Meeting The Team

"I-I will! I'm sorry mom, I was acting stupid!" The boy said, Minos's words having struck his heart directly.

Of course it was a lie to say that it was just because of Minos's persuasive words, rather a bigger part was played by his Heart Path, which allowed him to subtly manipulate a person's emotions.

When the two were combined together, there were very few people he couldn't convince of something.

"It's okay son, I forgive you." His mother said through tears, hugging her son tightly.

"Thank you sir, thank you!" She said, turning towards Minos.

"No problem." Minos smiled, watching as the two walked off.

"Didn't I tell you guys he was impressive!" Hyth's voice suddenly said from the side, Minos pivoting his head slightly, noticing a small crowd had formed behind him five men and two women.

"Minos, these are the people I was telling you about." Hyth introduced.

"It's nice to meet you all." Minos said, standing up from his seat to properly greet them.

"Nice to meet you as well. That stunt you just pulled was very impressive, to think a few words could turn a bad boy into a good one!" A beautiful middle-aged lady said with some shock, her eyes looking towards Minos with interest.

"He was never a bad boy, just a misguided one." Minos said, knowing that he had only played a small part.

"Oh come on now, don't be humble! Anyways, my name is Kendra, this young woman beside me is Sophia, these three are Ryft, Nolin, and Jylum. As for those last two men, those are our guards."

"It's a pleasure." Minos said, taking time to shake each of their hands.

"You're quite big Minos. Are you a Moubyss by any chance?" Nolin, a shorter man, only around 160 cm or so, asked.

"Heh, I've already asked him that, and he said no, but I'm still betting he has Moubyss ancestors." Hyth interjected.

"It's quite interesting actually, to think we'd have a potential Moubyss and Hova person in the same team." Sohpia said with a giggle.

"To have two of the most interesting sub groups of humans in the same team is quite amazing. You've really gathered quite the team, huh Hyth?" Jylum said, an average looking man.

"I told you I had sharp eyes." Hyth smiled, satisfied with his selection.

"Enough chatting, I'm not here for introductions, I'm here to solve the Eternal Enigma." Ryft suddenly said, clearly not being the sociable type.

"Right, right, then let's find a place to eat and we can discuss it there." Hyth said.

With everyone agreeing, the team walked around for a bit before finding a nicer looking restaurant.

After renting a private room, the group headed upstairs, entering the room as the two guards stood outside to keep an eye on things.

Calling the waiters over, the group ordered a few things, waiting for them to leave before Hyth cleared his voice and finally got to the point.

"Alright, first of all, our objective here is clear, so I won't say anymore. Instead let's skip the busy talk and get to talking."

Tapping his spatial ring, Hyth pulled out a thick stack of documents before passing them around the table.

"This is all the information I could gather about the Eternal Enigma, pictures, diagrams, past solution attempts, etc."

"Using all this, I think we should spend the next week or so trying to figure out how we want to go about solving this mystery before we head out."

"While we can never know if we are heading the right direction or not just based on this, at least we can create a few possible solutions before heading out, saving time."

"Not to mention we won't be able to stay by the Eternal Enigma too long. The Abyss Wind's weak period only lasts about 48 hours, so if we arrive at the perfect time, we'll only have two days at most."

"The more possible solutions we can come up with now, the better our chances at solving the Eternal Enigma once we arrive."

"Sounds good." Jylum responded, agreeing with this plan.

"Agreed. Then let's not waste anymore time and get too brainstorming." Ryft said, always the type to get right to work.

"Before that, let's have an hour of silence to refresh our memories." Hyth suggested.

Hearing that, the others quickly agreed, the room soon being reduced to silence as they opened their documents and looked inside.

During their month's long trip over here, Minos had naturally already seen this document, and unlike the others, his perfect memory made 'refreshing' unnecessary.

But still, Minos opened the document, the first thing coming into sight being a picture of the Eternal Enigma.

The Eternal Enigma itself was a giant cube with mysterious symbols engraved all over its surface.

On the front of this large cube was a strange board filled with hundreds of buttons, similar to the Compo Minos had used in the past.

The buttons also had symbols on top of them, similar to the one's carved onto the large cube.

All this together, Minos had long since thought that this strange cube was some sort of calculation device, similar in nature to the Compo, but naturally far more advanced than the latter.

For lack of a better word, he felt like this was a Super-Compo, likely capable of extremely advanced calculations.

If that was the case, then there wasn't a solution, nor was this an 'Eternal Enigma.' Instead, maybe they just needed to find a way to operate it.

The strange part in Minos's opinion, was the fact that when the buttons were pressed, they reacted with noises and lights, meaning that this thing definitely had some source of power.

Where or how it was getting energy was a mystery for another time, for now Minos focused intently on the picture, wondering how he may take control of this.

But ultimately, he gave up, having already done this for months while traveling here, and the only conclusion he had reached then was that he'd need to come into contact with it before he could figure anything out.

Trying to understand the symbols we're also out of the question, after all, to learn a language that you had absolutely zero reference of was impossible.

It was akin to making something out of nothing, and as talented as Minos was, that was naturally not possible.

However he still felt that as long as he could interact with it, and see it with his own Omniscient Eyes, he may be able to figure something out.

…

"Alright then, shall we get to discussing?" Hyth asked, the hour having ended.

"Mhm. First of all, about the symbols. I think no one disagrees that this is some sort of alien language." Kendra said.

"Naturally, but even after thousands of years, we're not any closer to deciphering this language, so going from that direction will likely lead us to another deadend." Jylum replied.

"I agree with Jylum. Trying to understand these symbols has long since proven impossible, so we have to start from another area." Ryft said.

"Then how about the buttons? I've long since noticed that the symbols on the body of the Eternal Enigma itself aren't quite the same as the one's on the buttons themselves." Nolin remarked.

"Good point, but if that's the case, what's the association?" Hyth said.

"Maybe it's like numbers and letters, part of the same language system, but used to express different ideas." Sophia suggested.

"Hmm, that may very well be the case. If so, however, then which are the numbers, and which are the letters?" Jylum uttered.

"Who's to say they are numbers and letters? Maybe the aliens that created the Eternal Enigma have a completely different understanding of things than we do." Kendra quickly added.

"True… If that's the case, maybe we aren't talking letters and numbers, but if so, what else could they be expressing?" Ryft asked.

"Let's not get too far from the plot. I think it's fair to assume these symbols are expressing at least one of those two things. Let's start from that direction before we go anywhere else." Jylum said.

"Fair enough, then let's begin by assuming the symbols on the buttons are letters." Hyth suggested.

"Even if we do that, we end up right back at square one, which is the fundamental problem here, the true nature of these symbols…" Kendra said.

"She's right… No matter what, the heart of the problem is these damn symbols…" Jylum sighed, already feeling frustrated despite the discussion having just begun.

"Well no one said this would be easy. There's a reason it's called the 'Eternal Enigma' not the Temporary Enigma." Hyth joked, though no one laughed, clearly not amused by his dad-like humor.

"Maybe you've all been thinking about this wrong from the start…" Minos suddenly said, his words quickly attracting everyone's eyes.

"Wrong? What do you mean?" Sophia asked curiously.

"Maybe the symbols mean nothing, maybe they're just circuitry." Minos smiled, his words causing the room to freeze.