That would make sense, wouldn't it.  But...

You find the pitch fairly easily.  E above middle C.

It doesn't open the door.

Somewhere, you are sure Raksasha is sniggering.

If you want to take a crack at solving the maze, go ahead.  If it's too frustrating, we can say Sera does it.  Cos that is the kind of gal she is.

Thanks

I am willing to take a look at the maze and try to figure out the steps to exit based on the rules you gave earlier in the thread. If I get too stumped, or if you haven't actually made the puzzle yet, I'm fine with Sera solving it, too. She has as much time as she needs and is definitely some level of obsessive.

See below.

It's not about the number of steps you take.  It's about the pattern of the steps you take.  You just need to give me the modus operandi Sera will take to move down the hallway.  And of course, narrate how she feels about having to do all that.

I just love when Sera gets testy



Map!

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh.

I let out a sigh that shakes the room. Literally. I put extra oomph in it to really let the building understand my displeasure with its shenanigans. I am going to do really mean things to Rakshasa when I catch her. Like dislocate all of her major joints and hoist her from a flagpole by her underwear.

I just let myself completely relax for a minute, to gather my thoughts.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh.

I sit down and close my eyes, meditating like my mother taught me, though admittedly more relaxed than it's supposed to be.

Okay fine. I fish around for a metronome and set it, then step Sideways to make sure my powers are still working. I want to take a nap. Assuming I'm in Sideways normally and time isn't passing, I go ahead and take that nap. If my powers aren't working, or after the nap, I go back to the hallway of stupid crap.

Step forward. Now I'm looking the opposite way. Step backwards twice. Step forward once to face the way I want to go. Step forward again, facing the way I want to go that time, then face away from where I want to go. Then step back twice. Forward the wrong way. Forward the right way. Backward twice.

Over and over and over again until I'm through.

By the time you take the last step and come to the end of the spiral, it's likely that the irritation boiling behind your eyeballs can be compared to the heat of the Vesuvius eruption that took out Pompeii.

Or maybe not.  Maybe you're just fine with it all.

In any event, at the end of the spiral is music stand.  On it is a piece of sheet music.

Seems you have what you need to play on the pipe organ.

It's apparently the theme to My Humps by the Black Eyed Peas.  You end up having to play it three times on the organ before that damn door swings open.

Now that song is stuck in your head...

New Map!


And beyond the musical door is a new rom.  It looks like another puzzle chamber.  Great.

The walls and ceiling and floor are made of glass.  The high density kind you walk on without worrying about it.  Under the glass are lots and lots and lots and lots of clockwork gears.  They are set up in elaborate arrays that seem to be accomplishing nothing.

No. Wait. They are accomplishing something.  All the clanking and tapping and whirring are creating a distinct rhthymic and muscial pattern.  It's like you're inside a giant music box that's all wound up.  And the music box is playing My Humps.

Over and over and over and over again.

There's another vault style door leading further on. Of course it's locked.  Too durable to pound through it?  You know it!

There are three cogs on the doorway with gaps between them.  Apparently if there were smaller cogs stuck between them, then the array would turn.

Oh yeah.  Those piles of cogs in the last room.  Now you get it.

Of course there are thousands of cogs in those piles.

There are clues.  Each of the cogs on the door are labled with numbers.  From left to right they are numbered

18

14

12

And all the cogs in the piles are numbered as well.  From 1 to 500.

So you seem to have to find the two cogs that fit the sequence you guess?

I am going to beat Rakshasa with an orange in a sock. For at least three hours. Then put Legos in all of her shoes.

Also break all of her fingers and remove her teeth with an electric drill. I punch the wall until I feel better. While every other wall on Earth has a tendency to be severely damaged when I hit it, I have a feeling these walls won't budge. At least this next puzzle seems easy. I hope it's as easy as it looks. I swear, when I get out of here, I am going to give Rakshasa the world's most powerful atomic wedge. They'll feel the mushroom cloud of justice in China.

