[Mari]

The trip to the mission room was a journey in and of itself through the depths of an ancient cavern. The sounds of undead moans could be heard in the distance, giving the area a rather creepy vibe. Luckily, no such threats would be encountered on this particular day. This was a day for ... puzzles.

At the end of this journey was a room. This particular room was very large, with several floating platforms hanging above a large drop and a staircase leading back up to the beginning of the room. Three switches lay on the bottom floor that will only stay down when a large amount of weight is put on them, say 80 pounds. If one long jumps their way across the floating platforms they would make their way to the other end of the room, where an inscription written in an unknown ancient language is written and three large boulders await. The boulders are colored red, blue and green. The switches are colored yellow, pink and blue in the order they're found.

Last of all though, a young girl stood watch over the room, patiently waiting for aid. In her hand was a ball of light illuminating what it could of the otherwise pitch black room.

" . . . I miss the sun already."

[Rina]

"Then how about I be your sunshine?"

Schezo jokingly flirted, just to get a bit of a rise out of Arle. Schezo took his time descending down to where Arle stands, with his own light source to make things a bit brighter. He took a good look at the puzzle laid before him, utilizing color for the solution. Red, Green, Blue...Yellow, Pink, Blue... Schezo turned to Arle, being quite familiar with the blue-clothed sorceress.

"So this is the puzzle you require assistance on?"

One of many, I presume. If my experience in exploration meant anything, treasures never hide behind a single puzzle.

[heirtothemonado]

Shulk walked into the room with the active Monado in front of him, the laser blade lighting the way in front of him.

"So, this is the puzzle that I've been hearing about." Shulk said as he joined Arle and Schezo in the puzzle room. He surveyed the puzzle, but at first glace, there seemed to be nothing that seemed like an obvious first move.

"Hmm. This could be a bit trickier then I thought it was going to be." Shulk thought.

---

Shulk
Damage: 0%
Status: Normal

[Mari]

"Wh-What..?"

Arle's heart fluttered in response to a sudden avalanche of cheesy flirting, the apprentice mage instantly becoming quite flustered. She would've questioned who in the hell thought it was appropriate to talk to her like that, if she didn't recongize that voice almost immediately.

The mage emitted an audible whining noise, pinching the bridge of her nose as she attempted to quell the blush on her cheeks. "Y-You only spread darkness." Arle retorted rather defensively, whipping her head away and turning her back on Schezo to hide her expression so that she could buy some time to fully regain her composure. She was so flustered she couldn't even greet Shulk, unfortunately. Arle began hopping her way over to the inscription on the wall to inspect it. "There's some text here written in a language I can't read." Arle mused aloud, only to remember she had an answer for that. She pulled back for a moment. "Actually--" she began, perfoming a pirouette. In a flash of sparkly magic Arle donned ...

...A frog suit?

The frog onesie looked rather silly on Arle, complete with frog head shaped hoodie. However, the suit actually had the unique magical property of allowing her to understand every language. What a nifty little gimmick! She bent forward to inspect the text again, this time with a degree in ancient hylian.

It says... Jealousy, Despair, Vanity." Arle mused aloud. Each word was on three separate lines.

[Rina]

Schezo shrugged. It was just a harmless comment, after all.

"I jest, Arle."

While Arle translated the inscription, Schezo took a look around the boulders and buttons. The two blue ones weren't clear to him, so he took the time to look closely if they were different shades of blue. Next, he walked over to the pink one to look at its shade. After taking a look around, he put a hand to his chin and contemplated about the connection with the colors and the words. He's onto something...

They seem like they'd be the deadly sins, but...despair? What color would associate with it? Jealousy is often green, for one...

With his mental brainstorm, he felt the need to vocalize his observations. He'd keep it to himself, but honestly, that's a death wish in a puzzle room.

"I feel this puzzle asks us to weigh these buttons down with a combination that comprises of a color mixture, and our clue is the inscription Arle translated. If the inscription and these color buttons are connected, the color mixtures have to be colors connected to each of the emotions. I assume green would be the first, but what of the other two?"

[heirtothemonado]

Shulk Listened to Schezo's thoughts on the puzzle, and a thought of his own sprung to his mind.

"Well, despair is a way of conveying deep sadness, and sadness is often represented by the color blue, so maybe the blue switch and boulder go together. On the other hand, purple is a royal color, and royalty is often vain, so perhaps the blue boulder goes on the red switch instead. The green color combination seems correct, but which of these two do you think is correct?" he asked " I'm more inclined to think the purple combination, to be honest"

---

Shulk
Damage"0%
Status Normal

[Mari]

"Oh I get it..! We're matching colors! ...But then, there are multiple ways we can make green." Arle mused aloud, contemplating this. She turned to Schezo and Shulk, beginning to mix colors in her head.

"If we mix Red with Yellow, we get orange. If we mix Red with Pink, we get Magenta. If we mix Red with Blue, we get Purple." Arle went on to explain. She wasn't done yet though, as there were six other possible choices to make. "For Blue, if we mix Blue with Yellow we get Green. If we mix Blue with Pink, we get Lavender. And if we mix Blue with Blue, we just get Blue." Arle went on, pausing for a moment to let those choices in. "And... for Green... If we mix Green and Yellow, we get Lime. If we mix Green and Pink, we get ... a darker green. And if we mix Green and Blue ... we get teal." Arle finished, having just listed off all of their options for consideration. Or at least, that's how it would seem.

