Discordant Note: Crescendo | TBATE

Chapter 189: Corrupted Beasts

Toren Daen

I held the burnished steel dodecahedron in my hand, concentrating deeply on the flaring fire mana within. The metal was ever-so-slightly rough against the pads of my fingers, the texture helping me hold it firmly.

I imbued a bit of fire mana into the little puzzle, keeping my eye trained on the traced flame glyph on one of the faces. It was empty and dark, like a hearth whose fire had been out for a day. But as my fire mana engaged with the internals...

I frowned as I felt something... expand as my mana contacted it. When the structure expanded, it shifted the fire mana within, the energy diffusing in a strict pattern. If I focused, I could sense as the fire mana brushed against the fiery glyph, just beneath the surface. In reaction, a small part of the glyph lit up.

Seris had told me the aim of solving this puzzle was to light the glyph up fully. I furrowed my brow, then imbued a bit more mana into another portion of the internals. I felt as another bit of the structure expanded, pushing more energy toward the glyph at the front. But this expansion somehow caused my first imbuement to fade. While a different stretch of engraved lines glowed with a soft orange light, my initial progress was wiped away.

Okay, I thought, seeing the problem. It seems I have to imbue different parts of this puzzle in a select order. Activate one section, and it deactivates another. There's a pattern I'll have to manage if I want everything to activate at once, thus solving the puzzle.

I fiddled loosely with the puzzle for a few minutes more, imbuing it with different strains of mana. I tried to imbue two portions at once, thus dually activating those parts. I found that I couldn't: the puzzle simply refused to respond when I did that.

There were dozens of these small interactions. Sometimes an activation deactivated two other 'modules;' sometimes only one. And I thought I understood what the dwarven artificers meant when they said it was a test for mana sensitivity. If I blocked out all other senses, I could just feel the path of fire mana as the activation of each module sent cascading ripples to the others, activating or deactivating them in turn.

But it wasn't just a test for mana sensitivity, either. There was a pattern to this, like a logic puzzle from my previous life. I was reminded fondly of a dozen logic gates connected together in a computer.

So there are two ways to solve this, I reasoned. Through tracing the fire mana, or figuring out the pattern.

I exhaled, opening my eyes and unclenching my hands from the little puzzle. It was a surprisingly complex little thing, and I had no doubt it would take me a while to solve.

But I would solve it. I smiled, reaching into my dimension ring and withdrawing my journal. I flipped to a blank page, then began scribbling notes on the puzzle's function.

This was something I'd done countless times on Earth. As a programmer, the fundamental method of creating an algorithm involved breaking a large, complex problem down into individual steps. Then, to achieve the desired outcome, I would solve those smaller problems, all while working toward a bigger goal.

And I'd long ago discovered that this methodology worked exceptionally well with these kinds of logic puzzles. I felt a smile split my face as I imagined Seris' reaction after I eventually solved this. I hadn't seen the woman display shock very often, and I hoped I could draw that out.

Thinking of Seris, however, dampened my mood slightly. Yesterday, I'd freed Olfred from his shackles. And truthfully, I didn't regret doing so. But the Scythe's reaction in the aftermath was what truly stuck in my mind.

After I'd pulled her away from Olfred, Seris' intent had shifted from anger to shame and even... fear. The fear I'd felt radiating from the Scythe as she'd dropped Olfred and looked me in the eye was something that would stay with me for a long, long time.