Chapter 399: Riddle Me This

"WE'VE ARRIVED. UNLOAD YOUR LUGGAGE AND DEPART FROM THE CARRIAGES WITHIN FIVE MINUTES, PLEASE, AS I'LL BE MOVING THEM ELSEWHERE AND YOU WON'T BE ABLE TO GAIN ACCESS TO THEM AGAIN AFTER." The voice of the owner of the carriages rang through the caravan as he addressed everyone riding along and warned them that he would not be responsible for anything they lost. He was in a hurry to go set up his stall, as he was already late compared to some others, and park the carriages somewhere safe so he wanted everyone to get a move on. Some of the mortals scurried around to get their heavy belongings out of the carriages and into the sandy desert, so as not to have them whisked away by the carriage driver, but Ares and Aejaz didn't exactly have anything on their person and were able to leave freely. They gave a small wave to those they'd spoken to during the ride, and Aejaz had to seriously tell the two women to leave him alone now, but shortly after they were free to do as they please and move on. Entering the Oasis sect, visiting the quarry, taking this journey. All three of the other things they'd wanted to do after arriving in Xasca were dealt with and so now it was time for the real main attraction, the Riddlemyd!

Thankfully the main path leading to the entrance was pretty unobstructed and it could have been a lot worse if what Ares was seeing in other directions was normal. People were falling over themselves along narrow pathways between countless stalls and everyone was either pushing others aside or getting pushed aside. The merchants weren't exactly strong so if they wanted protection from wandering monsters, as this desert area was quite open and prone to small scale invasions, it was best to stay as close as possible to the cultivators. There were some that had stalls in unique, isolated spots further out but if they were attacked nobody was coming to their aid. Visibility for their shop at the potential cost of their life, if they weren't a cultivator who could fend for themself anyway, was a risk some people were just willing to take. That being said, countless merchants had been murdered by sneaky Steppers and scorpions attempting this bold strategy and nobody ever pitied them, Greed could very well come at a price!

Anyway, at that point, as in if everyone was crowding around each other in the same spot, being closer to the people walking by was better and you didn't want to be in a row behind other merchants as your chances of making a sale decreased. Rather than spread out, the exact opposite was happening here due to the dangers of the desert necessitating a change in strategy all-together. Put simply, it was a clusterfuck just about anywhere merchants could be found because their goods were invaluable for dungeon diving. Pills, especially everlasting highs, replacement weaponry, runemancers offering inscription services for armor and weapons, treasure salesmen, etc... All of the above and more were sold like hot cakes and for an expensive price too. The adventurers here had no other options but these merchants so their desperation for things they couldn't live without forced them to part with their hard earned money and or goodies gained from the Riddlemyd. There were some unfortunate, weak souls who would head inside the Riddlemyd, break their weapon to clear a floor and subsequently need a new one, and have to sell their reward for the floor in order to get a new weapon and keep climbing.

It was a predatory scam!

The adventurers believed whole-heartedly that just one more floor would net them a juicy reward that could allow them to retire forever and, though the treasures kept getting better each floor, they were never quite lucky enough to find the golden goose. They kept this up until they either died or lost everything without a good enough reward to buy replacements back. There was a very real issue with fake goods being sold by some shady merchants here too. If a merchant sold you a weapon that not-so-conveniently broke shortly after use then there was a good chance they scammed you through and through. You wouldn't ever get your money back and you'd have to go back to them and buy a proper weapon. The reverse was also somewhat true, though, in that some cultivators pretended their weapons were fake so they could bully weaker merchants into giving a discount or free gear. This place was dog eat dog, through and through. 

The yapping coming over from the other pathways was considerable and the humdrum of arguments galore and haggling would be enough to give anyone unfamiliar with such scenes a massive headache. Ares wanted out of this place so along the path to the Riddlemyd he went. This was where a lot of the temporary housing was located and would explain why it was so empty right now. It could absolutely be chock-a-block here depending on the time of day but it was around lunch time for most natives so they were likely in a pop-up restaurant or resting in one of the shoddy inns. The inns were all made entirely of wood and looked just about ready to get blown to smithereens if even the gentlest of sandstorms passed by but it was better than nothing. The desert could get freezing cold at night and nobody wanted to deal with that. Doubly so because the Riddlemyd above provided shade for the sleeping areas even during the day which meant there wasn't a hint of lingering warmth to be found there whatsoever. People who didn't bring along any sort of camping gear had frozen to death in the common sleeping spots before! Sleeping in the Riddlemyd was also an 'option' but could be risky if you weren't confident in your skills and the ability to wake up instantly when faced with danger.

