entrancelogs | + Your imagination can't hurt you! +

Maybe. It...maybe.

[There's usually only one thing that it could mean, the screech of distortion blaring across an otherwise blank screen. It's just a hunch. But given everything he knows, everything he's lived through, he imagines it's a pretty damn good one.]

That. That right there. [He indicates the burst of static on the television with a fluttery wave of his hand.] It gets worse every time we mess up. I dunno how many more tries we get before it -

[He cuts himself off. Before it stops screaming outside, and starts screaming in their heads, maybe?]

[That's one way to take away the brute force option. Zacharie stares at the static on the TV and wonders how something that simple can scare him. He's got a good demonstration here, the NPC assumes. Whatever It was, it put the fear of God into Tim.]

Then we should take a break and think. Unless it decides to break the rules, I do not see why we shouldn't invent our own.

[Regardless, he's going to just stare at all the writing that they've done. There were letters and numbers. Something was to translate into a six number combination that didn't begin with either 1 or 4. So what were they missing?]

All right. Yeah. Let's...

[He trails off. He's...gonna sit down, he thinks. Sit down against the wall and close his eyes against the incipient headache that's wheedling its way into his skull, and just...just think.

It's hard to think with that continuous tone, that pitch, drilling its way into his brain. But isn't it always? Isn't it always?

Usually, yeah.]

I just...dunno how to whittle it down to six numbers. I thought we solved it. We solved it.

[Not Safe wasn't exactly pleasant noise to listen to and the hum of the TV wasn't helping. Although as Tim said, the soundtrack isn't really a worry. Just a background noise to something much worse.

Zacharie still didn't know. He didn't want to know. But panicking won't do him any good here. Just breathe. Slightly fatalist attitude aside, he wasn't done just yet.]

Is there a way to put these numbers into others?

[Zacharie was speaking a bit more frank than usual but they were in danger, so doing a run-around is useless.]

[He needs to get hold of himself. He needs to stop panicking or hovering on the edge of panic and he needs to pull himself together and just - and just think. He grits his teeth, eyes screwing shut, shutting out the brightness of the room's blinding white backdrop.]

I don't...there's gotta be something we're missing, right? Some hint or, or something.

[He scrambles over to the wall containing their combined calculations and scrawls, assessing the original strings of numbers.]

Maybe we just...take the ones that repeat most often?

[Zacharie nods and then after a quick count, writes the whole thing down so nothing's missed:

0: 8 1: 17 2: 9 3: 3 4: 4 5: 12 6: 7 8: 2 9: 7]

From highest to lowest, they are...one, five, two, zero, six and nine, three, and eight. The numbers that appear most often are one, five, zero, two, six and nine.

[To be safe he writes down those as well before moving to another clean wall. Zacharie doesn't bother saying anymore out loud and just continues to write:

High to low: 1 5 2 0 6/9 Low to high: 6/9 0 2 5 1

[So now they have exactly six numbers. But the question is which one? High first or low, and where do the 6 and 9 go?]

[Oh god. And that's assuming this is, any of this, right. What if it's not? What if it's just a red herring, trying to get them to pursue an entirely false clue?

Breathe. Breathe. He stares at the list of numbers, trying to figure if there's some sort of message there, in how frequently they show up.]

So if we just...take out the high numbers, that leaves us with fewer combinations, since we can't use seven, eight, or nine.

[That's still way too many options. It's like trying to guess the combination of a gym locker.]

[The thought isn't illogical. This puzzle seemed to rely on making them second-guess everything they come across, almost as if this was meant for more than just two people. Took OFF's puzzle mechanics and made them much more complex. Still, he writes it down to stay calm.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 high to low: 1 5 2 0 6 low to high: 6 0 2 5 1]

I am unsure if we need zero as well. Normally the confirm button is the last in the sequence and while it could count as zero here, it would be unusual for a puzzle from my world to be ordered this way.

[Sure it could be another way to screw with them, but better to throw out every theory they've got, right?]

Maybe the second one, then? Since it doesn't start with one or four.

[Things are already off-kilter here. Bending the rules, lying about the rules - that'd be consistent with the message this whole room is sending them, wouldn't it?

