As they continued searching the room for clues, Cassius grumbled.
"Would have been nice if they gave us a clue of some kind."
Cal chuckled as he scanned the books on a nearby shelf.
Aiden looked up from where he had been searching through the box from before.
"They did," Aiden said. "By telling us it's a puzzle in the first place. Besides, dungeons sometimes have things like this. What kind of adventurers would we be if we couldn't solve this?"
"The kind that doesn't like convoluted puzzles," Cassius grumbled back.
He turned away from where he had been searching and looked back to Tess, who was still frozen.
Cassius walked over to her.
"Wonder if it's one of those things where they only realize the game started when we unfreeze them," he said, "or if they're just stuck waiting while we do this stuff."
That was, in fact, an excellent question.
However, Aiden was slightly distracted by the label he had found after emptying the box, which had been filled with arrows and ammunition for guns.
Normally, the label would not say much.
But this one had a strange symbol on it.
Shipping Address: Hawthorne Mansion
Contents: Munitions Package
Provider: Devil Is in the Details Shipping
Aiden looked at the symbol.
It seemed to be the generic symbol for demons.
A triangle with horns coming out of it.
He walked over to the door across the room.
It held a circle that, from what they had gathered, needed a shape drawn on it to unlock.
Aiden traced the image as best as he could.
Then they heard a resounding click.
And the sound of a slap.
Cal, who had seen Aiden go for the door and walked over to watch, turned with him.
Cassius was on the ground.
A very angry-looking Tess stood over him, clenching her fist.
"Yes, we see everything," Tess snapped. "Now stop being all in my face."
Cassius mumbled something from the ground that sounded like an apology.
Aiden and Cal walked into the next room.
Inside, a small altar to demons had been set up.
Resting on the altar was a simple playing card with a black design and a closed eye on it. The image seemed to float and spin on one of the corners.
Cal patted Aiden on the back.
"You solved the puzzle," he said. "It's yours."
Aiden turned to the card.
Then back to Cal.
"I feel like you're also doing this to see if something happens to me."
Cal chuckled and shrugged with an expression that said, Ya got me.
Aiden rolled his eyes and walked over, grabbing the card.
The first of the twelve conceal cards has been found.
All participants of the game have been given one swap.
The first floor of the mansion has been unlocked.
Aiden made his way out of the small room and into the hallway that he could now enter.
They walked around the hall, somewhat splitting up due to their status as members of different teams.
The hallway itself formed a large L shape, with doors leading to a library, dining room, ballroom, and stairs going up and down respectively.
Walking toward any of the doors caused a small notification to appear, marking that there was a puzzle beyond the door and asking whether they were sure they wanted to enter.
Some even had a participant number requirement.
However, the big one that stood out was that they needed eight people to leave the first floor and go outside.
While entering rooms would start their puzzles, they could glance into some of them.
In the ballroom, they saw what looked to be a half-blood hawk that nobody recognized, so they assumed he must be a member of the last team, Please Don't Split.
He was locked midway through a dance with no partner, his pose frozen as if someone should have been there.
A member of Cassius's team wearing plague doctor attire, named Kraven, was frozen in the entryway with a human wearing white robes and carrying a skull staff beside him. The two were walking arm in arm, like they had been entering the ballroom together.
Lastly, the dining room had Liora.
She seemed to be greedily staring at a plate of food, a fork and knife in each hand as she crouched mid-pounce toward what looked to be a large steak.
From what they could tell, the ballroom, dining room, and library each had a puzzle due to their sealed status.
Though they were only guessing that Kraven and the man in white robes were tied to the library because of its two-person entry requirement.
So they did the logical thing.
They split up to solve their respective rooms.
Aiden headed toward the dining room.
Cassius would try to free the half-blood hawk.
Cal would work with Tess to free Kraven and the man in white robes in the library.
"Well," Aiden said, stepping through the threshold of the dining room and into the next puzzle, "let's see what we're working with here."
You have entered Puzzle Room 4: The Lord's Feast.
Mostly just to check the parameters, Aiden placed his hand in the doorway and felt the invisible wall.
He looked through it and saw Cal and Tess walking toward the library.
"Testing to see if we can communicate through the puzzle barrier!" Aiden yelled.
They did not react.
More than that, when they turned to enter the library, Aiden saw a blur where their mouths and eyes should be, probably to prevent any kind of hints.
Aiden scanned the room, looking for a starting point.
Then something on Liora's hand caught his eye.
She held a silver spoon in her right hand, the back of it polished so well it acted like a mirror.
However, as Aiden saw himself, instead of the eighteen he had before, his number was now one.
It could have happened at any time.
Maybe Cassius had switched with him.
Maybe it had been some combination of Cassius switching with Cal or Tess.
But what it showed was that Aiden had been sloppy.
Too trusting of the fact that they had been made to work together.
He had been sloppy.
And it was costing them.
Aiden quietly cursed himself and continued walking around the room.
"I know you can hear me," Aiden said aloud. "But I also know you can't move. So I'm going to explain what I know so far."
He glanced toward Liora.
"Once you're free, we won't have the luxury of privacy to talk. So use that big brain of yours to think of a plan while I solve this puzzle."
He explained the rooms.
The puzzles.
Who was awake currently.
What he knew.
All while searching the room.
Aiden noticed that a few plates had their fork and knife placed down to mark that the meal was finished.
He went around and adjusted them all to match.
When he finished, a golden card with an open eye appeared at the head of the table.
Aiden grabbed the card.
The first of the twelve reveal cards has been found.
All participants of the game have been given one swap.
The dining room has been unlocked.
Liora lurched slightly as Aiden grabbed the card.
Then she looked up at him with a knowing expression.
"We haven't gotten the message about others finishing their puzzles yet," Liora said. "So let's test some things while we're free to do so."