The Hole

[Heritage]

Grim shakes her head in frustration.

"There's something weird about the fire down there, like it's been, I dunno, exaggerated? Like an illusion or something that makes it seem bigger than it really is; I think we stand a better chance down there than up here."

[Shadowboxer]

"That's what I thought; I needed yer professional opinion. Now, hold on."

Nightrival wraps his legs around the line and tenses his back, then unties it from his belt and lets it trail under him. His new position allows him to stand upright for a moment, an old acrobat trick he picked up from a circus in Spain. His free hand grips the rope. Still holding Grim tight in his grasp, he lowers himself into the pit, the line running through his hand. He's drenched with sweat and his shoulder aches. He ignores his discomfort and continues rappelling as quickly as he can.

[Veiled Malice]

For a moment, when the heat prickled on his skin and the flames only seemed to grow louder as he descended, Nightrival thought he might be making a mistake. There was no other way out, though. Fortunately, the lower they descended, the cooler it seemed to become. That's not to say that the interior of the shaft didn't still feel like a blast furnace. If there wasn't a way out down below, both of them would be in trouble of a different kind.

The rappelling pair reached the periphery of the violently twitching flames below in short order, and it became obvious now that they were here that something was wrong. Just as Grim has said, the flames were not as large as advertised. It appeared that one flame pyre had been placed in the center of the room, then copied and pasted in using some sort of illusion machine to make in seem like the entire floor was wreathed in flame. Once they pierced the outer edges of the illusion with their feet, the entire thing went away, excepting the actual bonfire in the center of the room.

Near the center, but thankfully farther away from the existing fire, lay a hatch, similar to the one on the ceiling.

[Shadowboxer]

Nightrival releases the rope and drops Grim back onto her feet. He stares at the small flames in the center. For a moment he can't help but admire Warden's trap; to avoid being burned he was forced to step into fire, prompting him to rely on his courage rather than his skills. He wonders what kind of man this Warden truly is behind the puzzles and loudspeakers. He's insane, Nightrival is certain of that, but there appears to be an underlying method, fabricated from layers and layers of tissue hardened by years filled with rage and frustration. The traps are becoming more dangerous. He needs to stay alert.

It's like a trial by fire, he concludes.

"Fer a moment there I thought I'd cooked us fer good," he mutters to Grim. "Ya doin' alright?"

As he asks, Nightrival leans down and turns the latch to reach the next circle of hell waiting for them.

[Heritage]

"Fer a moment there I thought I'd cooked us fer good," he mutters to Grim. "Ya doin' alright?"

As he asks, Nightrival leans down and turns the latch to reach the next circle of hell waiting for them.

Grim nods as she checks the extent of her injuries. "Yeah, i think I'm okay." Once she sees Rival start working on the latch, she reflexively ducks behind him. "Whoa, be careful with that!"

[Veiled Malice]

Wary of any further traps, Nightrival carefully opened the hatch. Inside was nothing but darkness, with barely the lip of the portal lit by the flickering flames from the nearby bonfire. Blessedly cool air seemed to positively rush out, propelled by a sudden variance in air pressure to stave back some of the blistering heat that still lay all around them.

While Nightrival was unfortunately blind due to the darkness in the next room, Grimalkin could see the vast majority of the expanse without external aid thanks to her cat-like eyes. The floor lay about twenty feet down. High enough so that jumping might be painful, but not in any way deadly. She could also see that the walls of the new room were shear, but had ladders along each side, and even along the ceiling, all leading up to the hatch they were now looking into. The room seemed to be a perfect cube, twenty feet to a side. Hatches similar to the one they were at lay halfway up each wall, along with one at the very center of the floor.

[Shadowboxer]

Nightrival pokes his head into the hatch and frowns. The entire room is pitch black and he can't see the layout at all. He lifts his head out and looks at Grim.

"I can't see nothin'. Think yer up ta leadin' us down there?"

[Heritage]

"I can't see nothin'. Think yer up ta leadin' us down there?"

Grim nods as she gets down on her knees. "Yeah, okay, but first I'm gonna tell you what I see." She extends her claws, gets a firm grip on the floor of the room they're in, and then tips herself forward until her upper half is upside down inside the darkened chamber, her legs gracefully pointing straight up in the air like a gymnast.

"Okay, what we've got is a box, maybe twenty feet on a side; looks like a perfect square, or cube I guess. Hatches on all six sides, including this one. There are ladders leading to each hatch, attached to the floor, walls and ceiling."

The agile heroine tips back out of the room, returning to a kneeling position as she dusts her hands off on her legs; she frowns slightly as she shakes her head.

"I don't like it, the way the walls and floors are all the same? I have a feeling that room will not be stayin' put for very long; floor becomes the ceiling, and we go splat."

