Let's switch to the other side of things! What will our group headed into the Room of Courage experience?

As for the Best Girl nominations, still going strong. Anyone else left to add?

Currently Nominated: Sango, Cynthia, Elaina, Kate, Dakota, Ayame, Marion, Kitty, Serefina

Hellraiserphoenix: Hopefully this one is good, too.

Just a Bad Writer for Fun: Who knows what tricks Sylvia has set up for them?

Rosealine gold: I try my best to include small stuff like that.

Aakareo Kokokuhikari: Blake is absolutely a siscon. And sorry but I will be alternating, it's giving me space to not get too lost in the puzzles. And there may be character deaths. Who can say?

Pokemon Academy: Beginning of Beginnings

Chapter 190

The group of students entering the Room of Courage were in the waiting room, having just heard Sylvia's explanation over the walkie-talkie. The video began to play on the screen. The words "The Witch's House" appeared onscreen.

A cute chibi girl in a black robe with long pink hair in pigtails and a witch's hat appeared, a big smile on her big face.

"Once upon a time, there was a cute little witch named Lulu," Sylvia's cutesy voice rang out from the screen. "Lulu was a kind and sweet little witch, and her most favorite food ever was human flesh!"

The picture changed to show the witch happily stirring a pot, a music note over her head.

"One day, a group of travelers came by her cottage in the woods, and Lulu thought 'oh boy! Dinner time!'"

The witch locked up six stick figures in a cage, smiling.

"But while Lulu was going to prepare the stew pot… the wicked humans escaped!"

Lulu returned to the cage, only to see it empty, with the door wide open. Her mouth fell open and she held her hands to her face in shock, a "nande?!" flashing on the screen.

"This just wouldn't do! It was suppertime, and Lulu couldn't go hungry! Luckily for her, it isn't so easy to escape from a witch's house! The group of six tasty humans must do their best to escape her clutches! If they don't… dinner time! Welcome, dear guests, to the Witch's House!"

The screen flipped off, and the door slowly swung open. Misato didn't waste a moment and immediately walked through the door, Will following after her. The other four went in as well, though Kitty was a little reluctant. She lightly slapped her cheeks.

"No, gotta be brave," she reminded herself. She stepped through the door and it shut and locked behind her. Kitty looked around. The room they were in was interesting. Around the entrance a large cage had been constructed, and they were trapped inside. Beyond the cage was a long hallway, but it was so dark that Kitty couldn't see anything beyond it. She gulped. The room was dark and cast in shadows, with an eerie sound like the rustling of tree leaves echoing out over the speakers. It was certainly the "Room of Courage" after all.

"So it seems like our first step is getting out of this cage," Reiner said, rattling the bars. "There's a door right here, but it's locked."

"There's nothing on the ground, either," Nick noted. He knelt down. "It looks like it's all hard wood. Just this wastebasket."

"Misato, you've got the best… sense for this sort of thing, right?" Will asked. "Can you, like, I don't know, search for oddities or something?"

"Negative. Without defined parameters I will not be able to distinguish ordinary objects from intended clues," Misato informed him. "However, I can enable night vision."

"What? You mean you can see in the dark?" Callie said, surprised. "That's…"

"Affirmative," Misato said. Her eyes turned from their normal gold color to a glistening reddish-orange. "By adjusting my optical sensors, the frequency of light that I perceive can be shifted to reflect the current environment. Even in a dark room like this I can see everything perfectly."

"Well that's a nice superpower," Callie said. "So what can you see?"

"I just informed you that I can see everything within the room."

"Okay, yeah, but…" Callie was irritated. "Like, do you see a way to get out of here?"

"Affirmative. There is a door on the cage."

"Yeah, we KNOW-"

"Misato, do you see a key anywhere in the room?" Will asked.

"Affirmative."

"Where is it?" Will asked.

"The key is hanging from the left wall at a location of exactly 180 centimeters off of the ground and 100 centimeters from the rear wall. Its distance from the cage is exactly 50 centimeters beyond the bars," Misato informed him.

"Okay, some of us don't see in centimeters," Will sighed.

"Is the key right about here, then?" Nick asked. We walked toward the left side of the cage and reached his hand out, grasping at the darkness. "Oh, there!" There was a clanking sound as the key rang against the wall. Nick slipped his fingers around it and tugged on it, but it was stuck. He tried feeling it working it off of whatever hook it was stuck on, but he couldn't.

