Night 69: Basement: The Sphinx's Chamber

[ryuuzaki]

[From here.]

L hated to be the first to enter a room. The necessity of sometimes doing it anyway had come hand in hand with his abduction; while he could occasionally alternate the job with a companion, or could simply subtly manipulate the person he was with to always be in a position to open the door, it was impossible to keep it up indefinitely. Someone would notice after a while, and it would be bad for his alliances, which would render him largely impotent in terms of trying to bring an end to the place -- that would require collaboration, which required doing things he would ordinarily prefer not to do.

He had already taken the lead with this group, as much as anyone had, and so he opened the big golden door a crack to see what might be inside.

After a moment, he pulled it open to allow the others through, relieved that they had found something that probably wouldn't try to kill them on sight. But that didn't mean it wouldn't try to kill them eventually, and either way, his relief was short-lived.

The room was as he remembered it: gold upon gold, ornate, opulent. The low ceiling made it lean, in his mind, towards oppressive, an impression that wasn't helped by the large animal resting on a central dais. It had a remarkably human face, remarkably intelligent, and the body of a lion, including the claws.

In his stomach, he felt the same heaviness as before, the same certainty that he had come across another of Landel's prisoners, someone it was unlikely that anyone would think to liberate, and someone it might not be a good idea to liberate.

The Sphinx might or might not recognize him. He'd find out soon enough. He was confident that he could answer any riddle the creature might set, but that was all; conversing with it made him acutely uncomfortable.

"Good evening." His voice didn't betray his unease.

Comments

[damned_monsters]

The sphinx remained perfectly still as the four patients filed their way inside, not even its strangely human eyes darting around. It was as if it was statue rather than a living, breathing creature -- but then in a split second, that changed as it came to life and peered over all of them.

Unsurprisingly, its gaze lingered on L. "A repeat visitor, is it? You seem to have lost your friend..." It remarked on it almost casually, because disappearances were routine here.

"You already solved my riddle once," it huffed. "What, did you lose that shield? Really, it would be better if you weren't all so careless."

It barely paid attention to the others for the moment. Someone it had laid eyes on before was far more interesting than the ragtag group following him in. "Well, seeing as you have been here before, perhaps you could explain to everyone how this works? It would save me the trouble." The beast's mouth almost seemed to twist into a smirk, fangs showing in the process.

[fourstonewalls]

Lana had heard Ryuuzaki whining as he reset the ring, but she'd been far enough away to plausibly not have, so she said nothing. She wouldn't mind doing it; it was more that she sincerely doubted he'd want to relinquish control of the ring even for a moment. She wouldn't have; she trusted him -- had trusted him enough to stop her if the disease had taken her, but there was no use tempting fate. Or, as was much less fickle and more inclined to temptation, human frailty.

The disease...she'd almost stopped thinking about it, but her lungs were clear, and she was feeling more alert than she had in days. The cure still worked, then, even when it hadn't been freshly picked.

While taking stock, she'd let Nina and Ryuuzaki push ahead of her; she hurried through one set of doors, and then the second, to what was, for the second time tonight, the oddest room she'd seen here at the Institute yet. The walls crowded in like an interrogation cell; the effect was easy to produce, if you knew how, but it didn't make it less effective. Nor did their apparent questioner put her mind at rest -- there was a Sphinx, sitting on a dais, trading barbs with Ryuuzaki.

"Well, I'd appreciate if one of you would. A pleasure, Sir or Madam," she added, nodding politely to the Sphinx. Not that they hadn't already said enough -- a riddle, as per the legend, and a shield as reward, which Ryuuzaki was either keeping to himself or had been lost along with a departed colleague. And it was unlikely to be the same riddle, or Ryuuzaki would have already cut to the conclusion.

[girlsandgadgets]

Edgar had kept quiet, listening to what the others had to say, the gears in his head turning as he took in his surroundings from room to room. The ballroom was still a surprise even on a another visit: to think of why there was something so grand truly hidden underground, and to what purpose, he could only begin to guess. Then again, reading the mind of a madman like Landel was no easy task, even with his experience with someone just as deranged back home. Kefka preferred a certain amount of flair when it came to his decor, but even he probably wouldn't put something so ornate where most wouldn't see it. Perhaps it was a reward for all their hard work, something to let them know they were getting closer to their goal.

