Next thing I knew they ripped me from my bed and then they took my blood type

[etcircenses]

Who| Those participating in Zero's Game.
What| Zero has a puzzle for you...
Where| Somewhere in the Bunker.
When| This week.
Warnings/Notes| Please put warnings in comment headers. See sign ups for more details.

You've held onto these keys, assuming them to be important for some time. Your perseverance has paid off. Or it will, once you complete the puzzle you've stumbled upon with the depths of the bunker. And you're not alone. There's someone with you. The moment that two people have entered the room, it seals off, trapping you both within.

In the first room a few things can be found. The first is a wall phone with a lettered keypad.

There is a chart on a clipboard with image of a man, colored in about 60% blue. There is a note about the human body being a conductor for electricity. Underneath the paper, written directly on the board, is a string of letters. E T I N U.

And finally is a button. This button is on the opposite side of the room to the door. Pressing it will open the door but only so long as it is held, meaning only one can enter while one holds the button.

Through the door is an elevator taking the person down just a short ways. The doors open to a maze with a time limit in glaring above on the ceiling.

The elevator doors won't open until the watching person makes a call using the phone with them. Making this call means first figuring out what the numbers are. Then, their voice can be heard by the participant to help guide.

With the call made and thus all the lights turned on, the person left in the first room will be able to see the maze now through the window. They can see what paths are right and which are wrong by little indicators atop the walls, too high for the participant to see and reach. Running out of time means death by the floor dropping out. Making it to the end on time to press the next elevator's button means freezing the timer and opening up the next room.

In the second room are three boxes with keyholes. Above them is written "What do you use to open a locked door?" Opening the boxes reveals two buttons in each. The buttons are as follows: Cyan and Green, Magenta and Blue, Yellow and Red. Picking the right combination of colors will cause a new key to fall from a slot in the wall. This key opens the door to the next room, one quite similar to the first.

In this new room, there's an article about frostbite on one wall. It details deaths it's caused and so on, but the most notable features are the bold letters of FROSTBITE, circled in blue, and how the article faces a mirror that flips the words.

In this room is also a phone and a window much like was in the first room, not to mention a button. Pressing this and calling over the phone will allow the initial partner to complete the same challenge, the window allowing the second partner to map the maze out over the phone.

Once both partners have made it to the same room, they will find a box-like space at one end with a hand print on either side, a plus on one, a minus on the other, like a battery. One person cannot reach both sides.

However, managing to create a charge will turn on a machine. This machine will melt that big block of ice contained within it on the other side of the room. Only then will the pod open by use of the fourth castle-keys both inserted together. Opening it will reveal the box full of the Tribute's reward for completing the challenge.

The doors at the end or start of the challenge will open only with completion or the death of one of the participants. Alternately, if Tributes choose not to take the risk, they can simply press the forfeit button on top of either one of the phones. This will mean the prizes are destroyed, but both exits are opened.

This challenge cannot be done alone, but those who don't have their eyes on the prize may always use the course to eliminate their opponents. You may kill your partner or you may attempt to complete the puzzle. The choice is yours.

Comments

for Alain

[ka_sera_sera]

It is not surprising to Roland when the door closes on its own. He barely glances behind him at it. "Don't suppose that'll open back up again." He asks only because it would be a very stupid thing to overlook, should this room turn deadly, but he does not check the door himself. He moves his eyes over the walls, the floor, the ceiling, then moves forward, eyeing all the things here and raising his hand toward them, but not touching. He has not survived this many weeks of this arena by taking risks like that with things which he does not understand. "What do you make of all this, Alain?"

[atouchofka]

Alain checks the door, but without any expectation that it'll open. Like Roland, it's the first thing he thinks of; like Roland, he's only checking because it would be unthorough not to. To his credit, though, he puts his full weight behind it, giving the door a solid going-over before turning and shaking his head. "Don't suppose it will," he agrees at length, and, hands in his pockets, crosses over to Roland's side to look the board over.

"The word," he says at last, sounding much as he did when answering a question from Cort or Vannay all those years ago, "is unite. Or untie, I tune, or intue, but those are outside guesses at best. If we're to use that tellerfone--" (he knows the word, thanks to the Capitol and some of his fellow Tributes, but he's not quite grasped how to pronounce it) "--my guess would be unite is the password. The chart, I don't understand, nor the part about electricity, but I don't doubt they play some part. If I had to guess, I'd say the blue on the chart is electricity, given what it says about bodies, but I wouldn't stake my life on it. Either the button or the tellerfone opens the other door, though I have no guess which. We press the button, we test the password on the tellerfone, or we stay here until we rot." He says it calmly and dispassionately, just like the rest of it; laying out his reasoning, not making a case. If Roland says they do neither, that voice says, he'll abide by it. "Chances are high, I'd reckon, that if we test the wrong one first, we'll loose something else."

