The Witch's Game - By EvaRia

[timetock]

Question:
1. Does the owner of the mansion know who the culprit is?
2. Is there any possible way to create a new key?

The culprit takes the keys from the owner of the mansion, or the owner of the mansion gives the master key to the culprit. Either way, the culprit now has a way to access the guesthouse. However, because we know that the master key was on the owner of the mansion at all times, and the owner of the mansion stayed in the mansion at all times, then we can safely assume that the key remained in the mansion. However, the culprit would be able to mould the key and make a new one, then entering the rooms silently and killing the cousins. The culprit then leaves the house, locking every door, and destroying the key hereby destroying the evidence.

There are no more than two keys total, since he destroyed the duplicate?

P.S. I'm sorry to Eva if I make any mistakes and have to repeat red text, but I suppose we learn as we go, no?

[dawn to dusk]

I flaw to that, how can you close and lock all doors leading to the bedrooms? Those doors aren't accessible by a key. Also, I asked earlier and the master key is for the mansion generally and plays no part in solving the puzzle.

[timetock]

I flaw to that, how can you close and lock all doors leading to the bedrooms? Those doors aren't accessible by a key.

I'm sorry. That 2nd to last red text I missed.

However I/we do need some clarification.
1. "Without a doubt, your key opens the front door of the guesthouse."
2. "there exists no more than 2 master keys that can unlock a door within the guesthouse, one of these keys is in your possession."
   So is there a master key for the guesthouse or no? The "within the guesthouse" really throws me off.
3."No master key exists for the guesthouse. Any key to the guesthouse is for the front door only."
4."Without the use of a key, no method exists through which it is possible to unlock a locked guestroom door from outside the room!
*It's also not possible to lock a door from the outside without a key."
   So there are keys to the guestrooms?

Spoiler for Sources: Quotes:

- No more than two keys exist that can lock or unlock a door within the guesthouse. One of these keys is currently within your possession.
*There are no more than two keys total.

- No more than one master key to the guesthouse exists. The only person who could possibly have such a master key is the owner of the mansion.
*This disallows any situations where such a master key would change hands, even temporarily.

- Any key that is not a master key can only be used to lock or unlock a single door.

- Without the use of a key, no method exists through which it is possible to unlock a locked guestroom door from outside the room!
*It's also not possible to lock a door from the outside without a key.

- Without a doubt, the key in your possession is the key for the front door of the guesthouse!

- No key exists that can lock or unlock a door to any of the three guestrooms.

- No master key exists for the guesthouse. Any key to the guesthouse is for the front door only.

- As no keys to the guestroom doors exist, no method exists through which it is possible to perfectly seal a guestroom door from outside the guestroom.

[EvaRia]

It makes more sense if you actually read the thread, not just the reference post.

I worded my red in the beginning to allow the possibility of a key, but I've long since closed that off.

[EvaRia]

One thing that still has loopholes in it is this:

- No form of autonomous device or artificial intelligence is capable perfectly sealing a door or window. I will extend this to weather, natural forces, animals or any other method which does not require the direct action of a human or use of magic.
*The definition of a "direct action" required to perfectly seal a door or window includes a prerequisite of direct physical contact. Any inclusion of a device or third party to seal a window is considered indirect.

So I'd like to have confirmation that this actuall means:
Only a human can perfectly seal a door or window by direct physical contact. Anything non human can not perfectly seal a door or window.

-> Culprit gets inside, kills kid, goes outside and seals the window with a non-autonomous device which was set up by a prerequisite of direct physical contact.
Then repeat for the other 2 kids.

All I hear from this is "The only possible way to do this is some sort of trick to do this from outside."

What part of no method is hard to understand?

Perfectly sealing an entranceway from the inside requires that the one doing so be inside the room at the exact time it is sealed.

ANY other method is considered perfectly sealing from the outside and is not possible in this game.

A person with a long rod bored a hole through the wall and took the keys using the rod. Then, using these keys, they entered the guesthouse, used more holes to unlock the sliding blots with the rod, then walked in and did the killing, then the attacker undid everything, with the help of the rod, and patched up all the holes before leaving.