On average, Innkeepers made the most money here of everyone by far because they didn't die in the dungeon, had a bunch of cultivators in their pop-up establishments to protect against nearby monsters, and could freely charge exorbitant rates due to a lack of other options. Unlike the merchants outside, who offered the exact same products as one another on a considerable scale, the inns here varied in quality substantially and, further more, fully booked was fully booked. If you wanted to stay in an inn you either coughed up money for the good places, built by cultivators with earth pillar or metal pillar affiliations and not by hand, or it was the desert because the cheaper places were fully booked at all times. If you wanted a cheaper place to stay you would have to stalk the poor man's inns day and night to cinch an available spot and there were usually a bunch of others doing the same. In contrast, if you wanted a weapon, there was basically no shortage due to how easy such a thing was to acquire for a merchant compared to building an entire inn in the middle of nowhere. There were a lot more swords than inns on offer and the latter had a higher demand, basically. As long as you had a sword here you would probably need an inn as well but even the swordless merchants needed inns too. Not everyone could be like Ares and just fly or Voidwalk back to the city so upwards of 95% of people here had to stay overnight. As an aside, the only reason the innkeepers weren't killed was because they hired multiple bodyguards at the Transition realm and gave them a massive cut. Even paying for such high quality cultivators didn't really make a dent in their earnings because the number was just that grotesquely high. Taking advantage of people was a true gold mine! 'Nickel and dime' might as well have been the motto of this settlement and everyone knew it.

All that being said, however, in second place were the food vendors and their business practices were a lot less predatory but still very functional. They were basically never attacked, because raw ingredients weren't worth the hassle, so they didn't need guards, and they all got along like some kind of foodie cabal. They each brought along different ingredients to one another and made different dishes so as not to cannibalise revenue off each other. They operated in different areas, joined their earnings together at the end of every month, split it evenly, and made out like kings even if nobody really knew about it. They were mini barons in their own right but because their secrets of the trade were well hidden the barbarian customers were none the wiser and never bothered them to hand over their presumably 'pitiful' earnings... Which wouldn't matter anyway because it was safely split between them all and robbing one was inconsequential in the grand scheme of things. You'd need to harass and bully every single food stall here to get a picture of their full wealth and rob it all and nobody had time for an endeavour like that if they weren't already aware of how much money was in the cards. These vendors were safer than everyone else, made a boat load of money, and didn't have to deal with angry customers because they could afford to set reasonable prices that nobody would complain about. Some people still picked fights with the innkeepers but even dissatisfied customers at food stalls would just spit out the food and move on because it relatively cheap compared to everything else for sale here. That being said, though, the food here wasn't half bad so even such a scenario like that was unlikely. 

All in all, the place... 'Functioned'... That was the nicest thing Ares could say about it. Business did in fact occur here but whether it was worth getting involved in, even slightly, was another matter entirely... Only someone as twisted as Onno would see this place, smell the potential for money, and perhaps the stench of unwashed, dusty adventurers, and think this place had value beyond getting into countless fights over the pettiest of things. Haggle too much? Drawn blade. Don't haggle enough? Drawn blade because you're clearly trying to scam them! Mind your own business? Drawn blade for acting weird. Drawn blade? Drawn blade! Especially in 'debates' between adventurers as they all had massive egos around here thinning they were the cream of the crop. These lot considered themselves to be behind the fellahin and nobody else. The fellahin had their strength individually and in numbers, so they conceded the top spot to them because they hunted in the west regularly, but these dungeon divers were cocky because of their trips to the dangerous depths of the Riddlemyd. Other cultivators were too scared to come here but these hulking, brave men charged forth without a hint of fear! That was what they bragged to Others, at least. To be fair, some were decently strong compared to the average cultivator, and so it was somewhat true, but, overall?

Meh.

Ares wasn't impressed. The real strong people were either exploring deeper in the Riddlemyd than these nobodies could ever reach or exploring the west / east side of the desert. The Riddlemyd only really got particularly scary and difficult towards the latter half so venturing around in the first half and acting like a big shot was a sign of a pretty weak mentality and false bravado. The first half was mostly riddles and silly puzzles that would give you a bit of a scare with hazards and traps if you got it wrong. There were combat floors, and mazes and such, but they were lower in quantity compared to the riddle rooms and not exactly filled with dragons or anything. That's not to say people didn't die in them, and they weren't still dangerous in their own right, but someone like Ares could literally just walk through the rooms, get everything wrong, and not give a damn. Besides, as a cringey pun master and father, the two of which often went hand in hand, Ares was more than ready to play these word games! Although riddles and puns were two technically different ball parks but there was overlap!

Anyway, Ares made his way directly underneath the tip of the Riddlemyd, as that was where the entrance supposedly was, and sighed to himself because nothing in life was ever as easy as it should be. There was a group of ten suspicious looking people standing around the beam of light you were supposed to step into if you wanted to access the Riddlemyd and Ares could guess what was happening here...