Though the sight was momentarily stunning due to its stark contrast to the rest of the institute, it was not enough that he wanted to break their progress for questions and observations- certainly not when they were finally making some. It wasn't that Edgar hadn't any; he had plenty about not only the areas they passed through, but of the coliseum and the grim event that awaited them there. However, they'd have to wait until morning- granted they survived the night (never a guarantee), they could talk then. Their time at night was limited enough, if the last few nights were any indication.

And that was why he kept his queries to himself as they traveled, taking in what was said rather than adding to it for the time being, keeping within reach of all members of the party so that there were less chances for separation. He made mental notes as they went, focusing his attention there rather than on the growing ache from his injuries: the resetting of the ring, the temporary death one of them would face in the Coliseum, the images of what appeared to be Magitek war machines and airships depicted on the tapestries in the hallways. These were areas he hadn't seen, ones he'd not been exposed to during the night the doors were enchanted- he couldn't help but wonder if the beast he'd fought was behind one, waiting for them. It was unfortunate he wasn't in the best shape for carrying a chainsaw.

At least he was finally getting some answers, even without asking questions: his hunch that there was some reason no one was willing to talk about the Coliseum, something completely preventing it from being discussed, seemed to have some merit after all.

He slipped into the room after Ryuuzaki, the golden sheen of the walls giving it a very different ambiance from the grim hallway leading to it. The creature within was the main feature, and did not go unnoticed: Edgar stepped in front of Nina instinctively, eyes on the strange monster as it spoke, his fingers curling tighter on the handle of his shovel. His immediate assumption was that it was something akin to an Esper- given that it could speak, and apparently remembered Ryuuzaki from his previous visit, it was as close of a comparison as he could get.

He decided for the time being to remain quiet, still listening, observing: if they were going to be offered some riddle, and one of them had already survived it, better to let the one with experience take the lead. He had a feeling he did not want to know what the consequences were if they failed to solve whatever puzzle was waiting for them.

[mirrorimage]

Nina passed the door at first, stopped only by the sound of Ryuuzaki's voice. "Here," he said.

It was a door. Not just any door; this one looked like solid gold, enough to intimidate Nina slightly with its ornateness. Ryuuzaki seemed to know what he was doing, so Nina allowed him to push ahead of her and through the door. She kept her gun still at the ready in case he was attacked by something, but then he allowed them all to flood into the room.

Her jaw dropped slightly at the sight of it as she entered, a step behind Edgar. She had never seen anything like it, not even in a storybook or in a museum. She was reminded of that old story about King Midas, who turned everything he touched into gold. It looked like he should have been living there.

But he wasn't. Instead, something that appeared to be another character familiar from those stories, a sphinx, sat in the room. Nina was stunned, blinking several times to be sure she wasn't imagining the creature's existence, and then unable to take her eyes off of it. How could such a thing have been possible?

Her head swam with surprise and confusion and something inside her chest twisted uncomfortably.

It seemed to know Ryuuzaki, if the way it spoke to him was any indication. Ryuuzaki, and someone else. It mentioned a friend. Inspector Lunge? Nina had to wonder.

"Hello," she offered to the sphinx, with an airy, awed quality to her voice. "Good evening." She didn't say that it was nice to meet him... or her; Nina couldn't really tell. And meeting the creature might prove to be nice... or it might be the furthest thing from it.

"Yes, please, Ryuuzaki?" she asked, turning to her companion, looking at him, trying to back up Lana's query. "Can you tell us what happens?"

[ryuuzaki]

"Mr. Lunge is in a better place," L replied to the Sphinx.

The truth was that he didn't know where Lunge was. But he doubted that the other man was dead, and could only assume that almost anywhere else was better than Landel's. If Lunge was out in the world as Otto Jung, it might be possible to do something for him at some point in the future; it might not be.

L had the impression the first time that the Sphinx didn't like him, but he wasn't sure if that or its apparent resentment of its situation was the reason it had settled the task of explaining what would happen in the room on him. The apparent mild dislike wasn't personal, but even if it had been, it wasn't an unusual position for L to be in, nor was it particularly relevant.

All eyes were on him, but he wasn't in any kind of control of the situation.