Grim shrugs as she stands beside Nightrival once again, hands on her hips as she looks down into the hatch. "Or I could be wrong, maybe that's too obvious for Mister Sicko; maybe one of the doors has lotsa water behind it, or killer bees or something." She screws up her face in thought. "Could you maybe lower me down with one of your rope things?"

[Shadowboxer]

"Could you maybe lower me down with one of your rope things?"

We gotta play this safe, but Warden can turn that 'gainst us.

Nightrival doesn't answer. Instead, he removes another swing line from his under his belt. He kneels and wraps it once around Grim's waist. He ties the end with a tight knot and tugs it twice. Confident that the knot is secure, he nods his head and gestures to the hatch.

"Alright, I'll belay ya down. Jus' hold on ta th' ladder then let go. I'll be right behind ya."

He remains kneeling, grasping the line in both of his hands.

[Heritage]

"Alright, I'll belay ya down. Jus' hold on ta th' ladder then let go. I'll be right behind ya."

He remains kneeling, grasping the line in both of his hands.

Grim gives him a thumbs up and heads in; as she descends, she starts singing a song from Peter Pan, the play her class saw freshman year, but with an added new verse.

I'm flying!

Look at me way up high,

Suddenly here am I

I'm flying!

I'm dying!

Deadly traps all around

will my corpse ever be found?

I'm dying!

She calls back up to Nightrival. "Sorry, didn't mean to go all defeatist! I'll shut up now!"

Soon she is standing by the hatch on the floor, nervously awaiting her mentor's descent.

[Veiled Malice]

The cube remained silent and dark; utterly unmoved, it seemed, now that it had an inhabitant. From her new vantage point, Grimalkin could see that there were numerous markings on the floor, walls and ceiling. Though there still wasn't enough light to see for a normal human, she could make out that they were dividing lines. Each surface had been divvied up into nine even sections, just like a tic-tac-toe board, with the hatches taking up the center. There were further markings on each section, but there were too indistinct, even for Grimalkin's enhanced eyes.

[Heritage]

"We've got a tic-tac-toe situation going on here, three by three rows of squares on all sides, like we're inside a Rubik's cube. There's some kind of writing or engraving on all the boxes, but I can't make 'em out."

Grim peers back up to the hatch above.

"You don't happen to have a flashlight, do you? 'Cause I ain't doing anything else until you get your butt down here, boss."

[Shadowboxer]

Nightrival grins at hearing Grim sing as she's lowered into the room. Despite the horror of being held prisoner inside a series of elaborate deathtraps, his partner finds the humour in their situation. He's relieved that he's not alone in this ordeal.

He drops the rope, mounts the ladder, and carefully climbs down to the floor. When he reaches the bottom, he walks to where he thinks Grim is standing by listening to her breathing. He looks at the walls but he can't make anything out in the dark.

"Alright, I'm 'ere, but I ain't gotta flashlight." Nightrival shakes his head when he hears Grim's description. His heart sinks after processing the situation. "Wha's this guy thinkin'?"

Holding out a single hand, he slowly approaches the wall and stops when his hand bumps into something solid.

"Th' letterin' is th' key 'ere." He feels along the wall in hopes of identifying the markings.

[Veiled Malice]

Before Nightrival can make much headway in feeling out the shapes on the floors, the hatch in the ceiling slams shut, plunging the room into total darkness. Not even Grimalkin's keen eyes can pick up anything anymore, not without some light with which to see.

The dead silence didn't last long. All of a sudden, the entire room seemed to move. The sensation one gets while going down an elevator filled the two heroes, but fortunately, it seemed to be moving fairly slowly. Still, it was fairly disconcerting, especially when their tormentor came back on the PA system.

"Ah, you're making good time! I thought I'd take this opportunity to speak to the two of you a bit about a topic of mutual interest. Specifically, crime." As he spoke, Grimalkin, with her hypersensitive ears, realized she couldn't localize the sound being created. It seemed to be coming from all around them. Not a good thing, considering all it would take was turning up the gain to the requisite level, and it would burst their eardrums.

"I know we differ quite a bit on philosophies on how to deal with criminals. But what you must realize is that you do neither yourself nor the people you supposedly protect any favors by sending scum to the weak prisons of today. They are only in place to coddle the very vermin you throw in until they invariably break out and wreak their vengeance. Criminals must be controlled, molded back into productive members of society - by any means necessary."

Finally, the room reached it's terminating point, and clicked into place. Lights blazed to life, temporarily blinding the trapped heroes with it's relative brilliance. When they could see again, both saw that the shapes Grimalkin had seen before were now glowing, shining with some sort of inner brilliance. They were numbers, oddly enough, and like Grimalkin had seen, eight were on each side of their current prison, with the hatch in the middle of each surface taking up the room for the ninth. All the numbers on each wall were the same, starting with 1, then 1 again, then 2, then 3, then 5, then 7, then 13, then 21. Each hatch had a number as well, with the one of the ceiling being 1, 2 through 5 on the walls around them, and finally 6 on the floor.

