Book 8 – Chapter 9 – Discovery

“Your second riddle’s eight hundred, eighty eight, plus eight eight, plus three more eights one after another. That’s eight eights on paper, just using addition, and it all equals exactly one thousand.” I said, scribbling the little mini-equation.

Compared to riddle number one, there was a massive gulf in difficulty change. But on the other hand, this riddle felt more like an actual riddle so Speaker had changed something up between the jump from riddle to mathematical savant.

Speaker hummed. “I judge this as correct.”

“You judge it? Where’s your friend?”

“Judge has withdrawn, to complete your prior request. This second joust of words is between you and I now, human and no other.”

It didn’t refer to me as a thief this time, progress. As for the other request I had for Judge… “You mean teach me how to slap people around in the digital sea?”

“As you so crudely put it, yes.”

“So how’s it going to teach me skills in the digital sea? Are we talking a coloring book or more guided meditation session? I have preferences.”

It scoffed. “I am uncertain, I do not have any contact with Judge other than to hear its decree. Where it goes, or where it exists, I do not follow.”

All right, so it was going to show up in my future at possibly some strange time. But at least it would be on my side. I lifted the cape up, holding it in place. Already one good use I could see for this would be to tie it backwards. As in, have the white cloth side inwards to my back and leave the empty tunnel into the higher dimension on the outside. Anything taking a swing at me as I’m running away (Heroically) would have a harder time actually landing a hit.

Just using it like so would certainly make this cloth worthwhile to bring around, but I had a very strong hunch there was another use for this. More than one way to use a dimensional cape. “All right Speaker, your part of the bargain now: Will this thing kill me if I stick my head through it?”

“It will not.” Speaker said.

Can we trust the mite construct to be objective? I sent to Prime through the soul tendril brushing on the mite lantern. I’d trust Judge, but Speaker makes me think: Sneaky nefarious schemer.

It does take one to know one, yes. Superior sent back, and we shared the mental equivalent of finger guns at each other. But seriously Prime, I could see Speaker try to murder us out of pure pettiness. Give me a second, I asked earlier but the mites are still answering right now.

There was a pause as I waited, but Superior returned quickly after. Mites give it an all green, or as far as I can understand. Most of them said green, a few others gave random colors and shapes instead. Figuratively speaking. Gods, mitespeakers really are half-insane. I want hazard pay after all this.

Would you settle for a To’Aacar shell in these trying times? It’s currently pre-owned, but I think we can get the current owner to sell it at a discount. You’d need to fix it up yourself but I believe in your abilities Superior.

He gave me a rugged handshake, and we put it on the goals list. Only thing better than stealing Avalis’s first shell, is to steal his second one.

As for the cape… Well, Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I held it up, then stuck my head through.

The other side was… odd. It was as if I’d just put my head through a glassless window, so nothing on the other side of it was different from the world here. Except if it could move.

In that case, it seemed to be like long exposure photography. Just one giant smear of blurred movement. Very detailed, like a three dimensional long exposure photography.

I wouldn’t have recognized some of the blurred things in this room, like the screen images were a mess of colors now, but there was something in there that I could recognize: Me.

Walking from the terminal over to the cube, and then doing all kinds of motions over the cape as I fiddled with it. “I don’t have half enough drugs for this occult scrapshit.”

“Journey’s got a few choice selections of painkillers if you’d like deary.” Cathida suggested. “Just saying.”

I decided to gamble on what this other side of reality was, and stepped completely through, leaving only my hand holding the cape up on the other side. The sides of the fabric draped downwards, held just by my hand from the ‘inside’ reality here.

There was something off with this side of the cape. I mean other than all this. I imagine if there were more things moving around me, it would be actual insanity.

One exception in all this is that I could see that my own movements within this side of the cape did not incur the blurred overlay. I moved my hand up and down, nothing appeared behind it. I then wiggled the cape I was holding up and down, then looked over to the other side of it.

It was inverted. Now the white fabric was on that side, while the side I’d stepped through was the one leading back into reality.

“I need a name for this pocket space dimension thing.” I said, “Cathida. Options. Stat.”

“The Dark Side.” She said. “Suitably ominous, easy to say, and best of all not something stupid like Keith’s Hangar Space.”

“You had me at ominous.” I said. “But my own private hangar space is also pretty neat.”

Come to think of it, could I store things in the Dark Side? If I took an object and left it here, did it vanish, follow behind, or stay right here until someone found a way into the dark side other than through my cape?

I still held it up with my gauntlet and I wasn’t going to let it drop anytime soon. I was half-terrified that if I let it completely close, I might be trapped in this dimension. It probably looked like a floating cape holding itself up on some invisible pole from the outside.

I lowered the cape slowly down to the ground. Then back up and tested my range of motion with it. I could even hold it up like a bedsheet, widening the window back to the Light Side. Then I brought the cape back down all the way to the ground, until only the tips of my fingers were exposed into the actual reality. Rest of me was in this strange otherside world, that I knew didn’t appear in the real world.

I had tested the cape earlier by sticking my hand through it and found it missing on the expected other side. I could imagine the same would happen to the rest of my body. I could pull a vanishing trick now with this thing, neat.

Now, did occult work in this dimension too? I flared it out, touching on multiple fractals and waking them up from their dormant state, then focused on the dome fractal that existed by my palm. A small shield appeared as it should.

Could I escape all harm by jumping on this side of the world and then protecting just the cape from being destroyed by stuffing it all under one single occult dome shield? Possibly two with Superior backing me up.

“Speaker?” I called out. Didn’t have high hopes it could hear me in the Dark Side, but it oddly proved me wrong a moment later.

“I can hear you, yes.” Speaker said.

“You can?”

“Sound waves travel through higher dimensions without issue. The distance you are from my microphones is simply a longer path for the sound waves to travel. You are audible at this distance, less loud than outside the cape. A small mercy.”

“So this side of the cape really is a higher dimension?” Am I standing inside the fourth dimension, or just displaced along the lines of it somewhere?

“Answers shall be given only when I have my third and final riddle solved and no earlier. You shan’t trick me a second time, knave.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

I looked over to my trails of movement. Parts of it were vanishing, simply gone out of existence. Mostly from the back of the trail, when I was at the console earlier answering questions. Which meant whatever time slices this side of the cape had, it did have a limit.

High dimensions… Timeline exposed… sound could still travel outwards here.. Light side, dark side…

Nope, I have no godsdamned idea of what this cape was about. “Fine, I’ll solve your last riddle.”

Two plus two made four, but also multiplied to four, and I had to figure out the next set of three whole numbers that did the same, not including zero.

There were solutions probably with modulo arithmetic and p-adic number shenanigans, or working with something besides base ten. And probably even more solutions to this if Speaker hadn’t restricted it to whole numbers only. Matrix arithmetic might also have a few vectors that could do the same thing, or finite fields where things converge together in the end anyhow.

Or I could simply lie and gaslight my way to victory too. Convince speaker three, three, and three equaled four, and multiplied to four somehow. I just had to believe hard enough, and double down until it starts questioning reality.