Chapter 38: The Trial of Intelligence

-Dias

Once the spirits of Celine, Bowman, and Welch were gone, Dreampeace unlocked the door to the next trial. The next hallway was dim, its surfaces as smooth as the tunnel through the ocean. Since it was under an island, Dias expected them to emerge in a cave. Instead, they stepped out onto a tiled floor in front of one of those stone slabs. The lights immediately turned on, revealing that they were in a huge room with a lot of machinery that didn't all make sense but it was working somehow. Three pathways that seemed to be supported on nothing went out into thin air, leading them to a maze of platforms with spherical devices. Overhead, a much larger platform nearly stretched from edge to edge, as a circle within a square.

Just as he'd glanced over the room, colorful sparkles filled the air around Opera and Precis, shortly before vanishing with the two of them. That worried him briefly, until Ernest reminded them, "Looks like they were chosen by the trial's guardian. That means we've got to solve this side of things."

"Right," Claude said, looking over the slab.

This one had instructions on it. Some of the words didn't look quite right to Dias; maybe they were ones without an adequate translation. 'Plan with Intelligence, to see the way forward – Within this trial are many questions. Some are irrelevant, some are key. Go to the generators and unlock them through answering their questions, then ascend to face the machine puzzle. Solve the machine puzzle to pass the trial or else be eliminated from this path.'

"And those two would have made a machine puzzle much easier," Dias said, annoyed at the hindrance. But maybe if Opera and Precis solved their half quickly, they could help finish the other half.

"We'll consider that once we work out the generator quizzes," Claude said, looking over the layout of the room again. "The pathways won't be easy for all of us to be on, especially if there's monsters here too. Let's split up into two groups; looks like we can each take one of those paths to reach half the generators. Look over the questions and see what can be answered. If we need to, we can always call over to the other group to see if they know an answer to a question."

That seemed like a decent plan, so they decided on how to split up.

-Opera

From a room of clean precise machinery into one of dirty abandoned machinery; it was quite a change of scenery. Opera first checked to make sure that she had solid footing, on a nearly bare patch of floor with a frayed wire running along the floor nearby. Piles of junk were all around the room; Precis had landed on a somewhat precarious perch on a large cog. On one wall, there was a large flat screen where a corner of the display was showing colors wrong. On the wall where the sole door was, there was an oversized circuit attached to several lights (all out) and what was likely the door's lock

"Hey, this place is like a machine treasure room!" Precis said, hopping off the cog to get to the floor. "You'd have to fix up most everything, but you could also make a lot of neat stuff, I bet."

"It'd take some time, but we probably could," Opera said, smiling at her enthusiasm. "But I think it's here for us to solve that puzzle on the wall. We've got to tackle this side of the trial of intelligence."

"But that looks easy," Precis said, going over to the wall to check on the circuit.

"It is the first puzzle," she reminded the girl. "Seems all we need to do is find a battery to power it, then a couple of switches to make sure the power goes through the right wire."

"Um, some of that stuff you said sounded funny," Precis said. "But I think I know what you mean. A power source and switches."

Wondering about that, she said, "It could be that the language of Expel doesn't have words to match the terminology I use for machinery. So it forces the translators to come up with the next best thing. It might even be that we think we're using the same ideas, but we're not because the translators can't handle it perfectly."

"That weird, and maybe trouble. All well, gotta hope for the best huh? Let's look for the stuff!" She then turned to look over the piles of junk. Before long, she spotted the switches and started trying to slot them onto the wall, judging if they would work or not by eye.

Opera walked around the room until she came across a battery that appeared to be the right size and shape for the slot on the wall. While she didn't have her usual tools here, she did find a wire attached to a light and was able to use that to make sure the battery had power to it. "Here's a power source," she said, bringing it back over. "Are you done with the switches? I don't want to put it in with you still messing with that."

"Um," she traced her fingers along the path she made, ending up at the door lock. "Yup, that should work." Opera passed her the battery, letting her set it in. The light by the door lock immediately turned on, followed by a click as the door unlocked. At the same time, a sound from the screen made them look over that way. "Hey, that's me at Bowman's place, I think."

