The Trial Of Terror, Treachery, and Tepidity [RP]

[Cirrial]

The voice of Naine is heard throughout the Tower. No-one had bothered to install a proper communication system, an intercom, or even any kind of fancy walkie-talkie set up. He's just shouting really, really loudly.

"Attention all Party members! I lost my golden coffee cup.

...What? It meant so much to me! It was more than just fancy pottery! It was an icon for slackers everywhere! For when life gets you all wound up, there's always the next coffee break.

Please track this coffee cup down, if you choose to, which is probably unlikely, given we're supposed to be pretty apathetic. First one to grab the coffee cup for me gets something good. Yeah, how vague yet cool is that? However, because for some reason life is never easy, you'll likely have to face an ardous amount of random tasks and challenges."

---

ROOM 1: In Which Dwells A Simple Shoe

Through the corridor, the first challenge is a mostly empty room with a door.

The door has no handles and the gaps around the edges are too small to do anything with. It's also fairly apathetic and is thusly immune to most magic and so forth.

In the centre of the room is a somewhat worn out leather shoe with frayed laces on a marble pedestal. The pedestal has the word "shoe" written on it in hundreds of different languages.

Carved shoddily above the door is a picture with a shoe, an up arrow and a large thick "X" and "NO" written next to it. Next to the door is a shoe-shaped slot. The shoe on the pedestal could fit perfectly inside this slot.

Around the grey walls of the room are several circular holes. Inside these holes are arrows, attached to some unseen gizmo.

---

((Okay, this is likely to be, against all logic, somewhat structured. Each room has a task, which at first will appear simple. There are ten rooms in total. The first one to solve the challenge in the final room gets the prize.

But this is the Tower. Simple stuff is boring, and will likely never work. The only way to solve these puzzles is to do something unexpected but applicable to the problem with the items in the room.

After three posts minimum each by different people the various attempts to solve the room will be considered successful, in which case the next room will become avaliable, or unsuccessful, giving others a chance to try or the same people the chance to try again.

You can choose to work in a team with others in the Party, or try to hinder the others working half-assedly towards this highly enigmatic prize.

And, of course, this serves as a device for everyone involved to try out their Party characters. As for why they'd suddenly become interested in doing something when the Party is supposedly apathetic... a wizard did it. >_>))

[Intyalle]

((Lol for my charrie change 'a wizard' for 'her sister APs' lol. ))
_________________________
~~Mist~~
Mist wandered into the room, breezes dancing around her as she did.
Why do I care again?
You don't, Intyalle replied. But I like puzzles, so you'll bloody well keep moving.
Mist just shrugged and looked around the room, giving Intyalle a full view of what was around.
Remember, there is always a simple answer, and it's always for someone else to use, Intyalle reminded her. Try throwing the shoe at the X.
Had Intyalle been beside her - and had Mist actually cared all that much - she would have looked at her like she was mad, but she shrugged and threw the shoe at the X.

[Abidusray]

((This is an awesome concept.))

"Oh look! It's a shoe!
Abidusray is hungry
for steak, or leather.

Abidusray proclaimed gleefully, striding forwards in a purposeful gait, directly towards the shoe on the pedestal. His face split into a genuinely happy -- if slightly deranged -- toothy grin. Then he bent at his waist, put his hands on the marble slab the shoe rested on, and began to gnaw intently on the tongue.

[Kazumaru]

Kazumaru looked around the room. He contemplated doing something, then decided against and promptly fell asleep against the wall.

[Cirrial]

Mist arrives in the room to start with and throws the shoe at the X. Abidusray arrives shortly afterwards, and Kaz falls asleep on the walls.

As soon as the shoe leaves the pedestal, it vanishes in a puff of "meh" and reappears on the pedestal. Around the room, every single arrow contained somewhat obviously in the walls is fired... but the cheap rubber bands used cause each arrow to just jut slightly outwards. The only detrimental effect this would likely have on anyone is a sudden surprise acupuncture session for Kaz.

Abidusray then gnaws on the shoe, and somehow bites into a prominent flashing red plastic button on the underside of the tongue.

