[Noihara][Mentor] Continued Education

[Noctis Corvo]

The ping didn't really startle him as much as it probably could have. Kain had long since gotten used to the strange telepathic dings and beeps of the interface, and responded fairly tamely to the sudden ping and voice of Dumah and the rest talking over party chat. He put his hand up to listen as they snuck past the remainder of the slimes. It seemed to just for the most part be a talk over how this would keep them in contact while they snuck around yada yada yada. It wasn't a whole lot of new material, but he listened in anyhow as they ventured forward. It was the next room that caught his eye. He visibly perked up, a sparkle in his eye as he gazed about the massive room. He hadn't seen one of these in forever, and boy did he strangely miss them. A massive room-wide block puzzle. A simple cypher of jumping and pushing, but a cypher puzzle nonetheless! Kain was giddy, running about the room, inspecting each block and beginning to sketch out their locations and moving patterns. It was fairly extensive, but nothing too complicated. They could afford to make a few wrong pushes and everything could quite simply be reset if it all came down to it.

Trying to contain himself, he brought back his sketches and began drawing the rooms layout in mythic script as he began trying to plot out what goes where, all encompassed within his own little happy puzzle world.

@dumah @bornfromvelvet @kurosan

[Deleted]

As the party scanned the chamber they now found themselves in, everyone's reactions to the discovery of a block puzzle were fairly predictable. Katarina, who had expressed her disdain for puzzles at the dungeon's entrance, groaned angrily at the realization of what the room was; Kuro, who had been half right when deducing the answer to the entrance riddle, seemed confused, apparently not knowing what a block puzzle was. Lastly, Corvo - who had solved the entrance riddle correctly - seemed to be the most excited about the block puzzle. Kuro was the only one who was not in the know about what exactly was necessary in this room. Dumah looked around at the room, examining the puzzle to allow him to best explain it. The puzzle was actually eerily familiar when he looked at it - on the walls of the dungeon were a mural, with slots for the large cubes. Upon examining the blocks themselves, Dumah saw the missing parts of the mural on the stones. "A block puzzle is a commonly used obstacle in adventure games from the earliest three-dimensional games, back when everyone was excited to take advantage of the advancement from two-dimensional to three-dimensional worlds around the mid-to-late 1990's. The puzzle is that one must push each block either into the correct slot in the correct way, or they must push them together correctly to form an image, similar to a jigsaw puzzle. It would seem that in this case, it is an example of the former. All though..." Dumah held his chin, seeming a bit perplexed. "Many of these blocks are on their side, and some of the slots are too high up in the wall... Unless..." This was where Dumah could see whether his suspicions about the similarity of this puzzle were true or not. He approached one block on its side, examining it and seeing the image of what appeared to be a foot and ankle. The mural on the wall and blocks were all reminiscent of what one might find in the ruins of an ancient civilization, reminding him of the art of the ancient Egyptians. Very flat and simple designs, but large and bearing many meanings. Dumah knelt down a bit, locking his fingers under the edge of the block and lifting it up, turning the image on the side of the block right-side up. Dumah chuckled softly under his breath, speaking to himself in a deeper voice, apparently mimicking someone - or something. "Your physical prowess surpasses what you knew in life. Even massive obstacles can be moved effortlessly." He sighed with a soft smile, again speaking to himself. "I swear, if the final boss of this raid is a giant octopus..."

His suspicions confirmed, Dumah returned his attention to his party, informing them on his discovery. "We seem to be able to move and lift these stone blocks fairly easily, so we should be able to solve the puzzle without any real trouble." With that, he examined the blocks and the slots on the wall, one of which was higher up on the wall. "I think we're going to need to stack a block on top of another for us to be able to fill that raised slot."

