The Witch's Game - By EvaRia

[EvaRia]

I will clarify this as the Game Master:

As of now, there are three mysteries which I have laid out in this game. Each of the three closed rooms is considered a separate mystery.

In order for a blue truth to be valid, you must provide a complete theory on how a human could have set up one of the rooms I described without using magic.

The nature of this mystery centers around the construction of the closed room. In short, unless your theory includes this information, your blue truth will be ineffective and I will not be obligated to answer in red.

[Kakerlake]

got a question for you:

To get to the solution, do we have to nitpick through the red truths to find a loophole in at least one of them? (like no HUMAN was inside the room, but there was actually a Bat flying around)

Otherwise I'll have to stick to my Vampire story, as you didn't write a red truth saying that there was no magic used, which would make the humans team win

[eljoemo]

Let's start thinking portals.

I like this idea. So here goes.

The murder is equipped with an Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device (or any other similar consumer product). The murderer opens the 1st portal outside the house. They then enter a room through the left open window (it is summer after all). A quick stab and 1 x corpse is on the bed. The murderer locks the window and opens the bathroom. The white tiles in the bathroom should make for an excellent portal conductor. Two more times and that makes 3 dead cousins in total. Although if you had that technology why would you murder 3 insignificant people...

Tadah!

[EvaRia]

got a question for you:

To get to the solution, do we have to nitpick through the red truths to find a loophole in at least one of them? (like no HUMAN was inside the room, but there was actually a Bat flying around)

Otherwise I'll have to stick to my Vampire story, as you didn't write a red truth saying that there was no magic used, which would make the humans team win

It is forbidden for supernatural agencies to be employed as a detective technique.

Your vampire qualifies as a supernatural agency and therefore cannot be used in a detective theory.

Let's start thinking portals.

I like this idea. So here goes.

The murder is equipped with an Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device (or any other similar consumer product). The murderer opens the 1st portal outside the house. They then enter a room through the left open window (it is summer after all). A quick stab and 1 x corpse is on the bed. The murderer locks the window and opens the bathroom. The white tiles in the bathroom should make for an excellent portal conductor. Two more times and that makes 3 dead cousins in total. Although if you had that technology why would you murder 3 insignificant people...

Tadah!

It is forbidden for unknown drugs or hard to understand scientific devices to be used.

The Portal Gun is a futuristic device and therefore qualifies under this rule. This is to prevent situations where anything can be claimed with "futuristic technology".

To quote Clarke's third law, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

If you cannot explain how the device could be built or used, then it will be caught under this red truth.

[eljoemo]

It was a long shot I admit. Some genius somewhere probably has a portal gun but its not me so I can't argue with you there.

Question: What size are the windows, approximately? A person can climb through but can they climb through with ease or do they need to spend 5 minutes struggling? Any other window related facts would be much appreciated.

[Regyptic]

So I'm going to attempt to draw some logical conclusions from things that have been said so far. Firstly,

- Other than through a door or window, there exists no method through which it is possible for a human to enter any of the three guestrooms.
*There is also no such method to leave the rooms.

- No method exists through which it is possible to perfectly seal one of the guestroom windows from outside the guestroom.

- 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.

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

These statements taken together imply that a perfectly sealed room must have a living person on the inside. If this is true then combined with these;

- Both the moment when you woke up and when you came across each window, the windows were perfectly sealed from the inside.

- When you woke up, each of the three guestroom doors were locked from the inside using a sliding bolt.

we should be able to conclude that at the moment you woke up there was a living person in each room. As;

- No more than one culprit exists in this game.

this means that at least 2 cousins were still alive at this point. So most of the murdering was probably happening as you were checking rooms.

I'll try to put some of this into a theory.

Bill left his bedroom window open when he went to sleep, the other rooms were sealed. At some point during the night the murderer sneaked into Bill's room, murdered him and locked the window. We woke up with all 3 rooms sealed. When we went outside the guesthouse to check on Bill, the murderer left Bill's room through the door just as Fred was leaving his room. The murderer killed Fred and put the body on the bed. As he was leaving Fred's room, Bob was leaving the last guestroom and so the murderer killed him too in the same way before finally leaving through the front door which we'd kindly left unlocked in our hurry.

[eljoemo]

I'll try to put some of this into a theory.

Bill left his bedroom window open when he went to sleep, the other rooms were sealed. At some point during the night the murderer sneaked into Bill's room, murdered him and locked the window. We woke up with all 3 rooms sealed. When we went outside the guesthouse to check on Bill, the murderer left Bill's room through the door just as Fred was leaving his room. The murderer killed Fred and put the body on the bed. As he was leaving Fred's room, Bob was leaving the last guestroom and so the murderer killed him too in the same way before finally leaving through the front door which we'd kindly left unlocked in our hurry.

Good theory other than this truth.

- When you checked and entered each guestroom, the respective door to the common room was locked from the inside.

Also it is a logical assumption that the shouting and trying doorknobs would wake the cousins. Hence, (this is not a red truth though) everyone was dead when you woke up.

[Regyptic]

Shame. I knew there would be some red truth I'd missed.

Everything before the theory should be true though assuming I've not misinterpreted one of the red truths. Following logically from what has been said it seems a living person has to be inside a room at the moment it becomes sealed. If at some point a room is still sealed and there isn't a living person inside then either;
- the person who sealed the room died while the room was sealed or,
- it's possible to leave a sealed room without breaking any of the seals.
If neither of these are true then there was never a point at which the room was perfectly sealed with only a dead body inside.

Is there a hole anywhere in this logic?

[eljoemo]

Even if the murders took place as you were awake or during the night, the main problem is leaving a "perfectly sealed" room.

 The door was locked from the inside. As was the window. The cousin must be dead or the culprit wouldn't leave. There is only one person. The culprit could not leave through a "perfectly sealed" entrance. The only way out of the room is one of the 2 perfectly sealed exits. There are no other exits from the room.

Therefore the culprit could not leave... except they did.  PARADOX TIME!!!!

There has to be a flaw in this logic somewhere. Unless Eva is just a troll in which case he/she will soon be receiving a strongly worded message regarding my views on him/her.

Don't let this dis-encourage you. I'm not a genius and I don't pretend to be. There's probably something blatantly obvious we have all missed.

[EvaRia]

If it were obvious, I wouldn't being doing my job right.

But yes, you are missing something, or I would be cheating. It is not my intention to make this an impossible game. I'm not holding back the difficulty, but I would still like to see someone solve it.

Good luck!

[eljoemo]

can I have some window facts yet???? pretty please????

[xyan]

put yourselves in Agatha Christie's shoes, or etc.

since my last blue post, I am still thinking of what is missed. do not count me out witch.