There seemed to be a range of reactions amongst the group to the voice from inside the church. Carmelina, if she had been alone, might have been far too curious not to wander straight in - but there were sensible human beings around who were showering enough caution on the situation, so she followed their lead and stepped back.

And then followed Professor Darrow's lead, and addressed the female voice.

"We might have answers for you, and perhaps you might have some answers for us?" Carmelina called out pleasantly, wondering whether that might entice the woman-creature (creature?) out. (If she had any connection to the fog at all, that was.) Answers did not need to be violent, or dangerous, or worrying necessarily. She didn't know what answers precisely the being inside the church might want from them, but as for the being itself... well, she had a wild hunch. Perhaps she was getting carried away.

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The following 1 user Likes Carmelina Cramming's post:1 user Likes Carmelina Cramming's post
   Aldous Crouch

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Lilian didn't need telling twice. A few heart pounding seconds after the voice called out she found her legs were still solid beneath her and backed away from the door as quickly as she could without stumbling. She was still far to close for her liking but at least they'd gotten a response. Started a discussion even if it was a short lived one that would end in violence. If they'd gone in there ready for trouble she was sure that thing would have delivered. Perhaps it would repay their kindness with civilly. At least that's what she told herself.

"We don't mean you any harm." She added. Cornered animals, creatures and things had a habit of lashing out so she was grateful many of the others seemed to be trying to make it feel non threatened.

  

Constance Sykes Lupus Jameshill Declan Wood Carmelina Cramming Eugene Scamander Lilian Hill Hamish Darrow Terpsichore Van Helsing

The caretaker flees, scrambling off of his rock and away from the door. Behind the doors of the church, footsteps echo hollowly, a sort of pounding sound that does not make sense until it pushes open the door. Out steps a creature with the body of a lioness; she moves with catlike grace. That would be unsettling enough, were it not for the human head at the end of her neck. She comes to a stop at the top of the steps, and sits down.

"If you can answer my questions," the Sphinx says, "I'll answer yours. If you can't -"

The creature shrugs. The implication is obvious.

"Or you can leave, and this place is mine."

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The next 'prompt' post will be after either 48 hours have passed from the time of posting (10 AM EST on July 8th) or after every member of the party has posted one time if this occurs before that deadline. Please remember that you must post within 72 hours to continue participating. :)
If you didn't post in the previous round, you have until 12:15 AM EST July 7th to continue participation.

  

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Hamish's eyes widened in surprise: of all the things he thought he might encounter on this forray, a sphinx was not one of them. At the creature's appearance, Oona moved to cower between his legs emitting a low whine. The wizard took a swig of his flask to steel his own nerves. Highly intelligent and highly lethal, a sphinx was the last thing an idiot wished to encounter—something the profoundly stupid had in common with the highly intelligent. He looked to his companions.

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— set by the long-lost bex —

Like most Connie had never actually seen a sphinx in the flesh but only a blind person could mistake it for anything else. Even when magic had been beyond the wildest comprehension of her perfectly normal mother and father from Finchley she had been read the story of the fabled sphinx and for a moment she stared at it with the wide, amazed eyes of the child she had been. Before she recalled the rest of the tale and her heart lodged itself somewhere in her esophagus.

"Shall we...vote?" Connie asked, unsure but unwilling to walk away now that they were here. On the other hand if Professors Darrow or Cramming - and wasn't one of the young men something to do with beasts? - suggested that they run away then she would not hesitate.

  

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MJ made me beautiful

"I don't know that surrendering the church is an option," Hamish said rather more confidently than he felt. "My vote is that we clarify the specific terms of the sphinx's challenge before considering embracing it."

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— set by the long-lost bex —

Why wouldn't surrendering the church be an option? Lou had no particular attachment to the building, and clearly even those who did, like the presumably-Christian caretaker, didn't feel strongly enough about it to risk their necks. A Sphinx in the church couldn't possibly be the cause of the fog (particularly if she had just arrived this morning), so what did it have to do with them? This sounded like a problem for the Ministry — once magic had been restored. Were they really considering risking their lives on how well a group of random strangers could solve a riddle?

He shifted his weight from foot to foot, obviously uncomfortable with the proposition but unwilling to be the first to vocalize his objection.

The following 1 user Likes Lupus Jameshill's post:1 user Likes Lupus Jameshill's post
   Aldous Crouch

Well he'd been right about one thing; it had been a creature and not a person. He'd spend enough time around creatures (including those of a more humanoid existence) to have a feeling.

