[Open Puzzle] Whispers

[Hysteria]

No OOC comments are going to be provided on this. If you wish to glean more information you must do so IC. Posts should be left open so I can respond with clues. Some rewards will be given for posts. PMs may be involved if additional private information is given (and will be posted at the end). No need to write large posts. Short and sharp is good.

Bunny the unnamed NPCs as you wish.

The streets of Radasanth were always busy. It was the capital of Corone and carried with the continual to and fro of people, and despite the hour causing the sun to slowly dip below the buildings, it remained so. The first wisps of the coming cold night flicked across the necks of those passing in front of the Citadel. Like the city, the giant building that housed the mysterious monks and their nefarious battles would not stop with the coming night.

There was one difference however. Tonight there was a single note stuck to one of the two massive doors that marked the entrance to the Citadel. A few monks had been gathered, their scholarly foreheads creased with frowns as they tried in vain to remove the simple paper note. The paper some words written in long cursive script.

Remove me and I win.
Destroy me and I lose.

Swallow the Earth,
Eat the fire,
Inhale the wind,
Drink the water,

The circle carries endless points,
Four will fail, the rest will not.

The monks has been joined by passers by and combatants entering and leaving. It was an unusual sight to see the monks unable to control something within or upon the citadel. Even a lay person would recognise that this was an unusual situation.

[Drumheller]

He had never been here before. Memory told him this, as something to be certain of.
He was certain, at least as far as natural memory allowed him to know. This he was certain of. There was a possibility that he had, and the memory had been removed, but he did not think so.

Marching past the priests, at least they had the appearance of priests to his eyes; and past the other spectators, assured by armor helm and vail that none would recognize him for what he was, he read the letter stuck upon the door.

As he read a drum in his mind began to beat a marching melody. He had always loved riddles, even those that he could not solve. For the proper riddle could strike down the wisest of beings, with utter dumbness, if carefully worded.

The drumb increased its tempo slightly, three two three, three two three…

The first part he believed he understood. A clay bowl was to contain tea leaves and water and placed upon the water. The clay would partially dissolve into the water when the tea was heated. The vapers were unhailed while the tea was boiling. The water would be drunk, the fire eaten, the earth consumed. He postulated that he must do this, over the paper, letting the water coat the paper before consumed, and thus, destroying the paper.

The drum increased its tempo even more.

His mind contemplated this. It was a circle, each element representing the act of creation which invariably leads to destruction. Birth naturally leads to death; the body becomes dirt and ash, from which new life emerges. Still the last part confused him. He thought about it as he glanced about him, hoping that some aspect of the environment would give him some clue.

Was he to eat the paper also?

[redford]

John cut a swath through the crowd, attracting his usual stares, reacting to them as coldly as he always had, his stony face pointed straight ahead, to the Citadel. The evening promised a cold night, though John had ceased to care since his armor had grown up to cover his chest, any change in temperature dulled by the mysterious metal. He passed forward toward a cluster of people, roughly half of them Ai’Bron monks; they were staring at a piece of paper affixed to the giant stone doors of the Citadel. John heard a voice beside him.

“Curious thing, ain’t it?”

John looked down to his left to see one of his Citadel acquaintances, brother Jor, in the customary garb of Ai’Bron, simply a sash wrapped around the body several times. He smiled broadly, clapping John on the back of the arm. John noted again that his cheer was immune to strange and unpleasant goings-on of all kinds. John turned his head back to the paper, taking a moment to read it.

“What does it mean?” He asked, addressing Jor.

“No idea, man. None of us can take it off, can’t even so much as tear the paper. We even sent for that crazy wizard that lives up the road a ways, nearly blew the door off, he did!” Jor finished, laughing. “Anyways, he tried to smash it, take it off, set it on fire, everything.” He looked to his left and right, smirking. “The way I see it, the only way to get it off is to solve the riddle, eh John?”

