Castle Planner's Journal: 1000 Years

      The walls eyes and hands speak in the gallery

      That was all she had, and needed to use it to find the next password to unlock the next clue. With no clue as to what she would find, Lisha was mostly in it to satisfy her voracious curiosity. Now that she was free to explore the castle, without abandoning her post as the trusty librarian, she was excited to try and figure out what it meant by the galley. Meridell Castle had many galleries to show off its aged history.

      She naturally started with the closest one, which was just a floor below the library. It was a wide hallway with a long carpet that invited the visitor to examine the many paintings of distinguished pets through the history of Meridell. She had no idea who most of them were, but she was sure that if she wanted a biography of any of them, they would surely be contained within her library books somewhere.

      Looking at the paintings, she was suddenly reminded of her puzzle. Perhaps the paintings’ eyes would contain the next clues. She stared back at the old portraits, but no matter how hard she looked, the eyes didn't feel like they were trying to tell her anything. They all stared back blankly. She was a little defeated.

      “What’cha doin there Lisha?” a voice behind her asked, nearly startling her out of her staring contest.

      “Oh! Wolcott, Nice to see you.” Lisha greeted the young Ogrin. “Are you not apprenticing with Gaius?” Lisha wondered. She knew that Gaius was hard at work on setting up yet another gallery space for the castle.

      “Not right now. We’ve taken a break for the day. Don’t want to overwork ourselves!” The Ogrin was clearly proud of his future occupation’s tendency to treat its workers kindly.

      “Ah! I just finished up too. So now I’m trying to solve a puzzle.” Lisha explained.

      “A puzzle in the paintings?” Wolcott wondered.

      “I’m not sure. Maybe you can help! I know Gaius said he would be too busy to get involved.” Lisha started fishing through her pockets for a parchment copy of the puzzle.

      “Yeah. He’s too tired and went straight to bed. Facing stones and placing bricks all day will tucker you out quickly!” Wolcott explained as he watched the Aisha unfold the parchment.

      “The wall’s eyes and hands speak in the gallery” She read out the riddle in its entirety. “It’s supposed to reveal a password to unveil the next puzzle.” She showed him the garbled mess of the remaining encrypted messages.

      “Well that sure looks like a mess! Not even the cleverest Lenny could crack that!” Wolcott joked as he read through the progress Lisha had already made.

      “Well right now I’m stumped by the whole ‘walls having hands’ part. I don’t know where to look! There’s so many galleries!”

      “Six! Seven if you count the new one.” Wolcott offered an exact answer. “Gaius has been making me study the layout a lot lately.”

      Lisha let out a sigh of exhaustion. “That’s too many.” She gently complained.

      “Well, all the art has to go somewhere!” Wolcott shrugged. “Though you are right, we have to approach this more intelligently. When was that puzzle written?” He asked.

      “Well, it seems like it was written 1000 years ago. It’s quite old.” Lisha recalled the date she had deduced.

      Wolcott was a little stunned. “Oh my. That’s quite old. I don't know when each of these galleries were made, but I know which one is the oldest. I’m guessing that’s going to be our best bet! Let’s head this way!” The Green Ogrin led the way through the halls.

      They passed through the comfortable stone hallways of the castle, getting closer to the inner areas of the castle that had grown in size over the many years. You could tell which parts of the castle were older by a few tell tale signs, should you look closely. Old doorways that had been bricked up, leaving only the archway to remain as a testament to their existence. Similarly bricked up windows to the outside that had eventually been converted to the inside as the castle expanded. Worn down stairs where hundreds of years worth of paws had trampled in grooves. It became more and more apparent to Lisha as she looked that this part of the castle was indeed older.

      “Here we go. I think this might be the place to start!” Wolcott presented a hallway that was dimly lit, but instead of paintings, or fancy pottery on pedestals, it was carved stone on the walls. 11 statues lined the hallway, each depicting an early important pet. The only one Lisha could recognize was the first King Skarl, the current king’s ancestor of many generations past.

      “They look a little wonky.” Lisha giggled. The stone faces had indeed looked a little off, carved by less practised hands than the modern artisans.

      “They probably were made by beginners! Sculptors with no masters. They had to teach themselves!” Wolcott explained. “Faces are pretty hard, but look at how well they did the hands!”

      “The hands! The walls here have hands!” She said pointing to the sculptures. Each of the figures carved into the wall had clearly defined hands. Each one was holding something in one hand, and making a gesture in the other.

      “Well! I think that means we’re on the right track!” Wolcott was proud of his accomplishment, even if it was too early to confirm.

      “But how would these halls speak to us?” Lisha wondered. None of the statues were labelled anymore. “I don’t even know who these pets are.” She said squinting at the illegible and worn down writing.

      “Me either. They might be written down in Gaius’s notes on the castle, but if it's 1000 years old, I doubt even he would know. They were not always great at record keeping.”

      “Then the trail could be a dead end, and we would never know!” Lisha was worried.

      “Don’t lose hope yet.” Wolcott encouraged her. “What did that riddle say, that the hands would speak? What if that’s all we need? No writing at all required!”

      “How do you talk with your hands?” Lisha thought.

      “Through sign language!” Wolcott mimicked the hand gesture of one of the statues. “This one is definitely a G!”

