Author's Note: This must be my fastest turnaround yet. As of 14 April, I've finished 26 chapters. Hope you enjoy this one!

P.S.: Edited this one slightly on 16 January 2020 for continuity purposes.

Nonary Game: Resonance

(Current path: 5)

(Suggested listening: Riddle and Puzzle)

"It reminds you of… yourself?" Robin asked.

"Well… I may be getting a bit ahead of myself here. As I said before you counted out the vitamins, I hope you like math. Do you?" Delta's question seemed to be directed to both Robin and Leo.

"I can't say I do," Leo answered. "I'm not a fan of these math puzzles. I'm sure I've said this by now."

"Alright, fair enough. Robin, what about you?"

Robin had never really found himself loving math, per se, but he certainly could never bring himself to have the animosity against it that so many of his classmates had shared. He knew many of his American friends lamented the way their public schooling only gave them uninteresting topics and made it seem forced, but he'd had a much more interesting time with the subject. "It's alright, I guess. I mean, it's everywhere, right? You can't exactly go through life without being skilled in it," he finally answered.

Delta offered a hint of a smile. "That's very true. Actually, it's also a great lead in to what I was about to say. Well, the first part, at least. There's a concept that you might have heard of, called numerology. You're familiar?"

"That's… the study of numbers?" Robin asked.

"Not exactly. Numerology is a sort of belief system. Mm, that's not quite right. But... it's essentially in the same vein as astrology. People who practice numerology believe that numbers have kind of an intrinsic influence on the universe, since they're concrete and universal, unlike, perhaps, palm reading, which relies on some random person's interpretation of lines on your hand." Delta's information on the topic was all quite new to Robin, who could hardly believe that such a divination system existed.

"Huh," Robin said. "So, wait, how does someone know which numbers are going to affect their day, or whatever? I get the planets being in certain signs for astrology, but… are there some kind of numbers... floating around?" The question sounded kind of silly, but he honestly found the idea of numerology to be silly itself, so he wasn't too worried.

"They say that each person has a few numbers that are specific to them, called core numbers," Delta continued. "One of them is called the life path number, based on your birth date, which talks about your destiny. Another is an expression number, based off your name. There's also always the influence of your age at the time, or the number of the year, but those are quite a stretch, in my opinion. Our calendar system really is quite arbitrary, and there's no reason your life should change just because you've had a birthday, right?"

Robin glanced at Leo, whose face reflected some feeling between surprise and concern. The way Delta spoke, he was almost starting to think this was something he genuinely believed.

"How do you even get a number out of your name?" Leo asked, his voice not even attempting to hide his skepticism.

However, Delta smiled broadly, quite the opposite of what Robin had been expecting. "That's the best part, at least, in this context. You take each letter and assign it with the number of its position in the alphabet. So, Leo, for you, L-E-O becomes 12-5-15. Then… you take the digital root." Robin could see why this had come to Delta's mind; the Nonary Game clearly featured digital roots strongly. "So, if Leo was your whole name, your expression number would be 5. Fitting, huh? So, supposedly, that would mean you're a free spirit who loves exploration but can be somewhat disorganized."

Leo gave a small smirk then, leading Robin to believe that the description wasn't terribly off the mark. He honestly found himself becoming a little bit impressed, especially when he saw the look of satisfaction on Delta's face. "The life path number is somewhat simpler, of course. You just have to take the digital root of the birth month, day, and year individually, and then again together. There are a few exceptions, though, so it's a bit more interesting than the Nonary Game."

"What are those?" Robin asked. Regardless of the topic, Delta's manner of speaking had made him interested.

"If you were born in November, maybe, that's the 11th month. But 11 is a special number in numerology, one of the three master numbers. So instead of reducing it to 2 before putting it in with the other two numbers, you'd keep it as an 11. Usually that doesn't end up changing the number, though, unless you get lucky and happen to get a sum of another master number." Delta's eyes didn't quite lock onto Robin's as he continued. "Personally, my life path number is 1. Guess that means I'm the best, huh? Star of the show, they say." Robin hadn't really thought of Delta as much of an outspoken sort, at least he hadn't until just a minute ago. Leo continued to look unimpressed, but his mood had little dampening effect on Delta, who soon spoke yet again. "Topaz, if I might ask, when is your birthday?"