"I can't get it off," Nick replied. "It's stuck."

"Stuck on what?" Callie asked.

"I don't know," Nick replied. "It feels like a really old key, and it's got a big hoop. And when I pull on it, it feels like I'm pulling against something hard, keeping it in place."

"They wouldn't put a key there if we couldn't use it," Reiner said. "Misato, can you see what the key is connected to?"

"Affirmative. The key is attached to a pipe that is bolted to the wall. The key cannot be removed from the end of the pipe. The pipe runs parallel to the floor."

"Is that all?" Will asked.

"Negative." Misato glanced at the pipe, and followed where it went. "The pipe moves up the back wall at a 90 degree angle running perpendicular to the floor. It then bends at another 90 degree angle to move parallel to the floor across the back wall. Then it bends down perpendicular to the floor until it reaches 180 centimeters above the floor, at which point it turns at a 90 degree angle one final time to run parallel to the ground across the right wall. At that point, the pipe opens."

Everyone took a moment to process what she was saying.

"Okay, so there's a pipe going up and over the cage to the other side?" Nick said.

"It looks like what we need to do is work the key across the pipe until we get to the end," Reiner said. "Like a monorail. At the end of the pipe, the key comes off, and we can get out of the cage."

"But how?" Kitty asked. "I mean, isn't the pipe, like, bolted to the wall? So wouldn't the key be caught on those parts?"

"There's a gap in the key loop," Nick informed her, turning the loop over in his fingers. "It's not wide enough for the key to come loose, but I think it can still slip around certain parts."

"Affirmative," Misato confirmed. "With the exception of the end of the pipe on the left wall, the pitons connecting the pipe to the wall have a diameter of 1 centimeter. The keyring has a gap 1 centimeter long. The key itself as a thickness of 1.5 centimeters and the pipe has a diameter of 3 centimeters. It is not possible to remove the key from the ring or the ring from the pipe but it is possible to move the keyring around the pipe pitons."

Nick nodded, moving the key down the pipe until he felt it stop. He tried maneuvering the keyring as best as he could over the piton.

"This is really difficult," Nick said. "I don't know if I can keep it going."

"Misato, can you do it?" Will asked.

"Affirmative," Misato said. She walked over to Nick, reaching her hand through the bars and grabbing the key from him. She precisely turned the keyring to line up with the piton, sliding it through seamlessly. She then stuck her other arm through another gap, passing the key to herself again, and continued to move the key toward the back wall that way.

"Wow, so fast!" Callie said.

"Her dexterity is something else," Will said.

"Indeed," Reiner said, nodding. "It's almost mechanical how precise her movements are."

A bead of sweat went down Will's brow.

Sylvia watched Misato's actions eagerly. She had designed this first trial to be simple and yet difficult. As anticipated, when it came to simple mechanical puzzles, Misato could perform the tasks with the utmost efficiency. There was nothing to be concerned with here.

A smirk crossed Sylvia's face, and she bit into a donut covered with chunks of meat and slathered in marinara.

You can handle this puzzle simply enough, Misato, but this is merely the prelude. I can't wait to see how you'll confront the puzzles I have in store for you afterwards.

"Problem," Misato declared.

"Huh? What's the problem?" Will asked.

"The pipe continues beyond where my arm will extend," Misato explained. "I am not capable of reaching beyond the top of the cage to continue the progress."

"What? So all this was for nothing?" Reiner frowned.

"Oh, you poor fools," Callie scoffed. "You don't see the answer? It's so obvious."

"Huh?" Reiner said, confused.

"You see it too, right Kitty?"

Kitty tilted her head to the side in confusion.

"It's a trouble that all you normal people would not begin to imagine…" Callie bitterly replied. "The greatest invention for shorties in the world!"

Callie held up the wastebasket and turned it over.

"The footstool!"

Will rolled his eyes and Reiner smirked.

"Misato, step onto this," Callie suggested. Misato stepped onto the wastebasket, allowing her reach to extend another foot or so. This allowed her to maneuver the key onto the pipe parallel to the ground. With a flick of the wrist, Misato flung the key across the pipe (there were apparently no pitons on the pipe at the top of the cage. The key rattled when it reached the corner and slid down the back wall, until it stopped on one of the pitons about halfway down the pipe. Misato stepped down and walked over to the key, working it the rest of the way off. She continued alternating her hands through the bars of the cage until she got to the end of the pipe, working the key free. She pulled it into the cell, and opened the cage door.

