SURVIVAL 14: TRANSLATE

"Do we combine carbon and oxygen? I wonder what the atomic mass or number is… Or maybe the charges." Fourth is pertaining to the 3rd card.

"As far as I know, there is no word 'amond' even if we searched it in English dictionary unless it is a foreign word," Sixth shared her thought. We all nodded.

And because I have difficulty with both, I reread the 1st card.

1. Death throe - 2 syllables

What are the first 2 letters of the words when pronounced?

True, 2 syllables. First two letters, D and T... when pronounced?

"Oh, so that's the spelling of 'throe'. I thought R-O-W, haha!" Seventh have something in his mind but it turned out to be wordplay.

What Seventh mentioned a while ago struck me.

Death-throe.... Det-tro... Det-ro... D and...

I mumbled. "What if…”

"Hm?" Fourth leaned towards me to hear what I muttered.

I took the 1st card lying on the ground.

"Okay, 'death throe' has 2 syllables. The question is, what are the first two letters of two words when pronounced?”

"Yeah, that’s what we’re supposed to answer." Seventh concurred.

"The answers can be letters D and R." I answered. I’m not confident in my reasoning but I will share this with the team.

"How?" They chorused.

"'When you pronounce 'death throe', the th of 'throe' becomes silent. We can say it’s the letter R, like Death Row, so it’s D and R.”

"Oh…" Seventh pondered. Thanks for what Seventh said earlier, and it gave me an idea.

"The others have already passed here, come quick!" Ninth spoke abruptly and called out Fourth and Aeith. They stood up and they entered the invisible barrier without pain or wound. After five seconds, it became visible, then became invisible.

"How did you do that?" Fifth asked Ninth.

"Every 10 minutes, the barrier becomes harmless for five seconds. When someone passes by, it's still invisible but it becomes visible for a while and goes back to being invisible and harmful." Ninth explained to us.

The barrier couldn't handle it when we all got through at the same time because the barrier’s edge is sparking like there’s some sort of electricity, so we avoided the risk of it. All girls went through first. After 30 minutes, it ended as well. Ninth was the last to go through.

We approached our leader and what was written on the map was

Go to the right

We ran and turned right. While looking around, something fell on my face, it fell at my feet, so I picked it up, the last card. I immediately gave it okay Third and we read it.

5. Enough Lose

Third pulled out the map. Third was no longer holding a map of the maze but an ordinary blank piece of paper. Third flipped it over but there was really no moving image or text popping out. Ten seconds later, a text appeared on the blank white paper.

The real game will start in 10, 9, 8,

"Real game? Didn't the game start earlier?" - Fifth

7, 6, 5,

I bit my lower lip.

4, 3, 2, 1 ... Good luck

Then the texts that popped out disappeared.

"Let's solve the riddles," First initiated and everyone agreed.

First, why do we have a map that will make it quick to find the cards? I don't think Author will allow it to be that easy. Second, why is there a barrier? If we are really trying to get the treasure, why is something holding us back, and do we have to wait every ten minutes to pass through it? The barrier slows us down towards the goal.

We all sat on the ground and formed a circle to answer all the riddles.

"Okay, riddle number 1 solved. Help me remember the answers." Third requested for our cooperation on this one.

"Roger!" we affirmed in unison.

"I know the answer to riddle number 3!" Everyone was curious about what Aeith said. "From what Second said earlier, I thought I'd just take the first letters of the two chemicals. According to Fourth and Fifth, the chemical symbol of carbon is C and for oxygen is O. So, C and O.”

We all nodded in satisfaction at her answer.

"Alright. We'll consider your and Second’s answers, but we still don't know if we can get a word or phrase from these answers." I agreed with what Third stated.

Is it supposed to be a number? A word? A phrase? A sentence?

“Anyway, any ideas are welcome and to be considered.” Third further stated.

"Hmm... 'hay' is a greeting... not so..." Fifth murmured. His eyes widened as if he wanted to say something.

"Fifth?" I checked on him.

"Ah, I know!” Fifth blurted out.

"What is it?" is everyone's question.

"In riddle number 2, letter A is the answer!”

"How?" Sixth questions him.

"'Hay' is said to be a word of greetings or expression. It doesn't mean 'hay' as grass but H-E-Y.”

"Same when pronounced but different in spelling and meaning, huh?" Ninth added on.

