[WitchOfDoubt]

Inspired by When the Seagulls Cry (Umineko no Naku Koru ni)
The difficulty of this Prologue is Fairly Simple. Would you care to give it a guess?

PROLOGUE:
The Sphinx's Decalogue

I. A fair riddle should require no highly specialized knowledge that the readers cannot easily obtain.

II. Any fair riddle must contain the information needed to solve it, and no "false clues" that mislead.

III. It should be clear what the answer had to have been in hindsight.

IV. The worst riddles contain outright false clues. All clues in a riddle should be explicable in light of the answer.

V. If the answer is "Nothing" or "I can't guess," it is not a fair riddle, but rather an anti-riddle.

VI. A literal, trivial answer to a question is scarcely an answer at all. The chicken must cross the road for an actual reason.

VII. Riddles that rely on spoken homophones should be told in speech or not at all.

VIII. A truly fair answer must be as simple as possible, but no simpler.

IX. Obscure or improbable puns must not be required for a riddle's answer.

X. If any player's answer neatly fits every single clue of a riddle without breaking these rules, it is a correct answer.

* * * * * * * * *
This is a riddle of riddles and a mystery of mysteries, a challenge of locked safes and sealed rooms.
Do you think you can solve this by guessing? Do you think you can solve it alone?
Do you think I'll underline or bold every riddle for you?
Don't be absurd!
If you demand fairness, feel free to wait for it. You'll starve first.
If you demand hints, lean on each other.
If you demand the truth... good luck.
Without hope, the truth cannot be found.

Signed,
The Sapphire Witch

* * * * * * * * *
The First Safe:

The Hapax Club is a museum of riddles and adventures. There are no placards distinguishing the exhibits from the fixtures or, for that matter, from the staff and visitors. This is meant to encourage an all-consuming curiosity among its patrons. Is the flickering light in the men's lavatory delivering a message? Indeed, but it took two men a rather long time to be fully sure it is; a puzzle like that can be easily missed, though we all know of it now. As you see, a person must look beyond surfaces here.

(On the other hand, a hapless guest left once her purse on a pedestal on a busy morning, and by noon, seven people had come up with solutions for it. )

Eleven days ago, it was announced that the proprietor of the Club was retiring. All of the treasures and mysteries held in those blue-painted halls and scarlet-curtained chambers would pass to whoever could best a final challenge. See the guests standing outside the Club's great gargoyle-flanked doors, new solvers and old! As each one approaches, they are given a sheet of paper, the very sheet you hold in your hands right now. This first set of puzzles is an entrance examination.

This safe has two locks.

The first is a prime example of a 4-digit number lock.

The second is a digital display, which reads - - - - - - - - -, attached to a scanning pad, on which shapes (presumably letters) can be drawn with a stylus.

[WitchOfDoubt]

(The rules of the game are simple at this point - try to solve the riddles by posting guesses. Later on, gameplay will include some roleplaying/adventure elements. As guesses are posted, characters will be introduced and the plot will advance.

If you're entirely stuck on the first safe, here are some hints:

Spoiler:

Getting the word part of the combination requires a few steps. You might want to start by searching for and decoding a set of hidden words inside the post.

The number is not a particularly interesting puzzle yet. Don't overthink it. Just search for possible candidate combinations.

)

[TimovieMan]

Originally Posted by WitchOfDoubt

Indeed, but it took two men a rather long time to be fully sure it is; a puzzle like that can be easily missed, though we all know of it now. As you see, a person must look beyond surfaces here.

Do we need an Enigma machine for this???

[WitchOfDoubt]

The guests milled around the doors muttering, trying to work out the first puzzle. Surely the first one wouldn't be insanely difficult, would it? Would it require an Enigma machine to solve?

Of course not! The first puzzle can be solved without using any program or device, though it may be helpful to look something up online.

As the guests debated, a neatly-dressed woman in her mid-thirties rounded the corner, shoes clicking evenly on a pavement still wet with that morning's rain. She was running a few minutes late - she had to drop her daughter off at home - but it looked like the others hadn't gotten inside yet, so it hardly mattered.

"Good evening, Samuel," said Ocean Zweidler to the doorman, in crisp and formal tones. "Do you mind if I examine the clues?"

He nodded. "Indeed, Ms. Ocean." The ever-formal old man called her this as a compromise. She would never have accepted "Ms. Zweidler," and he would never first-name her until the ocean itself dried up.

As she examined the paper for clues, it occurred to her that the puzzle was, one might say, slightly inequitable. "Having never been in the men's bathroom," said Ocean, "how am I to make sense of the flickering light?" She spoke like a book, subordinate and ordinate clauses neatly delimited.