The door rumbles and groans, and slides into the floor. The button disappears in a puff of "whatever", causing the shoe to become just an ordinary old piece of leather footwear, or in Abidusray's case, the next trend in haute cuisine.

((As I said, the action least expected is the one that solved the challenge. The crazier, the better. ))

---

ROOM 2: Water Water Everywhere And Yet You Cannot Think (Of A Solution To This Convoluted Scenario)

The second challenge is a very large room filled with water. The exit is, like all emergency exits in the Tower, closed in a manner similar to the first room. No magic, no might, no mojo. However, there is a long rope attached to a hook attached to the door, and the rope is attached to a flimsy wooden shelf attached with glue to the wall above the door.

The entrance and exit have platforms above water level. The water itself is either enchanted or cursed, depending on interpretation, with the power of apathy. If you fall in, you'll stop caring, and the otherwise gentle and easily defeatable current will push you back to the entrance. It'll be a test of wills to even struggle out onto the dry platform.

In the middle of the water is a platform anchored against the current. On this platform is a simple lever switch, the kind found near most railroads.

The ceiling is covered in spikes and looks like it could start moving down for almost any arbitary reason.

Finally, there's objects of potentially some use in a secret compartment under a somewhat conspicuous and multi-coloured flashing tile in the entrance platform. Small teal cubes that expand in liquid to whatever size their user wants. There's enough cubes for one each, assuming everyone only takes one each.

In this room, not only is the door locked, but it's also a far distance away from the entrance. You'll need to figure out how to even get to the exit and how to open it up.

[Abidusray]

"Thank you, Mister Door!
You have opened and I got
a new leather shoe!"

Abidusray grins stupidly and scoops the shoe into his pocket, but not before ripping a large chunk of vulcanized rubber from the sole. The he puts two hands on the pedestal, and jumps, using the power of leverage to push himself over it like a child playing leapfrog. A crazy, suit-wearing child. Jumping over a marble pedestal.

With a bound, he enters the next room, and comes to skidding halt before the water's edge. Abidusray, always practical, decides to take this moment to take care of some business. A minute later, a much-relieved Abidusray pulls up his pants, the former contents of his bladder slowly mixing into the water.

[Intyalle]

~~Mist~~
Throw one of the cubes into the water and expand it to fill the whole chamber.
Mist did as she was told.
Okay, now we can get to the door, we just need to open it.
Suddenly, Mist felt someone else join them. Then take over the whole body, rip up the tile and try to eat it.
Darn you, Insanity!

[Kazumaru]

Kazumaru, still entirely asleep, rolled into the next room, bashing his head into several walls.

[Cirrial]

Kaz falls into the water after rolling around. However, by actually being more apathetic than the water itself when falling into it, the water bubbles and schlorps and, in a panic, chucks Kaz onto the exit platform in a desperate attempt to stay free of further apathetic corruption.

However, the water doesn't seem to even notice the addition of a different liquid. It is still apathetic water, after all. It makes a few feeble attempts to soak Abidusray in the brine of his own making, but the overall effect is a somewhat pitiful puddle on the entrance platform.

It is Mist and Insanity's combined efforts that bafflingly defeat this challenge. However, an adhered cube stuck to a piece of tile makes contact with their shared saliva, Intyalle's commands come into effect, and the cube starts to grow.

Still stuck to the tile, which is being somewhat maniacally flipped around and chewed at, the cube grows into a long cuboid in a short time span, smacking the switch as it swings around.

With a loud crunching noise, the ceiling spikes begin to close down... and down... and smack into the wooden shelf. A tiny button hidden inside a secret compartment otherwise unreachable is triggered by a spike, and the ceiling stops. The door opens.

The cuboid falls off the tile and finishes the rest of its command, expanding to cover the water in the room. The next room is accessible.

---

In a secret room (among the countless thousands of secret rooms) in the Tower, Naine sits in front of a wall. It's a wall that's so bored, it's decided to show the goings on in the Trial chambers.

Hmm. They're going pretty fast. With some rather creative applications of the mouth to solve these tasks. Maybe I should change that.

He points at the wall and the arrangement of the chambers changes around, and swaps in previously unused rooms.

