They were gathered in the central furniture cluster of the upgraded rest. The very center of the rest was a ceiling collapse. The roots of a giant tree reached down through broken steel girders and stone blocks to bury themselves into the floor below. The floor appeared to sag under the weight. A shallow pool of water formed around the base of the pile, Six types of mushrooms grew in the dark hollows of roots and soft rich soil. Grandmother took samples back to the Speedwell and tested the mushrooms. Three were poisonous to different degrees, while three were edible.
A protection crystal was entangled in the roots. The crystal started out barely larger than a chip, but each of their room growth experiments made it grow. Now it was about ten inches tall and half a foot in diameter. It was equivalent to the crystal in the northern gallery. Grandmother thought that it should be large enough to support a transportation room.
“Benjamin wants a school set up on the Speedwell to educate the children of the villages,” Grandmother explained to the group. “It would be very convenient if we could get a transportation room here. It would make the trip from the Speedwell to Home Square less than a day. We could keep tabs on the school and keep up with our duties at the square.
“Valin,” Grandmother said, “You said ‘a path well traveled’ when I asked about spawning a transportation room. What did you mean by that?” Valin was looking much better. Getting back into the structure's area of influence put a bounce into his steps. He changed into his cloth and glass armor. Using the skills the Tinkerer taught her, Ellen repaired the cut Grandmother put down the back of the ceramic cloth armor. The ring in his ear shined a bright copper.
“It's the wisdom of the aged,” Valin responded. Grandmother suspected the elf was maybe a little bit too recovered. He seemed to be falling back into his grumpy old man persona. Grandmother gave him a direct stare. “All the oldies said it to me when I was young,” Valin added in defense.
“Hmm…” Grandmother murmured, accepting that response. She was spinning her staff in her hand. “Does anyone have any ideas?”
“We still have the totem idea left to try,” Todd observed, “if we can find one.”
“Is a transportation room listed as one of the available upgrades?” Ellen asked.
“I can’t tell from the icons which would be the transportation room. From the way they are sized and colored there are a lot of choices that are unavailable to us at this time,” Grandmother explained.
“I can tell you which one is the transportation room,” Valin volunteered. “Add me as a candidate and I will point it out.”
Now the elf had Grandmother's full attention.
“How do I add you as a candidate?” Grandmother asked. Valin began a long explanation. It started out short but he kept referencing things Grandmother didn’t know.
“Well, I have to touch the crystal,” Valin admitted, “then you can drag my guest record over to the association and drop it into the candidate basket.”
“What association?” Grandmother asked.
“Your group is a full color set, and I’ve seen you all touch the same crystal within the time constraint. Since the tones don’t sound, you must already have an association formed, use that one,” Valin countered.
It went on like that. Valin went through how to view the active associations, pick one and look at the current roster. There were eight different baskets as Valin called them. Grandmother thought of them as windows or panes. They were colored white, yellow, green, blue, violet, red, orange and black. Grandmother's number string was sitting in the black pane. The number string for everyone who visited the south gallery was sitting in the white pane. Since their association was formed there, anyone who touched that crystal was automatically considered an applicant, or white.
Yellow was a candidate. They could view the association’s interfaces, but not use them. Grandmother didn’t know if that meant a candidate could see the data, like the number sequence identifiers or not. Green was a trainee, blue was a full member, violet meant a group leader, or a lord as Valin called them. Red were dukes, or a leader of multiple groups and orange were the heirs, who would inherit the association if the leader should die. Black was the leader.
Grandmother tried to drag Todd’s number sequence over to the black panel, but it bounced. She didn’t know if it was because his tier was too low, or if only one leader was allowed. She dropped Todd into the orange pane, and tried to drag her own name back to the zero pane. It bounced too.
She dragged Ellen, Alex, Sarah and Companion over into the orange category after Todd. After some thought she dropped Harry into blue, or who she thought was Harry. All the tier fours, except the innkeeper Grandmother suddenly remembered, touched the crystal in the south gallery. There were a couple blues, a couple reds and a lot of greens. She really couldn’t tell which number sequence was Joe. When she verified Harry and Joe she would move them over to red. She moved Kai over to blue too. With his rare color of yellow she was certain who he was.
After a little last minute reluctance, Valin touched the crystal. The crystal filled with a dark green. Valin explained how to leave the association window open and go back to the guest book. A new entry was on the top of the guest book. It read 5 3 34 and was followed by a very large number, but not as large as the one assigned to Companion. She dragged the sequence across from the guest book and dropped it in the yellow panel. She found a number sequence that must be Muriel on the guest list and dragged that over to blue too.
Valin settled down and opened his own interface. Grandmother watched him around the corner of her own open interface. He didn’t touch the crystal like Grandmother. Her first experiments with the gallery interface showed her she could release the crystal after she opened the interface. Any sudden movements automatically shut down any open interfaces. If she moved very slowly she could back away from the crystal itself to find a better seat. Valin didn’t do any of this.
