I can't believe I already reveived a full roster within four days! Thank you all for your submissions! Keep in mind that all rules mentioned in the previous chapter still apply. Zero has been chosen, and I hope you enjoy this wild ride we're throwing our characters at!
I just stood there for who knows how long just staring at the mirror, unable to make it past the first sentence.
'Welcome to the Nonary Game!'
It seemed so nonchalant and easy to brush off as a simple joke or some sort of scavenger hunt, but I couldn't do that. The phrase confounded me for no apparent reason besides a lingering fear and unease that remained in my body, keeping me in place.
"I want to leave." I whimpered. 'No. My birthday is coming up soon! I can't lose all hope yet! After all, I wanted to have it at that bowling alley! Okay, I gotta get out of my house! That sounds weird, but I'm gonna work with it.'
"I know this house. At least, I think so..." I wracked my brain for all the rooms in the house. There weren't many, but this whole situation was so stressful!
"Um, let's see. Upstairs bathroom, my room, Maya's room, Rei's room, Mommy and Daddy's room, the other upstairs bathroom, everyone's closets, that side room I honestly haven't cared about much, the other side room without a door but has a piano, the downstairs bathroom, the really fancy dining room we never use, the kitchen, the other dining room, the laundry room, the living room, the garage, the downstairs closet, and the basement that I'm never going in. There. That about sums it up!" I had listed off all of the rooms in my house.
Almost immediately afterwards I started running around, opening all of the doors I found, which weren't many. In fact, I could only get into my room, Maya's room, the upstairs bathroom, the side room without a door, the downstairs bathroom, the really fancy dining room, the kitchen, the not so fancy dining room, and the downstairs closet. They were the only doors that opened, but a lot of the assessable rooms didn't have doors at all. Rei's room didn't have a doorknob at all, so it was a lost cause to continue throwing myself at his door. There was the living room, but there was a large temporary wall that wouldn't move at all with a door on it. No matter how much I pulled on the doorknob it wouldn't budge at all.
"RRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" I tugged on the door, my feet were on the door as I tugged on the door in a comedic fashion. At least, I think so until it broke off. I couldn't really see myself at all. But, hey, the handle broke clean off! Plus one for me!
However, I completely forgot about the front door, though. So, I dashed over to it and pulled on it exactly like the last one, but I didn't succeed.
Me: 1, Nonary Game: 0, Doors: 1.
Oh well. After a second examination of the front door, I noticed an overly large than it needed to be lock with a large keyhole with the number [8] beneath it. My first and foremost goal would be to unlock it, so that meant I would have to find the newly named [8] key that I have hereby named [Valo]! Why? I have my reasons!
Anyways, off to find [Valo]!
Seek a way out!
"Let's see, I should probably start searching more instead of running around like a maniac pulling on door handles. Or completely pull the handle off." I said to myself, examining the the doorknob handle that I have recently received through destructive methods. Strangely enough, it was the kind of doorknob all the others doors in my house used.
'Curiouser and curiouser. Oh wait! This must be one of the extra ones we keep in the garage... gasp! Rei's needs one since his just went missing! I'm a genius.' Done with my internal thoughts, I raced up the stairs to Rei's room, jamming the doorknob into the opening in the door. It easily slid in. Maybe too easily since it slid right back out and fell to the floor, leaving a nasty dent on the hardwood. 'I'll just blame that on Rei!'
Snatching up the doorknob, I ran back downstairs, only to remember the garage was locked. "Hmm... where do I find a screwdriver?" I mused, blanking on this situation. There were no other screwdrivers in the house besides the ones in a toolbox in the garage which was, of course, locked. Suddenly an idea dawned on me. "There must be one in here somewhere!" I proclaimed, deciding to search the kitchen cabinets first. They all opened with ease and were stocked with whatever you'd expect in my family's kitchen. The drawers were the same. Well, except for the random book I had found in there.
The book was something completely new to me. It was definitely most likely older than me, and my house, and everything within a 20 mile radius from my house, give or take. It had a brown leather cover with yellowing pages and was probably three inches thick. There was an old bronze clasp on each of the three sides that held it shut along with two bike locks perpendicular from each other with one having three slots that three numbers would add to each other to a fourth number, and a simpler four digit number. One bronze lock had a keyhole, the next one parallel to the spine had a seven letter lock, and the final one on the bottom had a silver padlock with a sky blue musical note on it.
After examining it, I was deeply confused about what I was supposed to do with it. Shaking it did nothing as did throwing it at a wall. And I should know since I threw it a few times. Instead of pursuing the issue of the book I decided to try and play some piano to soothe my nerves. I tossed the book onto the not so fancy table and walked over to the piano room. Sitting myself down on the piano, I started to play 'Ode to Joy', a favorite of mine. However, the moment I pressed the E key, my hopes for playing were dashed. No sound was produced upon hitting the E key. I furiously pounded on the key for five straight minutes, producing no sound whatsoever. That is, until I kicked the piano which I was greeted with a high pitched ping of a silver key and the E key falling off. Now I'm not one to be picky, so I snatched them up.
"Yes! Victory is mine once again!" I shouted victoriously, holding up the two items which I quickly walked away with.
Me: 2, Nonary Game: 0, Doors: 1.
I had made it back to the leather book I had, inspecting it again and decided to try the silver key I had found on the padlock, being greeted with a satisfying click. I had tried to open the book once again, but it scarcely budged any more than earlier. Following that disappointment, I examined the white piano key which was one of the keys that would be to the right of two black keys normally, however, it was currently in my possession. There was nothing unusual about it besides the fact that it was disconnected from its piano.
