Zion: Light of the New Moon, Ch 2.2 Myre
Zion - Light of the New Moon Chapter 2.2
Myre If All Else Fails...
The contributing readers elected to have the wagons set up camp in the center of the ruins.
The few wagons with us were especially careful as they made their way down the cliff. Those of us on foot spent most of our time traveling ahead of the carriages to make sure that the ground was solid enough; we didn't need any more mishaps like on the pass. Fortunately, we managed to navigate the trail without any further problems and, from there, it was a short trip to the center of the gorge, and the ruins of Whisperfell.
Bahrla was one of the first to enter the ruins. She told us on the way down that any number of creatures would probably take crumbled down buildings as homes. While the rest of us spent a half hour putting together what we could as far as a camp, the Wild Lander disappeared into the ruins to do a preliminary search. Several guards volunteered to go with her but she made it perfectly clear that she didn't want any more issues involving people that didn't know how the Wild Land worked. It hurt a few feelings, but in the end she got her way.
"You sure you're alright?" Liam asked, for what I think was the third or fourth time. To be honest, the attention felt good, though it only went so far-- despite how nice of a guy he is, I still have my orders, and that means I need to keep him at arm's length. I confirmed I was and I suggested he help Anor-Roc tie down the supplies. Rolling his eyes, the black fox went to do just that.
"You two could practically be a married couple." it was one of the few times I'd heard Valda speak with a tone other than a yell; she was actually pretty pleasant when she wanted to be and, judging by her comment, she had no qualms about using her wit.
"If you train em right the first time you don't have to bother with a leash and collar." I offered diplomatically.
"Unless you're both into that kind of thing." the squirrel winked, and then went to check on the young girl in her care. Her father is on the other side of the gorge, and I'm pretty sure that kind of thing isn't going to go well for either of them. For now, at least, Valda seems like she's taking pretty good care of the girl. That reminds me, Miri... I really need to learn her name... if I go around just calling her 'the girl' people are going to start giving me weird looks. I guess that works alright considering I haven't had any real reason to talk with or about her. I'll have to remember to ask Valda about it-- she really is nicer than she comes across when she deals with Lady Marion.
In the more immediate sense, I had a school-girl moment when Sergeant Reilly sought me out amidst the workers and gave me a hug. He told me he was glad that I'd survived and that he'd have to go find my rescuer and thank him. There was a little bit of a dark cloud over the whole event considering the fact that Liam Mail had made himself a friend of my Sergeant... especially considering that it could create some major role strain for me having to balance between Lord Dalton's orders and my service to the guards.
Either way, Sergeant Reilly spent the next twenty minutes working beside me. We chatted a little... informally, which gave me that little butterfly feeling in my stomach, and he laughed when I laughed and sighed when I sighed... it ALMOST felt like he was flirting... but that could just be my own imagination too. What I knew I WASN'T imagining was the fact that his tail was wagging through the entire project of breaking out and setting up the camping supplies. Miri, did you know that I got a really good look at his paw too-- he didn't have a wedding band!
But, as all good things do, our time together came to an end. Sergeant Reilly had to go tend to an issue some of the other guards were having. Before the shepherd left he suggested that I go out with the people exporing the ruins, and that they could use an accomplished guard like me. Nothing like hearing your commanding officer call you accomplished. Goddess, he has a nice smile. Anyway, without anything more to say I headed off into the ruins, which was convenient for me because apparently Liam had gone that way not two minutes before.
I wasn't far behind Liam when he made the great discovery everyone in camp ended up talking about. Unlike most of the other structures in Whisperfell, the one where we found it was not a pile of rubble; all four walls were mostly standing, and even a few loose bits of timbers and beams from the roof were still in place. If I had to guess, judging from the floor plan I would say it was probably a small temple.
I stepped through the broken doorway of the ruined building and saw Liam facing the far wall, leaning on what was probably once an altar. He glanced back at me as I came in, "Haven't had enough adventure for today?" he asked, that self-assured smirk on his muzzle.