Samuel refused to drop any hints. "You've got everything you need right there, Ms. Ocean. Sorry. All I can say."

Hmm... she thought. What kind of coded message might a person send with a flickering light?

Ocean Zweidler's inventory:

Smartphone (with sound recorder, camera, GPS, notepad, and Internet access)
Magnifying lens (worn on a loupe around her neck)
Purse, containing:
* First aid kit
* Three pencils and a pen
* Two erasers
* A calculator
* Magnifying lens
* A paper notepad
* Paperclips
* Chewing gum
* Emergency whistle
* Reading glasses
* A small portable umbrella
* Plug-in phone charger
* A cigarette lighter (but no cigarettes)
* Nail clippers (which double as tension wrench for picking locks)
* Assorted detritus, receipts, etc.
* Wallet, containing:
** Driver's license
** Credit and debit cards
** $123.25 in cash
** Assorted membership cards, including a library card and a membership to the Detection Club
** Organ donor card
** Lockpicks (in hidden pocket)

(The above will not help you break the code in any way, but may eventually come in handy. What is missing from Ocean's inventory might also be worth noting.)

[TimovieMan]

I'm not sure I'm supposed to give my entire train of thought as to how I reached my guesses, but I'm going to do that anyway.


So my guess for the number lock is a total stab in the dark: we need four digits and no number combinations are apparent, so I'm going to take this literally: the text contains three written-out numbers - two, seven and eleven - which combined makes 2711 my best guess.

As for the digital display, when turning the italics and bold letters into dots and dashes for morse code - the flickering light hint definitely helped -, I get "AZURE CYAN LIME INDIGO". I'm not sure what to do with these colour names to get a 9 letter code. Lots of 7- or 8-letter words but no 9-letter words come to mind. However, it may not necessarily be a word, so what I CAN think of is using the 9 colours of the rainbow/light spectrum and turning those into a letter code, which gives:
Infrared-Red-Orange-Yellow-Green-Blue-Indigo-Violet-Ultraviolet = IROYGBIVU


I hesitantly enter 2711 on the number lock and use the stylus on the pad to write IROYGBIVU.

[WitchOfDoubt]

"Aha!" A guest had hit on something. Why not enter 2711, a four-digit number culled from clues in the text? Hmm. Was it a prime number? A quick search on an Internet phone revealed that it certainly was, while most of the other permutations (7112, 1172, 2117 and 1127) weren't.

The colors in Morse code were clearly important as well, but IROYGBIVU was not the second code.

Quite close... we must be getting quite close... thought Ocean. Are there any colors on these pages?

Meanwhile, another guest, gruff old Walter Sexton, had already noticed something odd about the Sphinx's Decalogue. "There's a hidden message in those lines," he said. "But it's unfinished."

Puzzles upon puzzles, and they hadn't even gotten in the door yet!

----

Meet the Pieces (Part One of Many)

Ocean Zweidler
Age: 32
Profession: Author

Quote: "My Grandma Margareta made scarecrows all the time. When I was a girl, she showed me the faces she gave them - laughing, smiling, crying... I still remember hearing them! It was Grandma who taught me what a writer does.

My stories are puzzles. A little dry, a little silly, filled with straw people. But I prop them on a stick and put faces on them, and my readers create the rest for themselves."

Background: The daughter of a neuroscientist and a chef, Ocean is the author of the bestselling Vanishing Island series of mystery novels. As a relatively recent initiate to the club, she specializes in folkloric riddles and Victorian letterplay. She also has a working knowledge of both English and German, acquired during her childhood in the town of Bernkastel-Kues.

Random Fact: Once, after receiving a negative review, she anonymously tricked the police into putting a highly inconvenient barricade around the reviewer's house.

Sample Riddle: As Ocean waited for the rest of the guests to finish cracking the first two locks, she pulled out a pencil and penned a simple challenge to the others to kill the time.

On paper or tablets from man or Divine,
I am made of ten parts, and yet only of nine.

[TimovieMan]

And to say I was more convinced of my IROYGBIVU than of 2711...

What did prime numbers have to do with it, though? I just took 2, 7 and 11 in the order they appeared in the text...


The coloured stars in the Sphinx's Decalogue are (using the azure-cyan-lime-indigo hint):
Indigo-Lime-Lime-Orange-Green-Indigo-Cyan-Azure-Lime = ILLOGICAL



Why am I the only one playing???

[UPtimist]

Originally Posted by TimovieMan

Why am I the only one playing???

