"You're asking this now, of all times?" Golden Wish asked, her expression flat. "Isn't it obvious? Do we really have to retread old ground?"
Twilight shook her head. "You're deflecting again. From the very start, none of this has made any sense. Is Fluttershy's story about you true? Are you just some privileged little filly who felt ignored and is taking it out on others? Do you even understand the weight of what you're doing here? Or are you just a child who has no concept of right or wrong playing with dolls?"
Golden Wish flinched, taking a step back. "They are just dolls, Twilight. With a flick of my horn, I could bring them all back and then break them again. That's the nature of my power. A wish sure is something magical, isn't it? The possibilities are endless, infinite. I can kill, I can revive. I can command the very fabric of reality itself."
With a sneer, she added, "Maybe somepony will have to pay the price, but it doesn't have to be me."
Twilight stomped a hoof. "My friends are not your toys. And neither am I."
"Then defeat me, Twilight Sparkle. Maybe then you'll find all the answers you so desperately seek."
"There's just no reasonable solution, here," Twilight said, muttering under her breath. "You know, I've dealt with a lot of villains in my time. For some, they were able to understand the magic of friendship, one way or another. Others required a more... direct approach. But you?"
Twilight snarled and reached out with her mind. Whatever force had blocked her magic before was gone and she felt that sweet taste of power flowing through her horn, like water to a dying pony in the desert.
"I won't show you any mercy!"
"Good!" Golden Wish cried out, her eyes wild with glee. "That's the response I was looking for!"
Twilight charged forward, locking horns with Golden Wish. "So. Are you going to try and claim that this farce is a closed room as well?"
"Of course I am!" Golden Wish said, pushing down on Twilight, their foreheads butting. "It wouldn't be a game without it, after all."
Twilight leapt backwards, spreading her wings and pulling herself up to her fullest height. "Go on then. Lay out the basics. I'll cut your narrative to shreds!"
"Something like this should be obvious, right?" Golden Wish stomped a hoof and threw her head back, a corona of red light surging forth from her horn.
"No tricks accomplishable solely by unicorn magic factored into the construction of this closed room."
The room shattered around them and fell away, leaving the two alicorns flapping their wings underneath a starry sky, a vaguely defined landscape visible below.
"That's different than last time," Twilight said as she quickly adjusted to her new position. "Why the change in phrasing?"
Golden Wish giggled, holding a hoof over her mouth. "I like it better this way. Magic can do a lot of unique things, but if one pony takes something down from a shelf with her teeth while another uses magic, is the end result any different?"
Twilight narrowed her eyes. Nothing to be had but lies and misdirections. "Get on with it."
"There are no hidden doors in this room. A hidden door is defined as anything a pony could use as an entrance or exit that is not discovered by the detective." With a glance Twilight's way, Golden Wish added, "That would be the Twilight down there, for the record."
"If I can't find it then it doesn't exist, huh?" Twilight asked, snorting with contempt. "How appropriately solipsistic of you."
"All the windows are locked from the inside. Why, that just leaves the door, right? How could anypony possibly escape?"
The three orbs of red truth circled around Twilight, taunting her. The core of each reflected a cruel reality, one where ponies were being hurt and killed while higher beings fought over trivial details.
"Is this the foundation of your argument?" Twilight asked, pulling forward into a banking curve. The orbs followed her. "There's still some rather obvious holes unaccounted for."
Golden Wish smirked. "Why, of course. This really is just a foundation. All of these truths go without saying. In fact, saying them over and over again would get rather tedious. From now on, the three preceding truths will define a 'Golden Closed Room'."
With a triumphant smirk, Twilight called forth magic of her own. A bright blue lance of energy crackled at her side as she rounded on her opponent. The rules of this game were too lopsided. It was time she evened the odds a bit.
“Did you really think I’d overlook something so simple!?” Twilight roared, the winds rushing past her as she charged forward. “There’s no closed room in the first place! The door to Celestia and Luna’s study has an auto-lock on it.”
WIth a shrill buzz, Twilight’s spell shot forward, embedding itself deep in Golden Wish’s side.
“Gyaak! What, what is this…” Golden Wish said, staring with wide eyes at the sight of the gleaming spear protruding from her.
Twilight threw back her head and let out a laugh, the cruelty in her tone surprising her. “This is MY truth. It can’t supercede the red, but until you address it, it will hold the same status as the red until proven otherwise! I’m not going to allow you to dodge or deflect by refusing to answer my questions anymore!”
Golden Wish howled as she reared back, her eyes ablaze. “Who do you think you are, changing the rules of my game!?”
“I’m Twilight Sparkle. Princess of Friendship and Magic. Did you forget? You seem to remind me of it often enough. It’s not really that much of a change, is it? All it means is that if I propose a theory in blue, it stands as the truth unless you can offer a truth of your own,” Twilight cooed, her voice dripping with venom.
“You’re going to regret this.” Golden Wish turned her head, grasping the blue barb with her teeth. She screamed through clenched teeth as she slowly pulled it from her side. Her horn surged with red energy as the spear shattered and dissipated in her mouth.
