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| Puzzles |
| (2012-10-22 - 2012-10-22) |
| Mercade and Riku encounter each other in Ixion's Cloister, and they try to solve fiendish wall-circuit puzzles while talking about things. Unfortunately, the problems they face are even worse. |
| Mercade Alexander | ZOT! "Ow!" Mercade gets the feeling he shouldn't be here. Maybe it's because of the fairly regular electrical shocks he's been subjecting himself to ever since he got here. But hey, you know what they say about curiosity and cats. Right now, he's peering at a sparking orb intently, examining the circuit it is making through the wall. |
| Riku | "You turn up like a bad penny, Mercade." The voice is still some distance away. It's also a titch uncertain. Riku puts away his journal, having been writing notes in it and using the peace and relative calm of this location to focus his attention. Of course, every so often he would hear the ZOT from his relatively obscure alcove, but he hadn't done anything about it until he was finished. ".." he looks at the sphere, then at Mercade and instead of asking anything he just turns his attention to another socket in the wall. |
| Mercade Alexander | "One could say the same about you, Riku." Mercade replies jokingly. He doesn't look up at Riku yet, still looking at the wall. He tries to touch the orb, when it makes anothe ZOT noise, causing Mercade to yelp and pull back. "Fine. We'll solve this with /science/." He mutters, and pulls out some latex gloves. "So what are you up to, Riku? Anything going on?" |
| Riku | "Does science include brute forcing the puzzle but wearing those gloves so you don't get shocked every few minutes?" Riku asks with a straight face, turning away from his examination of the socket to look at the puzzle. He starts to ask another question and then stops. "Nothing. Just-- taking a few minutes to myself." he looks at the orb then shakes his head, turning away to examine another part of the puzzle room." |
| Mercade Alexander | "Rigorous testing methods are required for dealing with discomfort that people who use basic magical skills are able to circumvent." Mercade proclaims... And then asides, "Yeah, basically." He snaps on the gloves, and then gingerly pokes the orb. "Aha!" He pulls out the orb, the wall circuit ceasing to glow as he beings working his way around to another socket with the orb in hand. "But fair enough." He looks at the dormant wall circuits intently as he passes, not bothering Riku more for the moment. |
| Riku | Riku takes out his journal, leaning against the wall. He takes a few notes, sketching the rough shape of the walls and the socket before following Mercade. Eventually the curiosity wins over his reticience and his doubt. "What are you doing here?" and he may just as well mean with that sparking orb as in the actual location itself, which he has very little knowledge of anyways. |
| Mercade Alexander | "Exploring. There's some kind of powerful spirit here in the clock tower, they say, and that summoners come here to commune with it. Can't be /that/ bad of a guy, right?" Mercade pops the orb in a hole, and the circuitry glows brightly, running to one of the door-connectors. "Got it!" Mercade pumps his fist. He pauses, looking over at Riku. "Are you... okay? After the other day?" |
| Riku | "Are you?" Riku leans against the wall, crossing his arms with the journal held loosely in one hand as he considers Mercade with an uncertain expression. He frowns slightly brushing some hair out of his face. "Because honestly, that freaked me out more than a little. And-- you're out and about again." he says this last thing pensively, as if he's not quite sure what to make of the detective. He leans away from the wall, peering around at the connecting strip of light before pushing the door open and entering the next chamber. |
| Mercade Alexander | Mercade walks along with Riku, hands in his pockets. "I felt like crap for a few hours, and then it just... went away. Can't explain why." Mercade says, shrugging. The next room is much more complex, and also has some areas to alter the circuits in the walls with some kind of clockwork contraption. Mercade looks the stuff over and frowns. "No wonder why so few people come in here. I wonder if this spirit even wants visitors." He sighs. "But anyway, the fact of the matter is that... I don't really have a choice, in the end." |