Words: 536 | Total Words: 6750
Tags: @bornfromvelvet @kurosan Noctis Corvo
Coding by Sayha of LH

[Deleted]

Katarina didn't know what was worse; the fact that the party had to solve more bloody puzzles in order to progress, or the fact that there was a person in their party that had somehow never encountered a block puzzle before. I mean, really now. Well, whatever. She could forgive his lack of knowledge here; block puzzles aren't nearly as common as they used to be. Kat sighed again as she noticed Noctis running around the room, the idea of having to solve a puzzle clearly exciting him. How a man could go from pure nightmare fuel to this, nobody knows. Dumah seemed to be explaining the history of the block puzzle to Kuro, so with nothing better to do, Kat examined the room once more. The walls were covered in murals, and had various slots that the party would need to fit the large cubes into. Each block had a missing part of the mural on one of its faces. It was obvious what the devs wanted them to do; the party had to push the blocks into the correct slots in the wall in order to form the completed mural. Both Kat and Dumah quickly noticed a problem however; the blocks were on their sides, and the slots were too high up on the wall. Kat had to wonder how they were going to do this. The blocks were pure stone, and thus, they would be rather heavy. It's not like they could just pick the block up and flip it over-

Kat let out another sigh as she saw Dumah lift up the edge of the block and place it right-side up. She's been in this game for two whole years now, you'd think she would've gotten used to video game logic. Dumah chuckled, before... before quoting...

'...wait, did Dumah just quote...?'

Yes. Yes he did. Kat would have to talk to him about that later. Anyway, back to the matter at hand. Dumah informed the rest of the party about his discovery, before suggesting that the party try to stack one of the blocks on top of another block in order to try and fill one of the raised slots. Kat nodded in agreement. It was only a question of how to do that however...

[Word Count: 379
Tags: @dumah @kurosan Noctis Corvo ]

[Deleted]

After Kuro expressed his confusion, Kat looked at him like he was from another planet and Dumah started explaining what a block puzzle is. After finishing the Assassin finaly realized what they were talking about. "Oh yeah.... these things. I didn't recongize it at first." (I wasn't realy looking for puzzles or patterns though. I was more worried about enemies) "I did a few of 'em long time ago. Didn't know how they were called though." He felt rightfuly ashamed of himself for a moment, but then he focused on examining the puzzle. (The holes are high, I wonder if there is a "machine" or something somewhere, which we should use to lift those blocks up.)
The Assassin laughed a bit when he noticed, Noctis acting like he kid who just got what he wanted for christmass, which was the exact opposite of Kat. She seemed more and more upset about the puzzle (which amused Kuro) and what made her even more uppset and annoyed was the revelation of how they were supposed to move those blocks: Dumah, after examining the puzzle picked up a block, while muttering something about "physical prowess" and "octopuses", which seemed to annoy Kat even more (which in return amused Kuro even more and started grinning).
The group leader then turned 'round to tell them the obvious discovery he made. "Yeah, I think we noticed." Said Kuro with a smile. Dumah then proposed a solution to how they should reach the high places: By stacking blocks on each other to get to the raised slots. "Yeah, seems logical to me. Shouldn't be that hard, right?
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[Word count: 270
Tags: @bornfromvelvet @dumah Noctis Corvo
Note: Sorry for the realy short post.]

[Noctis Corvo]

Noctis had been running around taking notes for a while now and was already onto his own theory that was along the same lines as the one their leader proposed when he announced that it would seem they would need to fit the cubes into their corresponding holes. Noc had already been running around and testing the cubes before even dumah had lifted up and flipped his own cude. He deduced that while with friction and the corresponging force of the s in relation to the world around them, they reacted as extremely dense and heavy stone blocks. However, whether it was because of his level or simply gamelogic, they felt as little more than giant foam blocks to him. He had already hunted down and found the block for the higher hole by the time Dumah had announced finding a block to stack it on top of, using his height to hoist the block over his head and slowly slide it into place with a thud into its hole, his height in this world finally being of some actual use. He smiled and began eapidly jogging back and forth, hoisting blocks like a pikmin (or maybe even chibi-robo) and hustling back to the wall quickly filling out the mural before standing back to admire his handiwork. A huge grin on his face, he wiped some of the dust and sweat from his vrow with his shirt sleeve. "So whats next? Do I get to recite the sith code and blast something with lightning? Or is there going to be a glorious group of goddesses awaiting a hero's calming touch to wake from their slumber before bestowing upon him three wishes?" His mood had certainly lightened up in regards to the earlier incidents, his nature only sounding happier and more jovial, but his breathing hard and tired. "Anyway, shall we venture in deeper? This dungeon has begun to make me rather happy!"

