"See? Mathematics might seem complex, but to a being of a higher plane, it's trivial."
i Mi turned to help her companion up. The two watched as the fire in the hearth slowly died down. The "Fla Spirit" leaning against the mantel extended a hand, gesturing for them to continue.
Only a few embers still flickered on the charcoal, the tal box now fully revealed. The won didn't reach for it, however. Instead, they stared at the man who was watching them as if it were all a show.
The flas that had vanished from the fireplace now swirled around him. A butterfly of pure fire danced in his open right hand, astonishingly lifelike.
"Why haven't you vanished?"
"Who knows?"
He answered languidly, then shrugged. "Carry on. Don't mind ."
The two won looked at each other.
"It..."
Zhen started to speak, but hesitated.
"It seems opening the box is still part of the labyrinth. This creature will just serve as the guardian for the next lock. Damn it! Is this the only trick that wretched Miller knows? Just delaying tactics?"
Using a poker hanging on the wall, they retrieved the tal box from the embers, waiting for it to cool before picking it up. Just as they'd suspected, the box was locked. The face of the tal lock bore a strange, srizing spiral pattern. As i Mi and Zhen stared at it, they had the odd sensation of understanding sothing profound, yet grasping nothing at all.
The back was covered in a dense, finely engraved inscription:
A pri number: a natural number greater than one, with no factors other than one and itself. If all numbers from one to ten thousand are plotted in a polar coordinate system, with the pris highlighted, a spiral graph is ford.
Describe the distribution pattern of pri numbers, based on this spiral graph.
"What is this..."
The two won frowned at the puzzle on the lock. They recognized every word, and the sentences were perfectly coherent. Yet after reading it through once, they couldn't recall what they had just read, let alone grasp its aning.
"Do you think she set a trap on the lock? Sothing that deliberately prevents us from understanding it?"
Zhen asked.
"I... don't know."
i Mi's brow furrowed. Neither of them were mathematicians, but an Enchanter couldn't be a complete stranger to the subject. The inscription on the lock seed incredibly complex, but when she studied it alongside the spiral pattern, a startling feeling washed over her.
For a fleeting mont, i Mi felt she had touched the very essence of the universe, that behind the spiral lay a vast and systematic law. All that was missing was for her to articulate it.
The deeper she delved into it, the more agitated her spirit beca. A strange sense of urgency compelled her to imrse her mind in the pattern, an overwhelming desire to embrace the world's secrets driving her thoughts at a frantic pace.
Pfft—
She coughed up a mouthful of blood, stumbling back a few steps with a hand clamped over her mouth. The box clattered to the floor.
The "Fla Spirit"—alright, Jenkins—looked genuinely surprised. His plan had only been to delay the two won for a while. He never imagined a simple Ulam spiral would have such a dramatic effect.
"i Mi!"
"Damn it! Miller must have put a curse on this pattern!"
The woman shrieked, "This labyrinth isn't that simple! Kneel and pray! I must appeal to the great Hanging Shadow once more!"
Just as before, the light in the room seed to be devoured by an unseen presence. Countless shadows flooded out from the cracks in the floorboards, writhing like a nest of vipers.
A chorus of whispers emanated from the realm of shadows, the sibilant sounds making Zhen's scalp crawl as she knelt on one knee.
The phenonon subsided after a few monts, but i Mi said nothing.
At first, Zhen assud her companion was simply processing the answer she had received, but the silence stretched on for far too long.
Now that the presence had retreated back into the shadow world, she dared to stand up.
"i Mi?"
She called out softly, but there was still no reply. Zhen's heart sank. Staring at her companion's motionless back, she reached out and gave her a gentle push.
The body slumped to the floor. Its left arm twitched once. In the flickering firelight, her face was a twisted, grotesque mask, with blood trickling from her eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. Her once-enchanting eyes were wide with terror, as if she had witnessed sothing utterly incomprehensible.
Zhen's first instinct wasn't to fall to her knees and weep. It was to bolt. She leaped to the left, already moving to escape through the window.
A woman's hand, clad in a black velvet glove, materialized from thin air and chopped down hard on the nape of her neck. Zhen collapsed to the floor. Her montum carried her forward a few inches, and her head struck the wall with a sickening thud.
"A bit anticlimactic, don't you think?"
Jenkins remarked with a hint of disappointnt.
"A tiger's head and a snake's tail? What a fascinating taphor."
Miss Miller peeled off an invisibility cloak and tossed a rope to Jenkins, tasking him with tying up the witch on the floor. Such strenuous work, she implied, was certainly not for a delicate, beautiful lady like herself.
"We were only halfway through the plan, and she just up and died."
Jenkins nudged the corpse with his foot before crouching to bind the unconscious woman. "How did she die, anyway? That gave quite a jump."
"Perhaps your little pri number problem was a bit too esoteric," Miss Miller suggested.
As she spoke, Miss Miller walked over to the bookshelf, pulled out a thick, red-and-black patterned volu, and ripped off its cover. Beneath it was a mathematical proof concerning a nurical series.
She casually scribbled the solution onto the page. Outside, on both sides of the street invisible to them, the white mist began to recede. The room around them subtly shifted—objects the won had disturbed returned to their original places, and a normal fire crackled cheerfully in the hearth.
The landlady entered with a teapot, casting a curious glance at the bound woman on the floor but wisely chose not to ask any questions.
Jenkins and Miss Miller's original plan had been to use the labyrinth to trap the two Enchanters from the Witch's House, then pick them off one by one.
The two won had searched the apartnt thoroughly, but they hadn't found a single one of the hidden traps. A labyrinth integrated with its physical surroundings was formidable enough, but Miss Miller's creation contained far more than just mathematical puzzles.
"So, what exactly is the pattern of pri numbers?"
As they settled back into the chairs before the fire, waiting for the captured woman to regain consciousness, Miss Miller asked the question.
"I don't know."
Jenkins shrugged, stroking the cat, Chocolate, who was purring on his lap. "I told you that night—there is no real pattern in that spiral. In fact, if you plot enough pris, you'll see the spiral itself is flawed. As for the actual rule governing pri numbers... sorry, I don't have a clue either."
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