For you are the Chosen One! The bravest, and most cunning of all of us!

[TimovieMan]

Originally Posted by UPtimist

For you are the Chosen One! The bravest, and most cunning of all of us!

????

[Fantasysci5]

Because I'm pants at puzzles.

[UPtimist]

Originally Posted by Fantasysci5

Because I'm pants at puzzles.

No, you're trousers at puzzles

[Intense Degree]

Originally Posted by UPtimist

No, you're trousers at puzzles

Hurrah! God bless Her Majesty!

[WitchOfDoubt]

(It's possible for a single player to solve this, but it will be much easier to play the puzzle-based 'boss duels' if you have at least one partner. You might want to recruit a friend.)

Someone looked askance at the safe clue. Prime number? Surely that wasn't even necessary to answer it... maybe it was just there to check the answer. Or was there another layer to this puzzle that -

His thoughts were interrupted by a shrill bell. Some idiot had pulled the fire alarm inside the building. While most of the guests outside looked mildly annoyed at this, Dr. Alicia Tressler laughed. "Hope we don't wear out our welcome," she said.

----

Almost without thinking, Ocean Zweidler took stock of all the people who were by the door when the alarm sounded, and thus had alibis. They were:

* Ocean herself
* Samuel Voronov, the doorman.
* Dr. Alicia Tressler
* Walter Sexton
* Professor Otto Rinaldi - the mischievous old scientist would've been her prime suspect otherwise, given his penchant for poking around emergency doors
* ... and Kenichi Nakamura (who was already taking a note of the exact time the alarm rang out - 5:54 PM. Good for him.)

Oh, no. Alibis? Why was she even thinking this way? It was probably nothing to worry about! And indeed, within minutes, someone had shut off the errant alarm. Soon after, the last three players - L. V. Seaton-Ford, Nat Foreman, and Batsheva Ellis - rounded a corner and came into view.

"Well, dudes," said L. V. giving the group his best 'aw shucks' grin and not even bothering to explain where he'd been. "Guess we'd better crack these locks, huh?"

"Yes," said Nat, avoiding L. V.'s gaze - a little guiltily, Ocean thought.

"You bet!" said Batsheva, with blatantly false cheerfulness.

I see. "The safe?" said Ocean, always looking for a chance to one-up L.V. "I just solved it."

But was the solution offered - '2711' and 'ILLOGICAL' - really correct? They would have to test it to find out.


------

Meet the Pieces (Part Two of Many)

Louis Vuitton Seaton-Ford
Age: 30
Profession: Lounger and dilettante, or so he claims.

Quote: "Call me L. V. What does it stand for? So awesome you asked! It stands for 'Lovin' Volcano.'"

Background: As the heir to the Ford-Seaton fortune, L. V. has never had to work a day in his life - though he must have some other source of income, given the sheer amount of money he burns jetting around the world. Sandy-haired and flirtatious, L. V. sounds and acts the part of a stoned surf bum.

Don't be fooled. He's a member of the Club in excellent standing for good reason.

Random Fact: Won a Forensic DNA Analysis championship.

Sample Riddle:

L. V. places a Diamond Express credit card on a table and waves over a few guests. "Well, I say!" he says in an ironically bad British accent, "This plastic rectangle reminds me of a puzzle. Okay, okay, I'll cut the accent. How many credit cards can you lay flat on top of it without letting 'em overlap each other? Here are the rules.

Numero uno: They're all 3.4 by 2.1 inch standard-size credit cards.

Numero dos: To count as being 'on top' of the Diamond Express, a card has to, like, cover up at least a tiny little bit of it.

Numero tres: The cards you put down can't overlap each other, and they gotta be sitting flat. No making some kinda wacky pyramid dealio.

Come on, dudes and dudettes! How many can you fit?"

----

(There are currently at least four unsolved puzzles lurking in this thread. One involves finding a hidden ten-letter message in the Sphinx's Decalogue. One involves noticing what is missing from Ocean's inventory. One is Ocean's riddle, given in her 'Meet the Pieces' profile. One is L. V.'s credit card puzzle.

To unlock the next event, at least two of these mysteries must be solved.

Note: There is currently insufficient information to work out who pulled the fire alarm.)

[TimovieMan]

The Sphinx's Decalogue:
Taking the first letter from the first point (I.), the second from the second (II.), the third from the third, etc. you get "ANSWERS ARE". Could that be the hidden message?

What's missing from Ocean's inventory (apart from cigarettes and an actual ID) are keys, imo. Does she not have a house or a car?
Oh, dear God, she's a squatter! She's got lockpicks but no keys.