[Deleted]

Dumah nodded in response to the Assassin's statement that this would not prove too difficult of a puzzle. "Yes, though the puzzle could prove difficult if we do not plan our actions; moving one block in the wrong way could very well lead to altercations down the line. It seems that raised slot would be the worst of our concerns for now, though." He held his chin, pondering with eyes shut. "Perhaps if move a block on the ground level in front of the hole, we could lift another up onto it..." He shook his head, discarding that idea. "No, no, we would have to have a line of two blocks; with only one, we would have a platform for which the stone could rest, but not us. Once we lift it up, we will then have to stand on the second stone, pushing the raised one into its slo-" The party leader's train of thought was broken as the Heretic energetically asked what was next. Dumah opened his eyes, breaking free from his pondering state, looking around in a bit of confusion to see that the entire puzzle was completed. Dumah was speechless, staring at Corvo for a few seconds before laughing it off softly. "Impressive work, Corvo." He patted the Heretic's shoulders in a friendly manner, smiling before looking at the completed mural. "Whoever designed this mural - be it game developers or ancient People of The Land - they had quite the taste in artistic storytelling." Perhaps it was his past as a playwright that made Dumah say such a thing when to the average person, this mural would look like it had little or no real meaning. That was another idea that interested him: Ancient People of The Land. Did the world of Elder Tale have a legitimate history? Was it all just something written in by the developers and put into the minds of all of the People of The Land to make them believe they had history?

Upon further inspection, Dumah noticed symbols throughout the mural; runes, it seemed. Thankfully they were not scattered or scrambled, leaving little work aside from translation. They were carved into the wall and the blocks, creating a full message that could only be read upon solving the block puzzle - a feat the party's Heretic had joyously accomplished, literally before Dumah even knew it was over. Dumah inspected the runes, tracing over them with a finger in a similar manner to a blind man reading Braille. He attempted to decode the runes, first searching for what symbol was most common and associating it with the letter E. "No, no that will not do..." He realized some cases where the most common rune could not have been a representation of the letter E, destroying his theory. "Tch..." He held his chin again, scanning the runes again, thinking... After he came to no conclusion, he tried it again, and again, until he felt something familiar... "Wait a moment... I have seen these runes before..." He smiled a bit as he made at least some progress on the translation. "Yes, I remember now, it is an ancient runic alphabet, once used by Germanic tribes. I have not seen it in quite some time, though, so I am afraid my knowledge on it may be a bit dated..."

---

The runic inscription

Words: 553 | Total Words: 7303
Tags: @bornfromvelvet @kurosan Noctis Corvo
Coding by Sayha of LH

[Deleted]

...Well. Alrighty then. Apparently, in the short time they had spent in the puzzle room, Noctis had somehow already solved the puzzle without anyone in the room noticing. What. Kat didn't know what to say. She had no words for this. Even Dumah was speechless, staring at Noctis with a strange mix of confusion and awe. He soon broke out of his stupor, patting the Heretic on the back and looking up at the completed mural. That was solved in less than a minute. Kat still couldn't get over that.

Anyway, moving on. Katarina looked over the mural. The artwork itself didn't really interest her, although it seemed to have grabbed her Guild Master's attention. What really interested her were the runes throughout the mural. They weren't scattered, which was good, and they didn't seem to be out of order, although Kat had no real way of confirming this. It seemed to be written in some kind of ancient runic alphabet.

...Actually, wait. She recognised this. Was this written in what she thought it was written in? Let's see...

Kat sighed. Nope. That didn't last long. She got about four words in before she realised that the rune was indeed not written in elder futhark. What a shame, since that was the only runic alphabet she was even slightly familiar with. Dumah seemed to be having as much trouble deciphering the runes as Kat was, before his eyes lit up. He quickly announced to the group that the symbols were written in an ancient runic alphabet, well yes, Kat got that part, anything else? He then went on to say that unfortunately, his knowledge on the runes was a bit dated. "Well hey, dated or no, at least it's something." Kat spoke up, looking at what she had written down one more time. "I've got no idea what it could mean. I tried my hand at translating it, but, well, you can see how that turned out." she muttered, holding up her notebook. 