“In this game the study has no auto-lock! The only way to lock or unlock the door is with the key.
“There is only one key that is capable of opening the study!”
The spheres that were already orbiting Twilight suddenly slammed into her, causing her to cry out as they sent energy surging through her body. Her wings seized up, and she fell.
The scenery shifted around her as she fell, eventually coalescing into a snow covered plain which she promptly crashed into. Groaning, she slowly pulled herself out of the snow.
Golden Wish touched down on the snow across from Twilight. “What’s the matter? If you’d like, we could switch back to conceptualizing this argument as a simple chess game instead. It might be a little less painful!”
Twilight spat, a coppery taste heavy on her tongue. “You’re using the red to lie somehow. I remember the auto-lock, as clear as day.”
“Everything I say in red is the truth! I thought we trusted each other?” Golden Wish said, laughing shrilly. “What holds true in one game may not hold true in another. The number of keys, the presence of an auto lock or not. I mean, even the most obvious one. Ponies are dying in a different order, right? Why should the little details stay consistent?”
Twilight shook her head, trying to pull her thoughts together. “Obnoxiously arbitrary. But I suppose I shouldn’t expect anything more from you.”
“So come on then, Twilight. You have your little blue weapon of your own there, but do you really have what it takes to make it count? Tell me, how did the crime happen? How did the killer leave the room? Where did the bodies go? Who did it?” With a pause, Golden Wish added, “Well, some of those answers might be a little more obvious than others.”
Twilight crouched low, readying her next move. A cautious attack, just to test her opponents defenses.
“The culprit took the key from Fluttershy, and used it to lock the door behind them.”
Twilight lashed out, an arc of blue energy sweeping low at Golden Wish, but it was blocked with a counter thrust of her own.
"Fluttershy’s key was destroyed, and can no longer be used to lock or unlock a door!Weren't you paying attention? Just a poor little pile of ash and a bit of melted slag is all that remains!”
So that melted pile of metal was… she had thought as much, but to have it confirmed still stung deeply. “You said there’s only one key, right? How come Celestia and Luna didn’t have their own set?”
Golden Wish raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “Beats me. Maybe they just didn’t care enough to keep their doors locked.”
The blizzard whipped around the two of them, the snow forcing Twilight to squint as she strained her mind to find the answers she sought. Her best friends, murdered in cold blood by this cackling witch and her summoned familiars. In this game of nightmares she was forced to watch their final moments of suffering. But now, with a combination of magical words and evidence after the fact she was expected to provide a solution to a puzzle that shouldn’t exist in the first place.
Presuming a basic scenario, Golden Wish and her cronies have hid in the mansion somewhere and then holed up in the study and ambushed her friends when they arrived. While the whole idea was incredulous, what was even more so was that they were able to somehow escape after the fact without leaving any evidence of their presence behind. And then there was that red truth, saying that regardless of how flashy everything might have appeared, it was all technically possible for an earth pony or a pegasus pony to accomplish as well.
There were still a few possibilities that came to mind.
Twilight smirked, readying her next attack. “The culprit was still hiding in the study when I tore open the door!”
Golden Wish braced herself and caught the blue bolt, not with the red truth, but with her own magic. The strain from holding it back was visible on her face. “That’s a little far-fetched, isn’t it, Twilight? You inspected the room yourself, didn’t you? Where would the culprit be hiding?”
“Because I did inspect, you can’t arbitrarily claim it’s different this time,” Twilight said as she focused, pushing the spear closer to her target. “The study has three different parts to it, remember? The main room, a bedroom, and a bathroom. I can’t check everywhere at once. When I was inspecting one of the rooms in the study, the culprit snuck out behind me!”
Golden Wish grunted, stopping the second bolt as her aura flared up, the snow around her beginning to melt. “That’s an awfully big gamble… what if you had checked the other room first?”
Twilight laughed, the blue light from her horn reflecting off the moonlit snow. “Does it matter? In a game like this, the culprit would always be in the room I didn’t check.”
“Good! You’re getting better at this! Too bad it doesn’t mean much.”
With a lash of red Golden Wish cut through the blue spears like a scythe felling wheat. “At the time Twilight Sparkle entered the study, there were no living ponies inside the study. This applies to all three interior rooms.”
The curved blade of red arced towards Twilight, but she couldn’t afford to get tangled up. She teleported with a flash, coming down from above Golden Wish with a renewed assault of her own.
“Fluttershy entered the room, locked the door behind her for some reason, and then fell victim to unknown trap X! The details of the type of trap that would produce a result like this are irrelevant. There are all sorts of devices that could remotely kill somepony, even with fire or ice.”
“Ridiculous!” Golden Wish scoffed, blocking Twilight’s blade with her own and pushing back. “You really think you can still rely on the Nightmare’s Proof? Especially with such a lazy theory as that. Nopony in the study was killed by a trap!”
As Twilight continued to push forward, Golden Wish faltered, her hoof slipping in the mud. Twilight took the advantage, teleporting again and striking from behind.
