That for the moment halted his guesswork. He was perfectly content with letting everybody else guess. That way he wouldn’t have to be personally responsible for any of the wrong answers he was sure he would come up with. Besides, fighting wasn’t his forte and he would be glad to avoid the other room if he could.To: Freedom Fighters
From: Dien
Subject: Of Doors and Monsters
Message: So with the help of Nighthand, I’ve figured it out. Every time we make a bad guess at the doors, three more monsters will spawn in the next room. At the very least, I’d suggest that we hold off on guessing until we can get the number of monsters down to a more manageable level, and then guess sparingly only when we’re sure that we’ve got the right answer. This should make it easier for everyone involved.
I figure if we have a handful of fighters in the monster room, they can spawnkill the monsters that may appear from bad guesses. That means, though, that we should slow down our guesses, because if they’re wrong, we want to give our clean up crew some time to deal with them.
So in other words, if someone has just taken a swing at it, wait a minute or two before stepping up to the plate so the monsters that erupted can be dealt with.
He began to open up the thinking processes again when another flashmail pinged in. Apparently it was melting pot time for the riddle.
He had already tried the converting the numbers to letters via alphabet and via Roman Numerals but he was unable to make sense of the gibberish that took place. So he decided to drop it. Soon after closing Light’s message another one came in, this one from Raven.To: Party
From: Lighteria
Subject: Lighteria’s Thoughtpad
Message: 310,991,144 <- First three answers
3 10 9 9 11 4 4 (Straight number to letter translation?)
C j I I k d d
4 19 9 (Add up the numbers in each answer?)
d s I
Number Pad? 1 & 0 have no letters!!!
Three One Zero
Nine Nine One
One Four Four (I see no pattern! This really freaking sucks!!!)
He didn’t have a damn clue what ASCII code was. All this was starting to make his brain hurt however, and that meant that his mind was wandering. To things like if you timed the flashmail pings right could you actually make a beat, and or a song out of it? It might be worth a try later. A moment later, another response came. The boy blew out a sigh.To: Freedom Fighters
From: Raven
Subject: Riddle
Message: Lighteria may be on the right track, but I don't think it's quite that simple. He only used the first three door codes, and I think it may require all 5 to be used somehow.
The codes so far, in order, have been 310, 991, 144, 312, and 861.
Also, when it says numbers as letters, I don't think it's quite as simple as Lighteria is making it out to be either. Representing the alphabet as numbers from 1 to 26 is the simple way, but there is another method. ASCII code. Does anyone here have a decent grasp of it? I know enough to know what it is and what it's used for, but not well enough to be able to put it to use to hazard a guess. However, either you find the letter that corresponds to the previous codes and it spells something, or some other method. I leave that up to those who know it better than I do.
To be brutally honest, it was another useless piece of information. He didn’t understand much of what the Blademaster said and he was starting to lose interest. It was too hard to concentrate with a constant stream of DING! going off every 15 seconds. Speak of the devil.To: Freedom Fighters
From: Dien
Subject: Re: Riddle
Message: As something of an accomplished hacker in my days of yore, I should hope that I know ASCII code well enough to tell you that those numbers don’t mean a thing when translated—that was one of the first places my mind went, along with a few interpretations that extrapolated and way overcomplicated things (which I tend to do anyways, but moving on). Perhaps we’re going about this too mathematically…I’ve got another idea that I’m going to look into, involving counting the letters. With my luck, it really is something that simple.
This information was equally useless to him. He understood it, but it was mostly stuff he had already figured out. Damn, would this barrage of annoyance never cease? Was he doomed to wallow in futile pings for the rest of his life? Well no, but it was kind of funny to think about it once in a while. A laugh now and then served to break the monotony quite well. He took this opportunity to glance back at the keypad, and then realized that the clue had change. The new clue didn’t help much, and still didn’t make much sense to him, but then maybe somebody else would make heads and tails of it.To: Freedom Fighters
From: Asgard
Subject: The Door
Message: Even though it is a good idea to go off on knowledgeable codes of what could possibly divine the numbers that make up this door, is the fact that at this moment in time, the puzzle does not specifically indicate the use of it. We have to keep it inside the realm that it allows.
