2 AL: IRENE

Irene awoke a couple hours later. She stripped out of her clothes and carefully removed the makeshift bandage from her leg. The wound on her leg was almost completely healed. Even the scar tissue that was forming along the edges was gone.

She took a long soak in the bathing pool, using a bar of soap she brought from the Speedwell. She also cleaned her clothes in the pool. She took out the camera from its spot in the shirt. She inspected it for any sign of corrosion but didn’t see anything. She set it on the bed so it wouldn’t record her naked, although it probably already did.

She put her underwear on wet but hung her clothing up to dry. Since she was essentially stuck in the room, she started experimenting with the prize altar. She remembered her camera and slipped it into her bra in the hopes that it would record what the altar really did. She found that she could activate the interface just by touching it. Her inventory appeared as a list of icons that seemed to float just above the flat stone panel over the table top. The tusks and chunk of meat she received from killing the boar were easily recognizable.

A bit more experimentation and she found where it showed how many coins she possessed. It was short of the 108 the innkeeper said she needed to rent an apartment for thirty six days but it was more than she remembered receiving.

Irene realized that stress and fatigue was affecting her memory. She needed a method to keep track of the days if she was going to make it back by spring. She should plan on getting back a bit early so she wouldn’t have to navigate the stream when it was flooded by spring melt. She would try to get back in 60 days, nine of which were already gone. Nine more would be needed for the walk out. That left 42 days. She went through her pack, looking for something she could use. She spread out the map and studied it. There were some unused areas on it where she could mark the days. Unfortunately she didn’t have anything she could use as a pen. She decided to poke holes in the material. She thought about using her trusty knife but she was afraid of making the holes too large. The multitool that was her father's included a small blade with a sharp point. She decided to use that. She punched nine holes along the edge of the map where there were no markings.

With that task complete she went back to the prize altar. She remembered Sophia or Jake saying a prize altar could turn the virtual rewards into physical items. She really didn’t want a chunk of meat or a large tusk she would have to carry. She wondered if she could get it to make her a coin. A bit of fiddling and she held a coin made of black iron in her hand. The altar produced an impressive light show that coalesced into the coin on its flat table top.

Irene studied the surface on it. She was unsurprised to find it was covered in a set of inscriptions. The marks were extremely fine. It was hard to make out what they were beside the ever present hash marks. When she looked at it as a whole the pattern on one side looked like a jagged diamond, on the other side it formed a rat.

Looking at the rat, Irene remembered where she saw that jagged diamond before. Agatha produced it by decrypting an inscription with three as its secondary symbol. Irene had the strange thought that this coin must have been part of the payout she got from killing a rat with an ice-bolt. She picked it randomly from the ‘pile’ of coins in her inventory. She looked even closer at the pattern that formed that jagged diamond. Was that the upside down y symbol? She thought it could be. If the coins really did reflect how they were earned, it was a way to find out what spells others were using. She wondered if there was a way to have multiple coin piles so she could keep track of the coins she got from others.

She would ask Phillip in the morning. She wasn’t happy with the changes she detected in her brother but he was still her brother. She would tell him she wanted to keep track of how much money she made from items versus the rewards she got directly from hunting.

She held the coin up to the light and tried to make sure the camera caught a clear image of each side. The coin was rather large and heavy. She didn’t really want to have to carry it around. She wondered if she could use the altar to put it back into inventory.

After a few tries she discovered that if she put the coin on the tabletop first and only then touched the surface, the altar interface opened on a different screen. From there it was easy enough to put the coin back into her inventory. The coin seemed to dissolve into the surface.

Now that she knew how to return them, she ended up materializing all the coins in her inventory. The images on the physical objects confirmed her suspicions about the source of inspiration for them. The coins seemed to celebrate all the blows that led to the victory. She found coins with a boar on one side and an arrow, or ax on the other. The ax was not a true image of Jake’s improvised weapon. Instead it was a styled version with a wide blade and a curved cutting surface. These two images were even easier to detect than the jagged diamond since the secondary symbol was blank. They reminded her of the light inscription at the entrance to the ruins.

The altar would not accept anything else she tried. It would only work with items that were integrated with the system, everything else in her possession came with her from the Speedwell. She thought about trying some of the items in the room but then she changed her mind. That seemed a little too much like theft.

The lights in the ceiling began to dim, signaling the arrival of night. She thought about turning them back on to stay up later but she didn’t know how to turn them off again. Her clothing was almost dry, so she returned the camera to her last remaining intact shirt before going to bed.

She thought about magic. Phillip didn’t consider the bathroom controls magic. Irene thought they were. ‘Magic’ was how the technology in the structure was controlled. The bathroom was just as much technology as the lights. She considered how shaking your hand turned the water off. Could she integrate that into her light spell to turn the lights off? Could she use it to cancel the raise temperature control, without turning the water off?

The thought about the pattern Phillip told her to drum her fingers in. It was to touch each finger in order, starting with her pinky. Touching each finger in order seemed like five to her. There was no start or stop symbol. Turning on and off the sink didn’t have a stop and stop signal either.

She was thinking of five as fire, since a fireball was thrown with all five fingers spread. If she replaced the fire symbol for the ice symbol would the water get colder? Ice-bolt was thrown with the three symbol. If she only tapped three fingers, middle finger to thumb, would that be three?

