Solving the Puzzle: Part 1

Marsha led Ulnarka and Ariana over to the pieces and directed them on how to arrange the configurations she figured were most likely; this probably made things a bit easier than breaking the pieces into groupings based on what kind of part of the statues they were. It would take them a while to properly arrange things. Meanwhile, Molsakisa was giving a crash course in the basics of magic and arcane practices.

“Okay,” said Marsha after they finished arranging the sets in the way she thought was most likely, “let’s go over a few things to see if we can figure out what set goes where.”

“Seems reasonable,” said Ulnarka, “what do we know about all of these platforms?”

“Well,” said Ariana, “judging by our group meeting a few minutes ago, each platform has a plaque; Jonah said something about the central platform’s plaque referencing a heroic character; if I’m recalling things properly.”

“I guess we worded things a bit too poorly,” said Marsha, with a hint of amusement. “We noticed each of the plaques references a narrative archetype, archetypes that typically show up in a certain genre of stories. That genre, in the world we come from, is called ‘Fantasy.’ As an example, this world would fall into the Fantasy genre; of course, it would also fall into the ‘Erotica’ genre, and that genre is defined more by its sexual content than anything else, it’s commonly referred to as ‘Pornography,’ which is commonly abbreviated as ‘Porn.’ But that’s all a discussion for another time. One of the more popular narrative archetypes in the Fantasy genre is the ‘Hero,’ which is usually defined as a figure that comes in and saves the day with far less effort than everyone else and can meet seemingly impossible challenges head-on with little to no effort. Now, while that is typical for the Hero, it’s not always the case; just usually. And usually, when the Hero is a group, commonly referred to as a ‘Party,’ they can usually do what the rest of the party can do almost as well, just as good or better than most of their own party members. But keep in mind, this is a narrative archetype; it almost never reflects a real person.”

“I get it,” said Ariana, “the ‘Hero’ is supposed to look pretty at almost all times and almost always looks good doing whatever they’re doing.” After a moment of thinking, Ariana said, “I remember some styles of literature and entertainment arrived and became highly popular a few years after the last Alpharian appeared in this world. Anyway, what are the other archetypes that were noticed? Where do you think they should go?”

“Well,” said Marsha, “the corner platform to the left of the door we came in through made a mention of a ‘Healer’ archetype, likely a priestess or Druid or Medical practitioner; the corner in the right on the same side of the room as that one made a reference to a ‘Mage’ archetype, so something like a Wizard, or Sorcerer, or Warlock, or the like; the far right corner on the other side of the room makes a reference to a ‘Warrior’ archetype, so someone with a similar discipline to Ulnarka; and the platform in the far right corner makes mention of ‘Rogue’ archetype, the way the plaque words things makes it sound like it’s supposed to be someone skilled in the arts of subtlety and espionage, which usually means a Rouge archetype, or maybe some kind of Ranger. Basically, the four in the corners around the room are archetypes that are supposed to be there to support the ‘Hero’ archetype in the center of the room.”

“I think I get it now,” said Ulnarka, “we need to discern which one of these sets best matches each of the five archetypes in the room and basically assemble the statues in the proper order on the pedestals; I guess that’s why I saw a peg on the top of one of the platforms, it’s supposed to be where we secure the base of the statue to the pedestal.”

“Does anyone have any ideas on what any of the collections could be,” inquired Jonah.

“Let me see,” said Molsalkisa as she headed over to the pile nearest to her, “as the scholar of the group, I believe I am the best equipped to take on this part of the challenge. This could take a while, after I identify what I think each of the piles could be, I’ll direct you all as to where the pieces need to go.” After a few minutes sifting through the pile she went over to, Molsalkisa said, “I can see why this is such a problem, it would easier if some of the pieces were a bit more defined or bigger. That said, I think the pieces here make up the form of a ‘Mage’ archetype, amusingly enough. The only problem here is how fragmented all the pieces are.”

“In some Fantasy Role Playing Games,” said Trisha, “some mage archetype classes have access to a spell that can mend small items and remove minor cracks in larger items; if our party mage has access to that spell, after each of the key body parts are assembled, she can use that spell to fix up and secure the pieces as larger and more homogenized pieces.”

“That would allow us to better see the component pieces of the statues,” said Molsakisa, she made a quick look of recalling something, “when I inspected the pieces I got the impression someone broke them more than necessary. My guess Someone made it to this room ages ago, got frustrated with the puzzle and decided to make it more difficult for whoever came after them.”

“If that’s true,” said Trisha, “then, what happened to the party responsible for complicating the puzzle to this point? This chamber is basically barren, only the components of the puzzle are here”

“Maybe a monster wondered through the room and made off with the remains,” said Ulnarka, “we are taught in our basic safety classes on dealing with dungeons that monsters aren’t always constrained by movement options we do within dungeons.”

“I think I do have a spell for fixing things,” said Molsalkisa, “it will probably take some time to get the pieces back to the state they should be… hopefully, not more than half an hour for each pile.” She then went over to her bags and pulled out a pair of load stones before returning to the pile and started doing a series of arcane gestures and chanting before brining her free hand to the pile.

After a moment, some of the pieces of the pile collected together to for a humanoid hand. She continued the process for a few minutes and got the rest of the pieces into more defined pieces, the hands being part of the arms. It looked like her assessment of the pile was correct, the twelve or so pieces of the statue that the pile had become the pieces of a surprisingly well-endowed rabbit woman dressed almost identically to Trisha, you could even see reliefs in the attire that had dragon iconography on them in addition to wisps of magic that could be plugged into different parts of the statue.

“Well, I didn’t expect to see a busty bunny, but here we are,” said Jonah as they finished the placement of the statue’s pieces. “Let’s see what the rest of the piles really look like.” Molsalkisa nodded and went over to the next of the piles closest to her.