Hell's Bane (COMPLETED)

Chapter Twelve: Those Who Seek the Blade

Looking back one last time, Davis took a deep breath and prayed that the Scavenger wouldn't catch up to them too soon. And that wasn't even all of them. The leader knew that the Scavenger had numbers, but to come face to face with dozens of them and still know that that was only a mere fraction of it... Davis shook his head. Just what madness are we up against?

Before he could think about it more, Hugo walked forward and squinted at that writing carved on the wall. "I can make out words... feed... drink... die..." And then the explorer gave a loose smile. "I know what this is."

Davis looked at the explorer, surprised. "What?"

"I've done one of these puzzles before – and I've grown to have a liking for them. In short, you have to answer a riddle to pass. In one of the places I was trying to pass, they had several riddles. I'm not sure about this one though, but what I do know is: If you answer the riddle wrong, then the entire place collapses."

"How do you 'answer' the riddle?" Susan asked.

Hugo gestured to the desert mountain face. "I bet you can make out some letters on the wall."

Now it was Susan's turn to step closer and also squint. "I see an E, an S, a G, an I, a Z, an R, and an F. Wait, and also a B."

Hugo nodded. "It's an ingenious piece of construction. You can press the letters, and every time you push it, it triggers a mechanism that releases a different set of gears. If you push the right letters in the right order, it releases the right set of gears and lets you enter. But the moment that one wrong letter is pushed, it releases the wrong set of gears that destroys the things that hold the place up."

Drea gulped. "So what's the riddle?"

Hugo peered at the chiseled writing on the mountain, and after a moment of reading, recited: "Feed me and I live, but give me a drink and I die."

An ominous moment of silence followed, and at last, Drea asked: "Is that all?"

Hugo nodded.

"Rhea? Any ideas?"

The Blind Wanderer instantly shook her head. "If this was some physical puzzle, I could probably solve it. But this is just words, just some combination of letters to form sentences." Rhea gave a weak smile. "Sorry."

"The answer's fire," Davis suddenly said, clearing his throat. "I'm quite surprised that this riddle popped up here, actually. It was part of a story that all people in the Brimstone Faction grew up to know." The leader smiled weakly as a stab of nostalgia went through him. "Funny how these things come in the places that you'd least expect."

Susan shook her head. "I'm sure they told you the story on purpose."

"So the answer's fire, then?" Hugo asked. "Well, then you do the honors."

Davis went up to press the letters F, I, R, and E but then Drea stopped him.

"Wait...how do you know if the answer's not 'flame' or something?"

Davis looked at Hugo, who shook his head gravely. "You don't. But the answer's always one word. That narrows things down a bit."

Now, more tentatively, Davis pressed in the letters, with the sound of metal groaning and clicking with every push. Finally, after a suspenseful moment of silence, the wall opened, leaving them to walk several more feet before stopping again. On the sides, two torches were perched on the walls, making the carvings in front of them easily visible. Hugo cleared his throat.