It did seem like that, somehow being a recording from within the pharmacy when Precis was probably four. She was playing with what seemed to be a rather normal doll while her father talked with Bowman and another man nearby. "Then is it a matter of producing enough power, or getting that power over distances longer than a hundred feet?" Bowman asked.

"I think it's the distance issue that's holding us back," Precis' father said. "After the fires at several generators, people are more wary of having them inside their towns. It would make sense to have bigger generator stations outside of towns, but then we can't take it far enough and people are getting used to the lights."

"I'm pretty sure it's the power," the other man said. "We could do so much more with electricity than just lights if the stations could produce more power. Just think of mills that are dependent on the water remaining steady or the wind blowing. I've gotten some interesting actions with electrical circuits that could make machines do a mill's job constantly. Or other work, but there isn't enough power to run bigger devices. That's why we've been looking into these alternative generators."

"Going too big too fast could turn dangerous," Precis' father said, right before a woman burst out of one of the back rooms and ran off.

"Florice!" the other man said, getting up and running after her.

Meanwhile, Nineh and another woman came out of the same room."I hope he can catch up to her," Nineh said, holding onto the other woman's arm.

"What was that about?" Bowman asked.

"Our research on the energy generators..." the other woman said, upset over whatever it was.

"It could be what's making them ill, and we don't think either of them will be able to have more children," Nineh said. The recording ended there, leaving the screen to shift over to calculating something.

"That was my mom, but I hadn't heard about anything like that," Precis said, turning to Opera. "I was even there, but I don't remember it."

"You must have been young enough that the adult conversation didn't mean anything to you," she said. "So you had electrical systems figured out before the ship crashed into your world?"

She nodded. "Yup. I knew my parents helped out with it. Huh, but I never had any sisters or brothers because of it? That's sad."

"I wonder what they'd been looking into. But that's right, some kinds of research can be dangerous, especially if little is known about the field before you get into it. I've heard of a few women in my world's history who had similar things happen to them." Precis looked discouraged, so Opera added, "But they found out really important things from it, and were able to keep others from suffering. They made sacrifices, sometimes without even knowing it, but they felt it was worth it."

"I didn't think learning things could be dangerous, but you're right, it must have been worth it," Precis said. "If it's important enough, gotta keep working at it."

In the next room, there was a similar circuitry puzzle, this time requiring more switches since the lights had to fall in a certain pattern to open the door. Precis had no trouble with it, as it may have been something she picked up young from watching her parents work. And as in the last room, a screen in the room played something when they unlocked the door.

This time, it showed Opera walking down a dim hallway. Large white panels on wheels had been moved to certain areas next to the walls. "I guess that's one way to get past security," she said quietly. "But where...? Oh, Mr. Raviendes!" She hurried to the end of the hallway, where Ernest was examine a wall.

He looked back at her, puzzled for a moment. "Oh, Miss Vectra? Don't mind the mister outside of class; you may call me Ernest. Seems so strange to be called like that, even now."

That delighted her. "All right! You may call me Opera then." She looked at the wall, where a shield in the shape of a spiral shell was in place. "What are you doing? There was supposed to be a class."

"I've been trying to solve a mystery," Ernest said, not paying attention to the last statement. "I suppose getting this far... oh wait, you're here! Opera, would you place your hand on the gear in the center of the spiral? Just be ready to let go quickly and run just in case."

She wasn't sure what he was doing, but nodded. "All right, if you say so." She took hold of the gear and it glowed blue. She leaned back and nearly let go, but then the shell began sliding away, revealing a shield with a bird on it.

"Yes, it was here!" Ernest said, taking the shield. "I believe this is the original crest of your family. It only makes sense that one of you would be able to release the lock. Of course, I had to figure out which of the ground level buildings had been the residence of the head of the Vectra family before the wars that drove people to live on the higher levels in all cities. But this should be it."

"That's been missing for nearly two hundred years," Opera said, amazed by the discovery. "My grandfather thinks it was destroyed in the wars."

