The Misadventures of the Missed Adventurers

[narf poit chez BOOM]

narp "well, lets see...there where heirs, two males, one female, the oldest was insane, second was married but infertile and the third was a drunkard. ordinarily next would be any siblings of the emperor, there was two, the oldest was the chief counciler and therefore neither he nor his children could rule and the second had given up his personal claim to go in the army, which brings us to cousins."
"the second had three children, one had similarly given up his claim, the next was willing but had contracted a nearly always lethal disease, and the third was again insane. next was first cousins, there was one, but she was considered to ruthless and wasn't notified of eligibility. her step-son was eligible, but declined, but his daughter, who had been living on a farm in the outermost borders of the empire, was interviewed and found to be acceptable."
"however, the nobles of the empire objected and thus, for three days, the emporor was the second son of the second brother, who was forced to become emporor at sword-point. he engineered the end of this plot, during which he killed the traterious nobles and then gave the throne to the step-granddaughter of the third cousin, who managed to bring to light certain activities of her step-grandmother and have her imprisoned, thus giving rise to more popular stories. the seconed second recovered but was infirm the rest of his life, during which he became treasurur. so the successer was him."
narp gives the answer to the face.
face "the answer is correct. the next question is: given a spell of conjuration, two disconjoined metals of your choice, a disparate circle of power, an enchanted item of anti-disaperation and a snowball, how do you conjur a griffin?"

ooc:[whoosh. i hope that all make sense.]

[ June 13, 2003, 23:22: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[Jack Simth]

Jack "Two disconjoined metals? Normally a standard Griffin-conjouration spell requires three - gold, silver, and platinum, in addition to some obscuration. Ah, I know - anti-disaperation enchantments require that the enchanted item contain an amount of platinum. Then you choose gold and silver for the metals, use the circle of power to evaporate the snowball to provide steam for the necessary obscuration, and use the standard conjouration spell for the griffen."

Jack "Mind you - enough power and you can get past all the requirements, but that wouldn't be any fun."

Jack gives the answer to the face.

Face "The answer is correct. The final riddle is: A man walks up to you and says - 'everything I say to you is a lie.'
Is he telling you the truth or is he lying? Note: there is no third option."

ooc:[Let's see, this is the Last riddle, and we have one more question to deal with, correct?]

[ June 14, 2003, 02:54: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

ooc:[yup, one queston. wise and mysterious? this one to D.]
D. "well, to answer this we must simple take into account the unreliability of humans speech."
D. "the answer is: it's simple really, he was exagerating and getting ahead of himself. he really meant that most of what he was going to say would be a lie."
face "the answer is correct."
ooc:[always seemed to make common sense to me, and i like it better than it's a paradox. or, for another answer, you could say that because he hasn't given any relevant data for you to judge true or false, the statement is incorrect. the statement itself rules itself out as a full statement.]
face "the Last question is: have you now answered all the questions correctly?"

[ June 14, 2003, 06:58: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[Jack Simth]

ooc:[The riddle isn't a paradox - the answer to the riddle was that the guy was lying when he said that: If he says "everything I say to you is a lie," then that statement can't be true, as it would imply that the statement made was also false. However, if the statement is false (a lie) then a true statement would be "not everything I say to you is a lie," or eqivalently "Sometimes I will tell the truth"; thus he was lying. However, the spell thinks in binary for that riddle, and exaggerating packs down to Lie as far as it is concerned. To make it a paradox, he would have needed to have said "This statement is a lie."]

D "Well, at the time the question was asked, we hadn't answered the Last question yet, had we? So, technically, we haven't. Does anyone see a flaw here?"

Jack "After we answer we may have a problem - does the question refer to before or after we answer?"

D "Good point. We should qualify it - perhaps 'As of the moment you asked, we had not yet answered the Last question, so no'"

Jack "Works for me."

D "The answer is: As of the moment you asked, we had not yet answered the Last question, so no"

Face "The answer is correct. You may pass."

The door behind the party re-opens, and the wall with the face rises up into the ceiling; beyond lies a doorway. Over the door, an inscription can be seen: Il Labirinto: Oltre quale si trova lo spazio di sosta eternal della sfera difettosa

Jack "I recognize this language - it roughly translates to 'The Maze: Beyond Which Lies the Eternal Resting Place of the Flawed Sphere.' I wonder what it is refering to?"

D "It makes sense that there would be a maze in a labrynth. Do you think there will be a minotaur?"

ooc:[Have you ever heard of the secret of the maze? It's a simple procedure that will eventually solve any two dimensional edge entry edge exit maze that doesn't have odd restrictions (such as one-way doors or one-time passageways or no backtracking).]

[ June 14, 2003, 09:39: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]

[narf poit chez BOOM]

narp sits down, pulls off his pack and begins rumaging through it. he pulls out a pan, a pot, a few small pieces of firewood he forgot about, an eating dagger and a couple of fighting daggers, some lint, a small firewood ax and a big ball of string. "this should help."

ooc:[does that answer your question? i'm being nagged for the computer so that's all i can post right now, i foolishly squandered my time on simcity2000. then, when i get the money for a brand new microwave power plant, few months later beam wanders and boom. so i decide to build hydro and just forget that the raise lower terain thing is technically cheating. next thing i know, i get an earthquake and most of the city burns down. rebuilding is fun.]