"Why is the keyhole on the inside?" Nick wondered. Callie rolled her eyes.

"Don't worry about that. Let's go!" Callie led the way as they walked out of the cage and onto the next portion of the room. As they walked down the hall, fake torches lit themselves, the hallway lighting up so they could get a better look. The interior of the room had been reconfigured to look like it was made of wooden logs, like a cabin. The "flames" from the torches cast shadows across the uneven, rough walls. It was a rather eerie experience. Hanging from the left wall were a series of paintings. The first depicted a large tree, gnarled and worn, glistening with lights, a glowing apple hanging from its branch. The next painting was a painting of what appeared to be the witch herself, in all her glory; drawn far more realistically than the chibi personification, Lulu glanced at them with a playful look in her eyes, and a smile on her face. The third and final painting was smaller than the other two, and was a painting of a doll with curly blonde hair, laying unmoving on a chair.

At the end of the hall, there was a wooden door. Next to the door was an old chair, and seated on the chair was a small, carved wooden mask. Reiner picked it up to study it while the others contemplated the door.

"So I'm assuming we go through this," Nick said. Callie nodded in agreement and opened the door, the kids heading into the room. The door connected to a staircase heading downwards. The group descended the stairs. A row of masks of different shapes lined the right wall, and the left side of the stairs was open to peek out into the room below.

The room was lit more brightly than the hallway they had just left, five glowing pale orbs of light dangling from the ceiling.

"Did they cut a hole in the floor to build this?" Nick wondered.

"And it looks like they planted a tree, too," Callie said, pointing at a large tree in one of the corners. "No, wait, it's a fake."

The group reached the base of the staircase, taking a closer look at the room. Besides the tree, there were two large cabinets, one at the far wall and one on the right wall. Nestled up in the corner of the left wall, right beside the staircase, was a large chest locked with a 4-digit lock. There was also a small archway in the left wall, leading into another room. Between the chest and doorway was a table with a small altar on top of it. The altar was in the center of a magic circle, and on the top of the altar was a skull. One of the skull's eye sockets was made up with a red gem.

The group went to explore the room, Sylvia watching them closely.

Misato's "brain" is the most advanced supercomputer in the world. I can't even begin to understand the programming involved in it, and I'm rather smart myself. But to what extent does it go? She can calculate and retrieve data, but so can any computer. How human are you, Mechadoll Misato? Do you have intuition? Instinct? Can you make decisions based on anything other than orders or logic? Can you determine relevance from irrelevance? I don't expect to get all the answers here… but everything I see will let me get a clearer look at your limits.

"Let's check the cabinets first," Reiner suggested, walking over to one of the cabinets. Callie and Nick went over to the other.

"Misato, you go check that tree," Will suggested, pointing at the large tree in the room. "There is something odd about it just being there. See if there is anything weird about it."

"Affirmative," Misato confirmed, walking toward the tree.

"In the meantime…" Will glanced at Kitty, who was looking nervously around the room. "Kitty, let's go look at the skull on the table, and then check out that second room, okay?"

"Mhm," Kitty nodded. She followed Will over to the table, to get a closer look at the magic circle. It was very basic, a six pointed star in a circle. But unlike a normal star, this one was strangely inverted, with the two central points much wider, and the four points on the sides narrow, overlapping in an "X" in the center.

"Careful now, Kitty," Sylvia giggled. "If you mess around with the Seal of Orichalcos your soul will be at risk…"

"So clearly, the gem in the skull's means that there is another gem to find," Will noted. "Let's go look in the other room."

Kitty nodded, and the two headed under the wooden arch, into the next room. It was much smaller than the other, with only enough room for a couple people to stand comfortably. There were large bookshelves in the room, which was the first key sign they noted, and a shelf with different objects on it.

There were two more details of note. There was a large table backed up against the corner, and on that table was a cauldron. The other part… was a large metal door built in the side of the wall. The door had no knob. Instead, there was a large circle on the front of the door, made out of a strange white material. It was totally blank.

