Agnisotra: Origin Tails

I had such a nice sleep but I got woken up quite roughly. The first thing I noticed after waking up is that I was spinning and there was snow everywhere.

What is going on? But I didn't get any answer. This spinning was making me dizzy. Was this one of Agnis’ weird pranks again? I pinched my nose and took an anti-nausea potion to counter the nausea that the dizziness would evoke. After 5 minutes of spinning, it got to an abrupt halt. And the snow disappeared as well as the shell made out of frost. I assume this wasn't a prank but an impromptu defensive measure. I looked around and saw Agnis, Raishin, and Ted knocked out on the floor. I turned around and saw a big hole in the wall. I assume that was where we came from. I observed a rock wall and rubble surrounding the hole.

What did these guys do while I was asleep? Why was I asleep actually? I tried to recall when I would have fallen asleep but I can't remember. I inspected this big open space and it was hard to imagine that this is a subterranean area. We were still underground right? I try to advance but the dizziness throws me to the ground. I waited till my dizziness receded and dragged my buddies to the side, covered them in a shadow cloak, and hid them with a shadow wall. I also left a shadow clone in there with them in case they would awaken. I don't know what happened but it seemed like they went through a lot. There is a notable difference in their energy flow from before I went to sleep and now.

They used up quite a lot. I believe they will be fine but that is not my biggest issue here. A large crystal gate stands in front of me. The rest of this area shows characteristics of a subterranean space but in close proximity to the gate, crystal tiles and other crystalline structures start to populate the area. Also, the wall next to the crystal gate has crystal bricks. But more importantly, an enormous crystal golem is guarding the gate. I think it is obvious that our destination is behind this gate somewhere. I don't think Agnis would make a silly mistake like this, although he could send us sidetracked if he smelled adventure. I never really know what that guy is thinking. The golem doesn't seem to react to my presence. What I remember from Agnis’ dungeon adventure is that at least these golems here, which are made by what he calls the Corund civilization, only react to magic presence. My buddies are knocked out and in a shadow cloak and shadow wall so nothing can detect their magic presence and I keep my energy well controlled so it shouldn't detect me. Maybe it is a good thing that Raishin is knocked out, he would instantly wake up this golem. Now, since crystals are all earth-based this shouldn't pose much of an issue to me but fighting this golem and beating it is going to take me forever. Unless… I checked how much energy I had stored. I don't know how long my buddies will be knocked out and I don't want to waste time here waiting for them. I could save this energy for the guardian of the root but… [Liberation] The golem woke up before getting put back into eternal sleep.

I’m sorry for this rough awakening but I need to pass. Absorbing the lightning rain Raishin dropped on us earlier caused this [Liberation] to be the strongest one I've used yet. The golem never had a chance. As chunks of crystals covered in shadows fall to the ground, I inspect the gate. Some cracks formed in it since it partially got hit by [Liberation] but it was still intact. I hold my hand on the door and inspect it. This crystal gate is 5 meters thick. It wasn't a particularly hard crystal but a formidable barrier nonetheless. Normally this would be quite a challenge to break even for me. But since there were already cracks in this gate the only thing, I would have to do is spread these through the whole gate and the gate would come crashing down. The gate crumbled. I made a shadow umbrella as I strolled through the rain of falling crystal chunks.

What is this! Behind this gate, a floor covered in hexagonal crystal tiles spanned from halfway through this room to the end which seemed to be a crystal wall. I observed writings on the wall that I couldn't read. I didn't sense any enemies and if there were any, they weren't giving off any energy but I also didn't see anything in here. It just had the walls with writings, the floor with tiles, some crystal formations, and a... Huh? Chairs? Crystal chairs? 12 chairs made out of crystal stood in the part of this room that didn't have any tiles. I inspected them but nothing seemed off.

I sat down on one. Wow, these chairs aren't comfortable at all! They are cold and hard. Since I need Agnis to decipher these writings on the wall I’ll just have to wait till he wakes up. In the meantime, I will try to break through this crystal wall. It will be harder than the gate because I don't have anything powerful enough to crack it anymore. My hammer might since there is a high chance that sapphire is harder than this crystal is. I should read up more on crystals. I take out my hammer and approach the wall. I heard a hollow footstep sound and yellow light came from beneath me.

What is this? The first tile I stepped on went from colorless to giving off yellow light. I hope I didn't step on a bomb. I covered myself in a [Shadow cloak] and stepped on another tile. This tile was red but nothing exploded, the next tile was purple and… I got teleported to the beginning where there weren't any tiles. What! I tried to think of what happened and looked over at the writing on the wall.

