After roughly twenty minutes of following the heat trail of that suspicious automobile, the professor arrived at what looked like an old warehouse that was built inside a cliff on one side and covered by trees on the other side. In addition to its natural camouflage, this warehouse was also very isolated compared to the rest of the city. There was only one door on this warehouse and that was the one that opens upward in front of the warehouse.

Upon closer examination, the professor noticed that the rising door had a numeric pad on it and an automated lock, "It appears that this door requires a password to open. How quaint..."

(!)

Puzzle #10 - What's The Password?

Picarats: 20/20

There is a numeric pad that contains keys from 0 to 9 and a screen above it that contains five lines where numbers may be inserted to form a five-digit password. Underneath the numeric pad, there is a note handwritten in English:

"For security reasons, the password is changed once per week. For those of you who have forgotten the password, remember to always count the number before the next."

With the help of Truesight, the professor could see small traces of heat on the 2, 3, 4, and 5 keys, thus indicating that they were the only keys recently pressed.

What's the password?

(!)

The professor took a moment to examine the note, "Always count the number before the next... Five digits..."

"I can see traces of heat where the keys have been touched. Hmm... There are five digits in the password, but only four keys have been pushed recently."

"That rules out the possibility of simple numerical order... It's also highly unlikely that someone would wear some sort of glove for the last digit either, so I'll assume that one of the four numbers are used twice."

"The note states that we must count each number before the next one, so there must be some sort of pattern."

The professor reached into his coat pocket, "Perhaps there is a way to make this easier..."

"Hershel? What are you doing?"

The professor pulled out a hint coin from his pocket, "I still have several more hint coins in my possession."

"And who do you plan to actually give the hint coin to?"

The professor started to realize that there was no person or coin slot to actually insert the hint coin into, "Ah... This is the Auric Golden Gate all over again."

"Only this time, there's no animal around to rip the gate open..."

The professor kept trying to think about it, "Two, three, four, five... Adding all of that together makes fourteen. One moment... Perhaps I should start with five, then subtract three to make two, then add two to make four..."

The professor inserted '53224'. The screen made a beeping noise and read 'INVALID PASSWORD'. Although the failed attempt wasn't alarming, what took place was very alarming, even for the professor's standards. Immediately after that first attempt, two groups of 'tubes' extracted out of the warehouse.

The professor stood puzzled as these 'tubes' began to rotate, "Are those... motorized cameras?"

"No, they look more like..."

The 'tubes' began rotating much faster!

"GUN BARRELS!"

The professor could feel the other soul in his body take over and fling him forward face first toward the door. While the professor was right on the ground next to the door, he could hear a stream of silenced gunshots. The professor caught a quick glance at one of the rotary guns while they were firing where the professor was standing earlier. It did indeed have a large muzzle over the barrel to reduce the noise it makes when firing. When the guns were finished firing, they quickly retracted themselves back inside the warehouse.

As the professor began to stand back up, he saw the part of the ground where he was standing earlier riddled with bullet-sized holes. While he kept staring, the ground in that area began to fold itself back like a trap door.

The professor could see several dead bodies down this trap door before it folded itself back up again, "Good heavens!"

"Well, at least we're at the right place."

The professor could only shudder at those that were unfortunate enough to input the password incorrectly by mistake, "Well, I suppose that is how these people dispose of intruders... or incompetence..."

"That's surprisingly witty considering you've almost been shot repeatedly."

The professor took a deep breath before attempting to input another password, "After having witnessed the sheer amount of absurdity that I have, I am certainly not going to falter now. Thank you..."

Picarats: 18/20 (adding insult to injury FTW)

The professor still knew that only the 2, 3, 4, and 5 keys were used for the password, "Hmm... What if I began with two? Ah! I believe I have it! There are three letters in 'two', then five letters in 'three', then four letters in 'five', and then there is a perpetual cycle of four letters in 'four'."

Before the professor inserted '23544', he carefully sidestepped out of the range of where the gun barrels would aim just in case he was incorrect again.

Luckily, the screen made a different beeping noise and read 'PASSWORD ACCEPTED' this time.

(!)

The warehouse door opened very quietly, which made sense considering that whoever occupied this building didn't want to be heard by anyone else in the city. However, it had the side effect of its occupants not hearing it open either.

While the men that were driving the automobile were nowhere to be seen, the automobile itself could still be seen parked inside the warehouse in plain sight. The professor noticed a nearby lever next to the door which should most likely close the door. After a brief moment of turning on Truesight again, he saw that the lever had recently been used and pulled it himself, which did indeed close the door behind him.

Aside from the lever and parked car, there were mostly a large assortment of stacked boxes and containers which was typical for a warehouse.

The professor kept Truesight on the whole time and noticed two white auras behind some of the boxes, which signified people he hadn't met, "I must say... This form of sight may end up becoming a crutch of sorts."

The professor saw the auras moving away from the boxes towards his location, which prompted him to hide inside one of the cardboard boxes.

When the people that represented those auras came into plain sight, the professor could see that they were the same two men that he saw carrying those bodies on that automobile earlier. Now that these men were in much better lighting, more of their physical features could be seen. They both had the same black coats and small black top hats. As a whole, both of these men resembled enforcers of The Family back in London. Neither of them noticed the professor inside one of the boxes and were casually talking with one another.

