Hidden Clues

Evan and Sakura started investigating the room one more time, this time they got better results. Evan and Sakura found panels on the wall that when turned about revealed a series of pictures. All the pictures were of different, seemingly unrelated, subjects but then the two noticed something about the pictures after staring at them each for a bit, there was another image hidden within the overt images. A little focus on their parts had them come to the same realization at almost the same time, Evan noticed it a little before Sakura. The image hidden in the picture was the same face as the statue, and it had fin-like ears. Now, if they could just figure out how to lock those ears in on the statue.

If the walls held a hidden clue, then it stood to reason that there were hidden clues elsewhere in the room, they were just a bit more difficult to find than most people were probably willing to put in for something like this. With the continued search, Sakura was still having difficulty finding where the next clue or mechanism was hiding. Evan, on the other hand, barely managed to find the next piece of the puzzle, twenty feet or so from the front of the statue he managed to find a set of loose tiles that felt secure when stepped on but actually loose when touched with the hands moving at a careful or cautious pace.

After removing the panels, 4 of them for a 20-foot section, a miniature version of the statue scaled to human height, the statue stood at around 5'7" inches and his estimates about the bust size had been surprisingly accurate, but the statue was missing its ears. The ears were each in sets of pairing boxes on an 8-foot long table before the statue, all the boxes seemed to be locked with a trick to unlocking them. Evan called Sakura over, and the two began searching for the box with the appropriately corresponding ears to the clue they had found earlier. What made it trickier was that several of the ears were distracting in that they seemed to be made of rare or precious materials. Almost half the ears on the table were gold, silver, platinum, or jade. Chances were the whole puzzle was rigged so that if opened a box and didn't place the right ears on the statue within a set amount of time from opening the box something unpleasant would happen.

Sakura noticed the box with the appropriate ears in it, she also noticed how to open the box was simple but nonetheless annoying, the box had a micro-sized sliding puzzle where you needed to form the picture of a key, it took a bit more time than she had anticipated, mostly because of the finer movements that required her fingers only to work the slides. She managed to get the box open after few minutes of fidgeting around with the puzzle before handing the open box to Evan, who had noticed she had found what they were looking for and moved to a point between the table and the statue to better position himself for placing the ears.

Once he was handed the box, Evan placed the ears, which were carved from the stone known as aquamarine, onto the smaller statue. After he did so, both looked up to the bigger statue and saw the ears had become the fin-like ears and were colored like the ears placed on its miniature version. Both statues suddenly changed their expressions to a thankful smile and the door opened for them. The two made sure they had everything properly packed and with them and headed out the door. But before heading out, both grabbed the rest of the ears in boxes and stashed them in their bags, they might prove useful in the future, provided they don't get too frustrated with the locks and opening mechanisms.