“You don’t have the link option selected,” Valin announced, just as Grandmother was about to ask him how he could view the gallery interface without touching the crystal. He walked her through how to turn on the option for association members to view the association interface through their personal interfaces. He also told her how to add the current gallery as an outpost of the association, so that its interface could be viewed through the association. By default only the gallery where the association was formed would be viewable through its interface.
“You can add the square too,” Valin commented. “Although you have to be physically at the crystal to do it. A lot of square owners don’t want to because it makes the resources of the square viewable by dukes and above. They are only viewable, even heirs can’t touch the inventory. If you want a square’s resource to be available to the association, it has to be manually transferred over to the association’s inventory.”
“Inventory?” Ellen asked. She stared off into the distance and opened up her own interface. “How do I open the association interface using my own?” she asked Valin.
Everyone settled down to open their interfaces, except for Todd, who even here in the security of the crystal kept a watch, for threats both external and internal. Grandmother made a note to make sure she took a turn at the watch to let Todd have a look as well.
Everyone got lost in inventory questions. Grandmother let this explanation go on for while before she redirected Valin back to the transportation room. Valin took a moment to flip through his own interface until he reached the upgrade section for the current outpost.
“It is the third one up in the not for purchase section,” Valin reported.
“Which section are you calling not for purchase?” Grandmother asked.
“The bottom of the list starts with large solid icons, those are the upgrades the outpost already has. The next section of faded icons are the upgrades that are available for purchase. If there is a material option it is always cheaper to pay that. The third section is not for purchase. It starts with the smaller icons. These are upgrades that some precedent has to be met before they become available for purchase. Sometimes meeting the precedent just grants the upgrade without any further price,” Valin explained. “The small blurred icons on the top tell you there are more, but you are unable to meet the precedent at this time.” Valin didn’t mention that there were more visible, unblurred icons on this list then he’d ever seen before. “What upgrades a group is offered always varies a lot. Completing tasks, tests and challenges can make more upgrades available,” Valin explained aloud.
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“We will have to go back to the grand staircase and give the statue another go,” Todd commented from where he stood on watch. It was Valin’s word ‘test’ that made Todd think of the statues. Grandmother thought they were a test to check if an explorer was ready to go deeper. “With Companion with us we might be able to finally get past the six tree spells.”
“Do we all have to complete the challenge?” Sarah asked, obviously thinking about how she had not yet challenged the arena.
“Not any that I know. It just takes one member of the association. Associations sometimes pay people to join them just to unlock an upgrade. The upgrade locks again if the person leaves but any purchased upgrades remain,” Valin explained.
Grandmother found the icon for the transportation room and selected it. When she did that to one of the large grayed out icons in the south gallery she’d found a list of crafting tool icons. She noticed most of those icons were grayed out, but the icon for the anvil was solid. Several others were also solid, but the anvil was clearly identifiable. She’d looked over at Alex breaking physical glass into smaller pieces on the top of an anvil and realized that the interface was counting it. A little trial and error and they’d made their attempt to spawn what they hoped was a crafting workshop.
The transportation room icon opened up to reveal a grid of numbers. The largest number was six raised to the power of seven, while the smallest number was one, or maybe zero since the lowermost, rightmost position was blank. Blanks sometimes denoted zero in the structure, and sometimes it was just a blank. The last column on the right and the bottom row both contained the numbers one through six.
It looked like a data table to her, with the parameter labels on the wrong sides. She looked around the edges of the interface for some kind of key. She even tried to drag the chart right and left to see if there was something just ‘off screen’. The chart didn’t move. She dismissed the chart and stood up and stretched. She wasn’t stiff but normal action always made her feel better. She looked around the group, all staring off at invisible screens. Todd glanced at her with a questioning look.
“What does the table mean?” she asked Valin. He raised his eyes up to look at Grandmother too quickly and his interface closed.
“Table?” he questioned.
“The grid of numbers under the transportation icon,” Grandmother explained.
“Oh, I can’t see that. As a candidate I can only see the topmost list. My people don’t invest in an outpost that didn’t spawn with a transportation room already in it,” Valin replied.
“Anyone have any ideas what it means?” Grandmother asked the group. “Todd, you go ahead and give it a look.” Grandmother moved over to a watch position, while Todd settled onto the floor, getting comfortable before opening his interface. He must have been paying attention to Valin’s description, because he didn’t ask any questions.
“It is like the multiplication tables on the learning machines,” Companion commented.
“Yeah,” Alex observed. “Only six times six isn't six, and one times one isn’t six times six, seven times.”
“It’s six raised to the power of seven,” Sarah corrected him.
“One times one is one,” Companion stated absolutely.
“Never mind,” Sarah murmured.
“So the smaller numbers are related to a larger total and the larger numbers mean a smaller total?” Grandmother asked.
“Yes,” Alex confirmed.
Valin was watching the group feeling slightly amused. He was feeling more sure of himself after finding out how ignorant these humans were about houses.
“A path well traveled…” Grandmother mused. “What if the numbers in the table are the number of trips needed to add a location to the transportation network?”
“How would a trip be defined?” Ellen asked. “It’s a path well traveled. Do we need to go touch another crystal then come back here and touch this one? Then repeat that same trip the number of times in this table?”
