The next thief Will fought managed to paralyze him on the first attack. It was, in Will’s opinion, the second most terrifying experience in his life. The first being, of course, falling down from the clouds. He was completely aware of anything happening around him, but at the same time he couldn’t move. It was like his muscles just didn’t get the message.

And the damn debuff lasted for a full minute!

The only bright side to the whole ordeal was that it was only Will’s body that was paralyzed. He could still activate skills, and he could still order his Mana Mandrill about. Which turned a sure defeat into an annoying, but ultimately not very difficult, fight.

Will couldn’t actually see the thief, since the bastard was, of course, behind him. Which meant that any of the targeted versions of his Mage skill was out of the question, leaving just Burst with a reasonable chance to hit.

And since Burst had a knockback effect, Will had to use it and then wait for the thief to get close enough to get caught in the blast again. Which he only knew about when the thief stabbed him.

The Mana Beast didn’t have that problem, and could freely attack. But as soon as it did, the thief abandoned the paralyzed wombat in favor of taking out the summoned monkey. The mandrill did manage to deal a decent amount of damage before dissipating, leaving a nearly dead thief for Will to finish up.

1 Sneaky Thief slain!

Gained 20 XP

Gained 20 copper bits

Gained a Torn Piece of Paper #4

Torn Piece of Paper number 4, huh? Let’s take a look at it.

The first child doesn't use magic

OK, that’s not even a little bit helpful. But I’m assuming that there are at least three more of them which I’ll need to find, and maybe then it would make sense? Though that might be giving this place too much credit.

Moving deeper into the castle, Will soon came into a large anteroom, which lead to a pair of double doors, large enough for a giant to walk through. The doors were closed, but Will could see a small bronze placard hanging where the latch should have been.

Lord von Boardenstein has three children.

Each of the children has a favorite color and a favorite skill set.

If you want an audience, you’ll need to know which of the children was which.

Remember that:

1. ??? ????????? ?????? ???? ????.

2. ??? ?????? ????? ?? ? ??????.

3. ??? ??? ??? ????? ????? ???? ??? ????? ?????.

4. The first child doesn’t use magic.

5. ??? ?????? ????? ?????.

But beware! The children will be angry if you guess wrong!

Below the placard where six square indentations in the door, arranged in three rows of two. The rows were numbered one to three.

Is that a logic puzzle? And actual, honest-to-whoever-made-this-crappy-world riddle? That isn’t a stupid marsupial pun? OK. This means that I need to find the other four clues, since I’m betting that last line means bad stuff will happen if I just guess, and probably whatever goes into the indentations below. It’s kind of a stretch to define this as a key, but I think I can live with that.

It does mean I’ll want to remember the way back here though, once I have everything I need. I really wish I had a piece of paper and a pencil to draw a map on. And thumbs to use them with. Kinda miss my thumbs.

Shrugging off the thumbless melancholy, Will turned his back on the large doors. Just in time to catch another thief sneaking behind him.

Thieves, it turned out, are fairly fragile when you can actually see them coming. Thunder Bolt, Charge, and a few Power Attacks from the Mana Beast, and the thief was down for the count. At which point, Will finally noticed that he was fighting a Crankscout.

Definitely getting better at the whole camouflage schtick. Though that’s at least partially because of the cloak. Still, I need to get rid of the rest of them before they become completely impossible to recognize.

The Crankscout, in addition to dropping the ubiquitous brass cog, gave Will something called “The Tile of the Healer”. Which was a small square piece of stone with an image of a bandage on it.

Yup. I’m definitely going to need to collect all six of those, along with the five clues, which means more murderhoboing about. Still, this one at is at least a little bit more complex than the usual “fight X enemies” and “collect Y stuffs” quests.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

In the following several hours Will had learned that each one of the thieves in the castle had some sort of status effect to go with their dagger. Except for the Crankscouts, which might have looked like the regular thieves, but didn’t seem to have the stealth skill or the ability to debuff Will.

How on Earth, or on the Board, does it make sense that a straight up poison is less annoying to fight against than an anesthetic? And how is “ennui” a status effect? And where are the variants, which are supposed to be so common here? Or are the different status effects the variants, and the basic thief just uses poison?

Not every thief had a piece of the puzzle on them. It seemed to be about a fifty percent chance, from Will’s relatively small sample size. But after a total of twenty five thieves, three of which were Crankscouts, Will had what he’d assumed was everything he needed to solve the riddle.

Torn Piece of Paper #1-#5

Tile of the Healer

Red Tile

Green Tile

Tile of the Wizard

Blue Tile

Tile of the Swordsman

I think that’s it? Yeah, let’s go back to the doors and see if I can solve this thing.