they pass through the doorway and find themselves again facing three doorways. this time though, other than the runes which can be seen periodically decorating the labrynth, the doors are the same. in fact, on each of the walls the only varations are the runes.
miles away, a mage peers at a distorted and staticy three diminsional picture. "they appear resourcefull. most history books put the reign of the three day emporor at three weeks. and 'the many uses of snowballs' took a master wizard to write, yet i do not think he has read it. although, that spell is not a master spell. now, that rune...." the image destabilizes then stabilizes on a rune on one of the walls. "could it be it doesn't hold...NO! IMPOSSIBLE! IT MUST!" the wizard bangs his fist on a nearby table.
back to our heroes:
beyond the right door, the cooridor goes about forty feet, the turns right. beyond the left door, it goes into the darkness a hundred feet, then nothing more can be seen. twenty feet beyond the center door there is a grate and clanging noises can be heard beyond.
narp "whatever is beyond the center door, it was meant to deal with one intruder. chances are, three can deal with it handily. also, it probably is the fastest route, as it is guarded. unless it's meant to be a trick or a trap more dangerous than it seems. but, all these ways could be a trap. i say center."

ooc:[yep, narp's a fighter now.]

back in the lab, the wizard creates another image, this time, again of the wolf. considering, the wizard mused "the presence of an intelligent wolf would improve there chances and may cost me little in comparison to what i will gain. perhaps..." making his voice momentarily audible to the wolf, the wizard says "in return for your assistance to them, would you consider a tracker that would allow you to see where all the animals are in ten miles? or perhaps, with your sense of smell, a suit of mail that changes to match your appearance and is light as a feather? i will understand your reply."

ooc:[no Posts sunday. time for me to sleep.]

[ June 15, 2003, 07:53: Message edited by: narf poit chez BOOM ]

[Katchoo]

Outside of the Maze the grey wolf bites down into the warm flesh of a freshly killed rabbit. Abbrubtly though, the voice that came from everywhere came again...

"..in return for your assistance to them, would you consider a tracker that would allow you to see where all the animals are in ten miles? or perhaps, with your sense of smell, a suit of mail that changes to match your appearance and is light as a feather? i will understand your reply."

When the wolf first heard the voice he was mildy fightened, since the voice came from no place that the wolf could taste its scent. Yet the wolf came back to an ease with the understanding that he would be defenseless against an attacker he couldn't scent in advance, so why waste the time fretting?

As before, the wolf understood the meanings from the voice. Magic and man-made skin...

What use are man-made objects to me? Thought the wolf. I was born, I live, and I will die. These are the realities I live with. The other animals in the forest live with this understanding. So do the plants. I live with this certainty and accept it.

But man does not. Man sees these certainties but spends his existance making every attempt he can to alter them. These certainties are what make and hold the Natural World around us. To spend one's life in the persuit of avoiding the inevitable is foolish and wasteful.

Magic is the gravest perVersion of Nature, and hurts her deeply. Man uses magic to bring water from nowhere, to extend his life, and to end the life around him. This is done with no respect to the consequences of Nature. Man simply does not realize the depth of the life around him. What he treats as lifeless or inanimate most assuredly is not. A tree torn apart to make furnishings still exists, knowing what it is, what it was. As long as the smallest part of it exists, then it lives. This is part of the ignorance Man shows to Nature. When magic is used, Nature is forced to change unwillingly, to act unnaturally.

Every part of Nature shares it's existance with the rest, and this sharing also ties us to the pain brought onto her.

I feel the Magic within that cave. I feel the pain of Nature being twisted unnaturally. This is why I did not follow the 3 travellers inside. I could not tolerate the perVersion. The crying of Mother Nature would force me to protect her, and in turn, hurt the travellers.

So I will wait here and see if they return from within. I will see if Mother Nature strikes back and keeps them within forever, or if they begin to understand what truely exists around them.

The wolf snorts out a blow of hot air from his nostrils and turns his attention back to his supper.

If you give these 3 travellers anything, give them understanding.

[Jack Simth]

Jack "The center door works for me. Most defense strategies produce a simple way of finding the thing defended: Follow the path of most resistance. So far, this labrynth has followed that principle, and there is nothing to indicate that it won't continue to do so."

D "Works for me."

With that, the party of intrepid adventurers pass through the center door, towards the grate.

As they approach the grate, a figure can be seen on the other side. It is a very large, heavily muscled creature with the body of a man and the head of a bull. It wields a very large two-headed, two-handed steel axe in its hands. It snorts as it sees the party and says:

"It hath been a very long time since I Last tasted meat. Thine will do quite nicely. The lever to thy left shall open the gates and let thee in. The Sphere Room lies just beyond the door behind me. Come and pit thyselves against my axe, if thou doth wish to gain entry."

ooc:[So, should we: 1) open the gate and fight it, 2) try shooting it through the gate, 3) open the gate and try to talk a way past it, 4) try to talk it into a better mood with the gate closed, 5) wait till it falls asleep and sneak past, 6) wait till it falls asleep and kill it in its sleep, 7) try magic, or 8) something else?]

ooc:[Actually, the secret I was referring to is much simpler - just put your hand on a wall and walk forward, keeping your hand on the wall. Unless the maze changes, you can only pass a given way a limited number of times, some passageways can only be traversed one direction, you can't backtrack, the mage isn't edge-entry and edge-exit, or the maze is arranged in more than two dimensions, you will eventually solve the maze.]

ooc:[The in-game terrain shaping in Sim City 2000 isn't cheating, as it costs money to do, and can be done in real life - it is mostly a matter of bringing lots of dirt in or shipping it out.]

[ June 15, 2003, 09:52: Message edited by: Jack Simth ]