***** Wiki’s POV, 8:15 AM *****

“Welcome to The Room of Nine Keys!” I said, spreading my arms wide as I stepped into the room, once again leading the adventurers.

“Let me guess, we need to get a key from each of the other rooms on this floor in order to advance,” said Anderson.

“Precisely,” I said. “From here, we can either go into the fighting rooms or the puzzle rooms, but I’d recommend going for the puzzles next as you’d have to walk all the way back through the Courage and Trust rooms to get to the first of the Fighting rooms. While in theory, you could go through them backward, I would not recommend it as you’d be starting with the mini-boss.”

“Right then,” replied Anderson. “Ragnar, Ton, looks like you’re up since y’all are better at puzzles than the rest of us.”

“Alright, follow me,” I said as I walked off to what was ironically the first puzzle room despite it being at the back of the dungeon. I was looking forward to this one as it will be interesting to see how Toejam responds to the puzzles given his earlier distaste for electricity.

“By the way, all of my various colors can be mixed together. For instance, if I’m Black and Green or Blue and Green, you can ask me questions as if I was Black and Blue, but I’ll still do what you tell me to in regards to the puzzle as if I was Green. The difference between the two color-combos is they indicate which role is more important at that time. In this case, Blue in a means that answering your questions is more important than doing what you say, while black means that helping with the puzzle is more important.”

“What about the color-combos that include Red?” asked Ragnar.

“Ah, I’m so glad you asked,” I said. “Before I answer your actual question, there are two things that I should clarify. The first is that from here on out, I will be referring to my various colors as personalities because that’s more or less what they are.”

“I notice you said that was ‘more or less what they are,’” said Toejam. “Does that mean they’re more akin to characters you play?”

“So you do know how to use your head from time to time,” I said. “Yes, that is exactly what is going on. The second thing I should clarify is something I’m only allowed to tell you IF you ask certain questions, such as the one Ragnar just asked. The rules that govern the behavior of my various personalities will interact in some interesting ways, even when that color isn’t currently active. For instance, a lot of the information about my Red personality, you will have to figure out on your own. After all, there’s no point in serving as your opponent if you can get my other personality to tell you how to defeat me.”

“Is fair,” said Ton to grudging acknowledgment from the rest of the group.

“Going back to Ragnar’s question, at this time Red can form combos with Blue/Black and Green. There may be other combos as the dungeon grows, and I get more colors, but that’s it for now. The Red/Blue/Black combo means that I will be answering your questions and giving you instruction as usual, but you should take everything I say with a grain of salt. Also, I will be less inclined to pull your butts out of the fire if you do something stupid.

“The Red/Green combo means I will still obey your instruction with regards to the puzzle, and I will be able to restate the puzzle instructions word for word, but you need to be careful how you word your instructions to me.”

“I’m assuming that means you’ll be actively trying to misinterpret the instructions?” asked Ragnar.

“Precisely. The amount of effort I put into misinterpreting your instructions will be directly proportional to your standing with the dungeon. While we’re on the subject, I should note that there will eventually be specific activities that can be done to increase your standing with the dungeon. However, doing them with a disrespectful attitude will be greatly counterproductive. Conversely, doing them with respect, honor, and integrity will be far more effective. Don’t ask me what those activities are going to be just yet as the activities are still under development.

“With that out of the way, I bid you welcome to the first of the puzzle rooms!”

“Wait, that’s several times now that we’ve arrived exactly as you finished talking without changing your walking or talking speed,” noted Pogofamous. “How are you doing that?”

“Mad skills,” I said, getting the confused looks from the entire group that I’d been hoping for.

“Angry skills?” asked Ton. “You no act angry.”

“That’s because I’m not. It’s a turn of phrase from our world that means ‘ridiculous levels of skill.’ To the best of my knowledge, it started as street slang that meant someone was really good in a fight, then got picked up by a group of people who spent a lot of time playing… how to explain videogames? The most accurate explanation I can think of is they pilot certain kinds of golems in fights, except everything but the pilots and their control devices are contained in a scrying glass. If you’re still curious when you get back to the Inn later, ask Zona about them. She has a rather extensive collection of videogames.

“Anyway, the saying got picked up by the gamers, as they’re called, and from there, it spread to mean you were just really good at something.”

{What was the point of that Wiki?} asked Bud via radio. {That wasn’t in any of our practice simulations.}

{“Distraction. I figured that we don’t want them to know how good you and Broohn are at turning space into a pretzel just yet.”} I replied without missing a beat. Oh, the joys of computer-based multitasking.

{That’s fair. I should have had that on the list of secrets.}

{“If it was on the official list, then I’d have to have a wrote response for it, and people would be more likely to notice than if I simply distract them with a non-answer that requires explanation.”}

{Good job, Wiki! I knew I quadrupled your pay for a reason!}

{“With all due respect sir, I’m a suit of special forces scout armor. Sneaky is what I do best. Also, you don’t pay me anything, so quadrupling my pay is pointless.”}

{Touché, twice. Carry on!}

“Anyway, as I said, welcome to the first puzzle room, also known as the Van der Graaf Room! This room will introduce you to the process of identifying and replacing defective electrical and runic components. Before you ask, no, this does not require any prior knowledge of enchanting, though some basic understanding of which runes do what might be useful.

“I’m sure that one of the first things you noticed was the Tesla coil looking things scattered around the room that aren’t playing music. That’s because they’re not actually Tesla coils, they’re Van der Graaf generators. The easiest way to tell them apart is the metal thing at the top. A Tesla coil has a disk or a ring, depending on which design is used, while a Van der Graaf has a sphere. This is rather important to remember because the Tesla coils, especially the larger ones, can be lethal, while the Van der Graaf cannot kill you unless they quite literally scare you to death.”

“So, you’re saying that there’s a bunch of broken stuff in here and we have to figure out what is broke and replace it. If we get it wrong, we get zapped by the Van der Graaf?” asked Ragnar.

“Precisely. I will guide you through the first one, but after that you’re on your own.”

“Oh, dear. This could take a while,” said Ragnar.

“It could,” I conceded. “With some of the less… artisanally inclined parties, I’m sure it will. However, this challenge is intended to be achievable by most adventuring parties, so most of the damage will be rather obvious. Further on in the dungeon, there will be times where actually understanding the circuits will make things easier or give you more loot. On occasion, it will also be able to make things harder, but the loot from succeeding will be that much greater.

“Now, are there any questions before we get started?”

“How common will these harder options be, and will there be any indication of when we make things harder?” asked Anderson.

“That has yet to be determined as there are none of those circumstances in the dungeon as of yet. The exact rarity will probably depend on your standing with the dungeon, but the base rarity will probably be somewhere around one out of every twenty dungeon dives will have this option. Any other questions?

“No? Alright then, the first circuit that needs fixing is over here.”