John hummed pensively, turning the words of the letter over in his mind slowly, trying to discern their meaning. Perhaps Jor was right, maybe solving the riddle allowed one to destroy the note, and then ‘win’ whatever game this was.

“Ya might as well get comfy, nobody ‘round here you’d wanta fight anyways,” Jor said, turning away to cajole another into taking a look at the mysterious note.

John tried to look away, but he found that the note’s mystery was more captivating than he had anticipated, and continued thinking. Perhaps his education would come in handy for once.

A circle had points in it, much like a collection of dots made a pattern, but wasn’t a circle a point in itself? Perhaps five people were required to solve the riddle, with each of them solving a bit of it.

The middle part utterly confounded John, unless it meant whiskey of course. Whiskey had an earthy tone and color, burned like fire, could be breathed in like the wind, and certainly flowed as water did.

“Hmmm….”

John absently reached out a metal finger over a couple heads, a blade forming at the end of it. He tried to slip the edge under the note.

[Hysteria]

The blade slipped as it tried to catch the underside of the paper. An invisible force guided the blade gently, refusing to let it slide beneath and instead let it glide across the paper’s surface. The monks watched, although they didn’t expect a different result.

“We tried that, didn’t we?” said one monk.

The balding man scratched the top of his head.

“That’s why we got that old wizard over here. I swear, he threw enough fire at the paper to burn down the whole building.”

“That was the weird part,” chimed another of the monks, “No matter how much the wizard conjured, it was just sucked in.”

[Lightfoot]

Tucked away in a nearby corner, pipe smoke snaked from a palewood pipe. Jasker, having finished a bout within the Citadel, had noticed the steadily growing crowd around the enigmatic note, and decided to take some time to observe the curious situation. Blades tried to pry the paper to no avail. Wizards plied their trade to magically destroy the paper, but came to the same result. Everyone stood around scratching their heads and bantered.

In the thief's mind, it all came down to the riddle. His father was a true halfling from balls to bones, and there's nothing a true halfling loved more than a riddle. Riddles were tricky things, he had learned. But, they were always fair. Every riddle gave you all the information you needed to solve it, if only you paid attention. So, Jasker poured over the words in his mind, trying to find clues, anything that could hint at the answer.

"Earth, Fire, Wind, Water...." he thought to himself. "Four will fail, the rest will not." The halfling exhaled a cloud of smoke with a grin. He couldn't help but see some possible connection.

"Excuse my interruption," the thief called from his dark seat, surrounded by perpetual smoke, "but I couldn't help but overhear claims that you've tried everything. Now, I, myself, have been sitting here watching this entire debacle and I must say, you lot have certainly stretched the meaning of everything in my eyes. Certainly, if you had tried everything, we would have stumbled upon the answer by mere coincidence."

"We haven't seen you try anything!" replied a grumpy man from the crowd. Jasker merely laughed, and took another draw from his pipe.

"You can't strongarm your way through a riddle, my good man," said the thief matter-of-factly. "Riddles require finesse, and roundabout thinking. Something, I might add, it seems some of you don't possess." Before the crowd could protest, the halfling continued. "Now, the riddle lists four chief elements: earth, fire, wind --"

"We can all read!" came another shout.

"Don't interrupt," Jasker replied sternly. "Four chief elements: earth, fire, wind, and water. Then, right after, it claims that the circle carries endless points, and that four will fail, and the rest will not. It's not that far of a stretch to predict that the four previously listed elements will fail in removing the paper." Jasker hopped off his seat and walked closer to the crowd, pipe smoke trailing.

"So, the question that remains is quite simple. Outside of those four elements, what haven't you tried?"

[Hysteria]

“Err…. I tried scrubbing it off with water,” said one Monk just before another whacked him across the back of his bald head.

"That's one of the elements listed you idiot." said one of his fellow monks.

“Just fire master Halfling…” said Brother Jor, “it seems we have only tried fire.”

[redford]

John rubbed a stubbly chin.