"Good. You're now in position. The room you now occupy was not originally meant for you, Nightrival, I'll admit. The addition of your sidekick gains you little, though. Neither of you has the intellectual fortitude to devise the true meaning behind my motives, and so to it goes for the exit to this room."

"There is only one hatch that leads to safety. The rest lead to certain death by a verity of nasty means. There is no time limit to this challenge, besides the ever-present need for oxygen, which I assume both of you require. I suppose you could simply choose one hatch at random, but a one in six chance of survival isn't all that good."

"Since I know you'll never figure it out on your own, I leave you with this hint: combine the original inventor of the helicopter with the leaning tower, and you'll have your answer. Ciao!" The Warden's mocking laughter faded, leaving the two alone in the harshly-lit room.

[Heritage]

Grim just shakes her head as she stares balefully at the numbers on the walls.

"Man, I hate Sudoku."

[Shadowboxer]

Nightrival immediately stops walking towards the wall when he hears the hatch shut above him and the room becomes even darker. He stands stock still, his hand still outstretched, and listens carefully. He drops his arm when he senses that the room is gradually descending and waits for it to stop, remaining silent in the cheerless gloom. Warden's voice fills the room and Nightrival lifts his head to hear the villain.

"I got no problem reformin' th' crooks who need it," he replies to the omnipresent voice. "But ya don't torture 'em ta get 'em ta change. That's why yer th' crook, Warden."

Nightrival doesn't budge when the room suddenly halts and he squints his eyes against the bright lights.

"I got yer fortitude right 'ere," he mutters. He listens to Warden's explanation and his riddle, scanning the room without acknowledging Warden's taunts. Behind his mask, Nightrival stings from the villain's accusation of not being intelligent enough to solve this puzzle before the two heroes suffocate, or worse. He takes a second to collect himself and turns to Grim.

"I do th' Suduko puzzle in the paper on my way ta work," he utters to her. "I 'ope it's some 'elp ta us 'ere."

[Shadowboxer]

Nightrival seats himself in the middle of the floor and crosses his legs. He looks at the numbers on each section and on each door. For a moment, he rubs his chin and and gazes at the floor, silently absorbed in his thoughts. His breathing slows and sounds muffled in their metallic prison.

Warden is callin' us out, makin' us play 'is game. But wha's a game wit'out rules? Somethin' 'e said is really naggin' me; 'e needs us ta know th' rules of 'is game.

His head snaps upwards and he sucks in a mouthful of air.

"Ciao?" he thinks out loud. "Not like 'em ta suddenly get all continental on us. Ciao . . . they say tha' in Italy, right? I mean, everyone in Europe says it but it's from Italy. At least I think so."

He rests his palms on his thighs and straightens his spine. "Th' inventor o' th' 'elicopter. Was 'e from Italy? 'Elicopter . . . 'elicopter . . . I thought they were from th' States. I remember seeing somethin' on th' 'Istory Channel about 'em and 'ow the idea came from . . . drawings. Those drawings from Vinci - da Vinci? Tha' dude wit' th' beard?"

Nightrival wheels his head around to face Grim. "I think th' first clue is tha' Vinci guy. But wha' about th' tower? Wha' does that gotta do wit' Italy?"

[Heritage]

Grim has parked her keister on the floor, crosslegged and directly across from Nightrival, resting her head on her fists.

"Yeah, 'ciao' is definitly Italian, and so was da Vinci. And it's the Leaning Tower of Pisa, so that's Italian, too." She frowns. "So he's psychotic and he's obsessed with Italy - nice to know."

She gets up and starts to pace a bit, shaping her thoughts with her expressive hands. "So we're supposed to combine 'da Vinci' and 'Pisa' somehow, and somehow that's going to give us the numbers? Man, this guy is annoying!"

She cups her hands and yells up at the ceiling. "Ya hear me?! You're annoying!"

And why are we taunting the psychotic who controls the room again?

Somewhat mortified by her own outburst, Grim resumes pacing, a little bit quicker than before.

"Okay, so numbers can equal letters, just like on when you dial on a phone; twenty-six letters gives us twenty-six numbers, and we've got one through six on the hatches, which gives us A through..." She stops to count letters. "F, A through F. That's one possibility."

She paces some more, and then stops again, clapping her hands and then pointing at Nightrival. "Ooh, and Roman numbers can be letters, too! And Romans are Italians! Let's see, one through six are I, II, III, IV, V and VI...so we have a V, but still no P for Pisa. Grr!"

She throws herself on the floor in frustration, head back in her hands.