"Well, we would need to take it to him to judge if it is the real crest," he admitted. Then he handed it to her. "You keep hold of it for now, just make sure to be very careful about it. It would belong to you eventually. Now we need to get back above the dead line before the day ends... wait, what are you doing down here? Most people don't come down here."

"I've been looking for you," she said. "You were supposed to teach freshman history, but you never came into class so we all wandered off. But I checked your notes and tracked you down to here."

Ernest immediately turned pale. "Wait, it's Wednesday then? Ack, I thought it was Tuesday and that I had the time to get down here and back... man, the graduate studies board is gonna kick me out for sure this time. Ah, well... could I give the lecture to you while we head back? So that I at least taught something today, that should count."

"I think it'll also count if you explain to Grandfather what you did to find this," Opera said. "My family very nearly funds the university, so they might excuse you if this does turn out to be the real original crest."

"I hadn't thought of that," Ernest said, and the recording ended there.

"He was your teacher at one time?" Precis asked. "How old are you two?"

Opera laughed at that. "Sort of. At our university, they have high level students, like Ernest was at the time, teach beginning classes. That's where I met him, that history class where he was late to class half the time, and this once didn't show at all. But he was the one who got me really interested in history. Now we're both professors, although he's still absent-minded with his classes like he was then and I end up having to go chase him down." Even though she'd first picked history so she'd keep running into Ernest, that interest did become important on its own too.

Precis' eyes lit up at that. "Could I go to your school? Cause you've got to teach lots of stuff that the Linga University doesn't."

Shaking her head, she said, "Sorry, as much as I'd love to take you back with me, there's laws among the galactic community that keep us from sharing technology to worlds like yours. It would greatly unbalance things."

"Aw man," Precis said. "Well, if I make technology that lets me get to your world, will you teach me then?"

"That's quite a jump from where your world's at," Opera said. "But if you did, sure. Although, given what's going on, Claude, Ernest, and I think there might be a way to get an exception made for Expel. Your first contact with other worlds has been violent, but it's still contact. Then there wouldn't be a problem to bring you to Tetragenes for a few years."

She grinned at that. "All right, we'll have to hope for that! But I'll have a lot more to study, huh? I'll study really hard."

"Yeah, you need a lot of catching up to meet other educational standards, but I think you can do it." Opera winked. "And if you do manage to build that machine in Welch's blueprints, I'm sure that'll convince anyone that Expel can handle contact."

"I just need to look for the right parts then, maybe here!" They headed off to the third room in a good mood.

This one was different from a simple circuit puzzle. On two of the walls, there were a number of wheels, poles, circuits, and other small devices. The screen in the room actually gave them instructions this time: the puzzle was to get a ball from one end of the puzzle to the door's lock without touching the ball. If they broke that rule, the puzzle would reset. This took some planning, even going back into the first two rooms to search for other pieces that didn't seem to be in here. But it was satisfying to see the solution play itself out; she felt like a little kid again seeing it fall into the last slot, so she clapped hands excitedly with Precis in celebration.

This time, the recording started with Opera again, several years after the last one. Three stacks of old books were sitting on a table nearby, but she was at a computer screen showing some recordings to a group of friends and students. "Ferridos 2 is a highly volcanic world, with its crust broken into many small plates with a lot of seismic friction. This leaves the winged people on this world distrustful of the surface. Where many other worlds have the earth seen as a maternal goddess or another mostly benevolent being for nourishing plants and producing jewels, the Ferridos people see their earth as a malevolent being opposing the life-giving sun that they take nourishment from. The ash thrown up into the sky that forces them to move often to find sunny areas is seen as the earth's jealous attacks of the sun."

The recording then skipping jarringly, showing static before changing view. Now it showed Precis, probably ten years old, fiddling with a cylindrical device on a work table. Her father walked in, mumbling over a drawing. But once he saw what she was doing, he hurried over and pulled her away. "Precis! Don't mess with that one."

"Huh, why not?" she asked. "I was trying to figure out what it does like the last machine."

He took the device and looked it over, disconnecting a few wires. "The rest are okay as long as you're careful. But not this one. If anything, we can take it apart to use in other machines, but don't activate this one."