"Excuse me..." Ares waved with a wry smile as his hopes regarding what came next were not high.

"Pay the toll."

Yep, of course. Ares smacked his forehead and slowly dragged his palm down over his face.

During active periods, when multiple cultivators were entering and exiting constantly, these clowns would get ganged up on and sent packing within minutes of starting up this tomfoolery. During downtime such as this, though, they must have felt confident in extorting people with their superior numbers. Also, though this was just a hunch Ares had, these guys were probably scavengers too as this whole business model of theirs made way too much sense from that perspective. Few people around? Extort. Many people around? Follow them inside and loot their dead bodies as the chances of success are higher when there's more people. Regardless of how active everyone else was there was money to be made throughout the entire day one way or another for these lot if Ares' assumption was correct. This was all still just a baseless accusation though and Ares wasn't interested in interrogating them to get a definitive answer. This lot were likely low ranking grunts and wouldn't have more information than the ambush unit from before regardless so capturing them was mostly pointless. Swatting them aside and entering the Riddlemyd would be a breeze and Ares was categorically not in the mood to play around with these gnats so he wasted no time in asking questions. "Grand Annihilation" could do al the talking!

While the explosions rang out, attracting all kinds of attention, Ares sighed to himself and walked over to the beam of light hidden within the golden clouds, alongside Aejaz, and finally entered the damn main attraction! Too many side quests and distractions! Ares might have to deal with those guys later when he exited the Riddlemyd, and they might even have backup by then, but it's not like he really cared about such a minor inconvenience to begin with. He would spend less time clearing up the gathered goons later than he would trying to be rational with the smaller group now. Maybe if he really flaunted his name it might have made a difference but there was also a very real chance these people had been stationed here for so long they didn't actually have any information on Ares yet. He would state his name aloud proudly and they would all just look at each other while wondering who the hell this random brat was and a fight would ensue regardless. At least this way Ares could spook them with some raw power into giving up and leaving him alone maybe.

But concerning himself over such a minor detail was pointless because he and Aejaz were now standing inside the Riddlemyd's first floor! Well, a hub of sorts anyway. This was presumably where you could access any of the checkpoints you reached as there were various gateways stationed between sandstone pillars with roman numeral markings above them. Currently all but the first were dark and grey in colour which Ares assumed meant they were inactive and could not be passed through. The entrance to the Riddlemyd must have taken a DNA sample of Ares, as that was in line with what Sevorus would do given his nature, and that was how the Riddlemyd would track how far a person had climbed. In other words, this whole place was just a scheme, a bait to lure in people for Sevorus' experiments as he could either capture them or just steal their DNA remotely. No doubt these portals had ties to one of his labs somewhere in the wider world outside the Primordial Blade barrier and he was constantly receiving interesting tools for his research. Ares didn't much appreciate handing over his own DNA to this guy, as there was undeniably a lot going on there thanks to Garmr, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make. It's not like he knew about this in advance anyway or would have even changed his mind if he did regardless. There was undoubtedly great stuff at the end of this dungeon so Sevorus' bait had worked flawlessly. Ares wasn't sure he could afford to get complacent and skip potentially amazing treasures this early in his cultivation journey as every major find mattered during his development. He was hoping for an incredible fine grind blue for Garmr here and he was kind of banking on it... Though if there had been any groundbreaking fine grind Sevorus would have taken it himself surely? Well there was only way to find out and that was to start ascending through this place!

This hub room was pretty empty and uninspiring, dark too as none of the torches on the walls were lit up currently, so Ares headed towards the light blue portal on his far left and went right on in. A small flash of blue light later and Ares had been teleported to the real floor one of his trials to come and he and Aejaz were left standing right in the middle of a large room. There were plenty of pillars dotted throughout but the rest of the room was rather empty. Other than some grooves in the walls Ares was pretty certain this room was near identical to the previous one... At least, that was what he thought until he saw one of the four walls had a massive sphinx head on it! That thing was definitely different! Also, it was moving a little... Well, the riddles had to be spoken in some form so it was only natural there would be a method of dispensing them like this.