"Sucked in...." he mused aloud, wondering if the magics that held the paper to the door drew their energy from outside sources. Though, John admitted to himself silently, my knowledge of magic is quite insufficient to figure that. Though, if it drew from magical sources not its own, then the proper thing to do would be to leave it alone until the magical energy was depleted and the paper fell to the ground.

Though, that left the matter of the entire note. It made a kind of sense, actually, by doing nothing you win the game, and successfully destroying the thing is cheating. It consumes the elements, so by utilizing something not of the four elements, one does not fail.

Though 'the circle carries endless points' still befuddled him. There was more to this, he felt.

[Drumheller]

accidently posted this as Bard earlier

“Remove me and I win, destroy me and I lose…” the vailed man mused aloud. “And each element requires an action with it, swallow the earth, eat the fire. What do you make of that little master?” there was nothing in the tone that indicated derision, merely interest. Walking forward Drumheller attempted to just touch the underside of a corner of the paper, if he could lift it just a little, then his plan might work.

[Cards of Fate]

"Perhaps exposing the note to the stated elements is a step?" Vincent mused raising a gloved hand. Hed been silent the entire time as he contemplated the riddle. It seemed that the objective was for the paper to disintigrate somehow, but he couldnt he sure.

"It says destroy me and I lose, and then states several elements it consumes. Could we perhaps attempt to over feed it and cause some sort of reaction?."

[Hysteria]

The paper refused to move at the touch of anyone. Try as they might it became clear that physical methods of removing the paper would not work.

"More of those elements you say?" Asked a short elf with a flock of gold hair that had joined the onlookers, "this I can help with."

The elf pulled out a small leather flask from his belt and point it towards the paper. Sensing the potential action he was going to take, the group parted. With a flick of the cap a huge torrent of water burst from the end of the flask and smashed into the paper. Like the fire before it, the water was absorbed the moment it reached the paper. Following the prompt of Vincent, the elf kept the water going. The paper started to glow and something was finally going to happen. However, it wasn't the desired result. The paper released a shove of force, not strong enough to knock someone over, but enough to make them take a step back. The elf pushed the cork back in his flask.

"I think that's a no gentlemen," he said.

If you lack the ability to do something, you can call in NPCs to do it for you.

[redford]

A voice from the back of the crowd called.

"Perhaps I can be of assistance, lads."

John looked behind him and after a moment recognized the speaker as one of the other fighters that had come round to see the mysterious note. The crowd parted slightly and the shorter man stepped forward.

John smelled ozone, and the fighter's eyes went milky white. After the last outburst of magic though, the onlookers were beginning to grow fearful of being caught in the blasts of such power, and had stepped back a few more paces. He grinned broadly, pointing his index finger at the note.

"Take this!"

Lightning erupted from his finger, and before anyone could react, it sparked toward the note.

[Hysteria]

The lighting fried the paper the moment it struck. Sparks of electricity arched across the wood of the door and rested for a moment among the metal joints before flicking from existence. As the small puff of smoke lifted into the air it failed to fade away like the lightning. Instead it twisted up above the onlookers and took the form of an old man with a large floppy hat and equally large beard.

“Well done! Well done!” said the smoky apperation, “Force isn’t the only way. Sometimes banging heads in the Citadel can make us forget that. Well done to you for figuring this out. Stay tuned, the fun has only just started, that I can assure you!”

With that the smoke dispersed into the air and left the bewildered onlookers alone.

“What the hell was that?” asked the lighting wielder, “no prize?”

1

Drumheller: 50xp 75gp
Redford: 50xp 75gp
Lightfoot: 50xp 75gp
Cards of Fate: 50xp 75gp

Redford, as the ‘offical’ winner gains this:
Ring of Floof: Created by the eccentric mage, Rabbitstooth, this ring allows the wearer to suddenly be covered in thick white fur. While this may indeed seem useless, it would help keep you warm on those cold nights, fantastic for costume parties and helps protect your skin from the sun. This lasts until the wearer wills it to stop, but can only be used once a day. Feel the floof!