[Shadowboxer]

Nightrival quietly watches Grim sit then stand up, following her movements as she ambles around the room. He becomes roused, in his own subdued way, when Grim suggests that there could be a correlation between letters and their corresponding numbers. His heart drops to the floor like a heavy slab of beef when he realizes that Grim is right: the hatches only go up to six. He examines the walls and they only go as far as twenty-one. He exhales loudly and hangs his head.

"Right, right. Th' Leanin' Tower o' Pisa. The numbers on th' doors and the numbers on th' wall hafta match somehow. Maybe it ain't about turnin' letters inta numbers."

He hoists his head up and looks at the ceiling. "Leonardo is from Vinci, tha's wha' his name means: Leonardo of Vinci. An' Pisa, Pisa is jus' another town. It ain't far from Vinci. We combine Leonardo wit' Pisa, an' we get Leonardo de Pisa . . . no, that ain't right. Leonardo Pisano, that's it - that name is totally familiar - he was in this book my mom read ta me when I was a kid, called Crusade in Jeans. 'E was a math guy."

Suddenly, Nightrival springs to his feet. "Fibonacci!," he exclaims, "Th' Fibonacci numbers! My mom told me all about 'em!" He points to the walls, counting off each number with his finger. "They're like this sequence o' numbers, an' each one adds ta the one 'fore it, like 0 then 1 then 1 and then 2 then 3 and then 5, 'cause 2 and 3 equal 5. Th' numbers on th' walls are part o' tha' sequence; th' next number should be 34. Does tha' got anythin' ta do with th' answer, finishing th' sequence?"

[Heritage]

Suddenly, Nightrival springs to his feet. "Fibonacci!," he exclaims, "Th' Fibonacci numbers! My mom told me all about 'em!" He points to the walls, counting off each number with his finger. "They're like this sequence o' numbers, an' each one adds ta the one 'fore it, like 0 then 1 then 1 and then 2 then 3 and then 5, 'cause 2 and 3 equal 5. Th' numbers on th' walls are part o' tha' sequence; th' next number should be 34. Does tha' got anythin' ta do with th' answer, finishing th' sequence?"

Grim stands with her hands on her hips, squinting up at the numbers.

Wait, are you sure? Math was never my strongest subject, but it doesn't quite add up. We've got 1, another 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 13 and 21. One plus one is two, two plus three is five, but after that it doesn't fit. Five plus seven is twelve, seven plus thirteen is twenty even, and only then does thirteen plus twenty-one get you thirty-four."

She rubs her chin thoughtfully. "The actual progression would have to be 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, then 8, 13, 21, but we've got a 7 instead of an 8; that's gotta mean somethin', right?"

[Shadowboxer]

Nightrival inspects the numbers again then turns to Grim. "Yer right, the numbers are off. If there were eight doors insteada six, we coulda solved this quickly. Leave it upta Warden ta keep messin' wit' us."

Nightrival takes a few steps forward then looks directly at the hatch numbered one. "Eight minus seven is one. That could be it."

[Heritage]

Nightrival takes a few steps forward then looks directly at the hatch numbered one. "Eight minus seven is one. That could be it."

Grim steps over to join him, peering up at the hatch right above them.

"If it is, I'm gonna kick him in the shins when I see him." She looks around the room some more, still far from sure about anything in it. "We should be careful on the ladders, in case he realy wants us to use them. Actually, you know what? Forget the ladders."

She marches over to the nearest wall, extends her claws, and starts defiantly scaling the wall, wedging the toes of her soft boots in-between the panels; when she gets to the ceiling, she continues back overhead, the muscles in her slender arms and legs taut with strain. Finally back at the hatch above, she gives Nighrival a nervous upside down smile.

"Any last requests before I open it?"

[Shadowboxer]

"Any last requests before I open it?"

Nightrival stands directly under Grim and peers up at her. "Yeah. Jus' be careful."

[Heritage]

Nightrival stands directly under Grim and peers up at her. "Yeah. Jus' be careful."

Grim merely nods, averts her eyes, and opens the hatch...

[Veiled Malice]

...Into a much larger room, and not the one they had been in before. It seemed more like the interior of a warehouse, albeit without the windows common to those structures, than an underground complex. Whatever had happened while their former prison had shuffled around, it seemed to have linked up to the exact same hatch they had entered. The Warden, it appeared, was even sicker than they had been led to believe.

The expanse had many obstacles and hiding places, disturbingly enough reminding Grimalkin of a paintball range. Overhead lamps lit the area with constant - though annoyingly fluorescent - light, enough so that the only shadows came from underneath various overhangs in the cover provided. All told, the place had to be roughly the size of a football field. Just the field, thankfully, not an entire stadium. From her position in the floor, there didn't seem to be any obvious way out. She would have to go in to get a better view.