"Maybe we should activate the switches in the order they're listed in the inscription."

[Rina]

Schezo nodded as Arle mused aloud. Looks like everyone is on the same page, and the general consensus means the plan can be carried out.

"Seems to be the case. I suppose it requests a straight mixture of green and not a tertiary green..."

Schezo went over to the blue boulder and began pushing it towards the yellow switch. Well, tried, rather. Schezo isn't weak, but since the thing is way over his weight, it's barely budging from Schezo's muscle alone. He's visibly struggling to get it moving. He doesn't expect a mage like Arle to get it rolling, but come on!

"H-How heavy is this thing!?"

[heirtothemonado]

Shulk listened to Arle, and agreed that her logic was sound. Schezo apparently thought so too, but he was having trouble moving the boulders by himself, so Shulk gave him a hand.

Even with their combined efforts, the boulder didn't move an inch. "Sweet Bionis, how heavy is this thing?" Shulk said as he gasped for breath. "Perhaps there another way to move the boulders, aside from brute force? What do you two think?"

---

Shulk
Damage: 0%
Status: Normal

[Mari]

Arle watched the boys try to move the boulders with mild amusement, decidedly standing off to the side and not even attempting to get involved in that business. ...Not bad, not bad. She could have hired better help in this refard, but these boys--average as they were--seemed to work with more dignity than she would have expected from any of the hulking figures in the life sphere. "Now hold on." Arle snapped, asking them to wait. She considered her words carefully before speaking.

"This is a trap." Arle stated with confidence, gesturing to the boulder in question. "...Think about it. This puzzle is designed to keep us out. It probably isn't designed to be obvious, and if we mess it up something bad will probably happen." Arle lectured in a tone that suggested she knew something Schezo didn't. "I have an idea on how to make moving those boulders easier, but before we do that... Schezo! If we combine blue and yellow to make green, how will we make purple with the remaining colors?"

[Rina]

Schezo stopped himself upon hearing Arle's suspicion. Now that she mentions it, she's right; it's TOO straightforward. He briefly caught his breath, then took another look at the objects provided. Red on Blue would make a purple, but...there might be more to it than that. Schezo briefly considered other possibilities, realizing there might be a catch to the color combinations.

"There is the red boulder, but...perhaps they may take subtractive color into consideration. Rather, to look at it differently, imagine these boulders and buttons as paints on a palette. If one were to mix say, Blue and Pink as Arle mentioned earlier, it would not result in a bright lavender but a shade of violet. Continuously mixing colors would lead to a darker color, eventually leading to a rather unappealing murky mixture."

Imagining an actual paint palette, making purple doesn't simply mean red and blue; that'd be a vaguely murky violet. Though...now that Schezo thought about it again, he might be thinking too deep into this. There's also the possibility that one could simply step on green button...

"...are my thoughts over-complicating matters?"

That, or Schezo is spouting information one doesn't expect.

[heirtothemonado]

Shulk stopped what he was doing when he heard Arle's words. "She's right," he thought "this does seem to be a bit obvious. I wonder if we can take this 'outside the box', as it were"

Listening to Schezo's spiel, Shulk saw some truth to it. Red and blue make purple, but that's not the only way...

"It seems that there are multiple ways to make each color. How are we supposed to know which is right?" Shulk asked

---

Shulk
Damage: 0%
Status: Normal

[Mari]

Arle... honestly didn't grasp some of the words Schezo was using, but she did grasp that he was making a suggestion. Blue and Pink. That as enough for her to further explore this thought.

"Could there be one color we can't make any other way..? I guess not. You see why I asked for help with this, huh? ...Well, if we mix Blue and Pink... We get... vanity. That leaves Jealousy and Despair. Green and Blue. We have a Blue boulder, a green bolder, a blue switch and a yellow switch." Arle mused aloud, quirking a brow at some of her thoughts. "Would they have us mix blue and blue to make blue?" she asked, bemused by the puzzle. It was a bit harder than what she was used to.

[Rina]

"Did the puzzle explicitly tell us we have to mix two different colors for an answer?"

Loophole abuse! If that's true that is. If so then it's possible that just putting blue on blue could be one of the responses. Though he may have good thoughts, he will only follow by majority. Not cooperating will lead to some serious trouble.

[Mari]

Arle shook her head in mild frustration. "Nnno... It didn't give us any rules at all, really." she replied. It seemed like there was some amount of guesswork involved in this puzzle at the end of the day... But--If they assumed the rules they'd come up with were true... "...Did Shulk just vanish?" Arle asked. She hadn't been looking, but she now noticed that she and Schezo were alone. It wasn't the safest she'd ever felt, but eh... Schezo wouldn't--... Arle furrowed her brows, dismissing the thought from her mind.

"...Weird." Arle mused aloud."There's only one color we can mix the red boulder with to get green, blue or purple and that's the blue switch to give us purple. So that has to be correct, right?" Arle mused aloud. "Despair would be a darker shade of blue, wouldn't it? Not something like teal we could get by mixing green and blue. If we mix Blue with Blue, that gives us the only dark shade... But are we looking for a lime green or a dark green for jealousy?" Arle continued, seemingly trailing off into thought. She was quite distracted.