A sphinx however wasn't quite what he'd imagined.

He was pretty useless here. Quick on his feet? Sure. Fairly intelligent? Yep. Logical? Not so much. Clever? Nope, not all. Unless it involved an inappropriate joke or prank.

Professor Darrow seemed to have the best idea so far. "Leaving the sphinx is highly illogical, as we have a town full of residents to worry about, however I'm going to be useless to answer its questions. Clarifying the terms is a good start." Eugene was not going to pretend he was clever enough for this and sphinx were notoriously to the letter in their questions and agreements. He was hoping that among the group they could figure out any riddle thrown their way.

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She shot an annoyed look towards the man at his reply but bit her tongue, choosing rather to ignore him. Her attention shifted abruptly towards the younger girl as she knocked on the door and Cora tensed. If the groundskeeper was out here waiting she wasn't sure this was something they wanted to just nicely knock. And if he was so insistent it was a something, she wasn't sure it would understand a knock.

A sphinx emerged form the church and she wasn't quite sure how to react. It wasn't what she was expecting that was for sure. She didn't think sphinxs were native to the area. Someone had placed it then.

"No leaving it. Not so close to the muggles," Terpsichore voiced, shaking her head. "Anyways - regardless of muggles - sphinxs guard things. We were sent to find things. And a sphinx appearing in coalition with the fog. It has to be connected. I know I want to know what its guarding." As for the talking, she knew better than to deal with the sphinx herself. She wasn't much for word play. She rather do her clue hunting and puzzling in a physical sense like a chase.

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@''

  

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speaks with a dutch accent!

A sphinx! Here, in Irvingly! Carmelina let out a sigh of awe before she could help herself.

All logic aside, the choice they were given seemed like no choice at all; one couldn't very well find oneself face to face with a sphinx and choose to leave! She knew, in her right mind, that the creatures were incredibly powerful - not an entity to be trifled with in the least - but inviting the sphinx out only to walk away in haste from such an encounter seemed a right shame.

(She didn't say any of this, lest the rest of the group lacked the same burning curiosity and she looked a fool.)

Carmelina maybe didn't succeed in suppressing her optimism completely, though. As far as she could tell, they had a tidy range of people here, and enough brains to puzzle out most anything the sphinx could throw at them, surely! They even had a young man from the Beast division who was perhaps better equipped than anyone to sort out the sphinx appearance whilst they were here. He didn't sound entirely convinced about the questions, but Carmelina interjected, about his calling himself useless: "Oh, but you don't know that! Anyone can be good at riddles, it all depends on the riddle in question -" she had been going to say something about them all having had years of practice with this, before she reminded herself that that may indeed have been a quirk of Ravenclaw. "If we're allowed to answer as a group, I don't see why we shouldn't be able to puzzle it out." She cast around an encouraging smile, though her gaze kept drifting back towards the sphinx, unsure if she would have been quite so brave alone.

If they could, they might find out something valuable from the being, which was what this expedition had been about, after all! If Carmelina was wrong and they couldn't, well... perhaps the sphinx would let them leave the riddle unanswered, or find someone who knew. "But yes," she added, a little more soberly, and in lower tones, "best we know precisely what we're in for."

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The following 3 users Like Carmelina Cramming's post:3 users Like Carmelina Cramming's post
   Aldous Crouch, Elladora Black, Eugene Scamander

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"She isn't in coalition with anything," Lou pointed out, honestly surprised that no one else seemed to share his reluctance to go chasing after something that was as obviously dangerous as it was pointless. He realized he'd said this first phrase a little loudly, and lowered his tone for the rest of his brief speech, to try and prevent the Sphinx from hearing. It seemed rude enough that they were all talking about her right in front of her face as though she wasn't there, and he hardly wanted to go and offend her before the rest of these idiots had even made up their minds. "She didn't say anything about the fog, and according to the caretaker she just arrived this morning. If the two are connected —" a big if, in his mind — "It might only be insofar as the deterioration of magic might have allowed her to escape from wherever she was, and gone roaming. Asking her what caused the fog might be as fruitful as trying to ask that troll who wreaked havoc on Honeyduke's."

He also thought the concerns the two younger members of the party expressed regarding the safety of the nearby Muggles was, although quaint and very noble, pretty stupid; she'd said she wanted the church, not to go rampaging through the village. Besides, without magic, what made this group any more equipped to deal with the lion woman than the Muggles? The Muggles might even be better at defending themselves from the threat than a group of hot-blooded Ministry hard-chargers, who were used to having magic to aid them, and now didn't.