Don't tell me… I got the feeling that this was one of the “obnoxious puzzles” Agnis was talking about when he was telling his story about the dungeon. I'm assuming the writings on the walls are hints to clear this puzzle of the rules of the puzzle. I approached the tiles again. When I stepped on that tile it went yellow, I recollected. I could try different tiles but I don't have enough information to figure out the rules so I shouldn't change too many variables. I stepped on the same tile as I did before. The same hollow footstep sounded and the tile turned green? Did I make a mistake? I stepped on the next tile expecting it to turn red but it also turned green, the next tile was supposed to be purple and will teleport me back. The tile turned orange and I didn't get teleported. Huh? I ran some simulations on what possibly could have happened. Are the changing of the tiles related to what time I stepped on it? The interval of time? I did have my shadow cloak on the last time so maybe that influenced it? Was it random? Were there set patterns that switched every time the floor got reset? So many options which didn't help me narrow down the rules of this puzzle.

This truly is an obnoxious puzzle. I wasn't trying to figure this puzzle out for long but I do know that this will turn out to be a very obnoxious puzzle. I took another step and the tile turned blue and I got teleported back. I don't want to deal with it so I tried something else. The walls around the tiles were made out of crystal, it wouldn't be easy to walk on it but not impossible either. I climbed up and used earth magic to walk on the crystal wall. The tiles below me still made a hollow footstep sound and turned colors, red, purple, and green, and I got teleported back. Guess I couldn't use this to cheat, how about traveling underground below the tile, I burrowed and headed towards the tiled floor but everything below the tiled floor was made out of crystal, I can't burrow through this. I went down quite deep but the crystal continued.

Ugh, so annoying. I surfaced back to the room. I had 2 more options in my head, Traversing the distance by not touching the tiles and not using magic because my assumption is that using magic to walk on the wall set off the tiles below me. Or I can try to shadow meld toward the end. I did this but got teleported back quite fast. From what I gathered I can activate at least 2 tiles before I get teleported back. I manifested my shadow and picked myself up with it. I will throw myself towards the end but if I throw myself too hard, I will crash into the wall, so I'm aiming at 2 tiles away from the wall. I won't be using magic after the throw so hopefully, this works. I'm not concerned about my landing because I'm a shadow cat and cats always land on their feet. It was quite a distance; I'm guessing it is a good 200 meters. I used my shadow to throw myself. To my horror, I saw the tiles below me light up and after lighting up 3 tiles I got teleported back. But I was still in the air and still flying forward so I continued flying forward over the tiled floor. Blue, blue, red, red, orange, and I got teleported back. This was the longest streak of tiles I had before I got sent back. I completed 5 teleports back until I landed on the floor before getting teleported back.

Ok, that did not work. So, what did I learn, for as far as I know you can't cheat this puzzle, maybe nuking the whole place would work but I would need Raishin, Agnis, or even Ted for that, the tiles seem to react to a presence, I guess. And the order of colors seems to be important, the two times I had streaks longer than 3 was when I got the same color in a row, my assumption is that the third unique color you get will teleport you back, this is paired with that the colors that the tiles turn into seem to be random. The tiles also don't seem to be magically active until they get triggered so I can't get a read on what they will turn into. I step on two random tiles which turn pink and gold. As I thought there is also no difference in the magic they give off. This is truly an obnoxious puzzle. I did more couple of tests. I couldn't find out any more hidden rules. The longest streak I could manage was 7, I got 3 greens, 3 yellows, and a white tile before getting sent back. Alright, I'm fed up with this, it is time to wake up my buddies. Maybe Raishin’s intuition, Agnis' insight, or Ted's wisdom will help us out here. I tried waking them up but they wouldn't wake up. I shook them, held a potion that could wake people up with its scent under their nose called out to them but they were still knocked out. I was quite annoyed at this point by the puzzle so I picked them up with my shadow, walked towards the tiled floor, and threw them over the tiled floor. Well, that is surprising they flew 1 tile in and got teleported back. It looked quite weird because they kept flying in 1 tile before getting teleported back before they hit the ground. I guess only 1 person can do this puzzle because, at 3 unique tiles, you get sent back regardless of who triggered it.

After hitting the ground my buddies woke up. Ouch, my back. Ugh did I fall out of bed again? I had a terrible nightmare. Sup sleepy heads mind helping me out with this? Raishin rubbed his eyes.

What? It's just a floor. He walked over to the floor and triggered a white, blue, and green tile before getting teleported back.

What? Oh, I know what this is! This is an obnoxious puzzle! Glad you catch on quick; I've been dealing with this for the last hour while you guys were napping. Putting in the good work, so how can we help. I explained to them what I found out about this puzzle.

