Excellent one right answer at least. Eugene wasn't so sure he would have gotten than on his own, so yay for a group effort. Now onto the next.

Listening carefully, Eugene pondered the second riddle carefully. A mummy was actually for one, his first inclination and when Mr. Williams said as much, he was more surprised with himself than anything else. Of course the Wood went and asked a question (a legitimate one) but still one of the group's questions without input from everyone else. Eugene just hoped that it was a legitimate answer they received in return. "A mummy does sound fitting. It was my initial thought." Not that it was worth much, but hey.

---

  

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

Miss Van Helsing, probably due to the uncharacteristic summer heat, drops to the ground. The infirmary will pick her up later.

"Right again," the sphinx answers. Her tail twitches behind her. "Mr. Wood asks a question with multiple answers. The best one: you'll have to find the source. Anything you do more than that depends on you."

"But the last riddle, and you may ask another question:
Nestled in the reeds
I survived the journey, or so they say,
And called down the plagues,
(Her inspiration)
Who am I?"

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The next 'prompt' post will be after either 48 hours have passed from the time of posting (10:30 PM EST on July 13th) 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. :)

  

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Are your characters stuck in the smalltalk loop?
Does your imagination feel like it just can't perform as it used to?
Mid-thread crisis getting you down?
Unable to get that post up?
Is your relationship suffering because of your inability to satisfy your partner?
SUFFER NO MORE!
With a little intervention from The Suggestionizer your RP life could be back on track in no time!

--> Click here for more details <--

Known side-effects include: chronic ridiculousness, immense satisfaction, itching, uncontrollable laughter, burning, deep regret, despair, shock, horror, incidental dismemberment, joy, and death. Use at your own risk!

As he had anticipated, the Sphinx was hardly giving any useful, productive insight towards their goal. What had any of them expected from a creature who was renowned for speaking only in riddles?

Speaking of riddles, however, the answer to the next was so blatantly obvious (to a man who had grown up hearing this story and whose right of passage into manhood was allegedly written by that same person) that he didn't even bother to say the answer aloud. It was obvious, at any rate, until the last line, when his brow clouded in confusion. "Who does she mean by her? 'Her inspiration'?"

(He had not yet noticed the fate of the obnoxious teenaged girl).

  

"Moses," Hamish answered with the confidence of someone well-versed in history and legend. "And where do we find this source?"

By his calculation, they would still have a third question after the sphinx declared his answer correct—no need to quibble about the details of this one.

---

  

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— set by the long-lost bex —

Similarly familiar with the story from her many years of sitting through interminable sermons every Sunday of her youth Connie too was struck by the second portion of the riddle rather than the first. The very fact that the sphinx had revealed that there was a 'her' worked to their advantage - their next question was obvious, though with the nature of sphinx's Connie was not entirely convinced they were going to come away satisfied.

"What would the story of Moses inspire?" She thought aloud. When she'd been young it had scared her oldest brother and robbed him of sleep until he could be convinced he would not die in the night, but that hardly seemed a likely goal for anyone, unless somebody was intent on frightening the residents of Hogsmeade for little purpose.

  

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MJ made me beautiful

There was a theme indeed with these riddles, each illuminating it more than the last, threads woven together to a bigger picture. After their second - and third, with any luck! - questions were answered by the sphinx in return, they may even have enough to go on to undo all this.

"I suppose the source - or whoever is behind all this is a her," Carmelina mused, to the members of the group who were also pondering these questions. "She must be incredibly powerful, whoever she is." Or whatever. To conjure up all this fog, rife with Egyptian plagues? Carmelina had experiences of - well, not biblical plagues, but curses at least - in Egypt, but she had never expected to see such things in Irvingly. The theme was rather more jarring, in this sort of setting.

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The following 1 user Likes Carmelina Cramming's post:1 user Likes Carmelina Cramming's post
   Elladora Black

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Well any worry about the riddles had ebbed when it seemed like the group at large had managed to answer them with relative ease! Eugene definitely would not have gotten that last one on his own though, so thank Merlin for the buddy system. Their own questions however, seemed to be met with more riddles as opposed to actual answers.

It was then that Eugene noticed Miss Van Helsing had collapsed. So caught up in trying to puzzle this out he'd lost his wits and apparently his ability to stay alert. "Merlin's beard." He yelped quietly before kneeling next to her and didn't see any obvious reason for her to pass out, but she was indeed unconscious, breathing, but definitely out and she seemed rather flushed. Maybe the heat? He was no healer, but he did know that they couldn't just leave her there, not with a sphinx for company.

---

  

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

"Moses it is," the sphinx agrees.

And the clincher, brought on by the specificity of the question: "She's in the biggest building in Salem Square."

While she technically owes them another answer, sphinxes are not, specifically, known for their politeness or etiquette. The creature vanishes into nothing as if she was never there at all.

---

The next 'prompt' post will be after either 48 hours have passed from the time of posting (1:30 PM EST on July 16th) 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 10:30 PM on July 14th to do so.

The following 1 user Likes The Suggestionizer's post:1 user Likes The Suggestionizer's post
   Aldous Crouch

---

Are your characters stuck in the smalltalk loop?
Does your imagination feel like it just can't perform as it used to?
Mid-thread crisis getting you down?
Unable to get that post up?
Is your relationship suffering because of your inability to satisfy your partner?
SUFFER NO MORE!
With a little intervention from The Suggestionizer your RP life could be back on track in no time!

--> Click here for more details <--

Known side-effects include: chronic ridiculousness, immense satisfaction, itching, uncontrollable laughter, burning, deep regret, despair, shock, horror, incidental dismemberment, joy, and death. Use at your own risk!