"I probably have a few more death-defying stunts in me if need be." I answered. I'm pretty sure it came out casually... at least that's what I was hoping for. Even if it didn't sound all that convincing he was polite enough to offer a light swish of his tail in amusement before looking back to the wall. "What'd you find?" I asked.
"Some kind of device." he acknowledged, stepping aside to let me see it.
I don't think there's any way that I can easily explain what I was looking at, Miri... but it was amazing. Embedded directly into the wall was an inscribed silver disc with such finely crafted engravings that it had to have been divinely inspired. The silver was inscribed with a strange grid pattern... nine squares in three rows and three columns; each square had nine holes in it, each almost as big-around as a pencil. Several of the holes had jade symbols capping them; the jade caps were the size of copper coins.
The disc was placed into the wall at the center of several relief carvings depicting the many phases of the moon-- the reliefs were arranged in a circle with the full moon at the top and the new moon at the bottom. to the left of the disc, the reliefs were all of the waxing symbols of the moon while on the right were the waning symbols. The silver disc itself was about the size of a Phasing game board, so you can only imagine how much of the wall it took up!
"What do you make of these?" Liam asked, calling my attention to the stone platform he'd been leaning on. The center of the chest-high column was sunken, creating a bowl-like recess which held numerous jade pins. The pins were shaped in many ways like a nail-- a finger-length shaft about as big-around as a pencil crowned by a broader, flat head; in this case, I noticed, each of the 'nails' had a carving imprinted on the head and, just like the jade caps on the covered holes, the heads looked to be the size of coins. Once the fox moved aside I picked up one and noticed the symbol on it, "The Half Moon." I announced.
"Full Moon, Pregnant Moon, Sickle Moon, New Moon..." he rummaged through the collection of nails, "All of the Moon Signs are here..." he paused, picking up one of the pieces, "But this one... it isn't a Moon Sign."
"It's the symbol of the Sun worshipers." Lady Marion's voice caught us both by surprise. We each stepped to either side of the relief as the priestess approached, "I recognized it from the disc." she motioned to the silver plate set into the relief on the wall.
Josh, who followed beside the priestess spoke up, "Priestess Marion... isn't the Silver Disc a symbol of Tah'Aveen?"
"Yes, Josh," Lady Marion acknowledged, "But the working around the edges..." she walked right up to the wall and drew a finger around the edge of the disc, "Do you see how the disc is wavered around the sides?" What I had first mistaken as out-jutting stone worked at regular intervals over the disc to keep it in place turned out to be something else entirely; Lady Marion showed Josh (and Liam and myself by proxy) that the silver was actually made to resemble more of star burst than a disc.
"I thought the Sun worshipers used golden emblems." Liam challenged.
"They do now," Anor-Roc noted from the doorway, "But when they used to be allowed in the cities and temples; they were part of our faith as much as any other worshiper of the Moon Goddess."
"But they're blasphemers now." Josh spoke up, "Aren't they?"
"This was several hundred years ago." the coy-wolf explained, "before the Banniharian Decree."
"When things were more equal." Lady Marion acknowledged, looking down at the column containing the jade nails. "Hmmm..." she noted, "what have we here?"
"Nails of some kind." I explained.
"Pieces." Josh spoke up, kneeling down to run a paw across the disc in the wall, "It looks like a puzzle... see?" he pulled the jade cap out of the very center hole in the disc, "Some of them are already placed." and he carefully slid it back into the hole from which he'd taken it, "This one looks like it has a New Moon symbol on it."
"Five different symbols." Liam acknowledged.
"Eight." corrected Anor-Roc, "Look." he went to the relief of the moon signs and motioned to each in turn, "Full and New Moons," he pointed to the top and bottom, "And waxing and waning for Half, Pregnant, and Sickle."
"Nine." further corrected Lady Marion, "You're forgetting the symbol of the Sun." she picked up one such piece of jade from the bowl.
"But there's no way to tell how to put the puzzle together." Josh objected, "All the pieces fit the same!"