"So I guess that's the door we have to get through," Will reasoned. Kitty nodded in agreement. She went over to peek into the cauldron, while Will went to go check the shelves. The bookshelves were all fake, with no hidden books or anything, but as for the "shelf" which was more of a spice rack, a good detail of things could be found. On the shelf was a palm-sized potted plant with purple flowers, (fake, of course) a round glass beaker, a small carved wooden idol in the shape of Solrock, a clump of a red substance that seemed like moss, and finally, a green gem about the size of an egg. Below the shelf, there was a drawer, but it wouldn't open. It seemed like the kind of drawer that needed a key to open.

Will and Kitty looked at each other.

"Should we try it out?" Will asked. Kitty shrugged her shoulders and nodded. They gathered the objects out of the room, and walked under the arch to the next room, where the skull was located.

"Did you guys find anything?" Reiner asked. Will nodded. He walked over to the table, and set down the various objects.

"There's a door in the other room, but it doesn't seem like we can go through it unless we get through a few more puzzles."

"What about you guys?" Kitty asked.

"This cabinet is locked with another 4-digit lock," Callie said, pointing at the cabinet next to the tree. "But there was this on top of it."

Callie revealed another mask, this one a different shape from the one Reiner had.

"Another mask?" Kitty said, surprised.

"Not only that, but look," Callie said, turning the mask over. There was a number written on it, a 4.

"Huh, I wonder…" Reiner turned over the mask in his hand. "No, there's not… wait!"

Reiner squinted and looked closely at the mask. "It's very small… I thought it was just another line, but there's a 1 written here!"

"A 1 and a 4," Nick said. "You think…"

"The combination, good idea, Nick!" Callie cheered, nodding her head. "Reiner, what did you find in your cabinet?"

"I found this," Reiner said, holding up a clear gemstone. Kitty and Will glanced at each other. Another one?

"I also found this slip of paper," Reiner said, showing them the paper. It read "A witch's greatest treasure is her spellbook. To keep anyone from finding it while I'm out, I have hidden my wand away and locked the book up nice and tight within my cupboard. They'll never find the key, hee hee hee, I've always got my eye on it."

"I wonder what that means," Callie said, frowning.

Will turned to Misato, who was standing in the corner.

"Misato, you checked the tree, right? Did you find any clues?"

"Negative. There was nothing there that appeared to be out of place."

"In that case, let's look at what we have," Reiner said. "We have two masks with numbers on them."

"A potted plant, some moss, and a beaker," Kitty said.

"A clear gem and a green gem," Will added.

"Two combination locks," Nick looked at the lock on the cabinet and the lock on the chest.

"And really weird note," Callie finished, looking at the note again.

"Will, I think I'd like a look in the other room," Reiner said. "I want to get a feel for everything in case you guys missed something."

"If you want, but we didn't," Will said. "In the meantime, I'll try these gems in our skull friend's other eyesocket over there."

"Nick, Kitty, let's find that key!" Callie said. "Hey, Misato, you're really smart, right?"

"The answer to that question would depend by what metric you used to determine intelligence," Misato replied.

"…Yup, that's just what a smart person would say," Callie concluded. "So what do you think about this note? Can you think of where we might find the key?"

Misato looked over the note.

"According to this note, the witch keeps the key in sight at all times."

"Well, yeah, but where is it?"

"I cannot answer that question with the information I currently have at my disposal," Misato replied. "I do not know the location of the witch, and that means I cannot determine where she would be looking at the key."

Nick blinked.

"Wait, guys, it's super obvious," Nick said. "Come on."

Kitty and Callie followed Nick up the stairs. Misato moved to go after them.

The four entered the hallway again, where Nick searched for something he hadn't brought up yet.

"Look, there it is," Nick explained, pointing at the painting of Lulu.

"Oh, of course you would remember the picture of the pretty girl!" Callie huffed, shooting him a dirty look.

"Well, the clue said that she was always keeping an eye on the key, right?" Nick said. "So I figured that since the real one wasn't there, it was hint to go back and look at her picture."

That was an interesting interpretation. Misato couldn't grasp the logic about how a painting could connect to a person. She observed Nick as he walked over to the painting, looking into her eyes. He followed the gaze of the witch to the far wall, walking over to it. Nestled into the warp of the wood, in a small hole, was a small key on a hook. Nick reached in and pulled it out.

"Here it is," Nick said, turning back to the girls. They headed back downstairs, where Reiner and Will were just finishing up with what they were doing.

"I tried both of the gems," Will informed them. "Nothing happened."

