Author's Note: I know I haven't updated this one in forever but here we are again. My jobs been driving me crazy so I haven't had time to write at all in the past few weeks. Also I didn't really do any actual historical or scientific research for this so I have no idea if it's true or not so please don't be offended. Once again translations will follow the story. I own nothing.
7. The Second Riddle
The hallway was long and twisting and grew darker the farther they walked. Diane was used to the dark, she was a bat after all, but after a few yards Talia's faceless henchman pulled a light out of one of his pouches. As they continued down the hall Diane realized she hadn't investigated the two pouches she had on the clothing she'd been provided. The first one was empty, she was only slightly disappointed. The second one yielded a small length of rope, about the length of Diane's outstretched arm, it might come in handy later. The henchman in front of her paused and she leaned around him to try and see what he had seen. In the slightly dim light she could almost make out some writing on the wall. Beyond them stretched two hallways made of different types of stone.
"Here let me see the light." Without waiting for him to hand it to her, or more likely refuse to, she snatched it out of his hand before he could realize what was happening.
"Ce este negru atunci când îl obține , de culoare roșie atunci când este utilizat , și gri când îl arunci. What is black when you get it, red when you use it, and grey when you throw it away? Hmmm." Diane tapped a finger on her chin and frowned for a moment."Fun fact time! Talia, you said you did research, what besides gypsies are the Romani famous for being?" Talia raised an eyebrow at the young girl who was clearly playing with her at least a little. She decided she could play along for the moment, after all the child was amusing in her own way.
"Miners, and jewelers, they were said to be adept fortune tellers as well." Diane raised a hand.
"No need to show off you already got the right answer the first time. There were a few clans of Romani who chose to settle in the mountains and mine for the precious rocks, gems and the like. I'm guessing these mountains, since we are in Romania." The henchman gasped slightly.
"Oh come on it wasn't that hard to figure out. Seriously where else was the tomb of an ancient Romani sorceress going to be, Transylvania? But that's not the point, point is the Romani valued knowledge and the sharing there of. So even if she was raised as a gypsy not a miner she would have been taught to recognize different rocks, useful ones." Diane shone the light around first down the hallway to the left then the right. She frowned.
"But that hallway is granite, and that one's limestone. So the riddle doesn't make sense. Unless…" Diane shone the light back at the wall on which the riddle was written. It seemed to be made of an entirely different kind of stone.
"There we are." She tossed the light back to the confused henchman and vaulted up the solid wall so she was level with the ceiling, using the letters of the riddle as footholds as she pushed against the seemingly solid black rock. There was a faint click and a gust of dusty air and Diane was disappearing through the nearly invisible hole in the ceiling. Talia leapt after the girl calling for her henchman to follow them into the crawl space that lay above the two false paths.
Meanwhile the rest of the team was creeping down the hall doing their best to follow the white smudge in the darkness that was Wolf. The genetically enhanced canine seemed to be the only one not having problems seeing in the inky black of the tunnel. After the third time Wally stepped on her foot Artemis swore in a whisper.
"Guys the shadows could be right in front of us with the girl and we'd never know. We need a light." Kaldur frowned they were usually better prepared than this for missions, he couldn't understand why they would be underequipped now.
"News flash arrow head, Robin is the one with the equipment on the team remember. We've got the powers, you and Red have the arrows and the attitude, and Robs got the gear." Wally snapped at her without thinking. She glared through the dark at what she thought was the speedster.
"Well news flash kid idiot, we are kind of Robin-less at the moment. Got anything useful to say? Or are you just gonna keep pointing out the obvious?" Roy was amazed, he hadn't seen these two together before but they were running out of time, the longer they stayed and fought each other the farther they were from saving Diane.
"Enough! Robin's not the only one with tricks up his sleeve." Roy reached into his quiver and pulled out an arrow. He fiddled with it for a second.
"Shade your eyes." He turned the arrow head and flooded the hallway with light. Blinking hard the team turned to Roy who was holding his arrow like it was a torch.
"Flash arrows meant to temporarily blind an enemy, but I tweaked it a bit. It should last for about an hour, if I did it right." Artemis raised a condescending eyebrow.
"If you did it right?" Roy glared.
"Yes, if I did it right. I've never done it before, up to now it was just a theory. Rob and I talked about it years ago. This is the first time I've had to use the theory so yeah if." They continued down the hall till they reached a crossroads. Wally looked at the wall slightly confused.
"Who builds a wall out of charcoal? That just doesn't make any sense." Wolf walked right up to the wall and stared up whining. M'ggan floated up to the ceiling above the hound.
"There's an opening here, but it looks like we won't all fit at once, and Wolf's not going to fit at all." Superboy frowned but ordered Wolf to stay behind as one by one they climbed into the opening he had indicated.
Translations
Thank you mighty google.
Ce este negru atunci când îl obține , de culoare roșie atunci când este utilizat , și gri când îl arunci (Romainan pretending to be Romani) What is black when you get it, red when you use it, and grey when you throw it away? Answer? Charcoal.