I feel confident that 16 goes between 18 and 14 and 13 goes between 14 and 12.

Nothing happens.

Does the song have clues?

Ass. Shit. Motherfucker cunt bitch.

I should be able to narrow down which gears go in the empty spots by their teeth-space-differential. There are probably a lot of candidates anyway. Good thing I have as much time as I want.

Having no other ideas, I'll start by trying to slot gears between 12 and 14, starting from gear 1 and going up. The first two gears should turn together when I get the right one.

Unless it's more magic bullshit.

Ree.

It's not magic.  It's just that the Raksasha focused on reaaaaaaaaallly pissing Sera off with these.

Just wait until you see the last one.

But in the meantime...

7

It's the 7 cog that seems to fit between 12 and 14.
This message was lightly edited by the GM at 06:21, Sat 06 Apr.

I'm curious what everything is made out of! I bet you're having fun torturing poor Sera with things she has to be clever or subtle about. Gosh, you big meanie. =p

Well...

7 is half of 14, so the gear between 18 and 14 is probably 9. It could also be 6. I'll try 9 first.

Nine doesn't fit.

Let me know if you want to give in.

Hint:  One of the numbers on the three cogs may not be a whole number.

Remember that Raksasha is a superb specimen of asshat.

The only thing I can think of to do is to list out all of the cogs and do a numerical sieve on them. Do you want to list them all? When you say "not a whole number," do you mean that a cog is numbered with a fraction, rather than all the ordinals from 1 to 500?

You start the process.  The slow, tedious process.  The slow, annoyingly tedious process.  Of the sieve.

You're gonna hate this solution.  But remember: it's Raksasha doing this.  Not me.

And during all that, you notice something odd about the 14 cog.  There's a small scratch between the numbers.  Down near their bases.

Well.  Maybe not a scratch.  Maybe more like...a tiny little cross...or...

1₊4

I know! I don't have the puzzle and it's not irritating me, but Sera sure hates it.

I still don't know what to do with it. The addition would make 9 _ 5 7 3, and I also don't see a pattern to that.

Is there a similar marking on the other numbers?
This message was last edited by the player at 23:31, Thu 11 Apr.

No other markings you can tell.

so the 14, which is really

1₊4

is in between the 12 and the 18, right?

The 7 cog fits between the

1₊4

and the 12, right?

So if the "14" is really "1+4" and you add a 7 to it, you get...

I put the 5 between the 18 and the 14, since 14-(1+8)=5 and 12-(1+4)=7.

Legos will plague Rakshasa for the rest of her days.

Last test.  Bwah ha ha ha...



The door opens into another room.  This one looks super annoying.

The walls, floor, and ceiling are all tiled in blacks and dark blues.  There are no other obvious exits.

In the middle of the room, on a stand, is a larger than usual parrot.  It squawks and flexes its wings as you enter.  But otherwise doesn't move from it's perch.

Under it is a small plaque with the following:

This is Polly.

Polly knows how to get out of here.  But she'll only tell you if you can ask the right question.

It has to be eight words.  Exactly.

There's a penalty for each time the question is wrong.

Good luck

I count on my fingers. I also anticipate, with relish, the number of times I am going to hit Rakshasa in the stomach.

Polly
how
do
I
get
out
of
here

That's eight words. But then it might be wrong, since I might not be able to get out by myself, and Rakshasa is an asshole.

What
are
the
eight
words
I
need
to
ask

That's nine words. Uuuuh.

What
are
the
eight
words
of
the
question

That's eight.

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuh.

How
does
someone
get
out
of
this
room

That's eight too. Seems like there's an obvious smartass answer to it though.

How
can
I
get
out
of
this
building?

Let's start with:

"Hello, Polly." I wait a few seconds just so I'm obviously not asking a question.

"I have a question for you:

How can I get out of this building?"

The bird draws it's wings back and caws a moment.

Then it says, in a very parrot-y sounding voice,

Polly wants you dead

From somewhere along one of the walls, a projectile whistles through the air and hits your arm before you have time to notice it was fired.