He looked mildly perturbed. Hadn't any of them even tried to find out what might happen if they came down here? What the rumors were? In the rush to find a cure for the so-called epidemic, and his own recent inability to accomplish much else, was everyone else really so ill-informed? He'd assumed that all of them knew more. Well, maybe not Nina.

"It's--" (he hesitated and corrected himself) "he's -- a sphinx," he said, after a moment of flat silence. "He" might not be accurate after all -- weren't the Greek sphinxes usually depicted as female? "We'll have the option of leaving the room, or of taking a riddle. If you take the riddle, the doors will close and we'll have only a few minutes to solve it. If we solve it, we're rewarded -- last time, it was a small metal shield. Decorative." He remembered the way that the Sphinx had thrown the shield at him and Lunge, in a huff. "If we don't solve it..." A tight, close-lipped smile, one indicating that he didn't find any of this pleasant, that more bad news was coming. "We've lost, and the situation changes, not for the better."

His thoughts circled on death in a regular pattern these days. He'd kill the Sphinx if he was forced to and able to, but he had no real desire to do it, and no guarantee that any attempt at self-defense would be successful. Those paws could crush his trachea and rip into his jugular.

"It goes without saying that no one should shout out an answer before consulting with everyone else. Last time, the riddle was particular to English speakers, even though Mr. Lunge is German."

[damned_monsters]

In a better place, he said. The sphinx doubted that very much. It was the sort of thing that people said to comfort themselves, and while the beast huffed in response, it didn't comment on it.

It did tilt its head when its sex was brought into question. Ryuuzaki was right, of course -- it was a he. He did contradict the legends, but not all sphinxes could be female, could they? He chose not to confirm or deny anything, as it honestly wasn't any of their business.

Ryuuzaki did an accurate job of explaining the trial. There was only one specific detail he missed, and so the sphinx reared up slightly to add to it, his voice coming out in a rumble. "Five minutes, to be precise," he said. He'd noticed the way that the blond man was clutching tighter to his so-called weapon and was quietly amused by it. As if that would do any good if he was actually given the chance to attack.

Not that he would be. They always solved it somehow.

"Now that you all understand the rules, what will it be?" His tail swished from side to side, almost impatiently, as he waited.

[fourstonewalls]

Ryuuzaki re-took control of the situation; it wasn't a surprising move, given his past behavior. She could step in -- or she could let it slide. If the latter, she was giving up a modicum of control over any future mission. But she didn't have any reason to claim the top spot in his place, and he was the one with experience.

"Do you think I'd be here if I didn't know the risks?" Lana let the question hang for a moment; in an ideal world, her answer would be clear enough already, but she would spare the rhetoric and be precise. She had a feeling the Sphinx might appreciate it.

"If everyone else agrees, I'd like to try the riddle."

[girlsandgadgets]

Edgar listened as Ryuuzaki described the challenge, his eyes lingering for a moment or two, studying the other man's expression before shifting again to the creature before them. Though he wasn't familiar with sphinxes, he had dealt with enough monsters in his travels to know that fighting it would not be easy, that beasts were often more dangerous than they seemed. This one had intellect, and while Ryuuzaki had hinted at what the basement held for them during their conversations, the sphinx was shaping up to be a more formidable foe than Edgar had expected, something worse than the abomination he'd faced with Gren so long ago.

And then there was their party. Two of them didn't look ready for combat in the slightest, two were not in the best of health, and all were ill-equipped for a fight; the odds were already against them, despite their numbers. Of course, it wouldn't be Landel's if the consequences for failure weren't dire.

At least with the four of them, they could put their heads together and hopefully come up with an answer to the riddle, avoiding a fight entirely. He liked their chances for that far more than those for the alternative. If they failed... well, they would cross that bridge if they came to it.

Besides, they hadn't been able to get into the Coliseum before. Perhaps they were missing something, some other prize the sphinx had to offer, something that would grant them passage. Edgar watched Lana carefully as she replied to both of them, her tone bordering the defensive, though he couldn't be sure why. Looking to her, then to the sphinx, then finally to Ryuuzaki, he gave a nod. "We came all the way down here. We'll have wasted our time if we simply turn back now."

[mirrorimage]

Nina waited, deliberately, for Lana and Edgar to voice their opinions first. She wanted to give them a chance to decide without feeling pressured by her own vote. Ryuuzaki, she assumed, knew the risks or he wouldn't be here, since he'd been here before.