      “It is?” Lisha tried to copy the shape with her own hands.

      “Yeah. My uncle is Deaf, so I’ve learned Neopian Sign Language!” Wolcott started to sign out his words to demonstrate.

      “Wow! Is it really that old of a language?”

      “I think so. I know some of the monks will use it to communicate during silences, so maybe it’s been a long standing tradition there too!” Wolcott surmised. “But let’s read what it says.” Wolcott walked to the first statue in the hall.

      Lisha quickly scrambled to pull out a slate from her backpack, and a writing implement. She recorded the letters as the Ogrin walked down the hallway.

      “ESTALOURGE” Wolcott announced each letter as he passed by the statue.

      “Estalourge?” Lisha made a half hearted attempt to read out the nonsense word. “I don't think that’s right. It’s almost as cryptic as the original puzzle.”

      “Well, I’m pretty sure that’s what the hands were spelling out. Maybe they made the password nonsense for security”

      “Okay... I will give it a try.” She said, writing out the letters of ESTALOURGE under the 3rd puzzle.

      Wolcott watched carefully as she worked to decrypt it.

     “Auhvvxzbkhokoy” She struggled to say, as she read out her results, not even bothering to finish. “This is definitely wrong.” She frowned.

     “Aww. “ Wolcott was disappointed. “Maybe it’s something else.” Wolcott gave up pretty quick, and patted his belly. “But we can’t solve anything on an empty stomach! It should be just about time for dinner.” He reminded the pouting Aisha.

     Lisha thought for a moment. She didn’t want to give up. “I think I will stay here for a little bit longer. I want to see if there’s something I'm not seeing. I will see you in the Great Hall.” Lisha assured him

     “Oh... Okay. Just take care of yourself! It’s important to take breaks!” he reminded her.

     “Don’t worry, I will!” She waved as he headed down the hall. “... eventually.” She wanted to focus even more now.

      She was positive that the hands speaking meant that Wolcott was right about NSL being used. There was just another layer to it. What had she missed? She turned to the Moehog carving. Something about it felt familiar. When her eye was caught by the funny hat it was wearing. “Another hat with two points. Is this Moehog the same from the drawing? Gelfrid!” She tried to read the text under the statue, but it truly was too worn to confirm.

      “What secrets are you keeping?” She asked the statue sincerely. Naturally, despite her waiting for a response, none came. Now, just like before, she was having a staring contest with the statue, which she felt like she was winning. The statue averted her gaze, as if it was looking at something else... Then she remembered the other part of the passage. “The eyes!” she exclaimed out loud. A passing Cybunny looked at her with confusion.

      “I got caught up in the hands so much, I ignored the eyes!” She took out her notebook, and looked at the statues. Some of them were looking out, but others were looking at their hands. She went back to her notes and compared them against the statue’s eyes to sort them into 2 categories. “ESTATE” and to her surprise “SLORG” were revealed. There were two words to try! ‘This must be progress’ she thought, and got to work on her calculations, starting with ‘Estate’.

      After only a few minutes of trying though, she felt the disappointment creep up again. After a few letters in, she had come up with ‘AUHVNGOAYL”, which she figured was not right at all. Next was her last shot. She started writing out SLORG. She had a rush of excitement as she calculated out the password, and the next clue revealed itself to her.

     NAME THE FARTHEST GATE SEEN BY THE CLOGGED WATER CLEARED BY HARD WORKERS

           A loud squee of joy emanated from Lisha as she raced to collect her things and share her victory. She had to show off the results of Wolcott! Not to mention, grab a plate of food. She was glad that she persisted, even if it meant delaying dinner.

      She raced down the halls, but before she had even gotten halfway there, she spotted Wolcott, carrying something wrapped in a little cloth napkin. Seeing him so unexpectedly, she waved at him and called his name.

     “Look! Wolcott, I figured it out!” She held up her slate with the answer.

     “Really? Wow, that’s great news! But where were you? You missed dinner!” Wolcott was concerned.

     “What? No, I was just on my way! The kitchens close at 8 pm!” Lisha protested, but was interrupted by 8 chimes of the bells. She sank. “Oh. I must have lost track of time...”

     “I got worried when you took so long, so I snagged you a mince pie before they closed it down.” Wolcott revealed what had been carefully tucked into the napkin. He handed her the still warm meal. “You have to take care of yourself!” He gently scolded her.

     “Thanks Wolcott.” She said, scarfing it down, while the Ogrin examined the details of her notes on the slate.

     “Clogged waters cleared by hard workers? There’s only one spot I know of that fits that.” He assessed.

     “The sewers. And the secret password was Slorg too! It’d definitely be down there.” Lisha shuddered at the thought of having to go back down into the sewers. “I don't like the idea of having to go back in there.”

     “Well, thankfully Gaius has maps. Maybe we don't even have to go down there!” Wolcott thought. “But he’s asleep, so we will have to ask him about it in the morning.” Wolcott handed Lisha the slate back. “I will see you then! Get some sleep!”

     Lisha waved back at Wolcott as he went down the stairs. Lisha put the slate back in her backpack and through about what would come next. She at the last bite of her pie, and decided that he was right. She should take care of herself, and not get impatient. It was time to sleep now, and check the maps in the morning.

     To be continued…