"The death was a suicide! Fluttershy was threatened or coerced into taking her own life after locking herself inside, probably to spare somepony else. Some method of self incineration was used, or something capable of disposing of the body after the fact."
Golden Wish howled as the blue energy passed through her form before leaping into the air, flying straight up. Twilight followed after, already prepared for the counterstrike.
“You're awfully tenacious, Twilight! Just what kind of closed room do you think this is? What about what you saw makes you think Fluttershy would just kill herself all of a sudden, even if she was coerced?"
Twilight pulled in behind Golden Wish as she chased her through the skies. "You keep going on about trust and mutual respect, but you've done nothing but lie through your teeth from the start! How can I believe anything you've shown me? There's already several blatant contradictions between the events of this room and the red truths you've given me."
Golden Wish flipped backwards and dropped her altitude, gliding upside down as Twilight flew over her. "Well go on then. Resolve the discrepancies, if you think you can. The onus is on you, Twilight. Don't come crying to me just because you can't make any sense of it! Wallow in despair and sink into oblivion!"
Twilight roared, looping in midair and diving straight down, already readying her next strike.
"Fluttershy did not commit suicide, assisted or otherwise."
The red energy burst forth and struck Twilight in the chest, but she rolled with the impact and slammed directly into Golden Wish with her remaining momentum. "Fluttershy isn't dead! Somepony faked her death, using the ashes of something else to make it look like she has been burned alive."
Golden Wish screamed as the blue spear pierced clean through her, but Twilight continued her dive, slamming the alicorn into the ground below. As the dust settled, Twilight stepped back, panting as she gazed upon Golden Wish’s prone form.
"Y-you..." Golden Wish coughed, blood trickling from her mouth as she reached a hoof towards the spear pinning her to the earth.
Twilight looked down on the now pitiful sight of her opponent, her expression flat. Was it really that easy? "That's it then, isn't it? Two for zero. Your closed rooms are pretty good, but once again not impossible."
Golden Wish shuddered, scrunching her eyes up as she turned away.
Twilight shook her head. "Just give it up. I don't really know what you're after, but isn't this far enough? You've had your fun. The psychological torture you’ve inflicted on me will likely require years of therapy to recover from. Let's just end this here. I'll go back to my friends, and you can go your own separate way."
Golden Wish chuckled weakly, her laugh full of bitterness and pain. ”Go my own separate way? Where would that be, exactly? Outside of this fragment of reality in which we play our game, what hold do you really think I have?”
Twilight bit her lip. She hadn’t dared to let herself extend any empathy to the monster that lay struck down before her. Even as she considered adopting an open mind to her opponents point of view, a wave of bile leapt up her throat. After everything she had been through, after everything Golden Wish had done… the time for love and tolerance was long past.
Golden Wish coughed again, blood splattering across the snow as she looked up to meet Twilight’s gaze with her own. “Well, you’re the victor, right? Feast in your spoils. Take that mighty blue axe of yours and cut me open. Expose my ugly guts for the world to see, and bask in the golden radiance of the truth!”
Twilight grit her teeth, and conjured forth a large blade of blue, ready to end it all here and now. No hesitation. For Rarity. For Pinkie Pie. For Fluttershy.
“What’s the matter, Twilight? In your love of violence, did you forget that this was a game of words? I've given you oh-so-many devious riddles to solve. Just because you've stumbled on a solution or two doesn't mean you really understand. Can you pull everything together with a grand, unifying theory? Have you grasped that underlying golden light that binds everything together?"
That was right. She wasn’t using a real weapon. It was one thing to figure out the solution to any given closed room, but what did they really mean on a larger scale? Everything she'd seen, that she had been through had operated on the kind of twisted logic that ponies never encountered in their daily lives. At what point was a pony able to apply the scientific method to her nightmares?
Twilight shook her head, looking away. "I could piece together a few guesses based on what I know, but... no. I don't."
Golden Wish snarled, her face twisted with pain as she reached up with her hooves and began to pull on the blue spear. "In that case... We’re. Not. Done here!"
With a primal scream, Golden Wish tore the truth from her body, a corona of red energy pulsing across the field. "Those ashes belong to Fluttershy! It'd be a cute trick, but I'm afraid hoping for a solution without any deaths won't get you anywhere!"
Twilight fell backwards, the weight of the red truth pushing her into the ground. She had been so close, but... No. Fluttershy had called her on it herself; Golden Wish was a bully who would offer something then snatch her hoof back at the last minute. Which meant...
"That's right, Twilight!" Golden Wish shouted as she loomed over her, her expression twisted with sadistic glee. "I was lying when I forfeited the first round. I just thought a little victory for you might be fun for awhile! But it's even better when I crush all your expectations now!"
"In regards to the first closed room, the envelope remained sealed from the time Fluttershy received it till the time you opened it. Whoops! That really leaves you without any options, doesn't it? Not even the smallest bit of driftwood to keep you afloat, to give your theories purchase."
The world fell away into the endless void, and red snakes snapped around Twilight, coiling around her and pulling her hindlegs together while pulling her forelegs apart at an awkward angle. The cords snapped tight, pressing her against an invisible wall. The binding weight of all the unshakable truths dug into her sides, making it difficult to breathe.