One of their voices had a very deep Russian accent, but spoke English, which was also unusual for a German city, "So, what's our share going to be this time?"

The other one had a much lighter French accent, "Verrat said we're getting double tonight. You know, it makes me wonder... Where do these people get all that money in the first place?"

The deep-voiced man didn't seem to care, "You shouldn't ask questions like that, Mikhail. It's bad for business."

The lighter-voiced man that was called 'Mikhail' seemed more concerned, "But, doesn't it bother you? Even after a month of being Verrat's dogs, we still know nothing about the man!"

The deep-voiced man started to laugh, "Ha! And? So long as I'm getting my cut, it's not my problem."

Mikhail pulled the lever to open the door and then noticed and started pointing at the large number of bullet holes on the 'trap door', "Iskhad! Over here! Look! Someone was here!"

The deep-voiced man that was called 'Iskhad' ran over to where Mikhail was pointing, "Ha?"

Mikhail kneeled down closer to the 'trap door', " See the ground right there? I told you we needed to change the password or someone could've gotten in here!"

Iskhad started laughing even more, "Hahaha! Okay! Okay, fine! You were right. You happy now?"

Mikhail's voice could still be heard as the door started closing, "Not without my five hundred Euros!"

Iskhad's voice could also be heard, "Aye... You're a pain in my ass, you know that?"

Mikhail's voice was getting quieter which indicated that the two were leaving, "Hey, we made a bet and I won, fair and square!"

Iskhad's voice was getting quieter, "Yea, yea, yea..."

The duo's voices were becoming inaudible to the point that the professor couldn't eavesdrop on their conversation anymore.

The professor looked around for any more auras and after he was certain that nobody else was in the vicinity, he got out of the cardboard box, "Well, those two are certainly a peculiar pair.", and then slowly walked toward where the two men were standing before they left while keeping an eye out for any other traps in the vicinity.

There weren't any holes or tiles sticking out, so it seemed like there weren't any. Among the large number of boxes and the table lying around, the only thing that the professor found of interest were a number of wires sticking out of one of the larger boxes. Upon examining the boxes, there was a computer completely hooked up inside of it, "How odd. This is quite a cramped place to place a computer."

"There may actually be a reason for that, Hershel. Turn it on."

The professor didn't know where this was going, "What?"

"Turn the computer on. It should have some information on who these people are, why they've stolen those bodies, and if that's related to the spirit hauntings."

The professor turned the computer on, "Ah! Hold on... There is one thing that I do not understand. Why would they want such incriminating information on a computer where anyone could find it?"

"If those two are indeed related to The Family, then the answer would be 'insurance'."

"Insurance for what exactly?"

"Traitors, squealers, that sort of thing. When leading a large organized crime syndicate like The Family, there is always a chance of betrayal. If that leader had that information secure and accessible, they could use it to keep their minions under their control with blackmail."

"Ah! And what about this 'Verrat'? Even those two men seemed to have known nothing about him..."

"Yes, it's unlikely that we'll find anything about a 'Verrat' here, but it's still worth a look."

"By the way, how do you know that?"

"Pardon?"

"Crime syndicates carry information as insurance... Where did you learn that?"

"It was back in London's underground. Dimitri was thought to be the leader of The Family and he did have several computers used to keep an eye on Bostro and the others. It didn't make sense that a large rabble of mobsters could easily be so loyal to him, so I just put two and two together. That's all."

While the computer was starting to boot up, the professor was slightly embarrassed to admit something, "Oh... And on the subject of computers..."

"Yes, Hershel?"

"I... never did learn how to operate them."

"Really? But you've had almost eleven years..."

"I was always quite busy with my profession. It was only recently that Luke wanted me to view this 'Tophatipedia' thing and I never... quite... figured it all out."

The professor pointed at the power button, "I know that button makes the screen light up...", and then started randomly pressing keys on the keyboard, "And these buttons put letters on the screen...", and then held the mouse like a remote in front of the monitor and started clicking the left mouse button with his thumb, "And I am certain that this remote device must perform something of importance."

"That would be the mouse..."

The professor looked at the computer mouse as if it were a real one, "A mouse? How odd...", and then looked around the monitor, "Is there a 'cat' device nearby that controls this 'mouse' by chance?"

"Oh, for heaven's sake. This is so sad to watch... May I take over from here?"

The professor was hesitant, "Take over? You mean take control of me?"

"Yeeesss... You clearly need my help."

The professor was visibly struggling to figure out what everything on the computer does, "This is merely like another puzzle. I may need some time to understand these functions, but I am positive that I can solve it."

"Really? Tell me, what does the 'Control-Alt-Delete' command do?"

"The control-what-delete?"

"My point is made..."

"Oh... All right. Very well."

The professor's eyes started glowing blue, "Here we are. Oh, this computer is connected to the internet. Excellent! Now, if I find anything from here, I should be able to just upload it to the public right from under this organization's noses!"

I'm not going to show Travis's side of the story for a while, since he would just be asleep during this point of the story. As always, feel free to review!