"What's it do?" Precis asked, hoping to get it out of him.

For a half second, maybe, a bloody image of the same location appeared before reverting back to Precis and her father. "This one is dangerous," he said. "That's all you need to know."

Then it switched back to Opera's presentation. "The Ferridos would have given the jewels away, being the creation of their hated earth god, but the allure of these weapons that were far more advanced than anything they had was too much. They gave the jewels in exchange for the guns thinking that the merchant was a fool, not knowing that he would sell them for a thousand times what the guns were worth on another planet. And with those weapons, the tribe long held as a powerless minority destroyed all the tribes that had oppressed them, eventually becoming ruthless tyrannical rulers of their world. Their war had killed too many and within a few generations, the Ferridos society collapsed and nearly went extinct."

It jumped back to Precis, but at another time. Not that long ago either, as she was working with Leon on the Lacour Hope to install the parts. "How strong is that?" she asked.

"To put it into perspective, this should be capable of flattening Hoffman Island in two or three shots," Leon said.

"But why'd you want to do that? The pyramid is awesome and should stay up until we figure out how those doors and such work."

The boy shrugged. "It's just an illustration, although it would make those mines a lot easier to access. Then again, if the Eluria threat is taken out, flattening Hoffman might end up releasing its powerful monsters to the rest of the world. It's probably better to keep it as it is."

Precis looked over a double spiral of tubing, making sure the connections were snug. "Then what's going to be done with it after the Sorcery Globe's taken care of?"

"That's for the king to decide."

The recording then jumped to an entirely different scene, but also with the Lacour Hope. It was in a room with a red floor that almost looked like glass. Two of the Ten Wise Men were there, one of them being Cyril. "Look Indelacio, those worms are going to bug us anyhow, so we might as well have something to spice things up. We can easily make this weapon a million times more effective."

Indelacio didn't reply, wasn't even looking at him. Instead, he looked out of a window over the rest of Energy Nede. His face showed no hint of what he might be thinking about.

"Might even make that not an exaggeration," Cyril said, his fist clenching at some restrained anger.

"It's a pointless task," Indelacio said. "Our descendants are pitiful. Wrapped up in security and kept away from anything that could challenge them, most of them have become feeble and foolish. They think they know everything, so they don't care to learn anything and only seek to be entertained. It might even go for the other side. Not that there's much point to thinking about them."

"There is that space ship still hanging around," Cyril said, still trying to convince him. "We did tear through the planet's security shields getting here. Besides, I thought you were really interested in this thing when Nicolus first called you about it."

Indelacio turned to the Lacour Hope, walking towards it. "It's the best that that world could make it, which would not be suitable for our use. The pipes need to be entirely constructed from heraldic crystals instead of simply being coated with the dust in order to withstand any rounds more powerful than it's currently capable of. While the double coil spiral design is clever to fit it into what was already there, a circular charging coil with a few additional vacuum points would be far more efficient and effective. The extra space can then be used for a battery and amplifier. Also, the barrel should be extended further to allow for greater distance until the fragmentation stage."

The scene jumped again, this time to Opera. It was after the presentation, where she was talking with one of her friends after the presentation of the Ferridos people; that planet's history had been one of the reasons for the UP3 laws to come into place. "Ern gave me all these books a week ago," she said, smiling happily. "They're all books from the Ferridos people, their printings before they became endangered. And most of them from before the tragedy with the guns; they had a lot of interesting cultures among tribes, but it's hard to find any not from the final tribe."

"It's just more work for you to do, studying them along with other cultures," her friend said. "I don't think it's a very good birthday present."

"Aw, come on, he knew I'd love these," Opera said, ignoring her friend's negativity. "And you know, he managed to get the month right at least. I can forgive him for not remembering the exact date with this."

"And not showing up to the party?"

She shrugged. "He has projects he's working on too. I understand."

"Well I don't," her friend said. "Seems like he just gave these to you because he picked them up on some adventure and didn't want to keep them in his place. Has he taken you on a date and said he loved you?"

"We've gone on dates," Opera said.

"I know you've dragged him on them for the most part."