"I agree," she said, very softly, but with a hard, determined edge in her voice. She wasn't looking at any of them, but up at the Sphnix, gazed fixed on it. Him? Ryuuzaki had said it was a him.

She took a slowly, steady breath. Her chest swelled, then sank back in. She could feel the adrenaline beginning to tingle through her limbs, and nothing had even happened yet. But it didn't matter. She hadn't come this far to give up now.

"I want to go through with this. We don't have any other options." They didn't. She believed that. Going back would put them right back where they started and anything, even a fight, even the most horrific trap imaginable, was better than giving up ground.

[ryuuzaki]

His frown deepened a little at Lana's comment -- he hadn't said anything about the reason for his troubled expression -- and he gave her a quizzical look, which he then dismissed with a barely perceptible shake of his head.

The truth was that most of the patients he'd interacted with would be there whether or not they knew the risks, because the risks were only slightly greater than leaving their rooms at night to begin with, and because the risks had in some ways become irrelevant. Making some kind of progress (whether or not it would turn out to have been illusory) would be preferable for a lot of people to sitting around waiting for Landel's next plan to go into effect. There was always some risk of death or injury; this was just seeking it out, instead of knowing that it could happen.

His facial expression shifted again, becoming sober and flat, but his breathing quickened.

He addressed the Sphinx. "I'm also in agreement. Please give us your riddle."

[damned_monsters]

It didn't take long for all four of them to agree, and the sphinx was relieved that this wasn't taking any longer than it needed to, at least. He shifted in his spot on the pedestal, pulling himself a bit closer to the humans, though he didn't move from his perch.

"Very well, then. Here is your riddle." His tone came out in a declaration as he offered the words in a clear, booming tone.

"One by one we fall from heaven,
down into the depths of past,
And our world is ever upturned,
so that yet some time we'll last."

With four of them working at it, the sphinx doubted it would be that difficult for them, especially as Ryuuzaki had done this before. After the riddle had been spoken, he once again gave them a reminder. "You have five minutes, starting now."

And then he went as still as a statue, waiting until the group offered their answer.

[fourstonewalls]

Lana's lips moved, but no sound came out for a few long moments; she was repeating the rhyme silently. "Fall from heaven...it's not rain, because that doesn't fit the rest of it. Or snow." She was just theorizing out loud -- they all might be thinking the same thing, and saying it got them past it. Upturned, that was the key word, or at least the one she was focusing on.

The Sphinx didn't seem likely to allow cross-examination, so they'd have to pick apart each others ideas. She'd thrown two out, as flawed as they were; now it was up to someone else.

Whoops! Looks like I missed a notif. D:

[girlsandgadgets]

"Depths of the past?" Edgar questioned quietly, turning to his comrades. He watched the rest of them, waiting to hear what they thought of it.

He had to admit to himself that he'd never been much of one for riddles- he was too much of a literal thinker for that, always pondering what he could make a reality with his own hands rather than daydreaming about the impossible. Still, world upturned drew memories from him, making him think of the Floating Continent. It seemed too specific for an answer though, especially for a riddle for four people from different worlds. It didn't fit the rest very well, either.

He put a hand to his chin. "Yet some time we'll last... Sounds like whatever the answer is, they have more time than us. Anyone have any ideas?"

[mirrorimage]

Nina frowned, thoughtfully. She was usually good at riddles, but trying to turn this one over in her mind simply felt strange to her. The flow of it was all wrong, somehow. She was going by what the others had said as much as anything that had come from the sphinx himself. They kept talking about time passing. But she put her mind to the task at hand anyway.

"Falling from Heaven sounds like an angel," she ventured. And an angel would have more time than a human, because it would be immortal. Still, even as she said it, she couldn't bring herself to believe it. The answer felt all wrong somehow.

"Maybe it's a clock? No." Since when did clocks fall from Heaven? She sighed in frustration.

[ryuuzaki]

L had entered the room thinking that he would let the others answer the riddle, unless they were about to make an obvious, dangerous mistake. The Sphinx hadn’t outsmarted him before; it was unlikely to outsmart him now. Most of the other patients who had attempted this seemed to have made it through. It seemed just possible that someone could have failed, yet he couldn’t recall ever having seen a notice on the bulletin about an entire group disappearing while exploring the basement.

