Part 15: MElee

BGM: Metis
I'm glad we managed to reach an outcome without tearing each other's heads off for once...



This place is really big. What does it mean to represent? And why is this in the school?

I don't know. I t-think I know this place... but my head hurts when I t-think about it too much...

Are we supposed to take the balcony too? Will we walk through here up there?

After giving it a moment of consideration, and trying to move closer to have a better look at it, Ancora realized there was no going up there. There was a ceiling- it only appeared as though you could get to the second floor.

I see, so it's not really like a second floor. It's an optical illusion! The ceiling is painted as if there was a second floor, but it doesn't really have one.

That's k-kinda fucked up.



BGM: ME Mori
ME appeared upon their helmets, true to her word.

Isn't this place just grand? It's really expensive to get a house to look like this. Not only is it expensive, but it's pretty much impossible unless you have more money than sense. But we're not here to figure that out; that has nothing to do with your immediate situation.



There's a murderer in your group.

Your task is to figure out who it is, and then tell me. I'm sure you can understand there is only one murderer, too. That's correct, none of the others have committed the crime of murder as of your incarceration, so please take that to heart and work together.



Oh, right, for the answer... I'm not looking for a name. Instead, you'll be working to tell me which personality did the murder. If you aren't familiar with it, you'll find something that will help you delineate all of that in this duo of rooms. I'll see you later.

BGM: Metis
Once again, the vision of ME disappeared and light returned to their eyes, filtered through the cameras of the masks they wore. None of them seemed too pleased about the news that a killer was on the loose.

39 minutes c-countdown, huh... we're doing this again.

Yes. We'd better get to searching... Even if I feel like this place is comfortable enough to take a nap inside.

Take it once we're all done and we've left this horrible school. I'd personally like to get out as soon as possible now that it's confirmed one of us nine is a murderer...

This room shouldn't be too bad either. The Enneagram of Personality reduces the amount of possibilities to nine, so working with that... Alright, not going to think about it too much. It's best left to the search. There's the enneagram somewhere in there, so as long as one finds it, they'll have a solid hold on the mystery.



BGM: Mendosus


This time around, the topic of conversation we can bring up with our teammates is “the personality”, so we're gonna start by chatting with Avaritia.

Feel free to talk.

ME spoke about a personality. What do you think she means?



Early on, when I studied psychology, we had this thing called the Enneagram of Personality which said that people can be categorized in nine main types of personalities. That's utter bullshit, by the way. That's because we're more complex than just one personality trait. It's believed we have a main type and two related types; when you're feeling fulfilled, and when you're feeling stressed.



So do you remember the anagram?

Enneagram. And no, I don't. I only remember that in the list, there's something called the “observer” personality, which is also “investigator”, and it's represented by the number 5.

She took a small pause, thinking over what she was saying. Ancora was about to call for her again when she resumed her speech.

I only remember because I think I might fit in that one.

Do you think we all fit in those personalities? We were supposed to be nine...



Not even as a template?

Ancora insisted. She was fairly pumped about the subject, not willing to let go of a lead that they happened to have.

Being interested is a good way to catch someone's attention. It's all about leading them into the right path.

Maybe as a template. But I forgot what the personalities were anyway, so we'd better get going in order to find that in here, if it's in this room. We should probably keep searching.

Yeah, let's go back to the search.

Right away, then.

Next up, Ira.



Do you know anything about that personality who might've done the murder?

A-ah, no I don't think so. Sorry, I can't really h-help more than that.

Strangely enough, his refusal didn't feel genuine to Ancora. She crossed her arms, which put him on his guard.

Y-you asked me and I answered, so there's no problem! Right?

He punched his hands together, looking as threatening as he could. Unfortunately, that only made Ancora more interested in knowing why he denied it so vehemently.

You definitely know something. You wouldn't hit a girl, would you?



So you're saying I should drop it before I get hurt.

Y-yeah, that's what I'm saying. Again, I wish I could answer, but I'm not going to. You should just pretend I d-don't know anything.