"I don't care," Opera said. "He said he decided to buy these with me in mind. You should have realized by now that he can explain anything but himself well. He might not say that he loves me, but he shows it often enough. I might end up having to ask him to marry me, but I'm sure he'll agree to it." That was where the recordings decided to end.

"I think that's a cool gift," Precis said. "Especially if you wanted them."

"I didn't know I wanted them until I got them," Opera said happily. "I know I should talk to him at some point about our future, but he gets uncomfortable about it. I keep hoping that he'll bring it up on his own sometime."

"I dunno what to do about that; I never had a boyfriend. But what was the rest of that about? Weapons?"

"It seems like it," Opera said. "It was hard to tell from the angle, but that device you tried to work on, I think that was a gun of some kind. Those don't exist on Expel yet; I thought mine and Ern's are the first one that have been there, but maybe not. That really isn't something you should work on without knowing what it is, or what it's capable of. They're deadly."

"Oh, that makes sense now," Precis said.

"Weapons are dangerous in the hands of those who don't understand them," someone else said. A winged woman appeared in the doorway that went on. "I've got a question for you: is intelligence dangerous or not?"

"Well I guess you can make weapons with intelligences, but you should be able to figure out the best way to use them with intelligence too," Precis said.

"Intelligence is dangerous in many ways, even in ways you don't expect," Opera said. "But ignorance it can be more dangerous, and intelligence can lead to the solution to dangers. Ignorance can't give solutions."

The winged woman nodded. "That's a good answer. I'm Issette, the guardian of the trial of intelligence. You did well, I just thought there were some things you should both know. Oh, and your reward," she stepped into the room and gestured to the next one. "I can modify time a little. When you enter that room, you'll spend five hours when only five minutes past in truth. Do what you wish there. When the five minutes and hours are up, you'll need to go to the other side to see if the others need help with the last puzzle on their side."

"Huh, what can we do there?" Precis said, heading on through. Opera followed and found that it was a room like all the rest, filled with abandoned machinery. Only, there were more whole and readily functional pieces, and the whole room was bigger. Precis soon ran off to something. "Hey, I think I can build that thing here! And it helps to have extra time; I might actually finish."

"You'll definitely finish with me helping out," Opera said, grinning along with her. "This is gonna be fun."

An hourglass much like the one Dreampeace used was in the center of the room, showing how much time they had left in this altered-time space. They were able to find lots of tools and parts, even a few that Opera had to talk Precis out of using because they required more training to use than five hours would give them. But she, or even Bobot for a couple, could use those tools to make the build go by quicker and better. There was even some extra time to fix up a couple of smaller devices that they found in the room, which would be helpful as well.

Once the hourglass's top was empty, Issette showed up again and transported them to the other side of the trial. They found themselves on the larger platform. In the center, there was a large machine with three arms, each with a different huge weapon: one a beam cannon, one a poison gas bomb producer, and the last a flamethrower. In lines stretched out from the central machine, there were many small spherical machines. And, many of them were broken from the group's attack.

"Looks as though they've figured it out," Issette said. "Each of the sphere contains a weapon or shield program for the central machine. The programs must be taken out strategically to neutralize the central machine, or else it will be untouchable and able to use its weapons anywhere on the platform. Not only that, but they've all been able to answer at least one question in the quizzes below."

"Of course," Precis said. "We're all smart, even if we're smart about different things."

"That's what makes things interesting," Opera said.

Issette nodded. "Indeed."

Across the room, Leon called out, "That last barrier just needs something really strong to punch through it. I think I could, but…"

"We've got it if you get away from that thing!" Opera shouted over at them. Then she winked at Precis. "Go for it."

"Yeah, Bobot transform!" Precis shouted, jumping in place.

With a happy whistle, the small planetary scout robot caused space to warp around him. He vanished briefly, only to return as an eight foot tall robot with a pilot's seat on back. Precis jumped into the cockpit and sent Bobot charging forward with a giant drill to attack the last magical barrier the war machine had up. All around them, sparks flew in wild looking patterns. Once the shield shattered, Precis caused Bobot to jump back and fire an alpha-rated plasma beam cannon at the war machine. It started to smoke, its poison bomb arm going entirely broken.