Golden Wish floated forwards, cackling wildly. "Is that really all you have, Twilight? Surely you have some surprises left, right?"
Twilight bit back a curse, her vision beginning to dim as oxygen struggled to reach her blood. Maybe she did have a bit of fight left in her at this point. But what difference did it make? There would just be another arbitrary justification ready to block any victory of hers. This wasn't a game. It was just torture. An elaborate excuse to watch and laugh as she danced to somepony else's puppeteering.
"For a game like this... The only way to win is not to play, right?" Twilight asked, her voice a croaking whisper.
Golden Wish stopped laughing. "It's more the opposite of that. Giving up is the main lose condition."
Twilight lowered her head, her vision going dark. "So tell me... Be honest. Would you prefer it if I gave up now, or if we just stayed here and played this game for all eternity?"
Golden Wish's eyes widened and her mouth fell open. "I..."
Twilight snorted, her chuckle more of a rasping cough. "That's what I thought. I'm sorry, everyone..."
"Hey, where's the fun in that? We have a game to play here! Don't you care what happens to your friends? Fighting me is the only way you can save them! I thought you were supposed to be better than this, Twilight!
"... Twilight?"
Twilight closed her eyes, taking a deep breath as she set the story down. There were still pages left, so it wasn't over yet, but… This would be a lot to process.
Twilight opened her eyes to look up at Fluttershy. The pegasus's expression was somewhat distant, and she held a pained smile on her face. As well as...
"Um, Fluttershy, you have a little something there..." Twilight said as she reached up with her hoof and mimed wiping at her face.
"Huh...? I have... Oh!" Fluttershy's eyes widened and she blushed. She stuck her tongue out and awkwardly tried to clean up the "blood" on the side of her mouth. "Did I get it?"
Twilight couldn't help herself and she burst out laughing. "Here," she said, wiping a tear from her eye, "let me get that for you."
Twilight levitated a handkerchief over and gently wiped off the remains of Fluttershy's gory snack.
"Thanks," Fluttershy mumbled, her face bright red.
The two sat there in an awkward silence for a bit before Twilight finally spoke up.
"So... Blue Truth, huh? Are there any more colors I should be worried about here?"
Fluttershy shook her head. "No, that's it. I promise."
Twilight let out a sigh. Before, she might have used "twisted" as a way to describe this narrative. Now, her vast vocabulary was failing her. It was window into the soul of madness, a screaming descent into dark places where few ponies returned from.
Yet the author, Fluttershy, was right in front of her. And, aside from looking a little tired, she seemed completely normal. Despite the sudden genre shifts, the inexplicably over the top action scenes, and the unflinching brutality, there was a method to it all. A pattern was slowly starting to take shape in Twilight's mind, but she still didn't have even the foggiest idea of what this picture would look like in the end.
"I'm afraid I won't be able to replicate the blue truth with actual magic. As far as I know, anyway."
Fluttershy giggled, covering her mouth with a hoof. "I never expected any magic out of you anyway, Twilight. It's okay."
Twilight grinned, then let out a huge yawn. She stretched her arms above her head before flopping onto her side, rolling over to her back and staring up at the ceiling. "I have so many questions, Fluttershy, but I don't even know where to start."
Fluttershy turned away, pawing at the ground. "Oh, I don't know. I may have gotten a little carried away with all of this. It was all so clear to me last night. My pen was flying. The words practically wrote themselves! But hearing it all back like this... suddenly I'm not so sure."
"Hey now." Twilight rolled over to face Fluttershy and propped her head up with a hoof. "The reason I'm investing so much of myself into this is because of your conviction. Now's not the time for second thoughts."
Fluttershy nodded, smiling. "You're right. I'm sorry, Twilight."
"Right then," Twilight said, rolling over and springing up. "At this point in the story, Meta-Twilight is against the ropes, ready to give up because she sees this whole ordeal as unwinnable. Honestly, if I in her position, I might be thinking the same way. I do not envy her."
Twilight began pacing, her mind picking up speed. "But as the reader, I have an even higher perspective to offer."
Twilight whirled, recasting her magic from earlier and summoning the red orb of light. "Let's just get one thing clear. I trust you and everything, but can you say it in red for me anyway? Is this mystery solvable?"
Fluttershy nodded, placing her hoof on the orb. "I wrote this mystery to be solvable. Um, to the best of my ability, anyway."
"Perfect! Now, we have two main closed rooms so far. Both have been sealed with a seemingly impenetrable web of red, but there’s more to it than that. If we take what we saw happen in the study at complete face value, the idea of this being a mystery kind of falls apart, doesn’t it?”
Fluttershy sat on her haunches, watching Twilight with a patient interest.
Twilight lit up her horn, once again calling upon the magic of truth. “Knocks’ 1st. It is forbidden for the culprit to be anyone not mentioned in the early part of the story. That alone should be enough to discount the entire scene, right? Maybe you could make an argument that Golden Wish was sufficiently foreshadowed in the first book, even if we never saw her, but the introduction of Flauros and Cryos? Completely out of the blue.”
