The old crone looks around, clearly flustered.
“Gah! I was cleaning my ears at the time, I must have misheard that second red truth. I shall ponder once more and construct a new theory.”
She struck the rod into the floor and the stakes began to falter, seeking their doom against the ground.
“It’s wonderful to be back!” the Sorcerer said as he stifled back a yawn stretching out his body.
“I have no need to respond, your theory does not corner me in the slightest.” he said as he wiped sleep dust from his eyes.
A fair play mystery by the Nugget Sorcerer? How delightful. I’m a bit late to the banquet, but it seems there’s still enough left for me to bite into.
Let me throw a preliminary blue at you.
The first person narrator changes during the story. The red about two people being in the house was spoken by the first victim. She was murdered by her sister, the serial killer, who was the only other person in the house. The second victim was outside the house. The serial killer killed him from inside the house by some method that doesn’t require leaving the house, such as shooting him, or he died from a wound inflicted by the serial killer before the killer entered the house.
“Ohoho~ I’ve been waiting for you midsummer!”
The Sorcerer looked at the familiarly carved theory and grinned from ear to ear.
“The Narrator is one person and does not switch!” he yelled as a sword flying in from the side obliterated the incoming blade.
“But I almost know that’s not all you’ve got! Come on! What’s next?”
Phew, I read your previous game a month ago for hours and got a bad headache (during fasting, even) but it was interesting. I’m never good with mystery and tricks myself, though, but I’ll give it a try and have fun reading others as I’m about to sleep.
I think I haven’t saw this, so I’ll throw the simplest theory: Before the narrative started, the killer went inside the unlocked door and hide in the basement. It might also be locked door, but the killer unlocked and locked it again to make things seem normal. Lockpin skill. The basement is a part of the house. As such, when the narrative started and narrator crushed it, the killer is already inside the house, and of course, the house is locked safely. When narrator said “There are only two people in this house. Myself and my sister”, they didn’t know about the presence of the third person. As how the narrator could see their sister being dead, they saw it through a mirror. Let’s say narrator was standing in front of a mirror across a room where their sister was at, so they could see her death, although indirectly. Does this suffice?
Anyway, good night from me!
“The red truth is absolute truth, and does not leave room for things like mistaken interpretations and the like!”
@Karifean already pointed out that this mystery seems to reduce to the question of “how did a third party enter the house after the red stating only the two victims are there”. Let’s try that angle with some unconventional blue.
The killer did not enter the house, the house expanded to the location the killer was in. It would be more accurate to state that the house entered the space the killer was in.
A more mundane solution would be the following: Whether the house is enterable when the door is locked changed after that particular red was spoken, allowing a third party access. Or someone just produced a copy of the destroyed key. But it couldn’t be that simple, now could it?
Of course, it absolutely could not be that the words “this house” do not always refer to the same building. That would be just disgraceful.
I suppose that since this nugget was made to be fair, trying to approach the entriety of the story rather than only the reds could be a more fruitful approach than tunnelvisioning on the reds in an attempt to bypass them. Something to keep in mind.
“These two blues are too vague. How did either of these things supposedly happen?”
“Need I remind you of the need for foreshadowing to back your theories? Come, let’s see if you have any! Show me your best!”
The house was actually an apartment building, so the definition of “this house” could change depending on whether it was referring to the sibling’s specific apartment and the complex as a whole.
It could be, for example, that a new wing was built into the house, and the serial killer just happened to be loitering around the area in which this new wing was built. But I don’t suppose there’s any foreshadowing for that.
Regarding the more plausible option of the enterability of the house changing, the door is an electronic door that only accepts a certain keycard during night but can be freely opened during the day. The narrator was in a daze until morning, and thus the door changed its mode on its own. The narrator breaking the key with his hand suggests the “key” is not an ordinary metal key, as no human has the strength to just casually crush one in their hand. This lends credibility to the idea that they key is actually a keycard, and thus the door is actually an electronic door which can be programmed to switch its requirements of entry in any arbitrary manner.