[Word Count: 333
Tags: @dumah @kurosan Noctis Corvo ]

[Deleted]

Dumah was at one with Kuro on the difficulty of the puzzle and imidietly started thinking about  solution for it. But it was soon proven that that was not neccesary as Noctis has somehow managed to finish the puzzle, even before Dumah came up with "a way to solve it". Kuro, and everyone else as well, was unbelievably suprised (so much so, that all of them were rendered speechless) and pleased with this development.
Dumah was the first to break the silence by praising Noctis and then moving towards the now completed mural. While admiring and examining the mural and runes which where on it. As Kuro was not interrested in art that much and he had no idea how to read runes or decrypt languages, he took it upon himself to check the perimeter if any mobs would be sneaking up on them.

He was listening for any change in sounds, but nothing really happened. It was the same sounds he heard before. (I wonder if the slime patrol comes to this room... They were coming from this direction, so they should be coming back here, once they finish their patrol, which means we should probably hurry up.)
The Assassin turned around and saw that all of his party members were still examining the runes. To be completely hones, he was a little-bit bored and wished there'd be at least one other person, who'd be on his level of inteligence. *Sigh* (I guess this is what happens when you travel with scholars) He smiled a little-bit and then returned to his friends.

And it seems that he couldn't time it better as Dumah made a proclamation that he know these runes a bit, altough his knowledge was a bit... out of date. "I agree with Kat, it is at least something." He looked at the way they came from "But even though it is not a neccesity and we are not in any real danger right now, we sho.. well, you should probably try and figure it out faster rather then slower. Unless we acctualy wanna try out our battle strategy on that slime patrol we passed on the way here."
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[Word count: 362
Tags: @bornfromvelvet @dumah Noctis Corvo
Note: ---]

[Noctis Corvo]

Noctis wiped the sweat from his brow, a huge goofy grin spread across his face. He took in the awestruck and dumbfounded looks of his party members as they took in his handiwork, seemingly awestruck at his speed and relative enthusiasm with which he tackled the block puzzle. The foxtail's face amused him the most, as Dumah seemed more impressed and as usual, he only had the assassin's eyes and body language to go off of for his emotions. With a gentle chuckle, he took off the outer layer of the robe, tying its sleeves around his waist. The stitching and scars showed off a bit more, as well as revealing the tattoos that stretched down the left side of his neck and down his arms that revealed him as a member of the race of ritual. Taking some water from his inventory he took a quick swig to slake his thirst before speaking back up.

"This is nothing honestly, you should have seen me when I had to do these kinds of things in other games."

He took another swig and re-capped his water bottle before putting it back in his inventory. He sighed and crossed his arms as he eyed the mural himself. He knew enough to recognize the runic alphabet, but recognize was about all he could do. There was an air of familiarity about it, but he couldn't quite place his finger on what it was exactly. It had been years since he had last memorized or even practiced any of the runic languages, he generally studied enough to fibish a puzzle or decode something in a book then promptly forgot it again until he would need to look it up again. With a sigh he scratched the back of his mophead hairdo and shook some of the sweat out of his hair. He wasnt necessarily indignant, but he was irritated at how familiar it seemed yet his own inabillity to recognize it. " You would think the Sage subclass would help my memory, but alas..." he let out another sigh, heavy with dissapointment in himself. "I think you or Dumah are going to have to take the reigns on this one Kat."

As he sat eyeing the mural, the assassin caught the corner of his eye, eyeing the exits and seeming to monitor for incoming slimes. He could at least admire that one of them was watching their six while the rest were working on the puzzle, no matter how irrelevant it seemed at the time to him. Looking back to the mural however, he still had no idea. And it was beggining to get to him.