The distraction of the sphinx - and the excitement of finally getting somewhere - had been so great that it took the young man's exclamation to call her attention towards their now smaller number. Following his lead she knelt on the other side of the girl, relieved to see that she appeared to be alive if not awake; they had been told the Infirmary would sweep through to pick up anybody who fell behind so she was not unduly worried. Still, it was a shame the girl would not get to come with them now that they had a better idea of where to go.

"Anybody know what that is off the top of their heads?" Connie asked into the silence that had dropped after the sphinx vanished into thin air. At least that threat was over, even if Connie was irritated they had not been able to ask the final question - the identity of this mysterious woman.

  

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MJ made me beautiful

Well, that answer was surprisingly direct, given how vague the first had been.

"The Casino," Lou pointed out. It was an obvious answer to anyone who had any experience in Salem Square, which, as it turned out, he did. The building towered all of the others, and was the biggest not only in terms of height but also length and width.

  

At least she'd given them a straight answer for once, though she'd left before giving them a chance to ask a third question, the four legged bitch. Declan merely raised a brow at the fainted girl. She'd been the one to be short with him. Had she not been uppity, he might've been a bit more compassionate. It wasn't life or death — not now anyway — the healers at the infirmary could decide that.

The casino seemed an obvious enough answer to the barely there riddle. He nodded in agreement, "Jus' leave 'er there. The infirmary'll be by to get 'er soon. Let's go 'n get this over with." Whatever awaited them at the casino couldn't be good if a sphinx was telling them about it. And Moses. He was that baby that lived in a basket, right? In a river of blood? Whatever "Her" and a homeless baby had to do with anything, he hadn't the slightest. Unless she was his mother. Looking for her basket, not her baby, because what mother who wants to be a mother misplaces her baby in a basket?

The following 1 user Likes Declan Wood's post:1 user Likes Declan Wood's post
   Lupus Jameshill

"While I think it pressing that we move along to the casino," Hamish spoke up, “I am not comfortable simply leaving Miss Van Helsing here—particularly not given what we have just encountered. Merlin knows what else lurks in the fog, and it would not sit will in my conscience.”

She—like many of their party—had been his student once, after all. Though she had graduated, the professor could not help but feel as though he owed her a duty of care nonetheless. At least more care than leaving her on the ground where she had fallen.

“Is there anyone who would take her to the infirmary? I’m afraid my strength is not what it once was.”

Besides, he had come this far, and while Hamish did not wish to leave the young witch to die, he was also more than a little curious to see how this was to play out.

---

The following 1 user Likes Hamish Darrow's post:1 user Likes Hamish Darrow's post
   Elladora Black

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— set by the long-lost bex —

"I'll do it." Eugene really had yet to prove to be any kind of useful here, so the least he could do was ensure that his co-worker was safely to the infirmary. He took off his pack and handed it to the nearest person before he easily scooped up her tiny form from the ground. "Take the supplies and I'll meet you at the casino if I'm able."

He had no idea if he'd be allowed to go back to them, but he couldn't in good faith just leave her here, so he turned and started off toward the infirmary.

---

The following 1 user Likes Eugene Scamander's post:1 user Likes Eugene Scamander's post
   Aldous Crouch

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Carmelina watched the group tend to the fallen young girl with a sympathetic grimace, although if she were entirely honest, the better part of her mind was still rather preoccupied with what the riddles and the sphinx's answers had suggested. And the fact that the creature had left without granting them their last question! Apparently courtesy wore off faster than ancient wisdom.

"To the Casino we go, then," Carmelina pronounced, striking off in that direction with purpose, as though this were only the beginning of the adventure after all and they had not only just been tested by a mythical creature. (Which, presumably, suggested that there would be more tests that lay ahead.)

---

  

---

Lou honestly hadn't noticed the girl passing out until someone had brought the attention of the group at large to her, and then his mind had been working to catch up to what exactly had happened to her. Between this and the fact that the Sphinx hadn't answered a third question, he wondered if maybe they'd gotten a riddle wrong and she had taken her punishment for their failure out on the young woman — but they'd been fairly confident in their answers, and hadn't the Sphinx said they were all correct? He couldn't exactly recall, now.

By the time he'd realized that the group at large didn't seem to think there was any magical malady associated with the girl's having passed out, the question of who was to take her to the Infirmary had already been settled. He flushed a little, wishing he had been present in the moment enough to volunteer (if only because he'd previously been a little coarse with her, and he felt poorly about that in light of the fact that she was now unconscious). There wasn't much to do now, however, except put his hands awkwardly into his pockets and follow the woman in the lead towards the Casino, so that was what he did.

  

Constance Sykes Lupus Jameshill Declan Wood Carmelina Cramming Eugene Scamander Hamish Darrow

Mr. Scamander brings Miss Van Helsing to the infirmary, and Miss Hill, also looking suddenly very hill, decides to go with them. The rest arrive at the Salem Square to find it lit-up bright - which is odd, as it was supposed to be shut down after a kitchen fire.

(Mr. Scamander may rejoin before they enter the building.)

What's the strategy?

---

The next 'prompt' post will be after either 48 hours have passed from the time of posting (6:45 PM EST on July 18th*) 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. :)
*Bee and I will be in Canada; plz be flex

  

---

Are your characters stuck in the smalltalk loop?
Does your imagination feel like it just can't perform as it used to?
Mid-thread crisis getting you down?
Unable to get that post up?
Is your relationship suffering because of your inability to satisfy your partner?
SUFFER NO MORE!
With a little intervention from The Suggestionizer your RP life could be back on track in no time!

--> Click here for more details <--

Known side-effects include: chronic ridiculousness, immense satisfaction, itching, uncontrollable laughter, burning, deep regret, despair, shock, horror, incidental dismemberment, joy, and death. Use at your own risk!