Well, at least that confirms he does know something about it. Maybe he did it... He doesn't seem to be too estranged to violence of some kind or another. Either way, regardless if he did it or not, working with him is crucial- especially if he did it. Wouldn't want him to become an enemy.

Well, anything e-else?

Never mind.

Let's s-search more.

Right, time to actually start poking around. If we examine the door we move to the other room, so we'll save that for later. For now, I'm gonna start by checking out the staircase in the center of the room.



T-this place is a bit... familiar. I can't put my finger on it.

He smashed his fist into his palm, looking rather angry about that fact.

It'll come back in due time. But in which way is it familiar?

I think I've b-been here before... A large ornate mansion... r-rich place...

Were you working there as a guard or something?

D-don't be silly, I'm too young to have a j-job yet.

The girl looked him up and down a little.

Young? He's built like a brick wall.



He became irate again at that idea. Averting her gaze, Ancora continued investigating the area in silence, but nothing came of the staircase itself.

The painting on the landing wall has nothing of note to it- it can't even be moved or interacted with at all. There is an odd spot on one of the railing bannisters, though.

Did you see this part? It looks awfully weird. It's like you can open it.

You'll need a key for this. Ugh, what don't you need a key for in this place...?

The teacher looked absolutely demoralized by having to find all of these keys. Ancora took a moment to reminisce about the first room she'd explored as there were a bunch of keys there, too.

It's kinda overdone, but keys are the best way to lock people's progress.

Ancora giggled a little. Avaritia signaled at Ancora with both her hands in annoyance.



Oh, nothing. I just thought of a dumb pun...

Alright, then. But think less about puns, and think more about escaping this room.

Okay, fine. Anyway, the lock on this one is silver, so I guess we have to find a silver key.

Alright, guess we should look at the stuff on the ground floor. I'll start with the couch.

A couch! I love couches. They're very comfortable. Let's see if this one measures up to the one I have at home. Oh, being nicely seated is just about the best thing in life.

She rapidly rubbed her hands together, to the horror of Ancora who watched as the older woman descrated that piece of furniture by thoroughly using it in its intended way.

Hmm... it's not actually that great. I guess it's better if you're not stressed out. I'd still give it an eight, though.

Out of ten?



She adjusted herself into the seat, before lying onto her side.

Maybe an eight and a half.

Then why not have a scale on twenty instead, so you can give it seventeen?

Are you ridiculous? Scales go from zero to ten, or zero to a hundred.

Won't that make it have eleven, or a hundred and one possible scores rather than a flat ten or hundred anyway? Why isn't it one to ten, or one to a hundred?

I'm not the one who makes the rules.

She nonchalantly shrugged.

I'm more interested in seeing if there's anything around the sofa itself rather than its comfort level, to be honest.

While Avaritia looked outraged that Ancora would dare suggest that, the girl knelt down, looking under the couch.

I think... if I extend my hand...



I need some light to see this... Guess I'll have to look at this again later... and you could've helped me a little, you know?

The couch is far too comfortable for me to get down to the ground too. I mean, it's still at a level of eight and a half.

Ancora stood back up, crossing her arms at Avaritia who shrugged back at her.

Lazy bum.

The lamp is broken and has nothing else of note if you try to examine it. Similarly, the table is, well, just a table. Nothing written on it, nothing under it, etc. That leaves just the fireplace and the painting atop the mantle.

Unlike the other painting, this one can be moved.

She pulled onto the sides to lift it slightly, curiously spying behind it. There was nothing but a wall. Yet, behind the painting itself were some words haphazardly scribbed across the surface.



Simple enough. Why does it say three, though? Is it the order to put in the directives or something?

I don't think so. This sounds like the very final step to do since it mentions “free space”.

As for the fireplace...

This is giving off a lot of heat.

Is that s-so? It doesn't look that hot to me...

He reached towards the fire, but the teacher grabbed his arm.

Hey, don't burn yourself. We need a way to extinguish the fire if we're going to look into there, first.