Half-jokingly, he decided to propose a question to the rest of them. "Can I just shoot it? Please? This place is so old, all it should take would be one well placed miasma bullet."


Tags:
@bornfromvelvet @kurosan @dumah

[Deleted]

To nobody's surprise, not a single member of the party was able to translate the peculiar runes. The flames of the standing torches licked the air as the party continued to inspect the foreign passage, the only two who had any significant chance at translating being the party's leader and the young healer. "Damn, I should know this language..." There was a hint of anger, or rather disappointment in himself, behind the Spellsword's words. Countless times, he looked over the passage, trying a number of many different random letter associations.

After a series of unsuccessful attempts, he gently punched the wall in frustration, unable to believe he had forgotten Elder Futhark of all languages. "I have seen these runes time and again in my life... I should not be having any trouble-" The man was struck silent, staring at the runes in revelation. "... Wait..." He took a step back from the wall, tapping at the air to access his user interface. Click, click, tap. He navigated his skills list, tapping his selection and closing his roughly stacked layers of digital menus. "It seems..." Focused intently on his work, the Spellsword was reduced to uttering incomplete sentences as he began to write over the runes in Mythic Script. He finally made some progress on the translation, but when he stepped back to examine the passage in its entirety, all that had been deduced were the characters R, K, G, H, I, S, T, B, O. "Yes, yes, this is... Great, now I can work backwards from..." With a bit of a smile on his face, he stepped up to the mural once more, slowly managing to work out other words and letters. With that bit of the wall now covered in ethereal blue text, Dumah stepped back and proudly looked upon his victory. "Vae victis," he said to himself.

In times of despair I am all around
My everlasting presence oft thought
A sign of both calm and fear
Shut thine Eyes but escape me you can't
Despite my whole being broken
With an attempt so light

"It seems we have another riddle before us." Internally smirking a bit, Dumah gave a soft, gentle nudge on the young healer's back, pushing Katarina towards the translation. "Care to do the honors of solving this one? I am quite sure it would likely confer quite a large sum of experience for your Scholar subclass." He raised one corner of his lips in a jesting smile, showing that he was most likely joking. Returning his focus back on actually progressing through the dungeon, Dumah leaned back against one of the standing torches in the room, looking at the translated puzzle. "Corvo, it would seem puzzles are your area of expertise. Perhaps you would like to take a shot at this riddle." Granting the Heretic a signal to begin postulating a possible solution to the translated message, cracking his knuckles and stretching his arms high above his head. It seemed what this dungeon lacked in forced enemy encounters, it made up for in puzzles and riddles.

Words: 511 | Total Words: 7814
Tags: @bornfromvelvet @kurosan Noctis Corvo
Coding by Sayha of LH

[Deleted]

Kat almost felt relieved when Noctis sighed and admitted that he was clueless on the subject of the runic languages. Finally, something she knew that Noctis didn't! Of course, the main problem here was the fact that although she didn't really want to admit it, she was just as clueless as Noc. She recognised it as a runic language that she had studied in the past, however she had long since forgotten how to translate it to English. Obviously, Kuro wasn't going to suddenly speak up and tell the group the answer to this particular puzzle, so it fell to Dumah to translate the runes. Unfortunately, it seemed like not even Dumah could figure out this rune.

Noctis (presumably) jokingly asked if he could just shoot the mural. "...I am perfectly fine with this course of action." Kat muttered to herself. This was starting to bug her. She really should know how this language.

Dumah punched the wall. It was safe to assume that he felt the same as Kat on this particular subject.

Sighing, Kat opened up her notebook again, glancing over the runes. She doubted she'd be able to translate it, but she supposed it'd be worth trying again-

"...Wait..." Dumah paused mid-rant, stepping back from the wall. Did he figure it out? Opening up the UI, he activated Mythic Script and began to write over the inscription, skipping some letters here and there. "I", skip, "T", "I", skip, skip, "S"... 

After a short while, the Spellsword stepped back from the wall, covered completely in ethereal blue text. Dumah let out his definitely necessary overly pretentious latin victory cry as Katarina began to read.

...
.....
.......

"GOD. DAMMIT."