Robin wondered if Delta might use that information to judge what kind of person he was supposed to be in his life, but again, he reminded himself, this topic was purely for entertainment and could not harm him. Thus, he wrote down the date and handed the notebook over to Delta.

"Alright… that's 9… oh, this is 22, which is a master number, so we don't reduce it." Delta seemed surprised by this, so Robin wondered if it was important. He fell silent for a few seconds, giving the notebook a powerful stare. As his eyes grew wide, Robin figured there was probably no doubt that Delta, to some level, really did believe in this. "You're a 33," he managed to say, somewhat louder than a whisper. "That's next to impossible to find."

Leo laughed once. "I guess Topaz here is something really special, then?"

Within another second, Delta had quickly regained his composure. "You know, 33 is the highest master number… but there were several different days that year which give that life path number, so perhaps you're just very lucky."

"I've been told that a time or two," Robin agreed.

"In any case, I didn't mean to distract you for this long. I guess I can talk longer about fantasy stuff than I thought. We should get back to finding our way out of here," Delta finished, heading back toward the large pill case. Although he'd just said that numerology was fantasy, the ideas he'd shared floated in the back of Robin's mind as he returned to focus.

"A master number, huh…" he whispered.

(Suggested listening: Senary Game)

Robin stepped up beside Leo, who was already reaching into the seventh well of the tray. "It's a key, alright, but I doubt it goes to the exit," Leo said. "Unless this is a really messed-up card."

"Boxcars and I found a similar one in the men's locker room," Robin stated. "This has to go to the coach's office in here."

"Well, lead the way," Delta invited. The three quickly crossed the short distance to the office, and Robin was quite relieved to hear the rotating sounds of the lock's tumblers. "Excellent, this is the last room we haven't checked, then?"

"So then the card key had better be in here, huh," Leo said. The group crossed to the desk, seeing nothing else in particular that stood out. Much like the coach's office in the men's room, only one desk drawer possessed anything. The first was an A5 sheet of paper with some blotchy black patterns on it. They almost seemed to form a letter, but to be sure…

"Aha, a pair," Robin said, placing the transparency atop the sheet. It was simple work to align the empty spaces on the sheet with the blobs on the transparency, thus revealing a rather minimalistic message. "E," he read.

"What could that be a clue for? Did we miss something in here?" Leo asked.

"I… really doubt it," Robin responded, equally confused. "But we might as well hold on to this," he sighed, sticking the sheets in his backpack.

"Just in case…" Leo whispered. "I'm gonna go back and grab that bottle of E vitamins; maybe it's telling us we need them for later." Robin sincerely suspected that wasn't the case, but he lacked any better interpretations, so he allowed Leo this action as he inspected the second item.

"The key card," he said, a breath of relief lighting up his face. "Let's get out of here."

"You don't have to tell me twice," Delta agreed. The two simply held up the key card as they passed Leo, who quickly joined them in the access hall.

Boxcars had been leaning against the back wall, wearing only the slightest hint of worry on his face. "That's the card, huh? Great work, guys." Robin simply nodded and approached the door, swiping the key card in the scanner. The LED on the side, which had just been red, then lit up a nice turquoise color.

"Are you guys ready?" Robin said. He was met with silence, but it felt more eager than tense, so he pressed down on the bar, freeing the group into the next room.

Again, they found themselves in a bleak-looking hallway. Thus, Robin assumed the area they were in was still in the vicinity of the locker room entrances. The hallway ended in a wall only a short ways in front of them, after which it turned left into a longer hallway. Leo and Delta jogged ahead, to see how far they'd be able to go down the hallway, while Boxcars and Robin kept a slower pace, intending to check any doors they passed.

There was only one door, on their right shortly after the bend. "Since it's this close to the locker rooms, it's got to be some kind of workout room," Boxcars mused. "I guess let's see if it's unlocked." As he moved to place his hand on the door handle, the other two returned.

"Well, that didn't take long," Robin mused.

"Yeah," Leo sighed. "We're on the other side of that barricade we saw earlier, and there's a card reader on this side of it, so maybe we really can open it. But there's another door that keeps us from going farther, kind of like a gate thing that we can't open."