Now rather than doing what a normal person would do and put the key back on the piano, I decided to look around the house for something it may fit in. During that search, I broke 1 vase, left 3 scratches on the hardwood floor, and cracked the glass on 1 picture frame. Breaking the vase actually helped me out because I never liked it in the first place and because there were 2 screws I could use to put Rei's doorknob back on, and the picture frame that I had broke wasn't in the house the last time I had checked it which was last night. It had this pretty brass antique key with a bow shaped like a queen from chess. There was a black and white checkerboard pattern on the back, and I could only press 8 of them at a time before it would reset. No matter how many times I threw it, it wouldn't break!
Deciding not to waste my sanity on trying to solve it, I looked around my room and Maya's room. Nothing seemed off except I had found this weird note in my backpack, and there were cartoonish pictures of a sun, a rain cloud, a thunder cloud, and a cloud on Maya's walls. There wasn't anything strange in either of our closets except that Maya's closet reminded me that I should not keep stuffing random objects in mine so I can claim I cleaned my room. Changing my clothes from my pajamas wasn't really important to me, so here I was, a 9 year running around her house in a blue onesie with eight butterflies, one for each color of the rainbow plus white, dark blue slippers, and a pink robe. Yes, I sleep in all of this stuff, and, yes, it's relevant because I say it is.
Moving along now, there was a dashed line for seven letters on one of Maya's walls. I decided to go back downstairs to my unbreakable book and actually read that note I found. Turns out it was just a hall pass from school. Crumpling it up and tossing it into the trash can, I moved on to solving one of the locks. I tried inputting RAINSUN and SUNRAIN, but neither worked. Finally, I tried WEATHER, and it actually worked! Two locks down and throwing it at the wall again yielded no results.
I also searched the downstairs closet and bathroom. It wasn't too interesting.
"Let's see, anything useful here?" I asked aloud, flipping the light switch in the downstairs bathroom. There was this really weird picture thing on the wall with a bunch of strange blobs on it. Mommy and Daddy would never had gotten something so hideous, so I completely ignored it. The only really useful in there was that the sink was still working along with the toilet, and a note that was taped on the mirror. I opened it only to find something quite random.
It read: '4 + ? + 5 = 8'
I didn't know what it meant since 4 and 5 added up to 9, but I decided against questioning it further and to pretend the question mark was an 8 to maintain my sanity.
Entering the closet, all I found was disappointment and a chessboard. Inside, all I found were 8 queens and a slip of paper reading: 'Keep all queens safe!'
'This is probably related to that weird picture frame.' I thought, tucking the chessboard under my right arm. Walking back to the leather book with too many locks, I decided to input 4858 into the really weird bike lock and the exact same thing into the other bike lock, both of them sliding off and making me happy. The stupid book still wouldn't open, so I probably have to get that queen key.
Snatching the picture frame from where I had set it down near the piano, I stomped on it again only for it not to work. 'Usually things are so much easier to break than this.'
I placed the chessboard and picture frame on the table, the back side of it facing me. I had already pulled out the 4 black queens and the 4 white queens from the chessboard and tried to figure out the queens puzzle. It took me longer than it should have taken, but I was finally able to find a way to keep all 8 queens safe. I pressed the 8 squares that the queens resided on the chessboard, and was greeted by the panel popping out. I grabbed the queen key, taking care to avoid the broken glass snatched up the leather book, the silver padlock falling to the floor leaving yet another dent. Ignoring it, I put the antique key into the final keyhole and was greeted by the final click. At least, I hoped so.
I was so excited to finally open the book, but my anticipation was for nothing. Instead of [Valo] there was a screwdriver so I had to go into Rei's room after all.
"Darn it!" I screamed. Whoever set this game up preyed on my impatience as a child and made me do everything for a screwdriver. I shook the screwdriver out of the book and stormed up the stairs to Rei's room. I forcefully jammed his doorknob into the hole and put one screw in, making short work of it and followed the same routine with the second screw. I immediately shoved the screwdriver into my pocket and threw open the door, finding Rei's somewhat clean room. There were some toys and clothing tossed here and there, but I was able to avoid them by going between the scattered items. In the corner of the room there was a red toy piano with a large [8] drawn on the top. I promptly dragged it out of Rei's room and over to mine, ignoring the sounds of protest it and the floor made. Once I was inside my room, I examined it further.
It looked quite new, and there were 24 keys. 10 black and 14 white with a single E key missing. I figured I might as well use the single unused item that seemed important, so I pulled the E key out of my pocket and placed it in the open space. The grand piano key looked silly on the toy piano, but it stayed in place, and the piano started playing itself, the top of it flinging open to reveal a key with the number [8] making up the bow.
"[Valo]!" I happily shouted, snatching up the key as the piano finished its song. It was simple, but sounded nice. Now ignoring that, I pushed the toy piano under my desk and placed the screwdriver from my pocket next to it. After that, I closed Rei's door and went down the stairs down two at a time, stopping in front of the front door.
[Valo] rested in my right hand as I lifted the key I had been searching for into the keyhole and twisted it open, pocketing my key afterwards, and turned the doorknob, finally being able to leave my house as I took in a breath of fresh air. I walked outside, feeling the warmth of the sun on my body as I ignored the fact that I should probably be dressed normally rather than pajamas, and that the front door had shut. Neither of those mattered, though. I was finally free from the confines of my house as I took the feeling of freedom in, sighing a breath of relief.
Hello everyone! I hope you enjoy the first official chapter of The Nonary Game: Project Arius! I've been having a lot of fun writing this chapter, and I hope you enjoy it! A few of you should probably notice a few of the little things I snuck in! I wonder if anyone will notice the 999 reference I made? I'm sorry this chapter took quite a while to write, but I really want to include puzzle segments like the other games have done, and I was planning the story out during some of that time! Anyways, have a great day, and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!