“If we are tying it into the existing network, I bet the other crystal needs to be one on the transportation map,” Todd commented.
“Ok,” Grandmother said, looking over the group, “I like that plan, it makes sense to me. Do you think it is time sensitive? We spawned those extra transportation rooms when we pushed the selkie through fast.”
“Maybe time is one of these parameters?” Sarah asked.
“No, that doesn’t make sense,” Ellen responded. “It would mean a shorter time requires more trips.”
“One through six are the magic numbers,” Companion commented.
“So it takes more trips for people with yellow magic than if the person is orange? That makes no sense,” Sarah, a yellow wizard commented.
“Makes sense to me,” Companion countered. His magic was orange, of course it was more powerful.
“Oh!” Alex exclaimed, “what if is the number of colors. If the trip is made by only one color it takes more trips, but if multiple people with different colors do the trip it takes less.”
“That sounds right,” Grandmother said. “Let's work with the assumption that one of the parameters is the color count. We have six colors, what does that do to the trip count?”
“If rows represent different color counts, then the total numbers go from six to the sixth power down to six. If it is the columns we have thirty six to six,” Todd reported.
“I like those last numbers,” Grandmother said. “How many times have we made the trip to and from north gallery?”
“I think this is the first trip,” Sarah said. “You and Todd discovered this rest during the midseason trip. We ended up coming out directly from Home Square for the maintenance cycle because of the load.”
“That would mean we are only at seven. Wait, Valin, did you touch the crystal in the gallery?” Todd asked.
“No,” Valin replied.
“So six,” Todd concluded, “or eight if we go with the maintenance cycle trip with Kai and Muriel and Home Square as the starting crystal.”
“If Muriel touched the crystal in Home Square before we left, she was out in OpenSky and might have touched that crystal last,” Grandmother commented.
“I think the twenty four is slightly darker than the rest of the numbers,” Ellen commented. Grandmother wanted to open her interface and check so bad she could almost see it. She shook her head, and made herself sweep her gaze across the open doors of the hallway accesses and the individual group members. Valin did not reopen his interface. He was watching the group work on the problem. He was holding his hands in an oddly stiff manner.
“It does look a little darker,” Alex confirmed. Grandmother waited until Sarah agreed as well. Sarah was their best artist. If she thought it was darker, it was.
“What parameter numbers is the cell with twenty four associated with?” Grandmother asked.
“Six and three,” Todd responded.
“Are the larger values you told me or the smaller ones associated with that six?” Grandmother asked.
“The smaller set,” Todd confirmed.
“So if it is colors, it is more important than the other factor. What could the three be?”
“Different paths?” Companion offered. “Home Square, OpenSky and north gallery?”
“Hmm…” Grandmother commented. “Valin, what crystal did you last touch?”
“I am not certain,” Valin responded, “but it was none of those.”
“So if Muriel did touch the crystal in Home Square, it could still be three. Home Square, north gallery and Valin’s forgotten,” Todd commented.
“If it's a discount based on multiple source points, why do we only get a discount up to six. There are a lot of crystals in the world,” Ellen said. “Think about all the selkie and human squares we’ve visited the last few years.”
“If you only need six people to come here they can only come from six places,” Companion commented, in an effort to support his source theory.
“That is good logic,” Grandmother commented. “The way you said that though makes me wonder, what if it isn’t the path or the source but just the number of people who end up here. If we all only count once, then we are currently at nine. If we are working to twenty four we need fifteen more people to come here.” Grandmother sighed. “That doesn’t explain the three.”
“We are three kinds,” Valin said, “Elf, human, selkie.” Grandmother looked at the elf, surprised at his input.
“Yes,” Grandmother responded, “even if there are more species, Companions logic still holds. If six people came here, they couldn’t be more than six species. Any other ideas for the three?”
“Different tiers?” Todd mused. “No, that doesn’t work. There are four different tiers just in this room.” No one came up with another. Grandmother thought over their next steps.
“I’m not certain if it is important what the three means,” Grandmother said. “Both Companion and Valin’s theories work. The biggest difficulty I see is if it is people and not trips. The safest thing to do is to get a group of twenty four people to come out here. If we all came together in a single trip it should cover all contingencies, like if that table is only for a certain time period. We can have at least one person touch the crystal in Home Square, OpenSky and north gallery last, so we are traveling from three sources. Actually we better make the two from Home Square and OpenSky extras so we have a full count from the north gallery to cover the single path option. If you don’t want to come out again Valin, we can increase the count of people to whatever is on the two line to cover only two species just in case.”
“That line reads thirty,” Todd responded. “How are we going to get thirty people to run out into dark space?”
“We can pay them,” Grandmother observed.
“You could sponsor a training mission for the halflings,” Companion suggested. “I went on several in my youth.”
“Not a bad idea,” Todd commented. “It would be a good trip for some of our tier ones who have never been out of the square. We could demonstrate the statues, have them decrypt some inscriptions and let them throw light at the fist in the courtyard. If we teach them to secure rooms for the night, dark space will be safer for them than the area around Home Square.”