"Could you see through it?" Boxcars asked.

"There wasn't much to see. The end of the hall, I guess. It bends again, so there wasn't anything particularly interesting," Leo finished.

"Then it looks like it's this door." With that, Boxcars pulled the handle down, giving way to a room that roughly matched their expectations. "Yeah, it's a gym, all right." The wall they were entering through was lined with racks holding up barbells, and several machines sat on the opposite wall. They circled the room quickly, crossing past a divider that seemed to serve as an extra wall against which to put machines.

At the other end of the room were two doors, one on the side wall and one that must have been attached to a closet. The closet door was unlocked, but the one on the wall was not. "Guess we've got to unlock this one as well," Delta sighed. "Looks like we have to enter a password here." He pointed at a keypad set beside the door, with a red light illuminated beside it. He started typing at random, then hitting the Enter key, thus clearing the screen of the presumably incorrect password. "Twelve letters."

"Alright, let's see what we can find," Boxcars said, and the group got to work.

(Suggested listening: Cabin)

Since they'd already checked the exit door, Robin figured the next best place to look for clues would be the closet. He followed Boxcars inside, a bit surprised to see the room was larger than expected. "I guess it's almost like another little mini coach's office, huh," Boxcars said. "There's nothing on this desk, though."

Robin's focus moved to the back corner of the room, where he saw several unraveled yoga mats stacked atop each other. The top one was white, and he picked it up, revealing a pink one beneath it. He was a bit put off by how stiff it was. "Is this like five mats stuck together?"

"Yeah, it's pretty thick, huh?" Boxcars agreed. "That's gotta be extra protection, to keep your butt from feeling the hard ground through it, or something." The idea was a bit strange to Robin, but he said nothing. "Look, there's an E on the side." Robin turned the edge to face him, and indeed he was met by a cleanly painted E. "Yeah, they've all got letters on them."

Robin set the mat back atop the stack and read the spelled message. "STLITECETRHE?"

"Huh. Or I guess it could be EHRTECETILTS. They've got letters on both sides," Boxcars said, pointing. "We probably have to figure out the right order to stack them."

"So maybe it doesn't matter if we go top to bottom or bottom to top, right, since they'd both give the same two messages."

"I'm sure when we figure out the order, the right message should be obvious." Boxcars moved to the other back corner, where a small box sat atop a larger case. "It's a first aid kit," he noticed, popping it open simply. "Looks like we've got a pair of scissors… a roll of athletic tape… and a bunch of empty bandage wrappers, which I'm willing to bet are useless."

"We might as well take the scissors and tape, though. Maybe we'll have to wrap something up," Robin thought. "What's in that big case?"

Boxcars fiddled with the lid. "Mm, keep wondering, I guess. It's locked. Looks like we need a key." With a smirk, he handed the pair of scissors and the roll of athletic tape to Robin. "I think that's all of interest in here, Topaz. Our captor must have emptied out the place of everything that's not puzzles."

The two stepped outside, rejoining Delta and Leo, who were staring at the ground. "The floor must be completely covered by these foam puzzle pieces," Delta said.

"Yeah, they're to keep the equipment and floor from scratching each other up or breaking if you drop something," Leo followed. "But each one has a marking in the middle. They probably mean we have to pick out certain pieces." He knelt down and dug his fingers around the nearest piece, labeled in the center with a mark like a letter Y. "No, nothing under this one."

"No sense going at it at random, right?" Boxcars asked. "Let's look around for more clues." They circled to the wall to the right of the closet, facing opposite to the wall through which they'd entered the gym. "Like all these machines."

"You wouldn't think a school would have this kind of variety in its workout machines," Leo said. "This is more like what I'd expect from a college campus gym. A small college, I guess. Or a big high school." Robin wasn't terribly familiar with any of the machines, but he figured if someone shouted at him to start using one he wouldn't be at a loss for how to make any of them work. Alas, he refrained from touching them as he followed the others.

"There's a pretty big circular hole in front of this one," Boxcars said, standing a few feet from the third machine in the row. "It's maybe a foot and a half in diameter."

"There's one over here too," Delta replied, standing over by another machine on the wall. "And a third one down there."