I see, I don't want to disappoint you but the writing on the wall isn't helpful, it reads: see if you can beat this puzzle! And have fun wasting your time! The other messages are something similar to this. Wow, they are totally mocking us, Let's blow up this place! Yeah, I have had enough of this puzzle, normally I'm against this but this puzzle needs to go. Uhm hello guys? Are you forgetting that we are deep under a mountain? Do you want to bring the mountain down on us?

Ted has a point; we might also blow up some cool treasures. You and your treasures aren't you rich eno… I cover my mouth as I looked at Raishin. I forgot that we can't let Raishin know that Agnis is rich else he will constantly nag to get useless stuff bought for him. Luckily, he was distracted by trying out the puzzle.

Hey, Agnis can’t you disrupt this teleport? It is annoying. Well, I’d like to but I can't figure out where it is coming from, I will need to know what the source is. I could try to teleport to the end though, I don't think Greg could try this. Hmmm, my ping gets sent back to my location so I can teleport but only to the same spot, I'm already at. How about that switching thing you did earlier?

I would need something to switch with, oh look some chairs! It is no use whatever you throw will still set off the tiles and teleport it back. Agnis threw the chair and it landed 15 tiles further but didn't trigger any tiles.

Whud? See? Easy! He swapped with the chair but all the tiles between him and the start suddenly lit up and he got teleported back. You were saying?

Hmm well, that was too bad but we did learn something. Which is?

Can you make a rock for me? I made some rocks for Agnis. We were in a cave but after he asked that I realized that this cave was really smooth and clean, there were no loose lying rocks or anything anywhere, which is quite strange. Agnis threw the rock over the tiled floor but the rock got sent back to the start after triggering 3 unique colored tiles.

Huh? Why did the rock get sent back, the chair was doing fine. These chairs might look like a different crystal but they have the same composition as those tiles. I'm assuming the chairs are part of this puzzle. I don't have a clear idea of how to use them though. Can you see anything special about those tiles?

Not really, they look like normal crystals when inactive but when lit up they give off the same energy. Yeah, I came to the same conclusion. I guess we really can't cheat our way through this.

But cheating and loopholes are something different! Aren’t those basically the same?

So, when you threw us, we all triggered our own tiles right? Yeah.

What if one of us carries the other 3 and at the 2nd unique color and 3 of us jump off to 1 tile as the one carrying gets teleported back! Is that even going to work? And what if we run out of “bodies” the ones at the start cant rejoin. Is that so? Does the floor reset when there are still tiles lit up? Agnis made an interesting point here. If the floor didn't reset the ones at the start could take the same route back.

But what about the chairs? I don't know but we might have to bring all of them with us and try and figure out how to use this. Is there any chance that someone that doesn't have as many tails as you guys to carry stuff around could clear this puzzle?

There probably is but as the wall would say it is probably a waste of time. I don't think they would make an impossible puzzle but it is still here to protect something so they could just make it a huge waste of time to discourage invaders.

You can't brute force this with numbers either since technically only 1 person could be on the puzzle at all times. So, one of us carrying the other to only have 1 on the floor is your loophole? Yes. Well, nothing will happen by just debating so let's try it out. Agnis got all his tails out and picked up 7 chairs, and Raishin took out 5 tails and picked up the rest.

Why aren't you stashing them in your dimensional pocket? So, the skill I use to swap things is called Turning leaf, it is a spacetime-attributed skill. When I used it to swap with that chair, I got a very nasty feeling as if something big and powerful was staring at me. I don't know what it is and I don't want to find out. My dimensional pocket is also spacetime-attributed so it might do the same. Moreover, we have more than enough tails to carry these, so if you would be so kind to carry us, Ted? Ted picked us up, I was holding Raishin up with a tail and Agnis was getting piggybacked by Raishin since he is the lightest.

Right here we go! Red, red, red, orange. So, we jump now? Go 2 more tiles.

You sure? You are doing something funny again aren't you Agnis? I'm running probability manipulation I can only guarantee the next 2 tiles though, this is quite tiring. 2 more orange tiles, and as Ted makes a step to the next time, I jump off to another. Ted gets teleported back but we stay on our tile. The path Ted made disappeared but we were still standing on our purple tile.

So, if we can abuse this why do we need these chairs? I can't keep using this forever and I guess carrying others through this whole puzzle isn't a viable option either so we will have to find out the role of these chairs sooner or later. Wait isn't Ted going to trigger the teleport the moment he steps on an orange tile?

Oh. As Ted steps on the orange tile, he gets teleported back. Right, Greg, you have a free tail left right? Can you throw these chairs on the tiles that are supposed to be orange? I realized what Agnis' plan might be and I took some chairs from Agnis and threw them on the 3 orange tiles. Ted walked over to the tiles, looked at the chairs, and climbed on the chair.

