The Masked Woman's Request

"What the-" As soon as she pressed the final button, a loud sound was heard around them. And close by, a patch of the ground began to 'open', revealing underneath what appeared to be a set of stairs. "Aha, we struck gold, Madam Cinq!" It was a bit early to sing victory, but at the same time, they managed to overcome one of the many trials this dungeon threw at them. Surely the future ones would be more challenging, but he had no doubt that he and Mirai would be able to overcome them.

Carefully, he stepped out of the pedestal, and headed towards the stairs, as he took a look at the bottom below. The depth was remarkable, as he couldn't see the floor from the very top. "We might need to be very careful. I can't seem to determine the bottom at a mere glance, so it seems we might need to start climbing down." He said, hand on his face as he observed the stairs thoughtfully, before taking the first step.

The first of many, as the steps just kept coming and coming the more they descended. Just in case it would come at a later puzzle, he counted the steps, and for every hundred steps they touched upon, he looked rather perplexed. He had the stamina to keep going, but it didn't change the weariness of having to climb down so many steps. And that's the thing: Down. Would they have to climb them back up once they are done? He hoped not. But after the arduous trek, they reached the very bottom, with a torch waiting for them to illuminate the way. "Phew... at last. Solid ground." He huffed, as he took the torch with him, allowing them to use it as a source of light for their trip. Their first stop was a big room, with the only thing of interest being a stone chest at the middle. But before he could step into the room to try and read it, he looked around. "Madam Cinq, can you see if there's any traps around us? For there to be only one piece of stone chest in the middle seems... conspicuous."

Mirai instinctively stepped back after pressing the button, and the reveal of a way down only made her smile contentedly.

"Excellent work, Herr McCrae," she said. "And I agree. We should proceed with as much precaution. But you shouldn't worry about me. I'm more than capable of handling myself."

Mirai had allowed Goibniu to lead the way, mostly because he was the one who had the source of light with him. Oddly enough, Mirai hadn't bothered to try casting any marks in order to light their way with ease, but that was something that didn't matter by the time they got to the bottom. The descent had been a long one and the revelation of what was underneath, a tad underwhelming, with nothing but a torch and engraved writing. However, it did eventually lead to a much larger room with a chest in the middle.

When Goibniu requested Mirai to observe if there were any traps, the golden-haired young woman nodded. Instead of asking the Enkidu to hand over her torch, Mirai instead pulled out a small silver orb from one of her vest pockets and pressed on it lightly. A bright blue light glowed from the inside which provided a faint but steady light around her. She examined in more detail around her, paying close attention to the walls, floor, and the area around the chest, and maintaining a five feet distance from it. Before she'd step closer, she'd wait to see what her perception brought her.

Mirai's close inspection of the area would allow her to notice that a few spots on the ground had scattered specks of sand, and that the lower half of the wall was much smoother than the upper half, which appeared more rugged. There was also what seemed to be outlines of panels throughout the room; six per wall, three at ground level and three where the upper and lower halves split each.

To Goibniu's surprise, Mirai had a source of light in the form of a tiny orb that provided a source of light for them to use. The light allowed them to observe the finer details of the room, and while Mirai was doing her observations, so was Goibniu, carefully following every step she took that didn't trigger a trap.

The dirt covering some spots of the floor, the strange formation of the walls, and the appearances of the panels made him curious as to what kind of puzzle they are dealing with. "One, two, three..." He began counting, pointing towards every single panel present in the room. "Twenty-four panels? That's quite an increase compared to last time." He noted, as he went towards the stone chest in the middle to read the plaque.

The words written in the stone were... Actually pretty non-intuitive, as he looked around in a confused manner. "These instructions seems to be rather obscure. Either there is something I am missing here, or it's actually meant to be some sort of welcome sign for anyone here, and the real instructions lie somewhere else. What do you think, Madam Cinq?"

Upon hearing Goibniu's commments, Mirai merely scoffed.

"These instructions sound little more than a bluff if I were to guess," she said as she examined the room.

Indeed, there were twenty-four panels. The difference in texture was not lost to her between the upper portion of the wall and the lower portion. The specks of sand suggested to her that at one point one portion of the room had perhaps been filled or covered with sand at some point.

"If we are going to take this puzzle seriously, we'll need more to work with," she said. "The writing says something about hope lying within. Perhaps something is within the chest? It says it might come at a cost, so please keep an eye out."

Mirai would take a few steps closer to the chest, wary of anything on the ground that might trigger a trap. Before even attempting to open it, she'd note if there was anything particularly notable on the chest for clues. If not, she'd nimbly try to pry off the lid to see what could possibly be inside.

Nothing happened as Mirai made her way to the chest, but as soon as she opened it far enough to create a gap wide enough to see inside, the pair would hear a rumbling noise as the upper panels on the walls and a few panels on the ceiling - too high to be discernible from the floor - began to slide open, sand streaming into the room through all but one of them. The one directly opposite the way they came in opened, but produced only darkness. At the rate the sand was falling, it would take a couple of minutes to completely cover the chest and about four times as long for the room to fill completely.

Inside the chest, Mirai would be able to see that it didn't actually have a bottom; instead it covered a part of the floor along with a protruding panel with a picture of a dove on it. The panel looked like it could be pushed down if someone stepped on it, but one would have to enter into the chest to do so.

"Do be careful madam, we don't know the extent of the architects' ingenui-" Goibniu began, when suddenly a strange noise began covering the room as Mirai peered inside the chest. The panels from before began sliding open, pouring sand inside of the room. His mind clicked, as he realized that the stream of sand seemed constant and non-stop, would that mean that the room will get filled with it?

"Oh no, we must have triggered a trap!" He said, as he began turning around, trying to see if there was another change in the room. He noticed one of the panels was opened, yet no sand was pouring in, making him awfully curious about what it may hide. "Madam, can you see anything inside the chest that might help?" He said, as he walked quickly to the streamless panel, in an attempt to see if there was something there that could aid them.

Seeing panels slowly open and sand gush in, Mirai couldn't help but smirk.

"Finally, something interesting," she said. "That explains the sand we saw earlier. But you're right, we should get going."

Using her hand, she felt the chest and inspected it. It was indeed empty, but definitely pushable. She tapped Goibniu's shoulder and then shoved her parasol in hands.

"Hold this for a moment, will you?" she said.

Lifting her skirt, she raised one leg and forcefully pressed down on the panel inside the chest hoping that it would give.

As Mirai stepped on the panel, three things would happen all at the same time. All of the panels higher up on the walls and ceiling would close, stopping the flow of sand that was encroaching on the pair's knees. Meanwhile, the panels at ground level on the walls, as well as thin slots scattered throughout the floor, opened and began to drain the sand away.

Finally, and unfortunately for Mirai, as soon as she pressed down on the panel inside the chest, the chest slammed shut, the lid closing down hard directly on her thigh and pinning her in place. The lid appeared to be connected to the panel inside, and would not budge as long as it was pressed down.

As he tried to look at the empty panel, Mirai asked him if he could her parasol for a moment, something which threw him off for a moment. What was she planning to do? "Oh, alright." He said, as he looked at how she tried to place one of her feet inside the chest, making him understand what her goal was.

Her pressing the panel inside caused the flow of sand to stop, and even began the process of draining as the sand already in the room to flow away. However, the chest suddenly shut closed, trapping her foot! "Madam! Are you okay?" He said, as he ran towards the chest, inspecting the object in order to find a way to open it, outside of just pulling the lid.