She was really getting sick of everything in this dungeon being a goddamn riddle. Dumah nudged her back softly, pushing Kat towards the inscription. "I will kill you, you know." Moving away from Katarina, Dumah leaned back against one of the torches in the room - 'I hope he burns...' - before asking Corvo if he wanted to try and solve this riddle. Yeah, that's probably for the best.

[Word Count: 345
Tags: @dumah @kurosan Noctis Corvo ]

[Deleted]

(The coast is still clear.) Kuro was sat in a corner of the room, facing the exits/entrances, while the group was trying to figure out what was the runic language. They didn't seem to be able to solve it and it was evidently taking a toll on all of 'em. It frustrated them to the point, where Noctis offered to just shoot it, which was probably just a joke... but Kat didn't look like she would mind. And probably, neither would Dumah who started to take out his anger on the mural.
The Assassin watched them with a amused look, glad that he couldn't be of help there.

"Hmm." (Sooo.. not even one of our 3 smartest people in our guild can solve this, huh? At least no one can blame this on me.) He grinned and checked the perimeter again.
(Still no one. I wonder if I should go back through the tunnels to have a better heads up if the slimes were coming back. It sure doesn't seem like they'll solve it anytime soo-)
His thought process was interrupted by Kat's sudden anger-burst. 

The Assassin turned around expecting to see disapointment from "being-unable-to-solve-the-mural"... well, he was only half-right. Kat was definitely disapointed, but the mural was already solved and there was now a blue text over it. 
Kuro now understood Kat's frustration, as it was another riddle. He didn't really mind. To be honest, he wasn't even that surprised. What else should they get? An "exit"? Pffft.
He read the riddle, while Kat threatened Dumah.  
"Huh..." (Could it be.. no, probably not... but it fits.. sort of.) He heard Dumah suggesting that Noctis should solve the riddle, as he seems to be the expert on that here.
(I might gain some social points.. so why not try it..) Before Corvo answered, Kuro asked: "I'm probably incorrect, but could the answer be 'Hope'?" Kuro nervously coughed. "As I said, it's probably wrong, but just thought I'd add at least something, so you couldn't say I was just a dead weight."
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[Word count: 342
Tags: @bornfromvelvet @dumah Noctis Corvo
Note: Not sure if I used the "dead weight" correctly... But I probably made more than just 1 mistake.]

[Noctis Corvo]

The heretic was totally prepared to just blast the everlasting everything out of the mural before their team lead finally managed to translate it. In fact, he was already mid charge on a fully charged miasma bullet, the dark mass producing a strange echoing sound as it slowly grew in size and absorbed ambient mana from the environment. as dumah gave a cry of relief and began translating in mythic script over the runes, he canceled the skill, the bolt dispersing back into the environment. What caught him off guard however was that everyone was turning to him now to answer it. He was quite honestly confused by the riddle. It made very little sense to him at first glance. in a strange sense of contemplation he sat down in front of the wall, his finger tracing the air as he read through the whole poem a few more times on his own, before toggling his own mythic script ability and writing in the air around him in some sort of ritual to better understand the puzzle that lay before him.

"Let us see here...in times of despair...everlasting presence...calm and fear...shutting of eyes but can't escape...whole being broken by an attempt so light..." he sat head sat resting cheek upon his left fist, his right hand outstretched writing in the air and seeming to draw arrows as he drove his train of thought out loud. "well everlasting presence would mean an idea or concept of somesuch, something intangible, but whole being broken by a light attempt...light could mean many things but generally means in this sort of a case, a rather simple method. So something everlasting, broken by a simple method...but the everlasting concept seems to be linked by calm and fear...it could mean that it causes both but it could also mean one or the other. 'In times of despair' sounds important though so I shouldn't discount that yet...I doubt that it is hope because it seems to be something conotated with calm and fear and people rarely fear hope. However, while Despair might be a good option, I doubt the answer to the riddle would be used in the riddle itself, as such would simply be poor forethought and construction. Death is another concept that comes to mind, but it is only overcome in this world thanks to our respawn mechanic, so I doubt that would be the answer as this seems to be directed towards mortal men, and at this point we are far from it. In times of despair....My best guess at this point would be something along the lines of Shadows, Darkness or the Night at this point, mainly because the dark is something generally associated with despair, it is an everlasting presence as it stands opposite of the eternal concept of light, many children and people fear it, but some also come to see it as a source of calm (myself included), shutting your eyes can't escape it, and its broken by a very light attempt i both the meanings of easily creating light, as well as the idea of light itself. If none of those work, my next highest guess would be Silence, as quiet comes in despair as one gives up, it is eternal, cant be escaped by shutting your eyes, can calm some but scare others, and can be solved simply by making noise. Both also seem to fit thematically with the dungeon as this is essentially a giant underground crypt and aside from the slimes we have seen plenty of both Silence and Darkness.