The following 1 user Likes Lupus Jameshill's post:1 user Likes Lupus Jameshill's post
   Aldous Crouch

A sphinx? Declan had never seen anything like it. Like her? He'd immediately wanted to nope right out of there. Riddles were not his forte, nor were dealing with mysterious magical beasts. It wasn't like he cared a lick about the church. It wasn't important. What harm would it do to just leave things be and let her have it? Those church going magical Jesus people could find somewhere else to hang out. The casino or something.

Luckily, he wasn't the only one who thought so. He nodded in agreement with Jameshill, "What he said. Let's just give'r the church and keep goin'." Although they would likely be outnumbered, in which case, he wanted to point out, "I'm a quidditch player, not a riddler. If you lot are good with answering her questions, then go right ahead. I'm not havin' any part of it, less we need this for somethin'." He tilted his broom slightly, out of view of the sphinx, making it clear to the others that he'd use it as a weapon if needed.

  

"I doubt that will make much difference against those," Connie said dryly, eyes firmly on the sharp claws crowning the end of the sphinx's powerful paws. She was in no doubt that those things could kill all of them if the sphinx decreed that they had failed, but despite the fear that invoked the logical part of Connie's brain couldn't help but agree with the notion that if the sphinx was here then it seemed too much of a coincidence that what they were looking for wouldn't be far behind. Besides, she couldn't for the life of her think where the sphinx might have roamed from, as the young man put it, given that to the best of her knowledge they were native to Egypt and nowhere else.

Carmelina would certainly know, but in the midst of her clear excitement her eyes had started to glow and Connie hadn't wanted to interrupt her. They were meant to be here, she was sure of it. The Ministry had sent them to the church so it was their duty to deal with whatever was here and that just happened to be a sphinx.

"So, what we need to know really is whether we can answer as a group and how long we will have to do so?" She glanced between the members of their group that supported answering the riddle and noted happily that they outnumbered the naysayers. "And whether that group has to include everybody."

  

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MJ made me beautiful

"Perhaps we might negotiate a number of attempts," the wizard suggested. "Three, I think, would be entirely reasonable—I'm not arithmancer, but even I know that the number three has magical properties."

Such wiggle room, Hamish thought, would give comfort to those like young Mr. Wood.

And, if he was to be honest, Hamish himself.

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The following 1 user Likes Hamish Darrow's post:1 user Likes Hamish Darrow's post
   Ophelia Devine

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— set by the long-lost bex —

A sphinx was among the last things Lilian expected to see on this expedition. Her mouth went dry. If the incident with the troll had taught her something it was that she was utterly useless when it came to physical conflict. She doubted any of them would stand a chance against a sphinx. If they got the riddle wrong they were all dead. She kept quiet for a long time, listening to the discussion going on around her and pitting her fear against the puzzle of why it was there.

"We came for answers, it's offering them." Her voice trembled. "In saying that I don't believe anyone who doesn't want to risk their lives should have to."

  

She was starting to get annoyed with a fair chunk of the group - namely the group that seemed so against dealing with the sphinx. Maybe the beast had just showed up this morning but what other leads did they have? And regardless if the sphinx did not have the exact answers they were looking for - any knowledge was better than none. They could use its knowledge as a starting point. And what was Wood thinking? Was he going to bash her with a stick? That would only make her mad. It'd do no damage. She could have thought of a million more useful things he could have brought than a broom that didn't work.

"The ministry sent us here to get answers. Here as in the church. And its offering us answers. Might I remind you all we were all informed it could be dangerous and we would be going in without magic," she spat, annoyance would have made her hair rise like a cat's if that could happen. "You signed up for that risk. You all know you didn't sign up for a glorified vacation. If you aren't willing to lay down your lives well then you should have gone to the Sanitation, not signed up to try to solve something the ministry hasn't yet. That's stopped our magic, left most of us at least temporarily jobless, and put our families at risk."

She might have been harsh but she believed it. They might of not known they would come face to face with a sphinx but they hadn't been told they'd come to play games and make wishes.

"Three seems fine if we can work together. Elect a spokesperson so the sphinx knows who to accept answers from so we don't accendently waste one."

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@''

The following 1 user Likes Terpsichore Van Helsing's post:1 user Likes Terpsichore Van Helsing's post
   Elladora Black

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speaks with a dutch accent!