| Riku | "That sounds familiar." Riku scoffs quietly, looks up at the contraption and around. He shrugs. "You take this side, I'll take that one?" gesturing to the complex clockwork around them. "Until I heard Sora was alive, I kept moving.. kept searching. Maybe this one. Maybe today." he goes to examine the architecture, raising his eyebrows at it as he peers at it abstractedly. "But then.." a pause. "I was searching for someone. I guess it makes sense that way." |
| Mercade Alexander | Mercade is quiet for a bit, fiddling with the clockwork and using basic observational skills to trace the circuit to see where it goes. Every time he shifts the circuits, it creates a clicking, clacking noise as the panels move. "You haven't found the other one." Mercade comments. "Kairi." It wasn't a question, just a statement. Mercade seems... a little different today. |
| Riku | Riku traces the line all the way to it's source. He has to be extra careful because he's not the one wearing gloves, so he ends up walking the same paths several times before making a decision. "Not yet." which comes off as somewhat flat as a statement. "She's out there somewhere." his voice comes off as carefully abstracted as he finds another connection that loops back on itself then around a corner to another connection. |
| Mercade Alexander | Mercade continues tracing connections himself, but he's done stuff like this before. Just never when you get zapped by the damn thing you're working with. "She's out there somewhere. So is.. They all are. They have to be." He's quiet for a short time, before he fiddles with the circuits for another moment, and popping the orb out of its stand in preparationg to put it into a socket. "How's it looking over there?" Mercade asks. |
| Riku | "About the same as when I came in. I hate puzzles." he pulls an orb out of it's slot and carries it over to a spot around the corner and into the slot. ZOT. "Ow. God. I HATE puzzles." he pauses, then adds after the exasperation has faded out of his voice. "--no time for them.." he tries another combination, glowering at it when the door connection lights up. |
| Mercade Alexander | "Well, look at it this way... It's not lethal." Mercade replies. He gives the mechanism another tweak and then puts his in. The door gets powered, and clicks open. "Hell yeah!" He walks over to the door and pushes it open, holding it there for Riku to join him. "Unfortunately, we're stuck in puzzles way more complex than this one. And then he looks at the multi-tiered monstrosity on the other side of the door. "... Okay, maybe not that one though." |
| Mercade Alexander | "Well, look at it this way... It's not lethal." Mercade replies. He gives the mechanism another tweak and then puts his in. The door gets powered, and clicks open. "Hell yeah!" He walks over to the door and pushes it open, holding it there for Riku to join him. "Unfortunately, we're stuck in puzzles way more complex than this one." And then he looks at the multi-tiered monstrosity on the other side of the door. "... Okay, maybe not that one though." |
| Riku | Riku just starres at the multi layered puzzle of doom, his eyes glazing slightly. "I don't think it's helpful either. What's the point of all these puzzles. What are they hiding?" He seems mildly curious at the end of that sentence though, and wanders over to look at some of the connections without any comprehension at all seeping in. |
| Mercade Alexander | "Well, there's no monsters, I guess they want to just frustrate people into giving up? Or maybe it's trying to teach some kind of lesson." Mercade looks over this the puzzle, his arms crossed as he visually tries to make sense of it. "I mean, this was a way to pass the time. I don't know if we can even talk to the thing in here, let alone get any useful answers. I'm no summoner, and you're..." Mercade trails off. |
| Riku | "What does any of that even mean, anyways. Summoners. Spirits. Monsters." he snorts faintly, shaking his head. "But I suppose your right. It's a way to pass the time." he shrugs, not seeming to care about the trailing sentence and not making eye contact with Mercade as he busies himself with drawing out the basic layout in the journal. |
| Mercade Alexander | "Well, logically, it would be..." Mercade stops, as if realizing something. Like maybe that Riku was /not/ asking for a technical definition. He's not stupid. "Er, never mind." He looks over to Riku and sits down on an outcropping beside his friend. He sits there, watching him, not saying anything for the moment. The silence, it is awkward. |