The same thing applies here.

For ANY method where the human unsealing one of the guestroom doors is outside the room at the exact time it is unsealed, it is considered "breaking or removing a perfect seal on a guestroom door from outside the room" and is not possible.

Question:
1. Does the owner of the mansion know who the culprit is?
2. Is there any possible way to create a new key?

The culprit takes the keys from the owner of the mansion, or the owner of the mansion gives the master key to the culprit. Either way, the culprit now has a way to access the guesthouse. However, because we know that the master key was on the owner of the mansion at all times, and the owner of the mansion stayed in the mansion at all times, then we can safely assume that the key remained in the mansion. However, the culprit would be able to mould the key and make a new one, then entering the rooms silently and killing the cousins. The culprit then leaves the house, locking every door, and destroying the key hereby destroying the evidence.

There are no more than two keys total, since he destroyed the duplicate?

P.S. I'm sorry to Eva if I make any mistakes and have to repeat red text, but I suppose we learn as we go, no?

You were written off by the others, but after a quick check your blue truth is actually valid.

Therefore I will provide a valid counter.

No method exists through which it is possible to destroy or render useless any key for the guesthouse.

I will refuse to answer your other two questions.

[eljoemo]

Questions:

Is the fact that there are 3 cousins significant? Does the solution require 3 rooms with 3 cousins or is it just the same process repeated 3 times?
Is the same knife used 3 times on the 3 cousins?
Is the story telling significant? Does it matter that the guesthouse is well kept or not?

Also, a wild theory appears: It is the middle of summer. It is warm. The cousins decide to sleep with their windows open. The culprit assisted by 2 volunteers approach the house. The murderer climbs through the window and kills the 1st cousin. He then exits. Volunteer 1 climbs into the room, locks the window and hides. The murderer kills the second cousin in the same way and the 2nd volunteer hides in this room. The murder kills the 3rd cousin, locks the window and hides in this room. In the morning, you try each door and run outside. You fail to lock the front door behind you. Each murder and volunteer leaves their respective bedroom before you look through the window. Since you do not check the doors again, you cannot garuntee they are still locked.

[Gandora]

So if I understood it correctly, there exist no keys for the rooms in the guesthouse (except the entrance door, for which we have a key).
As can be seen with these red truths:

- No key exists that can lock or unlock a door to any of the three guestrooms.
- No master key exists for the guesthouse. Any key to the guesthouse is for the front door only.

Together with this:

Without the use of a key, no method exists through which it is possible to unlock a locked guestroom door from outside the room!
*It's also not possible to lock a door from the outside without a key.

we can assume that it's impossible to unlock the door except you enter the rooms through the window.
To repeat my thread of thoughts: You need a key to unlock the guestroom door from outside + No key exists that can (un)lock any of the three guestrooms --> It's not possible to (un)lock it from the outside, even by using tricks.

So, here's my take on the crime:
Theory 1:
Though not confirmed, the witch part of the story suggests that the murderer knows my cousins and warned them. Because of this (or some other reason) the murderer prepared the house so that the doors can be easily removed and put back into place without doing much rumor. This way he entered the guest house and the three rooms and rearrenged the scene after each murder.

Theory 2: Basically the same except that this time the windows can be taken out of the wall and put back into place.

In both theories, the doors or windows are not unlocked from the outside. I admit though that the one with the doors is unlikely because of the sliding bolt.


@TheWitch: Can we assume that everything except the part written with different style, namely the witch part, is true? Because I have a feeling that otherwise the amount of theories we can come up with is immense.

Assuming my theories don't work there are other things that bother me:
Because of red truths I don't want to look up the following things are given (assuming that the answer to the above question is yes).

Spoiler for Short summarize mostly for myself:

We can assume that the cousins locked the door (the 3 click as they each lock the door behind them).
So no matter how the murderer entered the room (exclude hidden passages), since their death was an instant one (s)he must have been the one that sealed the door and the window (because when we woke up doors and windows were locked from inside).
And even if (s)he left through the window and entered the other two rooms and killed the remaining cousins (s)he will only be able to seal one of the three open windows. So one should conclude that (s)he's still in one of the rooms which apparently was not the case ("But there's nobody in the room.").