The answer to Ocean's riddle is possibly COMMANDMENTS. There's ten of them in the Bible, and the word itself is composed out of 9 different letters.

As for the credit card thingy. The best I could do when trying it out was 7.

[WitchOfDoubt]

(If this were a Sierra adventure game, that 'point earned' jingle would be playing so often that you'd mistake it for a cellphone going off.)

"ANSWERS ARE..." thought Mr. Sexton. "Perhaps the coded word finishes this off."

(Insert points jingle here. Deedle-ee-doot!)

Meanwhile, Ocean Zweidler rummaged through her purse again. Where were they? She'd walked here from her house after dropping off Faith, and she must have used them to unlock the front door. She could have sworn she put her keys back in the purse...

(Deedle-ee-doot!)

Well, it was probably nothing, just like that fire alarm. And Nat Foreman seemed to have something to say to her. "Ocean, I think I've solved the riddle on that page," he said. "It's COMMANDMENTS. Nine different letters, but Ten Commandments."

(Deedle-ee-doot! Another solution is possible.)

"I would hardly know," said Ocean, raising an eyebrow, "as I was not really the author of that riddle. But it is a sound answer. I've thought of another... one right in front of us, actually."

Meanwhile, Batsheva Ellis had managed to just barely fit 7 credit cards on top of an eighth - but L.V. shook his head. With a bit of strategy and care, she could do better.

----

Answer Key for the First Safe

The sheet of paper with Ocean's profile had been hidden in the mouth of a gargoyle at the right side of the front door; its riddle about divine tablets fell swiftly, but that was little more than a distraction compared to the first safe. As its opener, Ocean was given the honor of unsealing the envelope inside.

It contained a sheet of paper with two stories, the very sheet you are reading right now. What? Why does this other story say the beach bum solved it? His guess was ridiculous - it had nothing to do with the clues!

Ocean's answer, in contrast, had been entirely well-grounded. First, she entered the numbers mentioned on the page in order: 2, 7, 11. She then solved the Morse code on the page (which matched the flickering lights in the men's room), giving her a list of colors. Finally, she matched the colors to the asterisks on the page, and found that their first letters spelled out the answer.

"ANSWERS ARE ILLOGICAL?" she wondered aloud.

Ignoring the story below, she read this page aloud, then followed these instructions to proceed to the Foyer of the Club. It was time for the challenge to begin in earnest.

---

The sheet of paper with L.V.'s profile had been hidden in the mouth of a gargoyle at the left side of the front door, and posed one of his favorite party riddles. As the opener of the first safe, he had the honor of unsealing the envelope inside. It contained a sheet of paper with two stories, the very sheet you are reading now. He read both aloud, sounding a little put off when it began with a bogus account of how Ocean had been the first to open the safe.

Why would she make the answer to one of these puzzles a word like "ILLOGICAL?" It was almost like saying, "Hey, guys, my riddles don't make sense!" And that four-digit prime number was totally random! '2711?' Why not make it today's date, 1231? That's prime. Why not make it today's year, 2011? That's totally a prime number.

At least they got it right in the second story! My answers were way better. Everybody in the Club knows me and my parents, and it's obvious that I'm gonna inherit everything, right?

It's not as if strangers are playing. They wouldn't stand a chance. No way they'd guess the year Mom married Dad - two years before I was born - or her name.

Still... weird that the Witch knew that either he or Ocean was gonna solve the first safe. Shrugging and ignoring the story above, he followed the instructions on this page to proceed to the Foyer of the Club. It was time for the challenge to begin in earnest.

A Clue Towards L. V.'s Answer:

DALMERE NEGRE
TEFASY GARONE
QUESORITU
PALO
ONNE RENGE
GANBERIUE

================================================== ======================

The sheets of paper end here for now. If you're confused by that last set of stories, perhaps it will become clear soon. In the meantime, I'm certain you'll have no trouble working out L. V.'s answers to the first safe!

Signed,
The Sapphire Witch

[TimovieMan]

About the credit card puzzle: I've tried some more combinations, and I made 8 cards fit on top of a 9th.
To prove I'm not just randomly guessing one number higher than last time, here's what it looked like (more or less):


If that's not the right answer, then I could say "9", "10", etc. in consequent guesses, but I'm not trying it out again. Barring it being a trick question, 8 is the highest I get...



As for the new safe, the number is the year L.V.'s parents got married, or 2 years before he was born. Given that the date is December 31st 2011, L.V. was born in the wonderful year of 1981 (just like me), and thus his parents were married in 1979 (just like mine - coincidence?). And wouldn't you know that 1979 just happens to be a prime number???

