As the darkness receded and I opened my eyes, I knew I was no longer in any flashback or memory. My vision was crystal clear, and I felt like I was waking up to the real world. If this was a dream it was much too vivid. I was beginning to suspect it was no dream, but some kind of alternate reality into which I had somehow slipped. That was my best guess, anyway.

I was lying down on the floor. Hard, wooden floor in fact; I winced as I lifted myself up. I was in a dark and cramped room. There was one lamp, directly above me, but the glass around it was so opaquely covered with grime that it was a struggle to see by the murky, yellow light.

It appeared that I was in a hallway. The room was long, rectangular, and had several closed doors. Five doors in fact.

To the upper left, overlaying my vision, I saw some text:

To Do:

Unlock a New Area of the World

I didn’t go away once I read it, but did become very faded and hardly noticeable.

In order to unlock the World, I would have to leave this hallway, so I decided to do just that. I ran into a problem immediately. I tried all the doors, and they were all locked.

I decided to probe the doors with my mind, like the Zodiac signs. Fortunately, this gave me some results. Text appeared:

Locked!

Spend 7 EXP to unlock?

No sooner than I had read these words, I noticed my To Do List shift down slightly, to make room for more info.

EXP: 0

 

To Do:

Unlock a New Area of the World

The good news is that I knew how much EXP I had, and how much was needed to unlock one of the doors. The bad news was that I had zero EXP, and had no idea how to get some.

I checked all the doors. All required EXP to unlock, but each differed in how much.

SW Door: 3 EXP

S Door: 10 EXP

SE Door 15 EXP

NE Door: 7 EXP

N Door: 52 Exp

I felt my breath coming in ragged as I started to freak out. I didn’t like being stuck in this dark and musty hallway. Just as I was considering throwing myself bodily against some of the doors, I noticed something on the floor.

I picked it up. It was a piece of paper, yellowed and torn on one side. I thought I might have been ripped out of a book. I read the paper and realized what it was. A riddle!

Here is the riddle as it appeared.

 

The Five Ladies

 

High, high on a hill stands an Ivory Tower. Inside the tower are imprisoned five princesses: Lady Primrose, Lady Willow, Lady Heather, Lady Violet, and Lady Ivy. The princesses are held at the top of the tower. There are five consecutive doors which lead down, and out of the tower. They must be passed in the following order:

1. Wooden Door

2. Iron Door

3. Bronze Door

4. Silver Door

5. Golden Door

 

Given the following rules, which is the only princess that is able to exit the Ivory Tower and run for help?

 

Rules:

• Primrose can pass exactly one more door than Willow.

• Violet can pass through the Wooden Door.

• Heather can pass exactly one more door than Ivy.

• Ivy can pass exactly two more doors than Willow.

• Willow cannot pass the Iron Door.

A grin spread across my face. I had always enjoyed puzzles. I sat down Indian style on the floor, and began working it out. I thought to myself that if anyone were on this adventure with me, they ought to work it out for themselves before continuing.

Once I reached my answer, I confidently said it aloud. I heard a merry jingle, and a text box appeared in front of me. I carefully tucked the torn riddle page into my pocket.

Riddle: The Five Ladies (Novice Difficulty)

Complete!

• 10 EXP

 

2 Skills Unlocked!

• 8 Skill Points to Logic (Speech)
• 2 Skill Points to Coagula (Alchemy)

I was very happy that I had managed to get some EXP! I would be able to exit this hallway, and check off my first quest on the To Do list. I was also intrigued by the Skill Points (SKPs). I earned 8 towards one skill and 2 towards another. Of course, 10 EXP was the sum of 8 and 2, so I wondered if the SKPs always mirror the EXPs gained.

I noticed that my upper left now had the following info:

EXP: 10

 

To Do:

Unlock a New Area of the World

So, I reasoned out that EXP was a resource that could be used to unlock things, and maybe more. SKP was something that made me progress through different skills.

Just to the right of my to do list, I now saw a little icon in the shape of a person. Below the icon, in a very small font it said “Character Sheet.” This was probably where my Skill Points would be recorded. The SKPs I gained in Logic (a branch of the Speech Skill Tree) made sense, since I had solved a riddle. But I wasn’t sure why I gained 2 SKPs for Coagula (whatever the heck that was), although I was excited to see that it was part of a Skill Tree for Alchemy. Maybe the riddle was somehow related to the skill?

Before investigating the Character Sheet menu, I wanted to finally unlock a door. I was so impatient to get out of this hallway!

I looked over the EXP required for each door.

SW Door: 3 EXP

S Door: 10 EXP

SE Door 15 EXP

NE Door: 7 EXP

N Door: 52 Exp

With 10 EXP I could either unlock just the South door, or both Southwest and Northeast doors.

I decided to start with the lowest EXP door. As I came up to it, I saw the familiar message.

Locked!

Spend 3 EXP to unlock?

I mentally answered yes. I saw my EXP points go down to 7, and the door clicked open.

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