Fluttershy frowned, holding a hoof up to her chin. “Well, I’m not entirely sure about that, Twilight. In a murder mystery, if someone hires an assassin to carry out a murder, is the identity of the assassin or the person who hires them more important? Also, speaking of ‘out of the blue’…” Fluttershy said as she waved her hoof at Twilight.
Twilight stared uncomprehendingly for a moment before the meaning in Fluttershy’s words clicked and she conjured a blue orb of light to sit next to the first. “Are you trying to suggest that this mystery has a professional assassin creeping about even on top of everything else?’
Fluttershy giggled. “Oh no, of course not. I’m just talking in hypotheticals here. But, um, if a character’s purpose is to be used as a mere tool or as a weapon for others, their presence in the narrative need not be foreshadowed. Thus, it would not contradict Knocks."
Twilight opened her mouth to object, but frowned, considering Fluttershy’s theory. It skirted a loophole in the rules, which weren’t exactly hard coded to begin with, and it wasn’t like she could go ask Knocks himself for a ruling. Mystery buffs could spend an eternity arguing over what exactly counted as fair play or not and never reach a true consensus.
“The closed room doesn’t make a lot of sense then, does it?” Twilight asked as she resumed her pacing. “Neither do any of the restrictions for that matter. Why would an all powerful alicorn, capable of defeating Princess Celestia and Princess Luna refrain from using magic in such a way to create each closed room in the first place?”
Fluttershy shrugged. “I mean, it wouldn’t really be a puzzle if you could just teleport in and out, would it?”
“That’s…” Twilight sighed, shaking her head. “And what the heck happened to Pinkie Pie? If Fluttershy, er, you, were burned to death, it makes sense that ashes would be left behind, but if Pinkie was frozen it’s not like she’d just turn into a puddle. So her body has to be somewhere.”
Twilight stopped, shuddering, “Ugh. I’m not sure if I should more disturbed at what I’m saying, or the fact that I’m saying this all so casually.”
Fluttershy flinched, pulling back. “I’m sorry…”
Twilight smiled painfully. “It’s okay. We’ve come this far, I’m used to it now. But that can’t have been easy to write.”
Fluttershy nodded, her eyes distant. “I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn’t real and all of you were safe and sound in your own beds.”
Twilight smiled, a strange wave of relief washing over her. She cared deeply about Fluttershy, and in truth, had started to worry a little bit about the mental state of her friend. A small confession like that was a comforting gesture.
"Moving on," Twilight said as she let her heart harden back into a analytical state once more. "I'm still not entirely sure how to reconcile the closed room with the facts that have been given."
Fluttershy furrowed her brow in thought as she idly tapped her hoof the ground. "Hmm... Twilight, are you familiar with the cat in a box paradox?"
Mira meowed softly, opening one eye.
Twilight blinked. "Yes, I'm familiar with it. It was used as a somewhat satirical critique of quantum mechanics. Take two cats. Place both of them in separate boxes, each with a magical crystal. Over the course of an hour, there's a fifty percent chance the crystals will activate and swap the two cats. So when you open the box, no matter which box you open, there’s a fifty percent chance of it containing either cat. Or, it could be considered that until you check, the box contains both cats simultaneously."
Fluttershy giggled. "Yes, that's it exactly. You explain it a lot better than I could, Twilight. But, um, anyway, it's kind of like that."
Twilight rolled her eyes. "The paradox was originally designed to make fun of how ridiculous certain interpretations of quantum theory can get when applied to a macro level. It's been widely misused by armchair philosophers ever since to make vague points about the duality of truth and such. And can you believe some versions of the paradox have the cat dying instead? Bleh. No thanks."
"Oh. I see." Fluttershy bit her lip, looking down at the floor and tracing the lines with her hoof. "Um, I’d like to keep using that metaphor anyway, if that's okay."
Twilight started to grind her teeth, but said nothing.
Fluttershy shrank under Twilight’s disapproving stare. “Well, um, since you don’t know which cat is in the box, or what state it’s in, you can speculate as much as you want about it, but until you actually open it up and look, you’ll never know. Right?”
Twilight let out a long sigh. “Yeah, I think I see what you’re getting at, here. As for how something like that would apply to the mystery…”
Mira stood up, stretching languidly. With a graceful saunter she moved over to the edge of the room, and casually leapt up on top of a small bookshelf. Looking disinterested, she raised up a paw and began licking it while staring at Twilight.
Twilight watched the cat with confusion. “Well, er, anyway. If a closed room is like a catbox, you can make up all sorts of speculations on what happened inside, but when you open it up, only the evidence and the bodies will be left behind.”
With seemingly purposeful indifference, Mira walked along the length of the shelf. She stopped behind a small vase, turned to stare at Twilight once more, then moved forward, brushing the vase as she walked which fell off the shelf and shattered.
“Oh no, that’s not a nice thing to do, kitty! You shouldn’t break other ponies’ things, you know. I want to hear an apology from you, missy!” Fluttershy said, quickly flittering over to scold the cat.