"Yeah. Don’t mind the letter H. It will be removed from the word 'hey', making it 'ey'. When you pronounce 'E-Y', 'ey' as in letter A." Fifth ended his deduction.

"Two more!" Fourth excitedly uttered. We are happy because we only had two riddles to answer.

I really have no idea how to answer the 5th riddle, so I proceeded to the fourth first. This one is kind of long. I wonder if this is the hardest one.

4. Chromatic color that produces a pleasant harmony to a chromatic painting.

Amond is the world where amond lies.

When you touch it once again, you'll die.

The word 'amond' does not exist in English, but why is that word included here? I noticed in the first two sentences that the words ‘chromatic’ and ‘amond’ were mentioned twice. The last sentence is also weird. Twice? Twin? Double? Dual? Duplex? Twofold? Binomial? Trinomial? Bi, Tri as in...

"Eureka”

"W-What?" Looks like I startled Seventh.

"The 4th riddle, I’m not sure though." I continued. "You will notice in the first and second lines that the words 'chromatic' and 'amond' are mentioned twice, meaning 'di-' as in dichromatic and diamond. So, the word 'amond' was placed even though no such word was invented. The proof for that answer is the third line.

When you touch it once again, you'll die.

The meaning of 'die' is not to die or death but 'di-' which means two. It seems the same with riddle number 2 which is 'hay' and 'hey', same when pronounced but different in spelling and meaning. And it is common sense that when you touch something one more time, it means a second time. So, the answers are letter D and letter I. “

"Whoa," they reacted, still stunned.

"One more to go," Sixth gigled.

"Good. What about the 5th riddle?" Third asked me staringly and raised his eyebrows as if asking 'what is the answer to the 5th riddle?'

"Solfane!" Seventh interrupted. We gave him a confused look because we couldn’t understand what he was saying.

"Solfane is the answer on the last card. How? 'Enough Lose', when pronounced it is ‘enaf-los', when inverted is 'sol-fane' = solfane!" he answered confidently.

"Pfft" Ninth laughed. It seems that this is the first time I’ve seen him like this.

"Why? What's so funny?" Seventh pouted. He probably can’t believe that someone is mocking his theory. And that someone is Ninth, who is mostly serious and a lone wolf.

Ninth stopped from laughing and composed himself. "Believe it or not, there's no word like solfane."

"What if it’s a person's name, place, or brand?" Seventh pouted.

"But Seventh, all the answers we have are letters, not words."

He is stubborn, but I admire him for being defiant. "Well, if you look at it... This can be an answer too.”

First speaks up. "What about letters L and E. 'Enough Lose', letter E and L, reverse it, then L and E."

"Let's see. If First's answer is to be included, what word will be formed?" The leader wondered. We must find out the answer.

"The answer in riddle 1 are letters D and R, in number 2 is A, 3rd riddle is C and O, 4th is D and I, and the last card is letters L and E. D-R-A-C-O-D-I-L-E... Dracodile!" First explained

"Dacula ... Dracu ... Dra-" I murmured as I couldn't process yet why we got that as an answer.

"Dracodile!" Seventh corrected me.

Sixth wondered. "What is that?"

"It's like... a name of a monster?" Fourth looked worried.

"There's no word like that. More of, monsters don’t exist." Third objected. "Besides, we don’t even know what a dracodile is."

"Shall we find the treasure? We've already answered the riddles." Aeith seems fired up.

"How can we find the treasure if there's nothing written on the map?" – Seventh

"Maybe we can use the same directions to follow when we still have the map." – Ninth

"Yeah! Maybe even without the map, Author thinks we'll be able to find the treasure because he has already told us the directions before." – Aeith

“Good point. I still remember the directions. It was left, right, right, left, right." Third assured us. Thanks to his terrific brain, he memorized it. He’s called a leader for something. We weren’t wrong for choosing him right from the start.

We paused to look for the treasure because we already knew the answer to the riddles, but we are still not sure if that was indeed the right answer because we had no idea what a dracodile is.

We ran to find the detour. Our plan is to go for a run until we see 2 directions and turn according to the previous order of directions that was led by the map. After seeing one, we turned left but were shocked when the walls moved.

"W-What's going on?" I stuttered.

"The labyrinth is moving!" Seventh confirmed.

The walls are moving! By constantly avoiding being trapped and hit by moving walls, we were forced to disperse.

"Second!”

"Fourth! Aeith!" I called out to the two, but I got separated from them.