| Riku | And like all awkward silences, it brings all of it's pushy and awkward followers who then huddle over time and make things otherwise unbearable. Riku flicks his eyes up occasionally at the layout, then goes back to drawing. He pauses for a long time, then gets up and starts to pace the connections to the respective walls. He looks up, and starts to walk up some stairs as the connection he is following goes through the bottom and then twists in some labyrinthine fashion that causes him to lose it on that second level. |
| Mercade Alexander | Mercade sighs. He even throws his hands up, and looks up at Riku on the second floor. "All right, Riku." Mercade says. "You know what I'm going to say." He pauses, giving Riku an opportunity to respond. |
| Riku | "Ah." Riku quirks a faint smile as he walks down from the second floor and begins retracing his progress a second time. "So I can read minds now? This is new." he pauses, then turns away. "I thought buttons were required for that. Is this-- some.. big test for whoever originally build this place? Because whoever they are, they're sadistic." |
| Mercade Alexander | Mercade isn't sure if Riku has found the Muffin Button. "A button? I don't know what you're talking about." He looks confused at that. "But I wanted.... Right." Looks like Riku has successfully deflected Mercade... FOR NOW. "Well, it's kind of like a big lock, really. And locks are meant to do one of two things. Keep things out, or..." |
| Riku | "Keep things in." Riku looks at the orientation again, looks down at the notes. "Yeah. There's no reason to go farther, is there?" he starts to retrace his steps again, but it seems like an abstracted habit than him playing attention. "We could pick at it for hours and what about the next one? Or the one after that?" |
| Mercade Alexander | "Curiosity, mainly, but the annoyance of this thing is rapidly outweighing the benefits of satisfying it. We can probably safely leave this one until later." Mercade shrugs. "I'm not normally one to give up, but I have something else nagging at me." Mercade looks back up at Riku. "So yeah. What was that... darkness?" |
| Riku | Riku pings the surface of the material with a fingernail, making a faintly resonant crystal noise. "Yeah. This isn't going anywhere." he puts the journal in his jacket, slapping one hand atop a loosely closed fist as he looks at the configuration. It's starting to give him a headache though, so he turns away to face Mercade. "Magic. What else would it be?" |
| Mercade Alexander | "Yeah, but..." Mercade blinks. "That's certaintly nothing like I expected it to be. I mean, Avira smashes people over the head with ice, Maira shoots fireballs, there's that one newspaper girl with her lyrical explosion thing..." He gestures to Riku. "I'm pretty sure none of them are like that." Well, except for maybe the Aegyl magic of Meralin, but he doesn't know that. |
| Riku | "Like I said before. Everybody does things differently." Riku shrugs, crossing his arms. "And they muddle about until they figure out what works. I certainly couldn't do anything like what Avira does. It's like that. Loud and Flashy or Quiet and Disturbing. Usually just those two, from what I've seen. Sora got the Loud and Flashy, so-- by that token." Riku smiles faintly, looking slightly past Mercade as he chuckles. |
| Mercade Alexander | "And it's one of those 'you never know what you're going to get unless you get it' things, I bet." Mercade says, completing the thought train out loud. "Funny, I would have thought that it would have been a lot more... organized. Maybe I'll talk to Merlin about it. Dude has to be a wizard, he's got the huge beard and hat for it. Serious Gandalf action going there." Mercade shakes his head. "I don't envy you, man." |
| Riku | "Well. There is-- a moment of doubt." Riku walks past him out into the next puzzle room. "That who I'm looking for is beyond reach, maybe forever." he pauses, putting a hand on the wall fingers lightly touching the surface.. and his tone implies he's not exactly talking just about himself."I guess I'll have to keep myself busy, won't I? So I won't have to think about it." Riku continues walking out of the puzzle rooms and out of the Cloister. |
| Mercade Alexander | Mercade's eyes harden. "No." Mercade says, firmly. "I told you. She's out there, somewhere. We're going to find her. The clues are out there somewhere. We'll find them and then you're going to see her again. You have to keep that faith." Oh god, he's being stubborn again. |
| Riku | Riku does not give the response perhaps expected. He agrees with Mercade. "Your right Mercade. I'll see her again. I'm sure of it." |