Monday August 6th, 2018

The exercise:

Write about: making the switch.

I've scheduled Empires for this coming Sunday, by the way. So maybe we should get to July's entry before then?

2 comments:

Greg said...

I shall try and get to Empires at the weekend before the new prompt goes up; it's been a busy month (I know, that's not unusual and it shouldn't be an excuse!) Feel free to start us all off though ;-)

Making the switch
It was easier to jump from the roof to the ground than to climb down, so Ernest and Samual reached the ground more easily than they'd reached the roof. Samual started to walk along the path, and then realised that Lord Derby wasn't following him. Turning round he saw him climbing through the window of the building.
Peering inside the building Samual stared as Lord Derby lit the candles -- still where he'd left them, though it seemed as though someone had extinguished them shortly after he'd precipitately departed back to London -- and the strange lime-coloured light illuminated the geometric patterns on the wall.
"What is this?" asked Samual.
"Puzzles," said Ernest. "But they appear to unlock a door, and that must lead somewhere. If you want to explore, be my guest. I'll call you before I open the door."
"Puzzles?"
"Indeed. I'm afraid I need to concentrate to solve them, so whether you stay or roam, I have to ask you to keep silent for a while."
Samual stared a while longer at the grid of squares, presumably one Lord Derby had already solved, but he couldn't make any sense of it. When Lord Derby snapped his fingers, he jumped. Then when Lord Derby moved the candles around and selected a colour for the third row of the door, it made no sense at all.
"How, milord?"
"Essentially you fold up the shapes you see into a solid," said Ernest. "Then you can work out the colours that are missing."
"This one folds up into...?"
"A cube. The second is a dodecahedron, this one just solved is an icosohedron. The last one appears to be a truncated rhombicosidodecahedron."
"Bless you."

It took Ernest a half-hour to build the shape in his head and rotate it, looking for the missing colours. Meanwhile Samual wandered around the buildings, studying their layout and the scrub-covered landscape that they nestled into. He found dried pools of yellow ichor, indicating where the demon had been injured, but little else. When he returned to Lord Derby he found him entering the last colour in the door.
"Ah, Samual," said Ernest. He smiled. "We're there I think; this should unlock the door. You're just in time for the throwing of the switch. So to speak."
He reached for the door handle.
"I wonder what's on the other side."

Marc said...

Greg - we shall see. I'm unlikely to have much time before then. Plus I posted last, so it's somebody else's turn :P

Hah, 'Bless you.' made me laugh out loud.

And I too wonder what's on the other side. Something good, certainly...