“Code,” said Nightshade.
”What?” Asked Lemon.
”You need to learn a code language.”
”Whattt?”
Nightshade sighed. “It’s not a difficult concept to grasp, Lemon.”
”But Nightshade,” Froggy said, “we’re supposed to learn a language, not a code.”
”Code languages, Froggy.”
”Oh.”
Froggy and Nightshade decided to teach Lemon a Caesar cipher, since Caesar ciphers are relatively easy to explain.
”This Caesar cipher,” Nightshade told Lemon, “replaces a letter with the letter after it in the alphabet. For example A would be B, B would be C and so on.”
”So, would Z be “now you know your ABC?” Lemon asked with a knowing smile.
”That is not a letter. Z would be A.” Seeing Lemon’s confused face Nightshade decided to make it so infuriatingly simple that an amoeba could understand.”It’s on a wraparound, like a loop. When you get to the end and go a bit further, you end up back at the start.”
Lemon still looked lost.
Nightshade sighed. “You have less brainpower than one square centimeter of dead pondweed. You’re lucky me and Froggy have been helping you, but we can’t implant this concept into your brain. You need to try harder. I’m going to tell you right now, I won’t stop forcing this into your head until you learn it.”
Eventually, it took six hours to make Lemon understand the concept of a Caesar cipher and eight hours to memorize it. Princess Terrett actually thought Lemon struggling to pronounce Caesar cipher sentences was a new language and let them pass the challenge.