Jump to content
BrainDen.com - Brain Teasers
  • 0

The Chromatic Witch, Ep 1: The Gate of Blue Heaven


Yoruichi-san
 Share

Question

Outside the Box Studios Presents...

A Y-san Puzzleduction...

(Based on the short story The Chromatic Witch that Y-san's real life alter ego was too lazy to actually write...)

The Chromatic Witch

To WoS/WoD for introducing the puzzle/adventure game format, many thanks. Xie xie

:D

To all the shows/animes I've watched, books I've read, games I've played that inspired my subconscious to have the dream this is based on, arigatou.

To my laziness for not writing that dream turned story idea into a short story for over a year, so that it was readily available for transcribing into this format...;P

And to all who will follow this series and give it life, thank you :).

The room was almost completely dark. Around the periphery of the room, the girl could barely make out the outlines of pieces of equipment, stands where pieces of equipment should have been, lab benches with varying degrees of dust cover, drawers brimming with supplies, and cabinets littered with specimen jars that were labeled in a weary hand.

“Are you ready?” asked a voice, muffled by the presence of a light turquoise surgical mask. The man it belonged to, donning the matching attire, adjusted the fluorescent stand light next to him. Then he turned and selected a scalpel and surgical drill from the trolley of tools sitting next to him.

It could have been his imagination, but he thought that, for just a brief moment, he caught a slight wince in the corner of the girl’s eye when her gaze fell upon the drill. But he blinked, and it was gone.

Reclining back onto the vinyl back of the surgical chair, the girl closed her eyes.

“Do it.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Welcome to Sector Lambda

Our world is in grave peril. The most nefarious, most maleficent, most devious Chromatic Witch seeks to destroy it through her malevolent tricks and heinous devices.

The Chromatic Witch draws her vile power from her seven Gateways. Each Gateway has the property of being a different color, and each color grants the Chromatic Witch different powers.

Hence, we have gathered you, the best and the brightest agents, here, under the skillful supervision of the most capable and fair Father to form an elite team in the world’s defense.

You and your fellow agents will have to venture into the territory of these Gateways and destroy them, one-by-one, to remove her hold on this world and vanquish her.

There are a few things you must know, though, before you can attend the task at hand.

1. Do not question the word of Father. He is here for your guidance and protection. Father knows best, and has your best interests at heart. Normal human beings such as you and I cannot hope to understand the depth of Father’s knowledge and comprehension.

2. Do not question the above, ever.

3. Some of the challenges the Chromatic Witch will pose will require special knowledge, which should be readily available through the neuro-link to the vast information network implanted into your minds. If your neuro-link is malfunctioning, please contact the BioIT department at SectorLambdaBioIT@gmail.com for help.

4. Some of the challenges the Chromatic Witch will pose may have more than one possible solution. If you discover multiple solutions, then take pride in your savvy as an agent. However, you will have to face the Chromatic Witch in her own domain, and to defeat her power over the domain, you must find the solution to what she has set as the key to her devices and abilities.

5. Some agents will be more readily adapted to certain tasks or easily identify the knowledge needed for certain challenges than others. After all, no man may have complete knowledge, no man except Father, that is, but he is no mere man. Therefore, to be the most effective, you must function as a team and build on each others' strengths. Remember, this is not about you as an individual, this is about protecting our world.

6. Do not question any of the above. It just may cost you or your team their lives.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Led by a tall, gangly man with scraggly dark hair and close-knit brows, who had introduced himself as “Agent Wraith”, the new agents entered the main operations room of Sector Lambda, burdened by a combination of excitement, anticipation, and anxiousness.

“And this is the main control unit,” Agent Wraith explained, waving his arm towards the an expansive sloped panel covered with back-lit buttons of various shapes and sizes, from which a number of holo-screens protruded. “We use it to coordinate all of our operations in the field. It sends real-time feedback from our agents’ neuro-links, so we can monitor their vitals and receive any information they attain, allowing us to guide them as effectively as possible.” He demonstrated by dragging out a sample schematic on the nearest holo-screen, featuring a rotating representation of a head on one half, which zoomed out and displayed the agent’s infrared signature, and with several panels of scrolling data on the other half.

Most of the group emitted the appropriate oohing and aahing sounds. Wraith nodded acceptingly, ignoring the few holding back. Then he turned and went to stand by a panel with four 12 columns of lights, every other column of which was blinking, and contained 1, 4, 3, 2, 5, and 2 lights, respectively. The non-blinking columns contained 5, 6, 4, 7, 7, and 6 lights.

“That ends the orientation. But before you can start your duties, there is a little test we administer to new Agents to make sure they’re up for the trials ahead.” He swept out his arm at a group of Agents sitting nearby.

“Hi, I’m Janine,” said a pretty, freckled girl with short reddish brown hair and glasses. She gave them a warm smile.

“And I’m Orin,” followed a somewhat tall, muscular blonde with clear blue eyes, a strong jaw ,and prominent cheekbones. He gave them a welcoming nod.

“And that is Umi,” Wraith finished, gesturing towards a small, thin, silver-haired girl with pale skin and sharp eyes. “She doesn’t talk much, but she’s a wiz with computational stuff.” The girl blinked at them and then turned back to her work. “One of the agents here is the squad captain. Did you get the memo? Good. Your test, new agents, is to figure out which one. And no random guessing.” He wagged a finger. “Only answers with appropriate reasoning will be accepted. You must demonstrate your prowess before gaining the right to wear a Sector Lambda uniform.”

Edited by Yoruichi-san
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Recommended Posts

  • 0

"Also, be aware that the questions will never have letters or words, but the answers might."