Oooh, that tile didn't light up! Take the chair with you after you climb on the next and throw it at us, We will need to use these a lot. We gained a color but maybe we should have made him come here all the way on the chairs since one mistake will send us all back. How is the probability manipulation going? I looked at Agnis and it seems he was getting quite tired. I don't think we can clear this puzzle by relying on probability manipulation. It is an overpowered ability, it helped us stick together after we got sold off but it doesn't seem like anything he could use in a practical sense.

I think we need another method; we can't rely on probability manipulation. We have 12 chairs how about we just string them together and make a path toward the end? That almost sounds too easy but let's try that. Raishin threw 5 chairs forward but when these landed the empty tiles that Ted used chairs to climb over lit up red and the tiles under the chairs went purple.

Uhh is this supposed to happen? Something tells me there is a mechanic that prevents us from doing that. Since the tiles were lit up, we walked over to them and collected the chairs. It seems as long as a path is made it doesn't matter how many people walk on it. We were 11 tiles in and already used up 2 unique colors.

Does setting tiles off with magic count? Raishin said as he fired off a lightning bolt at the next tile You idiot don't! The tile turned orange but we didn't get teleported.

Alright! Let's nuke the place! But Agnis stopped him before I could stop him. Even this might have rules, it could be limited to only the tiles next to us, obviously nuking the whole place would make this too easy if it would reveal all the tiles.

Ugh, why do you have to make so much sense! But hmm does that mean I have to blast the tiles nest to that orange one or this purple one here? I don't know…

I'm going to zap all the tiles next to this purple one then! There were a lot of different colors but there was one that was orange which was adjacent to our purple path and connected to the other orange tile. Do you think this is starting an orange path? But we already used up two colors. Right, let's try this! Agnis threw a chair at a tile next to the tile which would follow the direction of this hypothesized orange path if it would continue. The tile turned orange and turned the red and purple paths we made orange.

Well, I guess that is 1 problem gone. So reckless… Well, if it works, I won't complain. We kept zapping close-by tiles until eventually, the orange trail ended 5 tiles later. We needed a new color to transition to but there didn't seem to be anything that looked like it would start a new trail.

Hmm, I thought these rules we came up with were crystal clear but it seems we didn't tile up all of them. Is it me or are your puns getting worse? Hmm no visible path, we can't use the strategy we used at the beginning because we don't have enough chairs to make a path here.

Hmm, we do have 2 colors though since everything is orange now. Or we just throw a chair! Raishin threw a chair to a random spot but nothing happened.

Hmm I was expecting it to turn everything from there to here orange. You might be right but something is missing. Agnis jumped to the tile next to the chair which was between our path and the chair. The tile turned blue and so did the tile the chair was standing on. He pushed the chair 1 tile further and the tiles between us and him turned blue.

There you go! Isn't the rest also supposed to turn blue? Maybe only when we have 1 color left. I was wondering what I could do to help out and I got struck with an idea. I matched the structure of the chairs and made 3 small golems with [Crystal Golem]. I wonder if these are invisible to the puzzle.

Hey, wait! If something goes wrong, we will get teleported back! I look back and we were halfway in so it would be irresponsible to cause us to be teleported back due to a mistake.

Let's try to make this all 1 color so Greg can test his crystal nuggets! They aren't crystal nuggets they are golems!

But they are so small! Do they have names?

This one is Nugglet, this one is Nuggduo and this one is Nuggtrio. Hey, don't give them weird names! Agnis threw a chair after Raishin zapped some tiles and turned the tile trail green. Gogo Nugglet!

Don't lose out Nuggduo! They both looked at Ted. What?

Come on cheer on Nuggtrio else he will get lonely! Why? Can’t you, do it?

I already cheered on Nuggduo! You want me to cheat? Ugh fine, go Nuggtrio. You gotta add more enthusiasm to it!

GOGO NUGGTRIO! Hey, you don't need to yell! Nuggtrio, no wait I'm getting dragged into this nonsense, my third golem dashed off!

What! Hey, golem listen to me! Hey, isn't this bad if this doesn't work, he will just trigger a lot of colors. I managed to stop my third golem but not after it dashed over 3 tiles, luckily it didn't trigger the colored tiles. Wow, nice job Ted, you almost sent us back to the start! Ted and Raishin started to argue which broke out into a fight.

Just ignore those idiots. You know that you are partly to blame too, right?

I have no idea what you are talking about. Agnis said while he shrugged and took over Raishin’s job of zapping tiles. I am going to send these toward that wall at the end to investigate, I can't keep these active for too long because nausea will catch up to me. Progress was slow but steady. The golems didn't discover anything useful so I canceled the magic and took another anti-nausea potion.