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland's eyebrows rise a little as he listens. "I'd forgot how much better than me you are at these sorts of thought puzzles," he murmurs, eyeing the mixed up letters and trying - failing - to make any sort of word out of them at all. "We'll try both," he decides, and moves over to the button. "You at that pad, you'll be able to use it faster than I would. Ready?"

[atouchofka]

Alain nods, his hand on the phone. "As I can be," he says aloud, his finger already hovering over the 8. It's lucky, he thinks, that they wrote both the message and the keys in Great Letters. This would have been a lot slower otherwise.

On Roland's signal, he'll pick up the phone, tapping in the numbers with a speed that would be remarkable to anyone who hadn't seen him move under pressure before. He puts the phone to his ear, as well (though upside-down: it isn't as if he's had a lot of time to get to grips with telephones), thinking that there's an outside chance it'll give him another clue, speak to him, if he has the code right. But all he hears is the low, dull buzz of a disconnected line.

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland is not disappointed by the anticlimax here, nor is he embarrassed. They took as many precautions as they should have, and the fact that none of them turned out to be necessary is a good thing. Regardless of the way the Capitol's newsmen will without a doubt make the moment into a joke, an overreaction from a couple of quaint, ignorant offworlders. Roland is aware of this, but he's also aware that it is not important now.

He watches Alain, then releases the button. Watches the door close. "Nothing from your end either, unless I'm mistaken?" He'd hear it, he thinks, if there were. Or see it on Alain's face. Roland walks over to him, eyeing the keypad. "This must be for us to speak to one another after you go on. It has to be you, I'm afraid - whatever puzzle waits in there, you've got the best chance of figuring it out. I'll keep the door open for you. What order is it those buttons ought to be pressed?"

[atouchofka]

"I'd have it no other way," Alain assures him, with a thin little smile, and hangs up the handset. "If I'm right, it's 8-6-4-8-3. If not... well, I guess we'll probably know about it. If you do get another shot at it, I'd try the letters as they're written: 3-8-4-6-8." Nodding, satisfied that he's said all he can, he reaches out to clasp Roland's arm briefly. "Do I take the gun, or leave it with you?"

[ka_sera_sera]

"Take it." Roland clasps his friend's arm in return, then turns to look a little more at the keypad. Hearing the numbers makes it easier; his hands were ever the fastest of any of his mates, but pinning either of their lives on his ability to sort out and keep track of letters would probably be spelling their doom. He's familiar with the keypad's layout, though, and fairly familiar with the numbers themselves, and in a couple seconds is satisfied that he won't have any trouble repeating what he's heard. "It's yours. Besides, I can function alright without a gun, you know. Believe it or not."

He crosses to the button, presses it, and looks at Alain expectantly. "I'll use yon device as soon as you're through. If nothing happens I'll open this door for you again."

[atouchofka]

Alain half-smiles, nodding, and ducks through the doorway into the elevator, his hand on the butt of his gun. "Good luck," he says over his shoulder to Roland, with a little nod, and steps back away from the doors to let them close.

He's a little surprised to find how calm he is, filled with that particular kind of cool evenness that sets in before a battle. His mind feels sharp and ready, and the gun is a welcome weight at his hip. When the doors close, and the elevator goes down, he looks up expectantly and shifts slightly, ready to move the moment the other set of doors open.

[ka_sera_sera]

They should open in a couple seconds, and even as they do Roland hears the same empty air as Alain had when he'd used this machine but he keeps it to his ear, because this time there is a visible reaction. One formerly dark wall lights, and Roland - not expecting it but not particularly surprised, at least after that first instant - sees a well lit room full of walls, each lit at the top.

"Alain? Can you hear me?" It's certain, at least, that Alain is probably alright. With this much theatricality, they wouldn't have killed Alain as soon as those doors had closed behind him. If they kill him, they're going to make sure that Roland can watch.

[atouchofka]

Alain looks up as the doors open, and Roland's voice seems to come from all around. With a gunslinger's speed, he takes in the situation: the maze, the high ceiling, and most of all the timer starting to tick away in the ceiling.

