Story: The Ninja of Health, XXIV

( Part XXIII , XXV )

A.K.A. 'Thoughts From A Peaceful Interlude'

"It was a material entity. It clearly had an impact on me and on the surroundings. Given that creations tend to always resemble their creator in some way, we can take this as a clear implication that our malefactor is material. This fact must be useful to us, but how? Given our Hippocratic oaths, we can never wilfully injure the creature unless, and only unless, our own lives are naturally jeopardised.

The being is material, and therefore subject to entropy. It must therefore feed itself to maintain its being. Its food source is therefore important, unless it is some ubiquitous substance all around us.

Question: Is the creature following its plans in order to survive, or in order to make merry and impose itself? If survival, then we could try to offer another way to survive, but the latter requires reasoning and perhaps even therapy. My two young friends seem to think it diabolical or irrational, so we will probably have to talk to the being. What, however, could we possibly offer to it in order to make a bargain? What?

However much fun it may have appeared, that umbrella duel was no idle play time. If not for a timely intervention, the consequences might have been severe. Its invisibility is far too terrible an advantage. How can we counter something that we can't see? That we --

We might not be able to see the creature, but that doesn't mean that we can never sense it. It has spoken to us directly. Its minion made its presence felt physically. The Pattern reacted to it, and it has been affecting the population either actively or passively. The entity can be detected; it can be sensed.  There is an experiment that we should try, that we must try before moving on to extreme measures.

My two students will be more invaluable now than ever before. If only we knew what that tablecloth was meant to convey!"