[Deleted]

As Dumah leaned back against one of the torches in the room, he watched as his party all focused their attention on the Heretic, all of them unanimously expecting him to conjure up the answer in record time just as he had with the puzzles before them. Taking a seat on the old stone floor of the dungeon, activating his own Mythic Script skill to show his work as he attempted to decode the deciphered runes, making all manner of markings and notes in his own ethereal blue. He began to speak softly to himself, reiterating the riddle to better understand it and break it apart piece by piece. Once he had finished looking it over a few times, he began to postulate at its meanings, generally sticking to the deduction that the answer would be a concept or idea, given the line regarding everlasting presence. After he continued to further break down the meaning of the passage, he came to the answer of 'silence,' stating that such would fit the lines of the riddle.

Dumah nodded in agreement, standing straight once again. Rather surprisingly, the braziers were planted in the ground rather solidly, the standing torch not even wobbling as Dumah pushed himself off of it. "Shut your eyes and all you will see is pure darkness. And like you mentioned, an attempt so light is what made me think of literal light as a noun. Even something as simple as a match can provide ample light to pierce the darkness." Dumah held his chin for a moment as he approached the mural. "No input menu is appearing, so it seems this will be less of a word riddle and more interactive than that which allowed us to enter the dungeon." Dumah turned around, his back to the large stone wall, examining the room his party found itself in. The answer called for light to be broken, but the room was already fairly well lit. Or perhaps... "I think I see now." Approaching the nearing brazier in the room, he stood by the torch, lining himself up with all on this side of the room, before extending his arm with his right hand in a gun gesture. Once he had his shot lined up, he pressed his thumb down and a blast of wind was fired from the tip of his extended index finger, extinguishing the torches on one side of the room. It was a bit harder to see now, with half of the braziers unlit. Heading to the other side of the room, Dumah repeated his process of lining himself up with the line of torches, taking aim, and firing.

With all of the torches now without flame, the entire room was completely devoid of light. About to activate his Mage Light, Dumah's eyes began to adjust, and in the corner he noticed a faint glow. Mentally marking where the glow came from, Dumah continued to activate his spell, illuminating the room faintly as he headed to the faint shine. Under a pile of skeletons and ancient cloth was a small glowing gem, giving off a beautiful blue light so soft that it only served to illuminate the Spellsword's hand, and barely his body. "I suppose that is all that this room has for us..." Giving the rest of the chamber a quick once over, he found nothing of note. "Alright, let's head back into the labyrinth." As the party made their way back into the maze, the Spellsword could not help but examine the gem he had found. "Perhaps we must collect these gems for something further in the labyrinth." As he spoke, he tapped in the air to examine the flavor text on the item.

Daedalus Shard
A crystalline key designed to imprison a grand beast. Only those worthy of the title of hero shall harbor the strength to fell the monster.

It's a crystal. Nothing more. But if you turn it this way and look into it, it will show you your dreams. But this is no gift for an ordinary girl, who takes care of a screaming baby.