Which isn't necessarily water, either. You need to asphyxiate the fire to extinguish it.

It wasn't that hot! And besides, look, I got this.



It's a silver key! Where there's a silver key there must be a silver lock.

L-looks more like steel to me. But yeah, a key, that's good, r-right?

They all decided it was, indeed, a good thing when they added the key to their inventory.

It's obvious what the key is for, but before we use it let's check out the other room. The door isn't locked or anything, so we can just wander in anytime we wanted.



Obviously the door takes us back to the entryway. I'm going to start by examining the broken columns.

This area looks really weird. It's like a very lustrate sort of place... white and gold and all. Look at this pillar!



That sounds like a good finding. Let's remember that. Do you have a pen and paper?

No. I don't think there's any of that here. But it's okay, I have a good memory, don't worry.

Reassured, Ancora left the pillar alone.

This place looks extremely rich. This is the kind of thing you'd find in some fantasy holy place or something. Still, it only looks rich, but it isn't. I mean, this isn't the real place it's referencing, of course. This is just a replica.

The other pillars have nothing else for us, so next we'll check out the altar in the center of the room.



This isn't a holy tomb. And besides, this cloth is hiding something underneath it.

She swiped it, looking upon the naked altar- or at least, it's what she expected; the piece of cloth hid another underneath it. There was a strange, retractable pole between the two layers, though.

T-that might come in handy to get a longer reach.

It doesn't have a hand. But it might come in handy anyway.

Is that a-another pun?

The girl didn't reply, instead getting a hold of the pole to free up the altar. She was about to replace the cloth, when she realized there was more to it.



That sounds like one of t-those personality type things.

Yeah, probably. We'll keep the cloth, then.

B-but the holy tomb...

It's not a holy tomb! It's just... white everywhere, and it has nothing to do with a tomb.

Next is the throne.

I'm strong enough to p-push even this!

He helped lift the large, imposing, and very heavy throne up, exposing the plates underneath. At first it had just been an exercise in showing off his strength, but a few words were written underneath it.



I'm a genius? I mean, y-yeah, of course I am! I knew it all a-along.

After Ancora was done reading it, Ira let go of the throne, which slammed back onto the ground in its rightful place.

The last thing we can examine in this room is those boxes off to the side.

A bunch of boxes... it'll take a while to search them all. But there's something behind them.



It's a flashlight. Might be helpful if we somehow need something illuminated.

She snagged it from Ancora, who held her hips in annoyance.

I'll just put it with the rest of the stuff! You can take your time searching the crates if you want.

You just want to get away so you don't have to search with us.

J-just stick around a bit. It won't take too long if we're all three.

Avaritia admitted defeat. The lazy teacher settled down with the two others, opening boxes and looking through their contents. There wasn't much; a lot of foam, mainly. Some of them had a few items, but nothing worthy of note.



The book has the Enneagram on it! But all the spots aren't named. There are the numbers for each of the spots, though.

I remember this. Observer is at the number five spot, I know that much.

We can probably start things off with that. And the book itself... it doesn't open. It's fake.

Hahaha, we f-found something but it's not real.

Maybe it's not real, but there's a phrase on the back anyway. It says... “Find me where the beginning of all six tell you.”

Very important stuff.



Let's go put our stuff together instead.

If we examine the boxes one more time...

Nothing else seems useful here. It's full of weird... ceremony stuff. Black and red robes mostly... I don't think this place is Christian.

I'm sure that means nothing. Anyway, that's all we have to look at in this room, so now we can return to the entryway. Firstly, let's use that key we found at the fireplace in the weird slot on the stairs bannister.

The silver key we found looks like it fits in here.

It looks more like a steel key than a silver key to me...

Regardless of what the key really was made out of, it fit into the lock. Opening the object dropped a rolled piece of paper onto the ground. Unfortunately, due to its placement, it fell behind the couch.

Damn! We'll have to get it.

I'm on it.



She grabbed the piece of paper and Ira replaced the couch where it had been.