Twilight stared at the broken vase. She could’ve caught it easily with her magic. Instead, she walked over and began scooping up the pieces and the dirt.
“What’s this…?” Twilight asked, staring at what appeared to be a rolled up slip of paper in the wreckage.
Unrolling it revealed it to be filled with small, flowery handwriting, and a short poem.
Do you know where fate will take you?
It’s like the cat inside the box.
How can you know where fate will take you?
You don’t know if the cat in the box is dead or alive.
I know where will fate will take you.
The cat in the box is dead.
Nice to see another chapter posted! If any commenters missed it, there is a compilation blog post of all the 'Truths' given up to and including this chapter. You can find the post here!
That poem gave me the willies.
Well... not sure if the author would be willing to go quite so meta as to start answering our challenges, but here are a few anyway.
"There were two keys capable of opening the study before Fluttershy's was destroyed!"
Yes, there is now only one, but perhaps there were two. I expect this would be countered, but it's worth a shot.
"Fluttershy's key was destroyed after the door was locked!"
"A trap was used to injure or capture sompony or someponies without killing them!"
"Those ashes belong to Fluttershy, but they aren't from her own body!"
Or, put another way.
"The ashes belong to Fluttershy, but Fluttershy is not dead!"
Belong is such a vague term, in this case. I'm really fishing for a "Fluttershy is dead" in red ink. If I get it, I can move away from my theory that she is the murderer (and I kind of want to) but the fact that in both versions of events her body isn't really identifiable is something I can't ignore.
And, one not related directly to any red truth, just an inkling of an idea.
"The murderer was not in the room with Rarity when Rarity died!"
Finally, to ask for clarification, when Golden Wish says
She is saying that even if unicorn magic was used, nothing that it was used for couldn't be accomplished without using unicorn magic. (i.e, setting up a trap, picking up an object, etc.) So no spell work that only unicorn magic could create. Right?
Well... I'm off to go look over both of the murders from this second run and look them over with the given red truths in mind.
Actually... one more for the road...
"The key found in Rarity's bedroom wasn't actually her own key. The culprit or an accomplice put the tag for her room key on another key and left that key in the room!"
4558118 Heh. While it'd be fun, I should probably keep the game contained within the narrative. But I do love to see your theories, and you've got a good grasp on the logic this game uses.
As for your other question...
You're correct on this. The easiest example of Unicorn magic accomplishing something impossible for others would be teleportation. A unicorn could teleport as much as she wanted, but the answer to the question "How did she get past this locked door" cannot be "teleportation"
4558386
Heh... in that case, I think my last accusation is probably the one that is most on the right track. The only way I can see the key in the envelope being used in the crime is if it was teleported in and out of the envelope, which would break the first of the "Golden Closed Room" rules. In that case, the answer has to lie with the key that is actually in the room. And unless I missed it, they never bothered to check that the key fit the lock. After all, why would Rarity's own key fail to work?
Actually, the other way it could work that would be much simpler would depend on how the door can be locked. Some doors can be locked while still open. But if it was a bolt lock, and not just a lock on the doorknob itself, then that is ruled out. If it was just the knob itself that locked, however, it would be a simple matter of locking the door while it remained open, placing the key, then closing the door when you leave. I doubt that's the case though, because I think Twilight would have thought of that.
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Great grasp on underlying Red/Blue mechanic. I'm impressed: you took it really quickly. You've seen all the obvious loopholes from the start. I really dig the phrasing of the "ashes" Red. Belong is awfully ambiguous in this situation.
I'll add: Fluttershy's key was destroyed by the fire, reduced to a slag. There is only one key that can open or close the Princesses' door. Fortunately, it's not Fluttershy's key.
Golden Wish never said that Fluttershy's key was able to open the door, only that one key exists, and that FS key was destroyed. It's the kind of crafty way she would lie with the truth.
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Ooh, nice catch! I missed that.
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Well, at least it's only two red truths based on unspoken assumption. In the original inspiration, you should have seen Lambda's 30 red truths rant about the characteristics of a letter that ultimately never existed, her existence having never been said in red. That's just mean and really not fair-play, albeit equal part genius.
I don't usually post comments on stories but I just wanted to say that you've so perfectly captured the feel of Umineko with the story so far, thank you; I will highly look forward to future chapters!
Also, as far as speculation goes with the locked room mysteries, here is my speculation:
What if the locked doors can be locked without being in the closed position? For instance, the doors on several houses I've lived in have allowed you to insert the key and lock the door while it is still open; in this fashion, the culprit/s could perform the crime in the room, go to the door to lock it while the door is ajar, return into the room to leave the key and then exit, shutting the door closed behind them. What do you guys think? I've never seen this particular theory of mine be debunked in either this narrative or Umineko.
4558059 well I am disturbed as well-the game is creeping into real Twilight. I suspect Real twilight will lose her mind and Fluttershy will have to help her out of that mess she made.
So Red is a truth and Blue is THE truth. Is that what I am seeing here?