Foreshadowing to the effect of the houses being different? Early on, the narrative directly mentions rain falling on the windows, yet a prior red states that the existence of windows might as well be denied. Clearly, the murders happened in a separate house that has no windows! …yeah, that’s not going to work. Oh well.
Anyhow, if foreshadowing is what you want, how about this. The narrator does not consider himself a person. This is foreshadowed by the narrator alternating his gaze between the floor and his hand. The first and the last time, he simply neutrally comments “hand”, but the second time he looks at his hand, he disregards it as “another pointless knick-knack”. This means that when the narrator listed the two people in the house, he did not consider himself a part of the two people. Why did he say “myself”, then? Because the killer had somehow assumed his identity in the narrator’s mind. This is not a case of a split personality, the narrator merely considers himself an object, and believes that the person he formerly was is now the serial killer.
Or perhaps, the narrator’s assessment changing from “hand” to “not a person” back to “hand” indicates that the narrator has a condition that makes him sometimes unable to distinguish between objects and people. Thus, at the time he remarked only two people are in the house, he was unable to perceive the third person, the killer, as anything but an object.
While we’re at the topic of changes in whether one counts as a person or not, when it was specified there are only two people in the house, perhaps the killer was in a state of coma or brain death or other state in which their level of consciousness is somewhere between non-existent and vegetable. The killer then wakes up, which is a sight that the narrator simply cannot explain because he thought it impossible, and proceeds with the killing.
People have brought up the idea of the narrator being an accomplice to the crime. My impression of the narrative certainly agrees with that. The narrator talks about something being relevant to the truth of the case before a case even happens, suggesting foreknowledge. At the end, he laughs. He remarks that what I assume is him dying is something to be expected because “he decided to go through with it after all”.
It doesn’t quite stop there, though. He keeps saying these truths aloud for no reason. He refers to red as the language of truth in his own narration. He is amused by the final thought of writing down the fact that he can’t break the key with his current strength, even though that apparently was largely inconsequential, if Vyse’s answer to that particular mystery was indeed correct. So it seems he knows the score regarding the status of the game as a mystery that works with red truth, and he finds it funny to add in one additional puzzle. This leads me to believe that the narrator is not only an accomplice to the killer, but an accomplice to… you, the Sorcerer, the territory lord of this story! Note that the narrative before the story speaks of a device with which the Sorcerer may look at the truths of a story that is not his. The “story” we are to solve is a meta layer inside a meta layer. It is an imaginary scenario crafted by the narrator in his plane of reality, which the Sorcerer shows us through his telescope or whatever. This imaginary scenario is purposefully made to be an unsolvable mystery, as suggested by the highly unusual behaviour of the narrator I described above. As such, because this whole scenario is fictional even in-universe, it need not follow conventional rules of what is possible. The killer is the narrator’s imaginary creation who he conjured into the house with his mind, and thus does not need to enter after the declaration that only two people exist in the house. He can simply start existing there and kill the two siblings.
“That possibility is wrong, but I shall still remind you that you’d likely need foreshadowing anyway.”
“Still, I shall pierce it in another way too: ‘This house’ does not refer to an apartment.”
“You suppose correctly!”
“Such a thing would count as the door unlocking itself!”
“Nice to see a player shattering their own theories. It’s certainly a unique sight to behold.”
“I like that theory! Unfortunately it doesn’t work because…”
Then a concerned look crossed the Sorcerer’s face.
“This is quite embarassing but… I thought that that particular section said this,” he said as he tossed a piece of paper onto the board which read:
Hand. Floor.
Hand. Person? No. Just another pointless knick-knack.
Hand. Floor.
“But it appears it does not. Um… this is rather awkward…”
“Let’s just um… forget this happened, okay? The narrator does not become the serial killer nor does he turn out to be the serial killer.”
“The red truth is absolute truth, and does not leave room for things like mistaken interpretations and the like!”
The killer always counts as a person, for the entire duration of this game’s narrative!
“This is quite possibly one of the most… unique theories I’ve ever seen. The killer can not merely start existing within the house. Such a thing would count as entering!”
