PFSB: Milliways

[riddleofthebelow]

Tom needed his camera to take yet more pictures of his adorable children, and when he fetched it the evening before, he found something odd he can't explain. It's not a bad odd thing. It's just a puzzling odd thing.

Ingress has some explaining to do.  Or Wei Wuxian. Either one.

So Tom's at a table at Milliways, with an eyebrow raised, and wouldn't mind some company.

Comments

[riddleofthebelow]

"I take it the Fourth and Fifth are no longer in the competition. Is there any feasible way more could be eliminated? The Eighth sounds like a weak link."

[we_bring_hell]

"The Fourth and Fifth are dead," she says quietly. "And while I'm tempted to kill Silas Oktasiron every time he opens his mouth... he is sixteen."

[riddleofthebelow]

Right. That fact would not necessarily stop Tom. But this isn't the Underside, and it's not his family's lives at stake.

"I'm trying to think through any scenarios that be of help. Whether they are feasible or not is up to you."

[we_bring_hell]

Harrow likes to think of herself as ruthless, having grown up inside of a war crime, but the truth is that her secrets have only made her more vulnerable. Her broken heart cannot carry another dead child.

"No, of course," she says. "I appreciate it."

"Palamedes Sextus has handled the grey key of the Sixth, and his specialty is psychometry. We think we can collaborate to unlock the door of the study. That just leaves the Ninth--and as a Ninth House adept, have seen enough of that trial to understand it approximately--and the Seventh."

"The key of the Seventh is missing."

[riddleofthebelow]

Sextus - Sixth, Oktasiron - Eighth, Nonagesimus - Ninth. Interesting. Latin, it would seem, lingers far into the future.

"Well, you weren't speaking lightly when you said you had a puzzle. What are the others' specialties?"

[we_bring_hell]

"The Second have the ability to take life energy from their enemies and redirect it to their cavalier. The Third are flesh magicians," she says. "The Fourth can create actual energy--fireballs and the like--from thanergetic fission."

"The Fifth converse with spirits, the Seventh preserve life and draw thanergy from the dying, and the Eighth use their cavalier like a battery."

[riddleofthebelow]

"And the Seventh is missing their key, is suspicious, preserves life, and your theorems may lead to some kind of substitution - a life taking place of another life. This is a lot to consider, and I definitely want to do some additional research."

[we_bring_hell]

"By all means," she says.

"I have guarded these closely, Lord Ostium, but necromantic theorems have no intrinsic value to someone from a living world. And I recognize the value it would hold for your House to be allied to one of the servants of God.

[riddleofthebelow]

"No one will know of your secrets. I won't even write them down; I'll simply study the memory of this conversation closely and make my own notes. I know the importance of discretion in matters such as these."

[we_bring_hell]

She nods and draws over her journal and begins to walk through what she knows with him.

[riddleofthebelow]

There is a lot to take in, on top of what was already a hefty amount of new information. When she comes to an ending of her explanation, he nods gravely and stands.

"I should get back to the House and to my responsibilities. But I will make time for this study. I've made connections between worlds of knowledge here before to help solve problems."

He'll do it again.

[we_bring_hell]

She nods. "It is very well, Lord Ostium. Thank you."