"This machine's for doing calf raises," Leo said, pointing to the one Boxcars was standing near. "You rest the pads on your shoulders and then flex your calves on the stand here." Robin made sure to keep on the lookout for any clues that might mention calf raises. "Oh, Delta, that's for bicep curls. You sit there and pull that bar up towards you. And…" He quickly crossed to the machine behind the last circular hole, which stood taller than the others and had a bar sitting in a rack overhead. "You could do a few things with this one, but with that bar, I'd say it's probably set up for lat pulldowns." Leo unracked the bar and sat down then, pulling the bar against the force of the cable it was attached to. "Oh yeah," he said, perhaps a little louder than he'd intended.

"Right," Boxcars followed. "And look, there's a smaller hole here, shaped kinda like a triangle. But it's just kind of out here in the open, huh?" Robin hadn't a clue what sort of object might fill the indentation, so he simply took note of it.

On the side of the divider facing the exit wall was a long rack of dumbbells. "There doesn't seem to be anything up with these free weights," Delta said. "But there's a weirdly tall rack down there at the end." He and Robin approached it, seeing that it was several levels high and housed multiple pairs of different colored dumbbells. "Each weight pair is a different color, and it's on a different level. This is quite the setup."

"These must be for beginners," Robin said. "One pound, two pounds… all the way up to ten pounds, and then there's 12 and 14 pounds." Thus, there were twelve pairs. "Was there twelve of anything else?" he wondered to himself.

"And there's one lonely free weight here," Delta said, reaching for a dumbbell that seemed to have several plates on each side. It was set in a rack of its own on the ground, and it had little switches on it. "Adjustable," Delta commented as he pulled up on it. Alas, the weight refused to move. "Argh. What weight is it set to?"

"The handle says 1, and the next plate out says 2. It looks like that's the only one switched on, so… three pounds?" Robin replied.

"There's no way it's actually three pounds," Delta sighed. "We must have to set this to a certain weight for it to unlock." The other plates were labeled with 4, 8, 16, 32, and 64. "I guess it goes up to 127 pounds. Kind of a lot for a free weight, don't you think?"

The area around the racks was empty, apart from the labeled floor mats, but the two figured they'd gotten all they could from that half of the room, so they walked back toward the wall of machines and crossed over. Leo and Boxcars stood near the corner, standing before a stack of what looked to be box-like, metal stools. "What are these?" Robin asked.

"Plyo boxes," Leo replied. "Usually you jump from the ground on top of one of these and back down again as quickly as you can, to work on speed as well as strength. You gotta be explosive, as my coach would say."

"This biggest one says "LAT 45" on it," Boxcars read, as though the others couldn't see the large, white letters contrasting the black surface plainly. "Leo thinks it's got something to do with the lat pulldown machine."

There appeared to be four other plyo boxes stacked under the first, each one decreasing in size from the prior. "What do the others say?" Robin asked. Leo grabbed the largest one and hoisted it so that the bar around the bottom edge would clear the top of the other boxes, moving it out of the way. Atop the next box was a white pouch of some sort. "It kind of looks like a sad grocery sack."

"It's kinda triangular," Boxcars noticed. "But it's kind of flat and empty looking. I bet we have to fill it up and stick it in that triangular hole back there." He didn't nod in the direction of the hole as he spoke, which Robin found a bit odd, but he moved past it quickly, picking up the pouch. "Uh, Leo?"

"Yo," Leo said, grabbing the now featureless plyo box and sticking it under the largest one as the others focused.

"A blank piece of paper," Boxcars said.

"Well, blank on this side," Robin replied, flipping it over. Indeed, the backside of the paper had four numbers: a yellow 1, a black 2, a cyan 3, and a magenta 4. "We'll probably need this later," he said, sticking the paper in the front cover of his notebook.

The last two plyo boxes were fairly small, so he and Delta had no trouble moving them both out for inspection. On the larger of the two was another message in simple, white lettering, reading "BICEP 10." "That's definitely gotta be for the machines. Topaz, you writing that down?" Boxcars asked.

"Yes, yes, I got it," Robin answered, wondering if Boxcars would ever realize that he knew what he was doing by this point.

"There's nothing on the last one," Delta sighed, slowly lowering his hand to it. But when his hand reached the surface… "Yah!" he shouted, yanking it away.