Repeat it: “This statement holds true for the entirety of the mystery”!
[quote=“Karifean, post:132, topic:1460”][quote=“pictoshark, post:2, topic:1460”]
there is no way to enter or exit this house while it is locked
[/quote]
Repeat it: “This statement holds true for the entirety of the mystery”!
[/quote]
“Sure, the red statement you quoted holds true throughout the whole of the mystery.”
So, these are not really theories or anything, but I’ll just compile a list of thoughts on the overall narrative that might help me and/or the others to understand some points of the mystery better:
Firstly, why does the narrator break the key in the first place? So that the killer can not have access to the house? If so, did he know the killer was to come to his house and this makes him an accomplice? Yet he supposedly learns of the killer for the first time from a newspaper article, thus he wouldn’t just indifferently mention somebody he knew.
It is said that the killer operates using a sword and it is noted that the sister is killed by a bladed weapon. Mentioning it twice might just be the Game Master’s way of reminding us that we may need to remember this item for some reason?
The narrator passes out during his sister’s killing, why? Because of what or whom does he pass out?
How is the narrator aware of the murder that took place without never being in the same room as his sister during the whole narrative?
Why is the narrator worried about damaging the key more than it already has been? It’s been stated in red that he crushed the key with his bare hands, so why does he want to find it and for what reason does he want to damage it further? Why does the key matter at all after being damaged?
“I find tossing a hint out every now and then is quite enjoyable. You see, a good number of your questions share a common answer.”
“Guilt.”
Alright, let’s gather some thoughts. Recap time.
Regarding entry into the house…
It seems like entry into the house is fairly restricted. However, a blue can be crafted out of the shattered remains of two prior blues. The narrator “crushing” the key was not enough to damage it. This is made clear by the narrator himself realizing his stupidity in thinking he ever could. As such, the key was in working condition during the entriety of the story. No doors were unlocked during the narrative, but the time that passes during the narrator’s mental overload (“I drowned in my senses, who knows how much time passed?”) is not considered to be “during the narrative”, and thus the sister could’ve opened the door with the key during that time. Sword loving serial killer barges in, kills people, standard stuff.
Back to the recap. Regarding people in the house…
It would appear three people are necessary for this to work. The sister was personally killed by someone in the same room inside the house, it was not suicide or coincidence, and it was not the narrator. Is there any conclusion other than “a third party must’ve made their way in somehow”?
Also, when enumerating on the reasons why I believed the narrator to be an accomplice, I forgot to mention that he also knocked down something that was important to his sister, only to immediately remember that said item doesn’t matter anymore. If he knows the serial killer is coming, it’d make perfect sense for him to disregard something that used to be important as unimportant. After all, his sister is going to die. Also, if he has a reason to believe that he might have just imagined the headlines being about a certain serial killer, that implies the serial killer is in his mind. All this and the hint that the answer to several parts of his puzzling behaviour is “guilt” makes it hard to believe anything else.
Without love the truth cannot be seen gaaaah.
I think we have to find a motive. And I think your right @midsummer, they’ve got to be an accomplice, or have accidentally helped the killer.
This just made me realize that we have a mystery we haven’t really given thought to so far. That is: how did the narrator know that the sister was dead?
Let’s put a simple stake into this one, shall we. The sister screamed in terror moments before she was killed and the narrator heard it, which is also what got the narrator conveniently back out of his daze the moment the sister dies.
I second this. Other evidence pointing towards the key not being crushed is that the narrator looks for it towards the end of the narrative. I think the narrator is guilty of letting the killer in, and thus reaches towards the key at the end so that he can escape the locked house but ultimately fails. He previously locked the house so that his sister couldn’t escape from the killer, that’s why he had tears in his eyes.
You may have denied multiple personalities, but we would hardly do well to allow you to get away with potential ‘metaphorial’ reds nonetheless, now would we?
Repeat it: At the instant the red truth about the sister’s murder is spoken, the number of living humans in the house dropped by one!