computer will compensate for it with pure processing power and will output a solution. And, if there's a secret message hiding in that formula like Jafar mentioned, the NPA machine can detect it and decode it for us as well.”

Jafar: “This thing sounds like it might be revolutionary if it can do what you're saying.”

Marie: “I’m glad you can see how amazing it is, unlike those higher up.”

Sere: “Are the teachers dismissing your team's invention?

Marie: “Baa, those teachers are fools. They still say that the NPA machine is still too inaccurate to be useful. I mean, it can predict what the weather will be twenty-four hours from now with 10% accuracy.”

Alan: “Wait, this NPA machine can only predict the weather with 10% accuracy?”

Marie: “Yeah, but those fools can’t see how amazing that is. Previously, we could only get 2% accuracy for numerology weather prediction without the NPA machine, but now we got it up to 10% with the machine and they still say it’s useless.”

The awe that Alan and his group had for Marie’s machine started to evaporate.

“I mean those teachers might be right. If the machine is only right 10% of the time, can you really say it’s predicting anything? The weatherman can predict the weather better than this machine.” Alan quietly thought to himself.

Marie: “Anyways, we at the advanced numerology research team will prove those teachers wrong and—” she was cut off by a loud noise.

The sound of static and glass shattering emanates from somewhere inside the NPA machine. Each of the vacuum tubes that was sticking out the side of the machine popped and sent shards of glass everywhere.

The lights in the room started to flicker and even the light bulbs in the ceiling started to pop one by one until the entire room was left in complete darkness. Another loud sound of something mechanical going wrong in the NPA machine screeched out before everything went silent.

Everyone was now standing in complete darkness, as there were no windows in this room. Jafar let out a high-pitched “eep” of surprise as everything was plunged into darkness.

Marie: “Um, does anyone have a light?” she called out to Alan’s group in the darkness.

A dim golden light started to emanate from Sere, as she used her healing magic in a way to generate light from her hands for the others to see. Jafar also followed his friend's example and produced light with his magic, but it was with a small ball of light that floated near him, a basic type of non-elemental light magic most people in the Ember Gear college learn.

Sere: “What in the world was that?” she said, sounding a little startled.

Marie let out a deep sigh.

Marie: “That is my bad. I didn’t calibrate the NPA machine and it overloaded. The rest of the team’s going to be so mad at me.” she said, dreading what she would have to tell the other member of her team.

Alan: “Has this happened before?”

Marie: “Yeah, if you don’t calibrate it before you use it, there is a small chance it will overload and blow out the electrical work. Which is what just happened. It was calibrated for weather prediction and not mathematical solving…but that doesn't make sense. It shouldn’t need to be calibrated for that. Solving a math formula shouldn’t use that much processing power. Why did it overload?” she said while starting to ponder to herself.

Jafar: “Can you fix the machine and still decode the formula?” he said, hoping that she could.

Marie: “Hm, it will probably take a week to a month to fix this.”

Jafar: “Damn it,” he said, frustrated.

It was a rollercoaster of emotions Alan’s group was going through. First hoping that they could get this note decoded, only to be told it couldn’t, and then being told it actually could, to now in the current situation. It was starting to become exhausting.

Alan, still standing some distance away from the group, notices something in the dim light. The printer Marie showed earlier had a piece of paper sitting in the output tray.

Alan: “Hey Maire, that printer that was connected to your machine printed out something.”

Marie: “Oh, did it still output a solution? Let me see.” She said as she walked over to the printer and picked up the paper to examine, completely forgetting about the ruined machine.

What she saw on the paper immediately shocked her. She looked confused and just looked up at Jafar, unable to say anything. Whatever she saw was unbelievable to her.

Alan: “Well, what does it say?”

Marie: “It…doesn't…say anything. It's a…picture.” she said, sounding surprised and confused.

Sere: “A picture?”

Marie: “Yeah, I-I don’t get it. The NPA machine is not supposed to be able to output images…”

Alan: “Can I see it?” he asked Marie

Marie just handed it to Alan and he examined the picture carefully.

Printed out of the sheet of paper in black and white was the image of a human skull with a large crack on the forehead. The details of the image were impressive and something about it was disturbing to look at. It felt as though the hollow eye socket of the picture of the skull was somehow looking at Alan.

 

 

Alan: “Ahh, um. Yeah, that’s super ominous. It printed out a skull.”

Jafar: “Let me see,” he said as he walked up beside Alan, bringing the ball of light that was helping illuminate the room with him. 

Alan handed him the picture for him to look at and examine as well.

Jafar: “Yeah… that seems disturbing.” 

Alan: “Wait a second. Jafar, can you bring the light a little closer to the picture?”

He did as he was asked, and the ball of light flouted a little closer, brightening up the image and making it a little more clear to see.

Alan: “Look there at the bottom. There’s numbers.”

Jafar: “Oh, yeah you're right. It is really faded, but it’s there.”

Sere: “What does it mean?”

Jafar: I think… It's a date. Midnight three days from now.

Sere: “A date for what? Is something supposed to happen at midnight on that day?”

Alan: “Based on this image, it’s probably not something good.”

Jafar: “Does that mean something bad is going to happen three days from now?”

In the dark lab, everyone looked at each other unsure. No one knew what to make of the mysterious date.