"It is a logic puzzle." Bahrla's unmistakably deep, gruff, matter-of-fact tone was impossible to confuse with someone else, "I saw one of the scholars in Myre trying to work his way through one."
"A logic puzzle?" Josh asked, ears up, "How does that work?"
"Look here..." Bahrla strolled right into the building, ducking her head so she wouldn't hit her horns on the door. She trotted over to the wall and motioned with a huge finger at the top of the very middle row, "Half black on the left and half white on the right separated by a curved line."
"The symbol for the Pregnant Moon." Josh explained.
Bahrla grunted and moved her finger down past an open hole and further down to the third spot in the middle column, "half black and half white separated by a straight line."
"The symbol for the Half Moon." Josh offered.
Bahrla snorted and moved her finger down to the next three symbols, saying them in order, "Half white on the left and half black on the right separated by a curved line; all black, small sliver of white on the right--"
"Pregnant, New, Crescent!" Josh quickly added, tail lashing happily.
"What they are doesn't matter." Bahrla scowled, "Just what they look like."
"To a Wild Lander the symbols have no meaning, perhaps." Liam noted faintly; the minotaur woman continued, not indicating that she'd heard the fox's quiet comment.
Bahrla pointed to the last three places for symbols, the first taken up by a piece of jade, and the remaining two blank, "The Sun symbol--"
"That one she gets right." Liam noted aside.
"and two more blank spots." Bahrla continued.
"So... there are six symbols in the column, and three holes without any symbols..." Anor-Roc rubbed the end of his chin with one paw, his other jingling faintly as he shook his charm bracelet, "Interesting that none of the symbols repeat." he pointed out.
The minotaur woman nodded, "And that is the puzzle." she acknowledged, "Each column and each row should have each symbol only once." she motioned to the disc again, pointing out each of the individual squares arranged within it, "And each of these squares of nine holes shouldn't have any of the symbols repeat either."
"I think I see..." Liam acknowledged, moving up to motion to the middle square on the left, "I see waning Sickle and Waning Pregnant, and Waxing Half and Waxing Sickle, and then Sun and Waxing Pregnant... so that means the last three holes need to be filled with a Full Moon, a New Moon, and a Waning Half symbol."
"But the New Moon can't be in the middle row!" Josh quickly pointed out, "See? It's already in the middle row over here." he traced his paw along to the very center spot of the disc, "I bet we can figure this out just by working with what is already in place!" his tail lashed excitedly.
"Eighty one openings..." Lady Marion pointed out, "Twenty nine already filled with jade."
"It's over one third done already." Anor-Roc offered optimistically.
"Now if only we can figure out where the rest of it goes." Liam offered, casually leaning on the column holding the remaining pieces of jade.
I let out a sigh despite myself; the explanation was completely lost to me... I knew that solving the puzzle certainly wasn't going to be something I was going to manage. Hopefully the effort on everyone else's part would be worth it in the end.
* * * * * *
The Myrenese wagons have elected to set up camp in the middle of the Wisperfell ruins.
Contributing readers now have an opportunity to provide a solution to the logic problem presented to their characters: The Moon Puzzle.
An image of the Moon Puzzle is available here:
http://www.sofurry.com/page/262280/
Readers will have to choose from the following options in the event that no solution can be obtained in the time given:
1) If no reader contribution results in solving the puzzle, all characters have the option of using 1 willpower to get a Skill + Observation roll against a difficulty of 28 to find a workable answer. 2) If no reader contribution results in solving the puzzle use physical force to open it. 3) If no reader contribution results in solving the puzzle use magical force to open it. 4) If no reader contribution results in solving the puzzle leave it and move on.
Contributing Readers have until midnight (PST) on the 1st of July to have submitetd their "what if" choice for the group, and to have made their attempt at solving the puzzle.
Puzzle solutions should be sent to me via Private Message-- any solution presented on this post here or over where the picture is located will result in automatic disqualification and proceed immediately to a failure. The one exception is if a Contributing Reader posts the correct solution, in which case I'm willing to overlook the lapse in following directions. ;)