"Will and I were just talking," Reiner said. "We were thinking about those masks."

"The ones we found?" Callie asked.

"No, not that," Reiner said. "Those masks."

Reiner pointed at the masks hanging from the wall, descending down the staircase.

"We thought they were decoration, but maybe they might have numbers written on them."

Reiner looked at the two wooden masks they had. One was round with large ears, the one Callie had found, and the other one was very long with a big nose. They matched the two masks closest to the base of the stairs. The next two masks were a wide mask with red eyes and a large mouth, and the last one was curved in a weird pattern that bulged at the top and bottom like an hour glass, with two slits for eyes.

"Let's try the ones that we don't have copies of, first," Reiner suggested. Nick and Callie removed the two masks closest to the door and flipped them over.

"We've got a 3," Nick reported, looking at the wide mask.

"1 over here," Callie said, turning over the bulging mask.

"That's 4 numbers," Reiner said. "If we go in the order by the masks on the wall, then the code is 1-4-3-1." As the rest of the group reached the bottom of the stairs, Reiner and Will went to try the locks. Neither one would open.

"So much for that idea," Reiner sighed.

"What if we check the other masks?" Callie suggested. "Just in case."

Reiner and Will shrugged.

Kitty and Callie turned over the other two masks. The one with large, round ears had the number 5 written on it, and the one with the big nose had a 2.

"Wait, so there's six masks with numbers now?" Reiner sighed. "What the heck are we supposed to do with that?"

"We can't take these masks off the wall," Callie said. "So they must be used for something in this room. It's gotta be part of the combination somehow."

"Misato, what do you think?" Will asked. Sylvia leaned into her screen. This was a puzzle with pieces missing. Would Misato be able to extend a track of reasoning on her own? Or would she give up?

"I am unable to discern the meaning of digits without being presented the proper context."

Sylvia sighed. Give up it was.

"Oh, well, it's not a total loss," Nick said.

"Oh?" Will and Reiner glanced at him.

"Nick found the key!" Callie cheered. "Because he's so super smart!"

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Reiner asked. Nick headed into the next room, the others following after him. It was a tight fit.

"Okay, we need like three less people in here, please," Callie begged. "I feel like I'm getting buried…"

Indeed, the much shorter Callie and Kitty were sort of being pushed around by their taller friends.

Misato stepped out of the room, and Kitty went as well, not wanting to be a bother. Callie wanted to stay for Nick's moment of glory, and Will and Reiner were the ones the most interested in the game by far, so they remained as well. It wasn't as bad as it had been, but it was still uncomfortable. Nick slid the key into the lock and turned it, the drawer sliding open. Nestled in the drawer was a book, wide open to a page. Etched into the bottom of the drawer were four numbers, 8-5-9-0.

"Combination?" Nick guessed. Will nodded.

"Guys, try 8-5-9-0 on the two locks," Will called.

"Affirmative," Misato agreed. In the meantime, they went to look at the book. Except it wasn't a real book. It was open, and it was shaped like a book, but that was all. The pages were stage-dressing. It was carved out of wood. They couldn't even open it.

"It says here it's a recipe for a magic potion," Nick said, looking at the left page. "And on the right page, it says 'all doors open to one with the magic wand and the right know-how'."

"What's the recipe say?" Will asked.

"It says, create the red potion by mixing together mushrooms, blood moss, wolfsbane, and the fruit of the sacred tree," Nick said.

"So I'm guessing those purple flowers in the pot are wolfsbane, and the blood moss is the red stuff, but what about the other two?" Reiner asked. "They must be behind wherever this combination leads us."

"We got it!" Kitty called from the other room. The rest of the group headed into the main room.

"It was the cabinet lock," Kitty explained. "We got it open. There was another mask inside, along with these."

Kitty held up some mushrooms, and a weird, cylindrical black container.

"According to this note, it says 'the add magic potion to infuse the components'," Kitty read.

"Now there's only one part left," Will said, Kitty handing over the mushrooms. "We need to find the fruit of the sacred tree."

"But where could it be?" Kitty asked, the desperation in her voice clear. "We've torn this whole place apart and can't find it!"

Sylvia watched them struggle, a smirk on her face.

Just as I thought… it's hidden right there in plain sight, and they didn't even notice. Good luck, Misato.

So we should wrap up these games in a few more chapters. This took a little longer than I expected, but I enjoy writing the puzzles..