As for "her name", those letter combinations in that clue are anagrams for colours.
They're:
EMERALD GREEN
SAFETY ORANGE
TURQUOISE
OPAL
NEON GREEN
AUBERGINE

Not sure how to proceed from here on in, though.

If only some other forum members would try to help. It's not like they're not following this thread. I can sense their presence and feel their eyes lurking, for I am the Chosen One...

[WitchOfDoubt]

L. V. was impressed - Dr. Rinaldi had come up with almost exactly the same solution to the card puzzle that he always used. The trick was to take full advantage of the diagonal:



1979! A banner year for the Sapphire Witch. In that year, she married her first husband and met her second. Yes, it was no surprise that this was a possible code.

---

The colors were certainly a step in the right direction. Indeed, using those colors and information from the first typed page, the message that begins this thread, an attentive lurker could find L.V.'s answer. Will this be the puzzle that brings in a new player?

[TimovieMan]

Applying the colours to the coloured stars in the Decalogue, you get:
Aubergine - Neon Green - Neon Green - Safety Orange - Emerald Green - Aubergine - Turquoise - Opal - Neon Green

This spells:
ANN SEATON

[WitchOfDoubt]

As the name of Ann Seaton was spoken, there was a sound of distant thunder. Ocean felt a drop of drizzle strike the back of her neck.

The guests hurried into the Club, and Samuel shut the great wooden doors behind them. It was going to be a long night - a night of thefts, betrayals, and mysterious disappearances, a night to be sealed in secrecy forever.

----

(Congratulations! You've solved the first chapter's puzzles and unlocked its Witch's Banquet! One minor challenge remains, and newcomers to the thread are invited to attempt it:

* A second solution exists to Ocean's riddle of stone tablets, and it has not yet been stated.)

Banquet of the Prologue

A figure in a blue riding cloak gently laid a hand on the Club's front door. Though it had surely been locked, it opened before the magic of the Sapphire Witch in an instant. Passing by the newly installed ticket booth, through the foyer, and finally into the study, the Witch opened a door and was greeted at once by Dudeney, ever the loyal butler.

"Annabel. It has been some time. I trust you're well?" said Dudeney. In truth, ten years had gone by since the day of the inheritance challenge and the ruinous scandal that followed. All the same, Dudeney would ever be the Witch's friend.

Dudeney was one of the Witch's first Animates, imbued with human personality and character by the power of magic. Old-fashioned, perhaps, but he would always have a place in Annabel's heart. "As well as could be expected!" said the Witch. "And yourself?"

"Alas! Nobody has fed me for years. Still, it is to be, as you say, expected," replied Dudeney. Though the portly, squat little fellow still bore himself with dignity, his outer vestments showed signs of neglect. The black ribbon he wore was faded and worn, and half of the buttons at his breast had their sigils worn off. "In the year 2021, it is a miracle that I even exist at all. I shan't complain if I'm given few opportunities to serve. My joints are creaky with age."

"Ha! Rejoice, old friend!" said the Witch, laughing. "Tonight, you shall have a banquet, for our mystery is being re-opened! Come, let us begin - just like old times. You can take down my dictation while you eat."

And so the butler feasted through the night with a clashing of teeth and clattering of utensils.

-----

But this feast is interrupted by the arrival of a number of newcomers. Some have been silent, or nearly silent, while reading the typed pages that purported to describe the events of New Year's Eve, 2011. One, however, has been quick to answer the puzzles of that mysterious night... so far, in any case.

"What an intriguing group," says the Witch, face hidden behind a Venetian carnival mask. "Good evening. I am called the Sapphire Witch, and I welcome you to our Banquet of mysteries. Please, do be seated and introduce yourselves!"

The Witch gazes at you - yes, you - expectantly.

[WitchOfDoubt]

A Message from the Sapphire Witch

There are many of you out there, I know. Why do you not speak? Do you think you will guess incorrectly?

What then?

How many times have you thought, while playing an adventure game, 'I can't solve this puzzle, so let me try using every object on every other object!' Did you worry about 'guessing wrong' back then?

How many times have you accidentally killed the hero or heroine, only to 'restore' the game to an earlier state? Did winning become impossible simply because the protagonist died once? Hardly! As long as you kept trying, you would eventually win.

This is a game of Witch's Chess. The only way for the Human Side to win is to find the answers. The only way for the Human Side to lose is if they all stop thinking.

I will assure you of one thing with the Red Truth: In this game, you cannot lose unless you stop thinking. Silence is 'game over.'

So speak up -- choose an alias, if you like! -- and introduce yourselves.