Anyway, I don't remember all the red truths but reading them through I didn't find one that contradicts the following theory:
The murderer enters through the windows left open by the cousins and kills them. He then seals the windows and unlocks the door. He uses a string or a cord and attaches it to the sliding bolt, exits the room and closes the door from the outside.
Since (s)he can't leave the guesthouse now, (s)he hides (maybe under the table) and waits until I rush out in the morning and leaves then the house.

According to the red truths I don't break or remove the seal and it's nowhere stated that I can't perfectly seal it from the outside. You only forbid to perfectly seal windows from the outside which in my theory is not done. Or is the cord considered indirect? In that case my theory does not hold.

[EvaRia]

Theory 1:

Removing a door will unseal it and therefore be impossible. Also, even if the door is put back in place, I did confirm in red that the doors were locked with a sliding bolt and you must still explain how they did that.

Theory 2:

This gets caught in the "perfectly sealed" definitions I put in place. Even if you were to remove the window, even after putting it back you cannot perfectly seal from outside the room. In short, even though you can do it without unlocking or locking the window, you must still explain how it was perfectly sealed.

Therefore both of these theories have already been invalidated in red.

My explanation for the validity of the story itself I have already spoken in red.

To repeat: Your memory is accurate to the narration in the story.

I have nothing else to reveal about the issue. Interpret it as you will.


For your last theory, I recently invalidated it in red with this truth:

Perfectly sealing an entranceway from the inside requires that the one doing so be inside the room at the exact time it is sealed.

ANY other method is considered perfectly sealing from the outside and is not possible in this game.


This includes both windows and doors.

[Zso_Zso]

The original story is not in red, so none of it has to be trusted as true. Murders did happen, that was repeated in red, so I propose the culprit is the detective.

[killsdazombies]

Read the red truths, the story is both confirmed and the detective cannot be the murderer

[eljoemo]

Questions:

Is the fact that there are 3 cousins significant? Does the solution require 3 rooms with 3 cousins or is it just the same process repeated 3 times?
Is the same knife used 3 times on the 3 cousins?
Is the story telling significant? Does it matter that the guesthouse is well kept or not?

Also, a wild theory appears: It is the middle of summer. It is warm. The cousins decide to sleep with their windows open. The culprit assisted by 2 volunteers approach the house. The murderer climbs through the window and kills the 1st cousin. He then exits. Volunteer 1 climbs into the room, locks the window and hides. The murderer kills the second cousin in the same way and the 2nd volunteer hides in this room. The murder kills the 3rd cousin, locks the window and hides in this room. In the morning, you try each door and run outside. You fail to lock the front door behind you. Each murder and volunteer leaves their respective bedroom before you look through the window. Since you do not check the doors again, you cannot guarantee they are still locked.

I feel as though you are ignoring me

[Kakerlake]

Questions:

Is the fact that there are 3 cousins significant? Does the solution require 3 rooms with 3 cousins or is it just the same process repeated 3 times?
Is the same knife used 3 times on the 3 cousins?
Is the story telling significant? Does it matter that the guesthouse is well kept or not?

Also, a wild theory appears: It is the middle of summer. It is warm. The cousins decide to sleep with their windows open. The culprit assisted by 2 volunteers approach the house. The murderer climbs through the window and kills the 1st cousin. He then exits. Volunteer 1 climbs into the room, locks the window and hides. The murderer kills the second cousin in the same way and the 2nd volunteer hides in this room. The murder kills the 3rd cousin, locks the window and hides in this room. In the morning, you try each door and run outside. You fail to lock the front door behind you. Each murder and volunteer leaves their respective bedroom before you look through the window. Since you do not check the doors again, you cannot guarantee they are still locked.

I feel as though you are ignoring me

I'll help you out:

- In this game, only another culprit can assist or otherwise cooperate with a culprit in murder.
- When you checked and entered each guestroom, the respective door to the common room was locked from the inside.