Dumah could not help but chuckle a bit as he recognized the quote of italicized joke text at the bottom of the item window. "The Daedalus Shard. According to the description, it is a key designed not to keep others out, but to keep a monster - likely the Raid Boss - in." Dumah pocketed the crystal, keeping the item's information present for him to speculate on. "According to Greek mythology, Daedalus was an artificer, most commonly known for his creation of the wings that he and his son Icarus used to fly, only for Icarus to soar too close to the sun and eventually plummet, the wax which held his wings together melted off. However, given the fact that we find ourselves in a dungeon, I would suspect that this is all in reference to his construction of the labyrinth, in which he built the maze so well that he himself had become lost in its twists and turns, trapped with the very Minotaur that he sought to imprison. If that is the case, then we will only need to find one more crystal, which I can only expect will be the Theseus Shard, named after the hero who finally killed the Minotaur." As the party trekked through the twists of the labyrinth, Dumah felt a bit uneasy. "We have not encountered any slimes or undead since we solved the riddle to get the Daedalus Shard... One would usually expect opposition to grow as progress is made." He tightened the soft grip on his sheathed sword, preparing himself in the case of an ambush or stronger monster.

Words: 951 | Total Words: 8765
Tags: @bornfromvelvet @kurosan Noctis Corvo
Coding by Sayha of LH

[Deleted]

Really, she should have tried to help out with that riddle. She was the tactician, the one thing she was expected to do was to be smart. But, well... she hated puzzles, riddles especially. She didn't really know why, but while she liked stealth games and strategy games, games that actively required you to think of a solution to a problem to succeed, when it came to traditional puzzles, she would prefer jumping off a cliff to actually solving them. The rest of the group, barring Kuro, all turned to the best puzzle extraordinaire since Professor Layton himself, Noctis in hopes that he would solve the riddle for them. Really, could you blame them? Kuro ended up with "Hope" as his answer. He nervously spoke up, looking at the rest of the group... who promptly ignored him. Harsh. Well, Kat had to give him points for trying. Noctis being Noctis, he ended up answering "Darkness", as he is basically god when it comes to this kind of thing and can never be wrong. Honestly, Kat was kind of impressed.

Dumah walked up to the mural, ready to input the group's answer which they all worked together to figure out (like that would ever happen). The spellsword held his chin in confusion, before informing the group that no menu was popping up. He then deduced that it was an interactive puzzle much unlike the riddle they had to solve to enter the dungeon. 

It didn't take Dumah long to figure out what to do. Dumah proceeded to put out all the torches in the room, one row at a time. 'Ah, I see...' the Cleric thought to herself as she caught on to Dumah's plan. 'The riddle did ask for light to be broken...' Of course, Dumah being Dumah, he couldn't just do something normally. Forming a finger gun with his right hand, he proceeded to fire, sending a blast of wind across the room and putting out all the torches at once. Beautiful. A perfect ten.

Glancing around the now pitch black room, Katarina noticed a faint glow in the corner. Slowly, she made her way over to the source of the light. Thankfully, Dumah activated his Mage Light spell so the Cleric could actually see and wouldn't just be tripping over in the dark all day. Then she noticed where the glow was actually coming from. Underneath a pile of old clothes and skeletons was a small gem, glowing a faint blue colour. Dumah, after examining the gem for a short while, gave the order to move back into the labyrinth, explaining what the gem was. Apparently, it was called the Daedalus Shard, named after the father of Icarus and the constructor of a incredibly vast labyrinth, built to trap a Minotaur. According to the description, the shard was a key designed to keep a monster trapped. It was logical to assume that this monster was the boss of the dungeon, and Katarina was willing to bet all of her pitiful amount of gold on the fact that said Raid Boss was a Minotaur. Dumah theorised that the next shard they would need to find would be called the Theseus Shard, named after the hero who killed the Minotaur in Greek mythology. Frankly, Kat didn't really see how that bit of knowledge was going to help them any, however she did agree entirely with what Dumah said next - it had been far too long without an encounter. Going through her menu, Kat unequipped her staff and switched to a wand and tome combination. She hadn't had all that much experience wielding her grimoire, but she really didn't want to move forward without a proper weapon on hand. If anyone needed healing, she still had her wand for that.

[Word Count: 629
Tags: @dumah @kurosan Noctis Corvo
Notes: I feel like Katarina's snark has rubbed off on my narrator.]