He thinks of Brian - because he can't help it, because the numbers have his touch written all over them, because he has to wonder if this is how it felt for him, every day of his life. Trying to crack an unsolvable puzzle, all the while not knowing which pieces were lies.]

[It would. Perhaps that was this room's message to the NPC: "No script, no rules, no need for you." But that was getting more dark than what Zacharie wished to dwell on. Instead he writes.

6 0 2 5 1 6 2 5 1

Zacharie taps the pen against the back of his hand before speaking.]

Aside from the one, this contains numbers we have not tried, plus one is the last in sequence. Do you believe that this can be lowered any farther?

I don't...

[Another furtive glance in the television's direction. How long do they have? Is there a time limit?

Either way, if they don't try something, they're gonna be stuck here for a long, long time.

Tim breathes in, shakily. There's not a lot of options here unless they just try to whittle everything down to its lowest common denominator - and there's no guarantee that'll get them anywhere they haven't gotten before.]

All right. Yeah. Let's try it.

[This time Tim's the one who pitches to his feet. Maybe he's got to be the one to touch the cubes in order?]

[Luckily the static hasn't changed since their little break. However it's probably best not to push your luck with that thing, right?

But yeah, it comes down to 'try this again or starve to death while listening to creepy ambiance'. Since this was functionally what waited for Zacharie back home, he was used to the sounds. But Tim probably doesn't want to die like this and that's probably a good thing.

The NPC steps away from the blocks. It also makes sense if it turns out that Tim has to do it. He's a protagonist, not Zacharie. Can't play your own game.]

Agreed. I will be here if you have any questions or need a refresher.

[Good luck.]

[The breath is tight and rasping in his lungs, tense and without reprieve. He needs to not screw this up. If this is his personal horror that's stalking them, and he's positive that it is now, then this, some of this - it's on him. It's on him, on his traitor mind.

He taps the box Zacharie designated as the sixth one.

It bobs up and down on the spot, idly, and the sound doesn't increase.

Six. Six is right. All right.

He moves onto the next. Two. Five. One. All three cubes begin to bounce up and down as soon as he touches them through no mechanism he can see, and his heart starts to pound with an intensity that makes his chest ache.]

Is that it?

[He moves to the confirm block and depresses it.

The cubes all snap back into stillness, and the static ramps upwards in pitch.]

[He's about to confirm Tim's comment when the static screeches and the NPC presses his hands against his mask and breathes heavily. An extreme reaction for him but whatever was coming after them warranted it. There's a full minute before Zacharie answers.]

No, it seems not. We are correct up until a certain point.

[The sequence is correct, the confirm button is not used at this point. So what are they missing this time?]

[Damn it. Damn it. They're missing something. And Zacharie looks -

He looks more unsettled than Tim's ever seen him look. That might not be saying much, seeing as the guy wears that damn mask all the time, but he doesn't answer right away, and his tone is all wrong, and his hands are over his mask.

Breathe, breathe. He has to breathe. He has to sort this out. He needs to make sure this doesn't kill them both.]

So we're - we're missing a number. Or - or two numbers?

[He's -

hearing a continuous tone.]

[Zacharie breathes until he feels slightly calmer and, ha, guess he can feel some measure of fear. But he pushes away because it doesn't matter so there's no need to make it worse. At the very least the NPC can't transform into a Burnt. Don't have to worry about adding an impromptu boss fight here.

He straightens up and drops his hands before turning to their work.]

Perhaps! However at least it appears we are on the right track. The sequence reset after you pressed the confirm button so there are indeed one to two numbers missing.

[Any more math they can toss at this?]

[It's usually six numbers, he'd said. So they can do six numbers. Six-two-five-one, that took them farther than they've been getting thus far. If they can keep going, if they can find the last two numbers, then they can get out of here before something - happens.

Before something really, really bad happens.]

Maybe the numbers that didn't appear as often. Which ones appeared the most after those four?

[He's grasping at straws, but he's got nothing else to make a grab for.]