I was being careful because couches are precious things that mustn't be harmed at all costs, but I suppose this works too...

There are b-better ways to be grateful for help, I'd say.

You get to see what we found. On this paper is written... “TWO. Peacemaker, Achiever, and Loyalist form a perfect triangle.”

What the heck are t-those?

If I had to guess, they're personality types. Let's store this in our communal inventory.



Next, now that we have the flashlight, we can see what's written on the underside of the couch.

Oh yeah! I can finally use that light to see what's written there.

She crouched again, illuminating the underside of the couch.



She gave a glance at Ira who stood nearby.

You're strong, you could have helped me move the couch up and over!

I can move the couch away, but I can't l-lift it. I don't know why. Maybe its m-magnetized to the ground?

Ancora shook her head, disappointed.

With this, we have all six clues, and thus can begin solving the puzzle. To initiate this all you have to do is try to combine any two of the six clues in the inventory.

Hey, we need to think about where the safe is.



M-maybe it's not a safe in this room? But whatever it is, we have to find it...

All those instructions we found might help us. Isn't it weird how they're labeled with an order, but the one with “First” isn't first?

There has to be something we can capitalize on with these six hints. If in doubt, let's look at them again.



This isn't the actual answer to the room, obviously, but I'm still going to spoiler the solution if you want to puzzle it out yourself. The book says “Find me where the beginning of all six tell you”- in other worse, look at the first letter of each clue. We get 'UPFIRE', which is what we are intended to answer with...



The beginning of the instructions spell “UPFIRE.” I think we have to look up the chimney to find whatever it is.

We'd just f-find Santa Claus there.

It's not Christmas yet. And even if it was, Santa Claus doesn't go down chimneys where there's smoke. Speaking of which, where is that smoke going?

M-maybe it's staying in this room and we're slowly d-dying... But there's probably some kind of b-buffer room for it where it gets filtered.

It's called ventilation.

Anyway, I think someone could extinguish the fire using a large piece of cloth. It might go better than water since, well, there's no water here.

How convenient that we have one of those Technically I think you can try to figure out where the safe is the moment you have any two of the clues, which is why the actual act of using the cloth is separate, but it's still very funny.

The cloth we found can be used to stop the fire. Just do it like this...



And now we can look i-inside!

He arched his back and peeked up the dirty chimney. As he came back to them, the two girls could easily see, even without directly witnessing his face, that he was disappointed.

T-there's something, but it's really high and I can't r-reach it. You'd need like a... billiard pole or something to get it down.

That's one difficult item to get to, huh? Too bad it's also practically necessary.

Good thing we actually found that. Alright, I'll use the pole now!

Ancora took out the retractable pole she had on her and expanded it, while looking up the chimney. The girl coughed a little; even the helmet didn't stop all the leftover dust, ashes and smoke there still was.

Ira took that better earlier.



Save the couch! Don't let it get tainted by the ashes!

Thankfully, the ashes never got to it. The group grabbed the item; it was a small chest which had been held in suspension. It didn't have a lock, so Ira opened it with glee, uncaring that his hands dirtied themselves with soot.





He immediately grabbed it.



It's so cool! I've n-never held a gun in my life. I mean, I don't actually l-like violence, but this is still cool. Guns are cool.

Yes, that's fine but, uh, do you mind not waving that thing around?

I-it's okay, the safety's still on or however t-that thing works.

Was there anything else in the box?

O-oh, right, there's also a key...



Goes r-right with the others we found like that, huh...

He also pulled out one of those magnetic keycards, and then another one. He pocketed one of the ME-cards while Ancora took the other, and Avaritia snagged the strange key.

See? No danger. We're all splitting it equally.

You didn't split the gun, though.

I-I'm just gonna keep that one. I h-hope you don't mind. If you do, well, that's too bad.

The two girls watched him for a moment before they decided he wasn't really a threat... for now, at least. They still needed him to leave the room, and that “they” included him, too.



