Introduction

Cold and afraid.  This is how you feel after being banished to the top of an extremely tall mountain, without any clue as to your location!  An evil sorcerer, Merlot, has sent you and three of your classmates there so you cannot tell your sorcerer mentor, Prof. Chastin, about Merlot’s evil plan to…well you aren’t sure…b/c the evil plot is written in some sort of code…but you think it is a plan to destroy your magic school, Spectomagon. Even though you have learned many spells in your four years at magic school, your powers do not work at this high altitude for some reason.  All you have with you is your notebook and feather pen, and your messenger owl-who was banished with you.  You need to write to Prof. Chastin to warn him of Merlot’s evil plot, but you have to make sure that if the message is intercepted, it will not be able to read by anyone other than Prof. Chastin.  You decide to come up with your own code, because Prof. Chastin has always been very good at figuring out patterns.