"Something that does not change when one changes borders..."

i assume this means the numbers are the questions? a universal meaning? or something that does not change where ever you go? also this could be a hex code i.e. rgb(113,227,184) = #71E3B8

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

"using a tool here, to express some element of these pictures. Something that does not change when one changes borders"

Using a tool... I grabbed the pics and used the dropper tool to see color values.

Some element that doesn't change when borders so.... I took the Nth x Nth pixel and used the color dropper tool where N = plaque number

The captain also emphasized the use of the neuro-link, so I wonder if some googling will be required... I image-searched the images and saw nothing noteworthy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

I was thinking along the six-letter word line. I was stuck of the chocolates. (bonbon =

:duh: )

then I started thinking of the numbers and maybe they are two number and not just one number

For example for the first picture 124 could be 12 & 4.

Maybe the forth letter of a 12 lettered word. : thanksgiving?

But I got stuck of the next one 227 I don't know any 22 letter long word that would fit with the picture.

The third 117 could be electricity.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

The agents continued to concentrate. A few of them thought it might have to do with hex values.

"Perhaps," Father responded. "But the Witch has no particular interest in the computational. She likes to play."

"Or maybe we have to research the pictures?" One suggested.

"That I doubt," was the great Father's reply. "The second picture, I believe it is a private picture, I recognize the destination, and professional pictures taken there are of a much higher quality. I also do not believe the destination itself has anything to do with the solution. You should search for some element in the picture, or related to the picture. The tool itself, I suspect, you will have to search for, as it is not something easily memorized in its entirety."

Wraith considered for a moment, then his eyes glazed as if he was looking at something through his neuro-link. "Yes...hmm...that seems to work. It would seem 209 is the most straightforward of the bunch. It's exactly what's in the picture."

(Aside: Yes, I did take the second picture myself :D. It's Huang Long/Jui Zhai Gou in Northwest China, and truly breathtaking if you ever get a chance to go. And no, that has nothing to do with the puzzle ^_^ )

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

I'm going to avoid spoilers unless posting a specific answer since I think we are playing this collectively. I think Pops has twice mentioned the word "element" when referring to the pictures. And I think to begin this puzzle, we need to figure out how to map the contents of the picture to the number in the plaque. I'm hoping that this will lead to a 6 word question that we can answer with the keypad.

Right now I'm trying to see if I can somehow map the pictures to a specific number by using the periodic table (keying off of the use of the word "element"). My first try is to simply try to spell something using only element symbols and then add the atomic numbers together to get a final number. But I haven't found anything yet to indicate it's the right strategy. I've gotten close with the following on 209

I tried "Chocolate Bonbons" for the picture as the following:

C - 6

H - 1

O - 8

Co - 27

La - 57

Te - 52

B - 5

O - 8

N - 7

B - 5

O - 8

N - 7

S - 16

Total - 207

I'll keep trying other word combinations and see what comes up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

I'm going to avoid spoilers unless posting a specific answer since I think we are playing this collectively. I think Pops has twice mentioned the word "element" when referring to the pictures. And I think to begin this puzzle, we need to figure out how to map the contents of the picture to the number in the plaque. I'm hoping that this will lead to a 6 word question that we can answer with the keypad.

Right now I'm trying to see if I can somehow map the pictures to a specific number by using the periodic table (keying off of the use of the word "element"). My first try is to simply try to spell something using only element symbols and then add the atomic numbers together to get a final number. But I haven't found anything yet to indicate it's the right strategy. I've gotten close with the following on 209

I tried "Chocolate Bonbons" for the picture as the following:

C - 6

H - 1

O - 8

Co - 27

La - 57

Te - 52

B - 5

O - 8

N - 7

B - 5

O - 8

N - 7

S - 16

Total - 207

I'll keep trying other word combinations and see what comes up.

Carbon © =6 Holmium (Ho) =67 Cobalt (Co) =27 Lanthanum (La) =57 Tellurium (Te) =52 =209 this is were i was headed with the zinc thing i just couldn't get ti to work out

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

The agents were making progress, cracking the enigma. They cut through five of them like a hot knife through butter. But the last one, they weren't so sure about.

Janine's voice came over the neuro-link. "I don't suppose you boys would get it," she said in a cheerful, joking tone. "After all, it's us girls who have to do all the cooking. You just wait until the end and claim the glory of carving."

"I think I see now..." Orin spoke up a moment later. "But...what are we supposed to do now? Is the fact that the door is the same color as the previous just a coincidence? Or perhaps it was just to save on building material costs?"

There was muffled sound over the neuro-link. Was it...could it have been...a laugh? Then Father's voice came on, composed as ever. "No, Orin, I do not think that is it."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

The agents were making progress, cracking the enigma. They cut through five of them like a hot knife through butter. But the last one, they weren't so sure about.

Janine's voice came over the neuro-link. "I don't suppose you boys would get it," she said in a cheerful, joking tone. "After all, it's us girls who have to do all the cooking. You just wait until the end and claim the glory of carving."

It must have something to do with carving/cutting meat?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 0

Janine pursed her lips as she listened to other end of the link. Boys, always picking up on specific words rather than hearing the meaning of the message itself. She sighed deeply. Then one of them said something that made her perk up. Finally, a guy who actually listened!

Orin, meanwhile, was pondering. "So...if not a coincidence..."

Two eager agents were keen to try their proposed solutions on the door. The first entered a series of numbers. The door didn't budge. The other one followed quickly with a similar series. Nope, no cigar.

Orin furrowed his brows more deeply, staring at the door. The silvery blue door that was identical in every way to the door that had come before. Then an idea began to form in his mind. Hmm...maybe...?

Edited by Yoruichi-san
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Answer this question...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...