"The weather?" Angel was puzzled. "What's wrong with it?"
Luigi said excitedly, "There's a line in the Wild Horse Epic: 'Without an outside cause, there are no hoofprints; where there are hoofprints, there must be an outside cause.'"
It meant that when life went on as usual, a wild horse would not suddenly run past and leave hoofprints. But when hoofprints appeared before your eyes, they were a sign that something in your life had already changed.
The "wild horse" did not mean any particular horse. It stood for something that had suddenly entered your field of vision—and for an unforeseen variable.
"In other words, under normal circumstances, with no new variables, nothing strange happens in the Uriel Instance. Life goes on as usual. But once an unforeseen sign appears, it means a new variable has arrived."
"And here, that sign is... the weather!"
"Think about it. Hasn't every spell of abnormal weather in the Uriel Instance signaled some new change?"
From Blanche and the others slipping in at the beginning, to the Box Garden's later expansion, the appearance of Moron Street, and then the arrival of the Mist Swamp Instance...
Every time an "outside cause" appeared, the weather showed an omen.
That omen was itself a warning, telling Luigi that something big was about to happen.
"And this time was no different," Luigi said. "After the abnormal weather arrived, the vortex appeared."
Angel looked confused. "So? Isn't that obvious?"
"It is obvious," Luigi said. "But this time was different."
"Every previous spell of abnormal weather was brief. The new variable appeared almost the moment the weather changed."
"But this time, I waited a long while. I played several rounds of the Apocalypse Suite before the vortex appeared."
"Isn't that what's strange?"
Angel finally understood Luigi's reasoning. "You mean the