"I hear you," he calls up, not sure whether Roland can hear him, and with some caution, steps out of the elevator. When the ground doesn't fall out beneath him or seem to set off any immediate trap, he takes another step and raises his hand: whether or not Roland can hear him, he might be able to see him. Accordingly, he signs as he speaks, the rough hand signs they used to communicate on missions. "What do you see? Do I head on?"

[ka_sera_sera]

"Left first. And no, I can't hear you. Don't see any traps, but be wary." Roland pulls the machine from his ear for a second so he can shake his head. He's doing it again, warning a fully trained gunslinger against things he'll know by instinct. Had he done that before, when they were young? Probably not. He can't remember. "Pass the first turn you see, take the second. Ask any questions you have now, there are a couple places it'll get hard to see you."

[atouchofka]

Alain considers for a moment, then shakes his head, signalling all clear as he starts walking. Maybe there are questions, but he can't think of them, and with the timer ticking away in the ceiling, he doesn't have the luxury of time to dwell on it. If there are questions, well, he'll just have to come up with the answers himself.

Past the first turn, left at the second. He walks in long, steady strides, looking around as he moves, on guard against any potential traps. He sees no tripwires or obvious switches, but not seeing them doesn't mean they're not there, as Roland observed. He doesn't look up. If something is coming from above, he trusts Roland to see and warn him, and there's no point worrying about the timer: he'll go as fast as he goes, and if it's too slow, it's too slow.

bit of a timeskip now, if that's ok?

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland was right to send Alain in, but not for the reason he thought - it's up to Roland to figure this riddle, but this is one that he can figure. The walls are set up in such a way that Roland can see all of them at once, and if Alain keeps to the same pace Roland can predict where he'll be. The path is laid out in front of him, and even if there were no lights on top of the walls directing him this way and that he would see the path through. He calls out directions, occasionally asks Alain to raise a hand and wave his location, and it's simple. Suspiciously so, actually, but that timer puts to rest some of those worries. Not that he intends to find out what it's counting down to, but it's nice to know that the threat is there. With these people, the idea of no threat in sight would worry him more.

In any case, Roland has no trouble with it. "Alain? You should be at the end now. Wave if you need anything from me to finish with it."

fine! also here have alain getting the right answer by the wrong methods

[atouchofka]

Alain doesn't wave. He looks at the elevator in front of him, looks at the button for a second or so, then reaches out and presses it, his free hand on his gun. Just in case.

His hand doesn't leave the butt of his gun as he steps into the elevator, or when he steps out into the next room. Even then, he only relaxes away from the weapon when he's given the room a quick once-over, and when he's successfully opened the boxes and found nothing deadly jumping out of them.

What he does find in the boxes, though, mystifies him. He considers himself a good riddler, and with reason: he was always first among his classmates at such things, almost on a par with Cort and Vannay towards the end. But this? The bare premise is obvious: push the right buttons, open the door. Which buttons the right ones are, on the other hand... he can't even begin to guess.

"Key," he says under his breath, and takes a step back, scrutinising the boxes. Then he shakes his head, closing his eyes. It does no good to try to fit the boxes into an idea he has already. He knows better. His mind goes briefly to Roland, waiting back in the other room, and (presumably, since he hasn't heard his friend's voice) not knowing what's taking so long. Then he wipes Roland out of his mind, and the room around him, and the Games altogether. Turquoise and green. Pink and blue. Yellow and red.

"Key," he says again, aloud, and frowns. It comes back to that, no matter which road he takes. Right or wrong, that suggests the idea's worth following. Yellow, maybe. That takes care of the y. Pink would provide the k. So... turquoise or green for e?

He turns it over in his mind again, looking for another answer. This seems too ambiguous, too open-ended. There are too many other words for those colours. But as the seconds slide by (and then the minutes; it's been ten minutes at least since he left the maze) and nothing else presents itself, he makes up his mind.

Pink first. He doesn't pause before pressing the green: if he's wrong, he'll know soon enough. Then the yellow.

Nothing happens. He counts off thirty seconds, just to be sure, not trusting there to be no punishment for guessing wrong. Then, clearing his throat, he steps back over to the boxes: pink, turquoise, yellow. To his listening ear, the clatter of the falling key is very loud indeed. Something that might be a smile curls at the corner of his mouth, but he doesn't allow himself the luxury of stopping to enjoy it. He's spent too much time here already.