[Grasping at straws still meant there was something to grab. The NPC turns to that particular bit of writing, running a finger down the markings on the eerily pristine wall. Let's see here...]

Six, two, five and one are the first. For the rest, in order from highest to lowest, are nine, four, three and eight.

[So they had four more numbers to play around with before they run out of chances and that thing comes and does....whatever it is the Operator likes doing. Joy.]

And - nine and eight are too high. Right?

[Fuck. There's too many choices, and not enough time. If It comes, there's no guarantee they'll make it out alive. And he's not - he's not stupid, all right, he knows It's always been inside him and will continue to be, even if he's a world away, but he's got, patently, no goddamn clue what It would or even could do here.]

Correct. That leaves us with four and three.

[He writes it down to give him something to do, writing a script for him to follow. Easier that way. But anyways...

6 2 5 1 4/3]

Okay. So we...two more tries, right? Just give us two more tries.

[He fires the last words in the vague direction of the television screen, though at this point he's not sure anything can really hear him. Maybe it's pointless. Reasoning with the thing was always pointless.

Maybe it'll give Zacharie a bit of hope, right? The guy's pretty damn near unflappable most days. Now that he's not, Tim's decided that he's - more than a little worried.

He moves out across the spread of cubes, tapping the same order out as before. Six. Two. Five. One.

He hesitates, torn between the two choices. Four and three, or three and four?

He picks three.]

[ w̳͛ͅr̲ͪͅo͏͐̚ń͉̫ğ̣᷾ c̢͆̾h͔̼̓o̼ͭ̕i̺᷈ͮc̷̃ͤḙ̕͞.͏̖̝ ]

[Again, he's about to comment on it when he's cut off by the screech of static that blends in with the whisper of those voices. Right then Zacharie knows something is wrong. It suddenly feels like something is clawing its way out of his throat. It's--]

A̶̡h̴.͘

[In his voice. Scratchy. Terrible. Impur--no. Being a living video game character was probably isn't helping the NPC's case and he wants to yank off his mask and get to that itch down his throat. But he can't. Not here, not with Tim around. When he's alone. With Sugar. Not here.

Not safe. They were going to die here. And Zacharie...ahhaha, well. He already was dead, wasn't he? It didn't matter. It didn't matter. It did͞n'͟t ̕matt͞e̡r.͘ ̷It d҉idn't͢ ma̴ttȩr̸.͏

HELP

The merchant doubles over from a sudden coughing fit. Zacharie can't see it right now, but he knows that thing was there, something black and impossibly tall tainting the pure space. This was it, wasn't it? Game Over and all that.

And all Zacharie can find within himself is to laugh. Here we go!]

[It's here.

He doesn't need to see It to know It's there. It's the familiar pressure on his brain, the wail and blaze of a continuous tone cutting unevenly through the air, the way he starts to cough, thick and heavy. It feels more and more like something's about to get dislodged in his chest.

He ends up on his knees.

He ends up -

He can see It. It's like a sliver of a nightmare made manifest, black and white and faceless and staring at the both of them, and he can't -

It doesn't have eyes It doesn't have eyes but It doesn't need eyes It doesn't need them to w͖aͪt̚c̭h̑ h̥̙ͮͯͩ᷃͢i̢̟͈̰̭͘͞m̡͇̭̩ͥͮ͜.]

P-please.

[Please.

Please just - end it.

That's when his consciousness plunges into blackness with a high, bright, severing snap.]

[Zacharie can't hear Tim's pitiful request because he's laughing too hard, because that's what he defaults to all the way until the end. He has that moment to morn and think that nothing mattered when Sugar dies because at that moment it really didn't. More so than usual.

But we needn't dwell on what the merchant thinks. Eventually he stops laughing and coughing and falls to the ground. There's nothing to be seen here. He can't focus - or just simply didn't want to - on the thing before them. Instead Zacharie just lets go, riding out whatever bit of consciousness left by staring at nothing until it all went black.

...but...whoever wakes up first will find a little prize waiting for them. The door's open. Well, it makes sense, doesn't it? Even that monster could lie and those puzzles didn't kill people.

It's just a game, after all.]

+ Your imagination can't hurt you! +

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