---

ROOM 3: No Two Objects Are Not On Fire

In a stark contrast to the water of the last room, the grey walls are bathed in an orange glow. There are two pedestals. One has a flaming bucket of water... with water that is apparently on fire. It's apathetic water so apathetic that it's defying simple principles of physics.

The other pedestal has a fireproof watering can. It's actually part of the pedestal, however, but the pedestal itself is not attached to the ground.

The doorway is open... but full of fire. In front of the doorway is a never-ending chasm filled with flames. It could easily be jumped, but the fires reach to the ceiling.

Also in the room is a simple long wooden stick, roughly three foot long. On one end is a hook. On the other is also a hook. Care should be taken when handling this double-hooked implement of reaching and destruction.

[Kazumaru]

Kazumaru flew into the next room, landing conveniently beside the double-hooked pole. Instinctively, he reached out, wrapped his arms around it, and held it like a teddy bear.

[Abidusray]

"I wish now that I
had not wasted the water
before the big flames."

Abidusray sighed, stepping into the next room, his back facing the center of it. He turns on his heel, spinning twice before coming to a dizzied stop. And then he catches sight of Kazumaru.

"You! YOU! You are the
one responsible for my
stained and dirty suit!

Shrieking incoherently, Abidusray lunged at Kazumaru like an animal, his eyes wide and his mouth open, hands frozen into claws.

[Intyalle]

~~Mist~~
My turn! she heard Melanaur call. This time, the body was willingly given up as a little fire-proofing in a fire challenge could never hurt.
"Oh my god how easy is this?" Melanaur said out loud. Being a fire mage, she had to have at least some level of resistance to fire - basically, a little to normal fire and completely immune to her own.
She wrapped their body in fire, jumped over the chasm and walked through the door.

[Cirrial]

Intyalle gets to the next room with no problem. The water may be apathetic, but the fire is your garden variety garden fire.

Of course, this somewhat easy solution does not go unnoticed by the room itself, and it drops a loose pebble onto Intyalle/Melanaur's head to justify its own existance, feeling somewhat invalidated by someone simply walking through it without a problem.

But for Abidusray and Kaz, the fires are still a hazard to be dealt with.

Abidusray strikes the sleeping Kaz, with enough force to cause Kaz to roll over. Still clutching the stick, which IS three foot long, it swings in a long arc and smacks against the flaming bucket of water at a weird angle, causing the hook to latch underneath the handle.

Abidusray's attack causes Kaz to roll over a second time, throwing the firey bucket onto the flames. The apathetic water falls a tenth of the speed as the bucket, which falls off the suspended water and tumbles into the abyss. With the firey bucket now gone, the water finally gets bored of being on fire.

The now-relatively-normal water falls excruciatingly slowly but covers the flames as it does so, and after ten full minutes the water has fallen enough to extinguish the flames to an extent that leaping the chasm is possible.

---

ROOM 4: And You Thought Airports Were Bad

The fourth room is still grey, but it's a somewhat different shade. It's also the largest room yet, about the size of an indoor basketball court. The door is far away on the other side of the room, as always, and is sealed shut as the previous doors, except the one immediately before this one.

On the floor are hundreds of conveyer belts, all going in different directions, and changing direction rather haphazardly.

Also on these conveyer belts are statues being moved about by the conveyer belts alone. On the back of each statue is a switch. On the front of each statue is an inactive laser. Around the room are various glass prisms and mirrors.

There are three holes in the wall next to the entrance. They each contain a device sensitive to light, and only with the simultaneous activation of all three will the door at the exit open.

Oh, and the room is filled with bees for no reason. Apathetic bees which don't so much fly as fall from place to place, but still. BEES.

[Intyalle]

~~Mist~~
As they walked through the door and were hit by the pebble, yet another personality decided to rise up.
"GET OFF OF ME!!!" Minerva screeched, grabbing the pebble and throwing it into the room, then sat down and watched the conveyor belts.
It's not our body, you know, Intyalle grumbled - Mist cared too little to protest. so why do we all keep coming here?
Because it's something interesting? Melanaur suggested.

[Kazumaru]

Kazumaru rolled head-over-feet into the next room, still clutching the pole. He came to rest on a belt, muttering the words "Fluffy teddybear." over and over.