"What in heaven's name is that?" Rena called, surfside to see a machine like what Bobot transformed into.

"Iiiiit's Super Bobot!" Precis shouted gleefully. "That's what was on the papers Welch gave me."

"Now you're terrifying," Dias said, much to Opera's amusement. The rest of the war machine went down quickly, as most of its program spheres were defunct.

Once the war machine as down, Precis got off Super Bobot and had him turn back into normal Bobot. "That's good, I don't want you getting pooped from staying like that too long."

"I'm pleased you could pull that together in the time I gave you," Issette said. "Just remember what we talked about."

"Sure, but I gotta use him to smash up the Ten Wise Men," Precis said.

"You all did well in passing my trial," the guardian said. "Carry on to the next or take a break, whichever you wish. May you fare well in your mission." She then vanished.

"That's been the only really tough fight so far," Claude said, looking over everyone. "How're all of you doing?"

"We just spent five hours in five minutes, but I think we're good to go for one more trial," Precis said.

Opera had to hurry over to get to the rest of the group, but she agreed. "I think I could get through one more, depending on what it takes. We can always go in and check it out; there might be one of those signs near the entrance like this one."

"We should at least see what comes, and hope we can get out for a break before the guardian takes people away," Rena said.

"I'm fine with tht," Ernest said, along with some others. He smiled when she came straight over to him. "So how was it on the other side?"

"We saw some interesting things," Opera said, passing him one of the items she had made. "Made some neat things too. You said you wanted a lightning adaptor? There you go, have fun."

"Nice, thank you." Erenst latched it onto his whip handle; as she thought, it fit perfectly. "Make anything for yourself?"

"Nah, I'm happy to help out you and Precis."

It seemed that they all agreed to at least see what was coming, so they headed for the exit to enter the next trial.

-4D, Penny

Penny wondered for a moment why the game kicked her off, but the screen had a reminder that her class was going to start in five minutes. Right, still had to be in class. Her teacher had sent her a message wondering why she hadn't been excused because of the Expel event, but she'd gone ahead and told her that Precis hadn't died during the tragedy. Thus, it wasn't right to skip out on class because of it.

Her mother came out of immersion as Penny was almost out of the room. "You've got your class now, don't you?" Nancy asked. "Good thing we finished that trial event in time."

She nodded. "Yeah, that was lucky. But that was a really cool thing we got to do! I just wish the puzzles had been harder."

Laughing, Nancy got out of her chair and left the room with her. "Right, that last one was fun because it had some thought needed. The rest of them should've been like that. At least I got to learn some interesting things about Opera, like it's been about twelve years that she's known Ernest."

"Well now that you have her, maybe she'll get her wish," Penny said, smiling at the thought. "But that one scene where we saw Cyril and Indalecio talking, that was kind of creepy. Did he really mean us when he mentioned it might even be so on the other side?"

"I'm not sure if we could know that now," Nancy said, then paused in the hallway. "Although… why was I getting off too?"

Opera and Precis are the two most players will give the Machinery skill to, because they can make their own weapons and skills with it. Thus, it makes sense for them to be in the Trial of Intelligence. This trial in the game isn't much about intelligence, though. It's a simple maze puzzle of activating all the spheres to get a warp tile to the boss room. While it is in a teleporter maze, it's a mild version of that game staple. At worst, you'll get annoyed at the one-way path nature of the place making you loop all the way back around to get the one you missed. The back side is something I made up, not in the game.

The boss of the Trial of Intelligence is probably worthy of the name, since it is a puzzle boss as described here. If you've never messed with party formations, there's also the chance that the boss will KO your casters too. While it is possible to just power through the puzzle boss, that usually means you're at a higher level with better equipment than the game expects.

You might've noticed last chapter, but the trial guardians are mostly bosses from the Cave of Trials. Isette goes by a different name, but she's the succubus-type boss on the first floor. Dreampeace is actually the hourglass enemy, three of them, and they will annoy you with their time freeze spells.