Still, he found himself sorting through ideas just as everyone else was. He had rejected rain and snow as answers by the time Lana said anything about it: raindrops and snowflakes didn’t fall one by one. But something that fell like rain and snow, only one at a time... a drip? Maybe a water clock. There was a reference to time later in the riddle. But... “our world is ever upturned”? When did upheaval ever give a sense of having more time?

There was also the issue of how “past” was spelled. P-A-S-T or P-A-S-S-E-D? Could the meaning of the riddle rest on this kind of pun? He wouldn't be surprised if it did. Even if the Sphinx’s pronunciation had been precise enough that the difference was audible, there would still have been the problem of the low resonance of its voice, where the distinction probably would have been lost again.

One thing struck him as potentially useful. There was little chance that he spoke Edgar’s native language, and he suspected that Lana’s was English. Nina’s, however, was one he spoke, but not natively. It should work similarly with her as it had with Lunge, and it was worth a shot. The ambiguity between past and passed wouldn't exist for her.

He turned his gaze to her.

“Nina. The word you heard as ‘past’ -- can you spell it for me, in German? Does it begin with a P, or a V?”

A tense of passieren, or Vergangenheit? If he was right, it could help clarify the riddle's underlying meaning.

[mirrorimage]

Nina blinked at him. "Oh! Yeah. Okay."

She cleared her throat. "It starts with a V. V-E-R..." She began to spell it out, until she was finished, then kept looking at Ryuuzaki expectantly, brows furrowed. "Why do you ask?"

[fourstonewalls]

Lana could guess, although her knowledge of foreign languages was limited to enough Spanish to order lunch and the occasional German obscenities and/or legal terms von Karma used to sound superior to his colleagues. Ryuuzaki was looking for clarification on nuances of meaning, though the answer didn't help her.

"The translation," she said, tapping one ear. Puns and double-meanings abounded in riddles, although she assumed Nina knew that as well. "We heard the riddle in English, of course." She still wasn't entirely sure what distinction Ryuuzaki was looking for; passed could mean the dead, but so could past, with the looseness inherent in riddles.

Bones didn't fall from heaven, though, and leaves had upturned edges, but it didn't help them last. Smiles did, though -- but no, the rest of it didn't make any sense.

The clock was ticking; they didn't have long to last, if they wanted to get through this. But she couldn't pick this apart; they got no more questions.

[ryuuzaki]

"Yes," he replied to Lana with a brief nod, too tense for his expression to brighten much. "It's P-A-S-T, then."

He tilted his head and sighed, and pushed his free hand up into his dark hair to rub his scalp.

"I thought it might be a water clock, but certain parameters in the riddle don't quite fit. The drops of water wouldn't remain drops anymore in the basin... they wouldn't retain their structure, so they wouldn't last some time, and you don't 'upturn' a clepsydra. But --"

A look of realization dawned on his face, and he glanced at the others to see if the same idea was coming to them.

[damned_monsters]

It was interesting, at the very least, to watch as they worked around the auto-translator that was installed in this place. That very translator was what allowed the sphinx to communicate with humans, after all.

But the sphinx remained silent as they all spoke among themselves. He could tell that they were slowly getting closer to the answer, and it was all he could do to not let out a growl of frustration.

"Half your time is up," he informed them.

[fourstonewalls]

A water clock was an excellent idea -- she'd kept on thinking of more natural phenomenon, until he and Nina had started going back and forth about translation and clocks, and it wasn't cherry blossom petals or dead leaves, even if they tended to fall with edges cupped upwards. Lots of things could act like a clock -- accidental homicide via ice carving was the least weird of the cases that sprung to mind.

But a trip down memory lane wasn't going to stop their five minutes from running--hold it!. Running out on them. Of course.

"That's it! It's an egg timer." About the same amount of time as they'd been given, really, and she narrowed her eyes at the Sphinx. Had that been a hint? Not the time, but the reminder that it was halfway up. "Or, more generally speaking, an hourglass."

She thought a moment, and then added. "Or would the answer properly be the grains of sand themselves?" A technicality, to be sure, but the Sphinx's anticipation of their failure had looked disturbingly reminiscent of von Karma's sharklike grin. Except with teeth that could actually back it up.