After several wrong turns (and a couple of extra thieves), Will managed to find his way back to the riddle doors. The placard, which had previously shown just one hint, now showed all five of them.

Lord von Boardenstein has three children.

Each of the children has a favorite color and a favorite skill set.

If you want an audience, you’ll need to know which of the children was which.

Remember that:

1. The swordsman doesn't like blue.

2. The second child is a wizard

3. The one who likes green isn't the first child

4. The first child doesn't use magic

5. The healer likes green.

But beware! The children will be angry if you guess wrong!

I am not going to ask how a damn bronze plate can change according to the hints I’ve found. Just file that under “shenanigans”. Let’s see if I can solve this now.

The first child doesn’t use magic. Does that mean they’re the swordsman? Or is the healer more of a mundane doctor? Not a hundred percent sure on that yet, but I’ve got some more info here.

If the healer likes green, and the one who likes green isn’t the first child, that means that the healer isn’t the first child. And that means that the first child really is the swordsman. And since the second child is the wizard, the third is the healer.

Now for colors. The healer likes green, and the swordsman doesn’t like blue. So the swordsman is red, and the wizard is blue.

I guess that’s it? First child is the swordsman and likes red, second is the wizard and likes blue, third is the healer and likes green. That checks out.

Before I start messing with the door though, I should have a whole bunch of XP by now, shouldn’t I? Ooh. Eight hundred ninety. That’s the most I’ve ever had. I should probably use it now. No telling what’s behind door number one. I mean, I’m assuming it’ll finish my quest, and that I’ll just move to the next Space, but I wouldn’t put it past them to throw something weird at me.

Hmmm. Eight hundred will get me to level three Mage, but that uses just about everything I have. No idea what I’ll be getting from it, but it’s probably my best skill. On the other hand, if it is my best skill, it’ll be the one I’ll be using the mastery shard on, which might increase the XP costs and bring it down a level.

Then again, based on the same logic, it’ll bring it down to level one if I don’t push it up now, wouldn’t it? And putting in the eight hundred right now will both get me some extra firepower immediately, and prevent the skill from dropping back to level one if I do upgrade its tier.

Yeah, I think that’s the best course for me right now. Let’s see now. Level three gives a twenty percent reduction in mana costs. Not an increase in damage, but I’ll be able to do more before running out of mana. Decent boost, I think.

Now to the door.

Using his wombat’s paws to pick up the tiles and place them in their indentations was an ordeal in itself.

Will’s first attempt saw him fumbling the Swordsman tile and dropping in on the ground.

The second attempt was even worse. He’d managed to pick up and hold the tile, but he had to rise on his hind legs in order to reach the indentations. And at the last moment, he’d lost his balance and the tile went into an indentation in the second row instead of the first.

A ghostly sword manifested from the door and slashed down at Will, completely ignoring his armor and dealing minor damage.

Even worse, the tile crumbled into dust.

The Swordsman is angry!

After striking out in anger, the swordsman left to calm down.

You’ll have to find them again and apologize.

Welp. That’s one way to prevent people from just trying to brute force it, I guess. Once more unto the breach, dear friends.

An hour later, a very grumpy wombat made his way back to the doors, with a new Tile of the Swordsman in his inventory.

So how do I place these things? Will had all six tiles sitting in front of him. I’m really not built for this sort of thing. Wish I had someone with opposable thumbs to do this for me. If I was an opossum instead of a wombat, would I have had oppossumable thumbs? Gah. This place is really starting to get to me. I mean, it’s not like opossums have thumbs, right? That’s more of a primate thing, isn… wait. Primate. Monkeys are primates. Can I get the mandrill to place these things for me?

The answer, it turned out, was “yes”. The Lesser Mana Beast had no trouble at all with picking up the tiles and placing them in their indentations. Each correctly placed tile started to glow, their color corresponding to the child they were associated with. And once all six tiles were in place, the large doors groaned open.

Quest complete!

The doors to the throne room are open.

Reward:

200 XP.

Stealth skill shard

Another thief skill? I mean, I guess it makes sense with the enemies around here, but I’d really have preferred something more immediately useful. What does this one even do?

Skill shard: Stealth

Tier: Basic

Type: Rogue

Cost: NA

Level 1

XP 0/100

When attempting to remain hidden, reduce the chances of being observed by 15% per level.

Reduce all noise made by the user by 15% per level.

Be vewy vewy quiet!

Combos nicely with Backstab, but definitely not something worth a skill slot for me right now. Why couldn’t you be a wizard skill shard or something?

Rank up!

A main quest has been finished in this space.

Rank 1 enemies and elite rank 0 enemies may now appear.

And there we go. Quest complete, and time for me to move on. Got to admit, this has been a fun little change from the standard quests.