There were some interesting murals behind the sphinx but they were blocked by its large head and barely visible so Ares couldn't quite make out what they were depicting in full. Based on loose context it seemed to be a visual record of Sevorus' experiments on various animals... Or, more specifically, this one was about the qwakers Sevorus messed around with by giving them eye lasers. This trait had spread to their offspring and was considered a success but the intricacies of the process were buried behind the sphinx, never to be revealed. Only Sevorus himself could likely move the thing out of the way and check his notes if he needed a reminder. Ares could obviously try and blow the head up but given who made it the result was pretty clear to him before he even tried. This entire Riddlemyd was almost guaranteed to be made from some material from a higher domain, and there would be high-tier runes in place too, of that Ares was sure, so he didn't throw out any magic here lest it interfered with the trial in some capacity. Maybe he could manage to break some stuff if he really tried but getting kicked out of the Riddlemyd for good was a no-no as he'd only jsut arrived! It was better to just do this dungeon normally under the assumption that no cheating was in the cards from here on out. Also, and this was the main point, Ares didn't really care! What was he gonna do if he found out all of Sevorus' secrets anyway? Sure Enyo and Bellona encouraged him not to call himself an idiot all the time but he wasn't exactly some genius mad scientist either! He could make no use out of that particular set of info at all and wouldn't even want to because, quite frankly, it was weird!

Thus, all things considered, Ares plainly walked over to the sphinx to say hello instead of picking a fight. He had to get a feel for what kind place he was dealing with here. "H..."

"I can be one thing, and one thing only, and you've not yet heard it since entering this floor. What am I?" The sphinx rudely interrupted Ares who was left gobsmacked mid greetings! Rude winged kitty! Though, to be fair, Ares could understand. If he had to greet every single newcomer on the very first floor of a dungeon like this he would get bored of the process too. Hell his pagoda clone was only on the final floor and it had already gotten fed up of most cultivators and just blasted them on sight. If anything, Ares pitied the fury talking head somewhat! Anyway... As for the answer to the riddle, to Ares at least, the answer was obvious. Aejaz looked clueless but thankfully Ares was here to save the day because there really was only one thing that fit the bill.

"That question." Tricky cat! His first sentence was correct at the time he said it because the question only came after the initial statement and had not been heard yet. Granted the question came literally a moment after but the first sentence still counted as being true when it was said by all means! Also, the sphinx was the only thing in here making any noise so it had to be something it was going to say or do. Just his speech alone wouldn't qualify, because Ares heard him speak while the riddle was underway, so it couldn't be that. The sphinx was not going to say anything else until Ares gave his answer either and that wouldn't be a part of the riddle anymore because it was a declaration of his success or failure. The riddle, this one specifically, was contained to the period between Ares entering the floor and giving his answer so this was the only possibility. The riddle itself in its entirety wouldn't count, and would be an incorrect answer if that was what Ares picked, but the 'what am I?' question was isolated in the second half of it and fit all the criteria. It was a neat word trick but nothing that Ares couldn't work out! This was still the first floor, though, so it was unsurprising the sphinx gave him a riddle on the easier side. A lot of riddles never gave such specific clues that could narrow things down if you simply went over what it was asking you. Open ended riddles would be way harder to figure out and require a lot more thought!

"Correct." The sphinx's response was monotone and uninterested, leading Ares to believe that maybe this thing was actually just fully automated... Ares would check after the next trial because this sphinx no longer seemed interested in entertaining a conversation but Ares remained curious. As for how to progress from here, a blue portal appeared alongside a green one. The blue presumably took Ares deeper while the green returned him to the hub area. Well that was the expectation anyway, Ares couldn't be certain and this whole setup was poorly designed! An architect Sevorus was clearly not! Anyway, what Ares did know was that he wasn't quite done on this floor as of yet. This room? Sure. This floor? Nope. There were multiple rooms per floor, increasing based on the floor you were on, and so before climbing up you had to be teleported to each of the rooms on the floor first. Ares knew from generally available information the first floor had four rooms he would have to complete in order to get his first checkpoint. Pretty easy all things considered! He got through the first room in under a minute and even than he spent most of his time looking around. The first floor was widely considered to be a tutorial for the Riddlemyd as a whole and you had to be a real shmuck to die here. Getting an answer wrong? Sure, but the punishment would be minor and entirely avoidable. Ares actually wasn't too sure about what happened upon failing any given trial in a room so he had every intention of purposefully getting the next riddle wrong to find out in a safer environment... Still, getting basic puzzles and riddles wrong felt like he was wounding his pride! To that end, there was a better solution... Aejaz! Long story short, this guy SUCKED at riddles!

Speaking of Aejaz, he was slightly concerned about the way his brother kept glancing at him from time to time and cackling quietly under his breath as they walked over towards the portal... Aejaz was having second thoughts about this whole thing and was seriously considering waiting outside! Unfortunately Ares was like a blood hound for cowardice and could smell Aejaz' reluctance from a smile away. Before Aejaz could dive into the green portal he was punted from behind by Ares and sent flying into the blue one! In Ares' defence, the entire purpose of this Riddlemyd was experimentation! Ares was just experimenting using his brother a a meat shield for failure! Aejaz wanted to cry... He should have gone to the Grecian lands instead!