After that baffling puzzle, the next room barely merits a moment's thought. Back in Roland's room, the door slides open easily, and Alain's voice crackles on over the loudspeaker.

"It's riddles like that which make me long for Vannay," he says, by way of an explanation for the delay, and clears his throat, looking out at the maze. "Do you need me to walk you through the maze, Ro', or do you remember it?" A fair question, given their training, but also one that carries an echo of their conversation during the bombing: have you decided yourself my cradle-ama? Roland asked him then, and even if they were words said in anger, they've stuck.

I am glad you are playing the riddle person b/c that was good

[ka_sera_sera]

Roland looks up toward the sound of Alain's voice as he hears Alain clear his throat. He sighs. That tension between them is there, always. Before that talk they'd had it was there, and it's here now after. He wonders if it will ever leave.

Stops wondering. He's got work to do. He isn't sure where Alain is watching from but he raises a hand with the all's-well signal, takes a moment to think back on the maze, then starts through. It isn't long before he ends up in the same room Alain's at, finds himself stopped some distance away from Alain and frowns, moves closer, claps his friend on the shoulder. "Fine work," Roland says, the casual ease in Roland's voice not quite genuine. Nothing is easy between them now. "And the rest of this? Seems simple enough, if risky, but I think it's fair to say your word carries more weight here than mine."

*bows*

[atouchofka]

"I've been thinking it over," Alain says, and shrugs, looking up at his dinh. Only now does he turn away from the window, which he's been watching with single-minded intensity since Roland set out through the maze. Even after Roland vanished again, he kept looking out over the lit-up walls, turning thoughts over in his mind. "I don't see any other answer to it besides the obvious. It seems too simple, but much of this has." He takes a deep breath, and proffers his hand. "Do we try, then?"

[ka_sera_sera]

"Of course," Roland says, and the warmth in his voice comes easier, now, as he sets his hand over Alain's and pulls his grip firm over it. "On my count."

He has to count in the numbers of this world, of course, and even now that grates. But nevermind. His eyes are on Alain, because if this has all been some long trick to lure them into a strange and sudden death Roland knows what he wants his last sight to be. "One. Two. Three.

"Now."

[atouchofka]

Alain tightens his hand on Roland's, in lieu of a reply, and waits for the count. He looks at Roland, then away again as his hand flashes out to the painted handprint.

There is a strange sensation, which he guesses is the electricity passing through him: it jolts into his fingertips, fizzing through him and into Roland. He feels, or thinks he feels, his heart lurch. Like diving into cold water, he thinks, and frowns a little.

Across the room, a light goes on, and the machine whirrs into life.

[ka_sera_sera]

He keeps to the position and tightens his jaw against the feeling until that ice is at least most of the way melted. Then his other hand relaxes, his arm drops. The hand holding Alain's, of course, does not let go. "Hm," he says, and begins to walk forward, eyeing the thing that was revealed.

"Keyholes. Well, we've come this far." Which is to say, no point in thinking on all the awful things that this chamber could still have in store for them. Roland trusts nothing in the arenas, least of all when things seem to be going his way. He reaches into a pocket anyway, pulling out the key that's been sitting there. "On your count."

[atouchofka]

Alain nods, taking out his own key. He's a little surprised by Roland's decision to have him lead this, but he accepts it without question, as he would most orders. "One, two, three," he says, and glances sidelong at Roland. "Now."

The key turns easily, as if the lock has been freshly-oiled. He isn't surprised. He is a little surprised to find the box inside, sitting there innocently. Surely this can't be it? Surely there's another puzzle inside?

But when the pod opens, so does the exit, and there's nothing obvious beyond.

"Shall I?" he asks Roland, looking to the box. "Or do you want to open it?"

[ka_sera_sera]

"Together, of course," Roland says, and if it seems as if he's trying a little too hard to push this, the two of them together in everything, well-

Well.

"Ready?"

[atouchofka]

Alain nods, and on Roland's signal, reaches out to open the box.

There's a moment, as he takes in the bounty before them, where he's silent. Then he whistles low through his teeth, and a smile comes to his face: a smile that almost has the lightness of their boyhood. He claps Roland on the shoulder, holds his eyes for a moment, then looks back to the box of supplies.

"This," he says, still smiling as he cautiously picks up one of the hunting knives and shoves it into his belt, "is one hell of a Fair-Day goose."