4559873 Red > Blue. Red is a truth. Blue is a theory, but accepted as the truth unless it can be proven otherwise.
A lie that everyone accepts becomes the truth.
4559885 Interesting so then The red truths not only point to themselves but also point away from some other information I am interested in how this whole story plays out. I swear everything would seem so much simpler in hindsight.
Thank You for making such a wonderful story!
Ah, I have so many theories about this story, I love it!
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But not always toward the truth.
Consider, if you want, the following statement in red: "You didn't beat your wife recently". It sure implies that you have a wife, and that you used to beat her. But what happens if you don't have any wife? Well, the red truth would still be entirely true, but its implications wouldn't. Too bad if you believed in the unspoken assumption of that wife existence to begin with.
Nothing prevents the red from misleading you. In fact, the red is as much a tool of deception as it is a tool of clarification. IMHO, it is better to have a strong theory, then to try to match your theory with the reds, than to try to form a theory out of the reds. All these colors can make you forget the fact that there is still a narrative out there, with people dying and stuff, and strong characterization, and whodunnits and whydunnits.
Wild it is, then. Umineko made a great point of how important the whydunnit was to the heart of the mystery story, and writer-Fluttershy has suggested (in red!) that we have all the information available to solve the whole mystery from the very first book, so I think I'll dive straight into the why.
So, in no particular order, the pieces I think are relevant to setting up my explanation. We have: the legend of Golden Wish, the epitaph, the idea of Golden Wish being responsible for Applejack and Rarity's relationship (possibly even re-writing Rarity's memories to fit), the idea that the epitaph and the murders could describe a ritual, Twilight's ideas of time travel or of rites and forbidden ancient magics which can bring the dead back to life, a letter of challenge addressed to Twilight with the option of "Surrender yourself wholly to me, mind body and soul, and we shall walk away from here together", the fact that Fluttershy is the only one of the six whose motivations/goals Twilight couldn't guess at and the whole mess of clues pointing at Fluttershy as choosing the location and knowing all the details about the legends, Rainbow Dash's suspcious actions, the idea of magic which requires someone to suffer to get your wish, and the nearby dragon, possibly under the mansion.
So, I think the motivation driving the plot is "Fluttershy is using ritual magic or something on the lines of Golden Wish's magic to win Twilight's heart.". Because of the phrasing of the epitaph, the suspicions that Rarity's past memories/history could have been changed, and Fluttershy's own personality, I suspect that the result* of the ritual succeeding (or Twilight agreeing to surrender herself) would be to rewrite history, presumably meaning that the exact request could ensure that the murders wouldn't happen in the changed history.
Because of this, once a murder has taken place, survivors other than Twilight also become possible accomplices, since Twilight's loss (including by time running out) could restore their friend to life, while Twilight's victory would actually remove that possibility. So, Rainbow acts quite suspiciously in the first book, which I suspect is because Fluttershy shared the story of Golden Wish with her early on, killed Pinkie, then told Rainbow how Pinkie could be restored to life if she played along.
Rainbow painted Twilight's door with her mark so that she could cover the fact that there actually was blood (or red paint from the shed) on her hoof by knocking on the red-painted door. That brings up the possibility that contrary to the expectations that "body that wasn't properly checked could indicate a faked death", that Rainbow killed Fluttershy, the difference in style of deaths between Pinkie and Fluttershy being instead that Rainbow was enraged by Pinkie's death.
Looking at Rainbow's apathetic behaviour after that, and that she didn't expect anything to chase their bait suggests she didn't think there was anypony else in the mansion beyond the four of them. She was also the most likely one to have delivered the letter from nowhere. She reached Rarity and Applejack before Twilight (after the five minutes without tapping alarm went off, likely because they fell asleep), killed them (a splash of blood running from her mouth made Twilight think she had bitten her tongue, but was probably from the murder), gave a half-coherent explanation to Twilight, then tried to destroy the mansion (with Twilight still inside). She fell, probably simply because as she said at the beginning "I don’t think even a dragon could fly for long in this weather". (The flash of gold falls under Knocks' 9th and doesn't need explaining)
For loose ends, since Goldie looks pretty much like Flutterbat with a horn, I would guess the horn in the boiler room was part of an outfit worn by Fluttershy, disposed of by Rainbow hours before it was found, which Fluttershy might have also used to convince the dragon (if he is still there, and located under the mansion) to blow the place to kingdom come at midnight as the grand finale of the ritual.
* At least, the expected result. It is possible for her to be mistaken, of course.
That all ran a bit long, so I'll leave my speculations on what's happening in the Reader-Twilight level until a later post.
I expect there's still a further trap behind this one, but:
A Golden Closed Room has been defined, but not applied to this closed room! Therefore, the windows haven't been declared locked from the inside in red for this room! Fluttershy, being a pegasus, could have simply flown out the window!
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Haven't read anything in spoiler tags, but in response to solely the last comment, I don't think that's going to lead anywhere. The three comments were stated specifically in relation to the current closed room first, then Golden Wish took the time to bind them together so in the future she could simply say in red
"This room is a Golden Closed Room!"