It says... “The answer is lower than Individualist.”

Another riddle? Damn. I think we have all we need to escape though. So... how about meeting back here at the fireplace when we're ready to go?

Let's not take too long... the t-timer's going down...

I agree.

I agree too. Maybe it would be good to have just one more cursory look first, but not too much.



But we don't need to do that, we've already looked at everything.

Are we all ready?

S-sure. But do you, uh, know the answer?

I don't know. There's a riddle, and it's super confusing to me.

W-what would stop someone from guessing which one it is and eventually getting it right? T-there are only nine possibilities, no?

How many of us are in this room? Do you count ten?

D-Damn, you're right.



W-What about me?!

Do you want to figure it out? Be my guest if so.

The boy went silent at the question. He apparently didn't want to.

Good. He won't get in the way and confuse everyone else with his stupidity.



BGM: Memini Meminisse


Yes. It's supposedly your personality, and Reformer is easy since one of the pieces of paper mentions it “starts the ball”.

Things get a little more complicated after the first one, but... Another paper says that Enthusiast and Challenger are related to Observer. We can probably lock Enthusiast and Challenger to either 7 or 8, then.

Wait, why? Couldn't they be 4 or 6, too? They're linked together.

There are two specific kinds of words used in these hints. There's “next to” and “related to”, and I'm willing to bet the latter refers to the lines in the middle, not the outside.

Makes sense.



The funny number...

Ancora, please pay attention in class.

Yes, ma'am. Um, wait, it also mentions something about Enthusiast being related to Reformer?

That's right. With this, we can determine where Loyalist, Enthusiast, and Challenger are. Since Loyalist is next to Enthusiast, Enthusiast is related to Reformer, and Enthusiast and Challenger can only be on 7 or 8, the lineup is...



That's right, we're still expected to actually solve part of this puzzle ourselves When the game first released, this conversation wasn't actually here, and you were instead just expected to use the clues and figure out where each of the nine personalities lies on the circle all by yourself (or, you know, just Google it ). Because of this, in a later patch the creator rewrote this section entirely so there was still something worth reading even if you just looked up the answer. Speaking of:

Enthusiast must be 7 then. Since it's 7, Loyalist can't be 8 because that's definitely Challenger... so Loyalist is 6.



Even bigger than the girth of Ira's arms?

Even bigger than that. It says that Peacemaker, Loyalist, and Achiever form a perfect triangle, but we only have one of them.

We can't determine these yet...

No, that's incorrect. We can determine all of them right now.

How do you figure that one out?

Well, see, Individualist and Achiever form a pair. And that means...

Achiever can't be 9 then, because there's only one spot!



Wow, this is getting really filled in now.

Ira was looking at them both with impatience. He had taken the gun out again, and was playing with it. The fact she and Avaritia were carrying him through the room, but he was the one who got the firearm, made Ancora a little upset.

There's just no fairness in this world.

It's hard to determine where Individualist and Helper are. However, there's a big clue in the final paper we got.

It says, “The answer is lower than Individualist.” That means Individualist's position will determine which one it is... ...so it's got to be 2! That's the only way to get only one possible answer!

I don't think that's correct. It wouldn't make any sense to not have us figure out the whole thing first, which means...

You think Individualist is on 4 and Helper is on 2?



Wait, h-hold up, save that for when we have to answer the door.

Alright, fine, then. Are you sure this is the answer, Ava?

Very sure. Do you want me to give the answer this time, to be clear on how sure I am?

No, it's fine, I'll do it. Are we all ready?

BGM: Mendosus


Hmm, I felt kind of useless in this one. Oh well, won't complain about getting a break for once.

Alright, let ME out! The answer is...





Helper!

With a loud click, the door unlocked.

BGM: Metis
A-alright, good! Let's get out of here now...

After you.

*click*



Seeing that he took the gun out, Ancora and Avaritia begrudgingly obeyed, walking out of the door first. They didn't really have a choice anyway; even without the gun, Ira would still be stronger than the both of them combined.