That being said, I think there's one thing that I can discern from this question. That thing is that it is in the same format of the first question: Three lines of questioning, along with a digit per line. I have figured that the middle digit is 6, due to the fact that there were five doors before the one where I currently stand, along with the first door into the conference room. The first digit eludes me completely for now, with 'Numbers as Words, Counted in Cycle' but the bigger problem is that there is no mathematical way of calculating the last digit.
'Guess', which implies, in my point of view, that we have to figure the first digit out, and then take a one in ten chance of getting the last digit right, or until the puzzle decides to clue us into its identity.
Anyways, I'm putting in a new entry. It is completely against my above stated theory, but it is the only thing that could prove to me that the format was unlike the first question. I am aware of the fact that monsters spawn in the testing chambers for every wrong answer. But we don't have all the time in the world anymore. Every five minutes, I'm going to put in a new answer, or unless anyone from the testing grounds says it is alright to go ahead. If you need any help subduing the monsters, I will hurry to the Testing Area.
- Asgard
And to the rescue was Batman’s Brainchild. Dien after some concentrated effort finally came up with the solution. Good for Brainman. He didn’t have to wait for long before the slayer half of the group caught back up with them. And with they all proceeded into the weirdest damn classroom he had ever seen. There were desks, a closet, a door, something that could pass for lab tables and . . . a gun. And a cool looking gun at that. That must’ve been the contraption that Sheena referred to that ripped the shit off Nall’s chest. Rather beastly in an honest opinion. He would go play with it later. For now, he went to the desks to look around.
There were beakers, and test tubes, and plates, and tools, and other weird shit. The plates appeared to be mostly normal, just scratches and serial numbers and shit. But the full beakers and tubes got his attention. There were three that stood out, one that smelled sweet, one that singed his nostril hairs. And one that was a weird green thing that looked like it would radioactively glow in the dark. Like the blob. Only less blobbish. Well as any good chemistry student would do, it was time to mix shit.
The first, a little sweet and a little burn. The resulting mixture sizzled before exploding sending glass shrapnel everywhere and freezing over the surface of one of the desks. It was slick to the touch, and strangely chilling. It also felt slightly dry. If he had to guess, his tongue would probably stick to it if he licked it. That wouldn’t do however, the monkey bars would have to wait till later. Next it was sweet and green. This combination made the liquid stir a bit before becoming something that looked startling like water. A quick sample verified that it was indeed water. And even the addition of burn to it did absolutely nothing. With nothing to go off of, he moved next to burn and green, a mixture that thrashed quite vigorously before evaporating into the air. It was almost like weed. The boy staggered a bit as the fumes shot through his system, causing him to sway and a fog to envelop his brain. Whoooooooooo. That was fun. It was like a high, only not, but still kind of invigorating in its own strange way.
The last thing to do was to try and mix all three. Pouring the remnants of the three substances into a single unused beaker created an effect he didn’t expect. Apparently the viscosity levels of the three subjects were so different that as of such it was like oil and water, and some mystery liquid. He thought back to a time that seemed like a different lifetime ago. If he remembered correctly, something that could overcome viscosity was heat. Rifling through his vest he grabbed a necessary scroll and crushed it, sending fireballs to encircle the desks. Unfortunately, the reaction was like the lighting of a cigarette with a hand grenade. The explosion rocked the left half of the room and anything else on the desks was destroyed. If not by the fireballs themselves, then by the creaking and crashing of the desk onto the Long Arm’s toes. Fucking hell that hurt. Hopping and scowling, but refraining from swearing he moved onto something else, feeling slightly guilty about the rampant destruction of stuff that might’ve been useful for something. Oh well, such was life it seemed. At least he received his ample punishment by way of nearly sliced off toes. Maybe he would learn one day. Or maybe not.
He moved next to the gun. After examining it, and blatantly ignoring the blades and sharp pokey things around, he located one switch that was larger than the others and might’ve been a power switch. Grinning, and standing in front of what he assumed would be the barrel, he flicked the switch. It vibrated for a second before flicking back off. Frowning, the boy flipped it back on, but held his finger under the switch. The gun hummed and vibrated for the length of the duration that his finger propped the lever up but that was all. Disappointed he moved on towards the closet where another number pad awaited.
No listed clues made him grin as a morbidly ironic idea popped up. Grinning he punched in the numbers 911. Nothing seemed to happen, but the humor in it made it worthwhile. It couldn’t hurt. Right?