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Irene was still wide awake having slept earlier. There was still a trace of light in the room, which she used to make her way to the restroom. She turned the light on in the small room. If she couldn’t get it to turn off again she would just close the door while she slept.

She turned the water on and raised the temperature multiple times until steam was rising out of the bowl. She switched to drumming out her new pattern. The steam disappeared. A few more repetitions and the water was cold to the touch. There was a limit to how cold it would get. No actual ice appeared but it was close. She shook her hand and the water flow stopped.

Irene was happy. She wanted to dance around like that woman under the apple tree who discovered how to cast ice-bolt. This was the first piece of magic she reasoned out on her own. She looked down at the pool and experienced an epiphany. If it worked on the sink water it should work on the pool water.

She squatted down and tested the water temperature with her left hand. She used her right to drum out the hot water pattern on the tile just above the waterline. The water warmed. Three more repetitions and it was getting uncomfortably hot. She switched to her cold water pattern and the water cooled.

Now she was excited. She wondered if Phillip knew you could change the temperature in the pool. Maybe he just thought it was obvious and he didn’t need to spell it out to her? Even if he did know it didn’t take away from her achievement, since he didn’t tell her. From her point of view she figured it out completely on her own.

Her almost healed leg began to ache and she dropped out of the crouch to land hard on her behind. She laughed, still happy. Looking up at the light above she decided she needed to figure out how to turn them off.

She tried shaking her hand while staring at the panel. Nothing happened. She tried making a fist and then shaking her hand, nothing. She tried throwing her shaking hand.

After all those variations failed she remembered it took her several tries to get the first light panel to turn on. The light spell needed to be learned, unlike these bathroom controls. That seemed to be another difference from cast magic and these utility controls. She tried all the variations again, repeating each one at least twenty five times.

Nothing.

She was missing something. She turned the facts she knew around in her head. Shaking her hand canceled the ‘spell’ to turn the water on. Casting cold water removed the heat that was added by hot water. Maybe all her tries at shaking her hand just canceled the spell she was casting at the time. Perhaps light was more like heat. One spell added it and another took it away. She didn’t have a clue about what symbol might represent darkness. It seemed like if there was one it would have been given at the entrance.

Even if that idea was correct she was in no position to figure out what that symbol was now. Was there any other angle she could follow? Maybe when she threw her fist forward she was pushing light into the fixture. What if she pulled her fist back? Would that pull light out of it?

On her seventeenth try, the light went out. The light pulled in from the edges to form a small circle of light. A ball of light appeared, half in the panel and raced back across the space to Irene. It disappeared into her hand.

As her eyes adjusted she realized it didn’t completely go out. Instead it returned to the ‘night light’ level that the lights in the bedroom were on. Three casts later, the first two of which she failed and the light went completely dark, with a much dimmer ball of light returning to her. She was plunged into absolute darkness. She yelled in triumph.

She turned the light on and off, on and off until she experienced no more casting failures. She made her way back to bed under full light. Once she was secure under the covers she turned the light back to its night light setting with a quick flick.

She considered how the magic system seemed to be both consistent and variable. It was consistent in that all the methods appeared to be tied to the numbers zero through six. It was inconsistent in how intent was defined. It reminded Irene of the different systems onboard the Speedwell. The Speedwell was designed with durability and easy maintenance as the primary goals. The building components were consistent across all systems. If two bolts looked the same, they were the same. There was no difference in strength or material. How those bolts were used varied. This variability was partly caused by the different applications but mostly it was the result of different designers.

How magic worked was an indication that it too was engineered by a team. Irene could use logic to try to reason it out but that wouldn’t always work. Not if she was dealing with two different engineers.

Even though it was now late she still couldn’t sleep. She was too excited by her discoveries. She rolled over and felt a slight twinge from leg. She thought about the spell her mother cast. After Phillip described that the healing spell caused people pleasure, she wondered if heal was really what Dr. Whitman cast on her. With a shutter she remembered that smile on her mother’s face right before she made the second cast. Irene’s initial thought was that the old woman knew the pain she was causing.

It was a healing spell. Her leg and arm were both almost healed. Her mother said something about not letting Irene take it from her. Did her mother think she was getting control of Irene through this addiction Phillip spoke of? If so, what went wrong?

Dr. Whitman cast three-five. The first time she finished by pushing her hand toward the wound. The second time she just moved her hand down toward the floor. Both times both of Irene’s wounds burned. It seemed like the push away was not how this spell was targeted.

When Phillip realized what was happening he didn’t try to stop the casting hand. Instead he worked to break Dr. Whitman’s grip on Irene’s arm. That grip or touch must be essential.

Three-five, cold-hot, ice-fire, Irene felt like she was missing something. The combination was way too simple. Phillip claimed that Mother was the only person who could cast heal. Wouldn’t that indicate a much more complex spell? All that talk about it didn’t work for anyone who didn’t cast ice also seemed odd. Sure Irene could cast ice-bolt but she could also cast light and lightning. She didn’t see any reason why she couldn’t throw a fireball. She knew how it was done, she just hadn’t taken the time to learn it. It seemed like anyone could. She decided that she would make learning fireball a priority. That and figuring out how people were imbuing their weapons.

Just as she was finally drifting off to sleep, she remembered that statue at the bottom of the grand stairway. The broken figure on the ground tied with wires of oxidized bronze to the abstract figure standing tall over them. The ribbon of dark iron running up through the standing section contained inverted y’s and double crossed t’s. The symbols for three and five, ice and fire.