"Let me know what you think we should do, lad, and I will do it. If you are wrong, you will maybe survive to consider the problem a second time."

Beefy looks like he maybe is about to put a hand on the Boy's shoulder, reassuringly, maybe. But he does not, circumspectly.

The woman arches her brows.

"Belittle? Tease, maybe. Needle, perhaps. But belittle? He's the only one who's done anything worthwhile in this empty place so far. Calm down, Pretty. Don't bend your nose out of shape."

She rolls her eyes and sighs.

"I'm sorry, kid, if I teased you too greatly. I did not mean anything by it."

She contemplates what the kid said for a moment.

"Math. Symbols and math, Mmmm. I'm...not so sure. It looks more like a script, these symbols. I mean, look at the link; four corners, four directions, four symbols. Two symbols, one for on, one for off."

She looks directly at the kid.

"May be part of words as well. Keep it in mind. I'm terrible at games."

"What happens when you touch that symbol?" He indicates the one over by the dais. "I'm not touching any of them. I ran into a fellow who kept trying to understand what they meant, tried puzzling them out. Would insist on poking and prodding each one of them every time he came across one. Got'm killed, it did. Apparently one of them must've meant 'great big bloody pit'. And I believe I told you how that ended."

He shivers.

"Right close call, that one. If I'd have been a meter or so to the left... Well, there'd be no one here to talk to you."

He does, however, begin pacing back and force.

"Only problem is, this is a dead end. I came in through that passageway and DAMN IT IT'S GONE AGAIN."

Indeed, the passageway that was there... isn't. The moment everyone's eyes were off of it, it apparently vanished without a sound.

"Been driving me right crazy. That's the reason why there's never much of a point in trying to keep track of where you've been. The whole place changes around constantly. Only thing is..."

He looks like he's debating something for about ten seconds, then finally sighs. "There is this, though. Any time you see a statue like this, there's something in the room. Think of it as the end of a stage or some such nonsense. Whenever you go through an area, you go through the challenges until you get to one of these statues. In order to go any further, you have to clear the puzzle. You clear the puzzle, you can continue... and, of course, that's not all."

He takes something out of his back pocket. "You get an item... like this." In his hand is a carved, sigiled rod. With a swish and a flick, he points it toward a wall away from the rest of you. A bolt of flame erupts from the rod, splashing against the wall and leaving a slight scorched mark.

"Only one item per statue though. Generally once you solve the statue, you find the way into the next oh so fun filled area."

"Well, it's a little obvious the statue is missing a crown. Maybe that makes it more obvious that we need to find it one. Maybe one of these glyphs reveals it." Pretty (he's taken a liking to the little pet name) contemplates the symbols. "Well, maybe it's our alphabet. The west wall symbol looks like a T. South A. East D. North O. It's highly doubtful, but it is a guess. Another more ballsy guess is that that East wall symbol looks a little like a crown. Care to press that for us, Stocky?" Pretty strides over to Girly and the Kid and places them an assumably safer distance from the East wall.

The kid steps away from the other man. He's sticking by the big guy. As he moves away from the pretty man, he doesn't look at him directly. He points to two symbols.

"This one,"

He points at the image

"Is linked to that one."



"One opens the other closes."

The Lady holds her ground as Pretty tries to maneuver her and the kid away from the East wall, pressing back with a hand on the man's chest.

"Wait just a moment! Goat there said any of a number of things could happen if we press the sigils! Death and pits and so on! Are you really going to be so reckless? No riddles have been solved but the one on the statue! Besides," She looked at Stocky and Mr. Goat and the kid, "the symbol in the west looks like a J to me. And the east resembles a backward C. Am I the only one who sees these discrepencies?"

She frowned at Pretty.

"I guess it's true, then. Nice face, nothing upstairs."

Mr. Goat smirks a little at that, but warns the kid, "I don't know if the shape of the sigils have any clue to their actual meaning. Though you could also be right. Unfortunately I don't recognize any of those sigi--" he blinks and frowns at the south wall. "Huh." He takes a closer look at his fire rod. "The tip of this thing has that same symbol."

"I'd prefer not to be blasted with fire."

The kid looks up at the big man, waiting to see what he wants to do.

"We can try the ones I think are linked, but someone should also be by the opposite one."

He looks up at the statue, then back at the symbols.

"The closed one could be a crown."

At that, his mouth twists in anger.

"No, that's stupid. They are linked, though."

"Nothing up- I'm hurt! Wounded, even! Hurt, darling! I analyzed the situation using what little previous knowledge I had, then came up with a reasonable hypothesis, even willing to sacrifice this good man right here. He could've died for you! I think you owe us both an apology." Pretty says this in sarcastic shock. "Anyway, the Kid's got a point. Plus, it's also my guess. That symbol is supported by a shaky hypothesis and a damn good one. Volunteers?"

"If you're so keen on pressing sigils, perhaps you should offer up yourself, rather than calling on the strongman or relying on the kid. WHO by the way, is STILL the only one who is worth a damn so far in this room. Besides Firerod, there."

The nodded toward Mr. Goat.

"Huh. Dumb AND cowardly."

She looked at the kid.

"Okay. You've determined that the A-ish symbol is probably fire, and will rain fire on us all. And you think the rounded symbols are open and close. What, in your mind, could that sigil open? List any possibility. And ALSO --"

She looked at Mr. Goat.

"Do you remember the look of the sigil your last companion pressed that caused a giant pit to appear? I'd prefer to not go flying down an abyss, thank you. So far death has been disappointing enough."

"My dear, I was just offering the spotlight," replies Pretty in a huff. He walks over to the East wall and flicks the sigil. "Dumb. Cowardly! I say, I preferred Pretty."

The woman starts.

"Wait, no, I..." too late.

With a slight humming sound, the sigil activates, glowing faintly.

Pretty is blasted back by a gust of air strong enough to lift him off his feet, sending him flying back into the middle of the room. Aside from his ego and a few bruises, he's fine.

The sigil is no longer glowing.

The woman gasps, moving slightly to miss being his by Pretty.

"The...four walls..."

The looks around around.

"Fire." she points to the A character

"Wind." to the J

"Earth!" to the O

"Water!" to the unclosed circle

"Oh, my! How did I know all that?" She leans down and smiles at Pretty. "Maybe not so dumb after all!"

Mr. Goat, in the meantime, is looking at the sigil by the dais. "The pit sigil was close to this, actually. It's definitely different... fatter, with the inner circle in the lower half rather smaller."