Did we decide Sera has a degree of invulnerability?

If so, it just bounces off her though it's an annoying little jarring sensation.  Like when you stub your toe lightly.

If not, she will get knocked onto her knees and gets a big ol' nasty gash.

I will let you decide which degree of injury Sera is taking here

Well, originally, she was tougher than most people but more importantly almost impossible to hit, by being able to reflexively stop time, and when she did take damage, she could heal herself (but not other people) with a few seconds' concentration.

But now that her power is completely different, I don't know.

How dramatic do you want the stakes to be?

I am going to let you decide that.

I think some drama would give it a bit of hot sauce. But that's me.  Your call.

I'm good either way really.  Cos mostly, this is just designed to rattle Sera a bit.

I don't know. It's a tough decision to make. I tried for so long to have a really top-tier character, and seeing her downgraded repeatedly feels like betraying what I worked for for years and years of searching and trying. But at the same time, it's clearly what you want, for her to be physically vulnerable, and your enjoyment is just as important as mine, not least because, if you're not enjoying it, there's no play. So, I'm not sure. If you really are fine either way, then I will assume she has invulnerability, but that having to heal herself every time will get old fast. She's already about to break all of Rakshasa's fingers and do other Rubicon-crossing sorts of things.

I bite my lip and suck in air as I get shot. Fuck, that hurts. My blouse is torn and a bruise starts to form immediately. I hold my hand over the injury site and reverse entropy to heal myself. I've never been able to do it with anyone else. I...it's not really that, is it? I don't even know how my powers work anymore. Just that they do. It makes me very uneasy.

I should have been able to dodge that. Are my powers going away? Was I ever able to actually just dodge things? I always felt like I could...

I take a few seconds until the sting goes away and then ask another question, enunciating clearly and counting in my head.

"What
are
the
eight
words
of
the
question?"

Oh I never said you needed to downgrade her.  I'm still assuming she's...what?  Not quite Superman level but close to it?

It just wasn't something I thought about until we got to that moment.  How invulnerable she is.

Either way really is good for me.  Looking forward to the Rubicon

No annoying little pellet/bullet thingys come hurtling your way.  Instead, Polly answers you:

Does
Everyone
Know
My
Breath
Smells
Like
Feet?

There's a pause.  Then Polly's eyes flare briefly.  It then intones

Yes Seraphina.

We all know your breath smell like feet.

You may pass

A section of the ceiling suddenly clicks open, revealing it was a hatch.  A ladder slowly descends.

From above, you can hear the whumping of large chunks of metal being thrown and explosions.

Mother and Dad must be busy.

Ascending?

I had assumed that supers more in general lower-powered than in most comic settings. It doesn't matter to me, really, only that Seraphina be in the top echelon, whatever that is. If that's Supergirl level, then it is. If less powerful than that, that's okay too. In the past, you've written that various superpowered teenagers could casually throw vehicles hundreds of yards each, so we can assume she's at Supergirl level unless you want to change that.

I resist the desire to smash the stupid bird. It's just an annoyance. It's all meant to annoy and delay me. At least the place all being underground explained why I couldn't just batter down the walls.

I start up the ladder, going as fast as I can without breaking the steps. When I get my hands on Rakshasa, I am going to make her wish she had never...never...something! Ugh! She's insufferable!

You come up out of the hole the ladder ascends and into what looks like a warehouse.

There's all kinds of wreckage around the place.  Banks of machinery have other banks of machinery tossed through them.  A small crane is tied up like  a pretzel.  What was once a tank is now two piles of scrap metal.

Dad's been busy.

You come around one hunk of metal and can see the battlefield proper.

Dad is beating a large robot into bits.  Mother must be in gray scale because some of the Raksasha's are blowing up.

"Some".

There must be about fifty Raksashas  rushing about the floor.  They are all cackling and firing odd looking ray guns.  As one of them blows up, you realize they are androids.

"Almost..." all the Raksashas say in one voice as another one of them blows up.