And Twilight would know what that means. The wording on the window says that all windows were locked.
If Golden Wish had said, "The following are a definition of a Golden Closed Room!" and then listed them, then you could argue that the room isn't actually a Golden Closed Room. But she defined it in relation to the current room first.
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I actually don't expect that to be the solution to this closed room, but I do believe what I laid out is a way through that red.
The three pieces of the Golden Closed Room definition were in response to Twilight asking her to "Go on then. Lay out the basics. I'll cut your narrative to shreds!". Goldie then proceeded to lay out the basics of her Golden Closed Room definition (a definition for a closed room being very definitely part of the basics of a mystery), but didn't specifically say they applied to this room if you choose to read it very narrowly. If an interpretation is possible at all it gives you ways around the red, so if I could intentionally read it that way, she could intentionally say it that way.
Much like the treachery of images idea that Writer-Fluttershy and Reader-Twilght discussed a couple of chapters ago, I believe that in this case ceci n'est pas une pipe.
4573639 How do you explain the chain lock on the door then?
Actually, I can think of a way that would be possible. Just take the door off the hinges, apply the chain, then replace the whole thing back in the door frame. The key here is if the bolts holding the hinges together are exposed on the outside.
The animal bones in the furnace support your theory. All that gore had to come from somewhere.
Finally I'm caught up. This story is deviously clever, extremely creative, and an absolute blast to read. I'm totally confused, but I like that. I adore this story.
(I'm also incredibly jealous. My own story here is also a confusing meta-narrative-thingy, and now that I've read this my attempt just seems to pale in comparison. )
Hm, criticisms... Well, I enjoyed Act 1 more than I have Act 2 so far. I loved Act 1 for its horror/suspense angle, and that's been missing from Act 2. I know you can't really get it back now with the direction the story's taken, but it's just something I noticed. My best piece of advice would be to remind you that you need to tell a story, with characters we empathize with, interesting events, tension, conflict, and all of that. You're fine now, but I can all too easily see this story drowning in its own cleverness and focusing so much on the puzzle that it hurts the narrative.
That's all I can think of, though. This story is awesome, I love it, and you should be proud of it.
After rereading the story, I have to conclude that every time Golden Wish appears "in person" in the scenes she shows Twilight (i.e. with Celestia and Luna, and facing off against Applejack, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie) that these aren't true reflections of what is happening, but are reconstructions of what she wants Twilight to believe happened to her friends.
It would be as if she showed Twilight a scene of her magically appearing in Rarity's room, beating her to death, and magically disappearing. That isn't what happened, but without Twilight solving the mystery of the locked room it is the only thing that could have happened.
I'll know for sure depending on what story-Applejack tells story-Twilight about her experiences in the study, but if Applejack did, in fact, see Golden Wish, then nothing makes sense to me anymore. Because if the other characters are actually interacting with Golden Wish, then the culprit is either her or someone using magic to look like her, and if it's the latter than that would break one of "Knocks" rules.
I think this is a too heavy of a mystery for me to solve as my first.
I don't get the point of questioning whether there's a perfect closed room mystery or not. Not even sure this one counts as a closed room mystery as we saw the murder take place.
The whole game Goldie has going still need more rules. Such as victory conditions for Twilight. And what does she win, then? Like in Umineko, I don't really see the point of the story when it's all just random rubbish with no clear forward or backwards for our characters. Unless you just like to see the characters suffer, I guess.
If we can't trust what Goldie shows, why even think that Fluttershy or Pinkie ever disappeared? It's like Rarity said to Applejack: "we could just as easily question the reality of anything"
"I wrote this mystery to be solvable"
What mystery? One of the closed rooms? This scenario? The previous scenario?
This story has the consistency of sponge cake.
"No tricks accomplishable solely by unicorn magic factored into the construction of this closed room." - "construction" could technically refer to the actual construction of the room, as when the mansion was built. "closed room" could refer to the room which is currently and mostly always closed, because the door closes by itself and it's fully enclosed with four walls, floor and ceiling.
This sentence can't be used.
Ugh. I'm never going to finish this story at this rate!
But this is getting good. Twilight 1's and Golden's little sparring match by way of literally warring speculation was a treat to read. Though I do wish that you could have used something other than 'auto lock' to describe the locking mechanisms on the doors. Beyond that, this chapter is getting more meta than the Matrix. The Blue Truth threw me for a loop, but it was a pleasant surprise. Twilight 1 was getting her flank handed to her and it's nice to see her fighting back finally. I think that Twilight 0 said it best:
wtf is with the real life shit
5916506 fractal.fractalenlighten.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/blue-red-pill.jpg
I only found this again thanks to Fractured Sunlight. Reminds me how awesome this was. Sure, it's gory and strange, but the concept is great.
My prediction, Golden is real and trying to break out of her fictional prison
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I expected like, an actual mystery.
Not this confused pile of animu slop whatever the fuck it's become. It's not even a mystery anymore, it's like... half splatter-horror and half really bad attempt at psychological thriller.
Ever play Danganronpa? LOL