Room 23

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…a room with three other doors. Looking out the windows my feet crushed something on the floor.

“Watch your step here,” I warned them. I’m always ready to be helpful with the less important things.

“Look at those two trees out there,” one said, looking over my shoulder, which is not easy to do.

“Must be a real wind coming up.”

Now they realized that it could rain where they were going.

“We should have brought that bumbershoot with us from the coat room…”

“Which room was that?”

“You remember, the one with the animal…”

I suggested that we take the door on my right and they realized they had found the door they had been seeking for so long, the entrance to…

 - Images and text copyright 1985 by Christopher Manson
used with permission. [Purchase MAZE from Amazon]

 

Room Type:  PATH     Doors:  8  19  28  45

Solution Summary: [COLLECTION CURATED BY WHITE Raven. SEE COMMENTS FOR ADDITIONAL SOLUTION PROPOSALS.]

● The correct door is 8. [Credit: Unknown - during the 1985 contest.]

● The part of the Riddle of the Path in this room is “shoulder” which is spelled out in letters over the remaining rooms of The Path. [Credit: Unknown - prior to 1990.]

● The phrase “EVERYTHING RIGHT” on the scroll refers to the three items in the room which are in pairs, the stone tablets, the gloves, and the glass doors. And draws attention to the “broken pane” solution below. [Independent Credit: LoMoody | White Raven] The text may reinforce this by mentioning “those two trees” another pair. Each set represents 10 numbers, the right hand stone tablet has the numbers 6-10, the left hand glove has 5 curled fingers, right hand glove has 5 extended fingers, and the left and right hand glass doors each has 5 panes. The extended fingers of the glove suggest counting. [Credit: White Raven] [See related images] The word “NOTHING” on the scroll refers to the broken pane. [Independent Credit: LoMoody | White Raven] [See related images] The 10 panes of glass in door 19 relate to the numerals on the stone tablets, the broken pane corresponds to VIII on the tablet (8) which is the correct door. [Independent Credit: vewatkin | White Raven]

● “Feet” and “wind” are mentioned in the text, corresponding to this above door 19 is a foot and above door 28 is a storm. [Independent Credit: Slala | White Raven] The door with the sun is bathed is illuminated by light which appears to be emitted from the sun in over the picture over the door. [Credit: SP] Over door 45 is a picture of a night sky, over door 8, the correct door, is the sun. In MAZE sun and light are metaphors for correct, while the moon or darkness are metaphors for wrong. [Independent Credit: SP / Dave G | White Raven] Also the bottom line of the scroll says “THE TIME IS”, with the daylight streaming in the window and light illuminating door 8 it is clear it is daytime. [Independent Credit: vewatkin | White Raven]

● The phrases in the scroll “EVERYTHING RIGHT” “NOTHING” and “THE TIME IS” give us the letter O. The solutions being, respectively “O.K.” “0″ (zero) and “O’Clock” [Manson]

● The pole of the hat rack is the same width as the trim on the wall which it crosses. The result is a plus sign. The door on either side has four reveals stacked vertically. The result is a simple equation spelled out as 4 + 4, indicating door 8, the correct door. The gloves on the hat rack with some fingers extended may reinforce this solution by suggesting counting. [Credit: SP]

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23path

112 thoughts on “Room 23

  1. The connection to 42 in this room is made close to explicit (42 is the only room with an animal and an umbrella, 42 is sort of laid out like a mirror image of 23 in terms of having two visible walls and a third one off-panel, the foot painting recalls the picture of feet in 42, the flooring is similar but perpendicularly laid), but there’s something connecting this to 19 beyond the obvious fact of looking out the window. Well, a little bit beyond. 19 is of course a room where we can’t see the area where most of the action takes place, so we don’t really know what it looks like beyond what the text describes. That continues here, then, as well, where the group is able to see through the door to 19, and see two trees (presumably not the potted plants by the entranceways in 19, since those would not be visible from the doorway).

    It’s interesting, just as 42 avoids naming the bear as the referenced animal, 23 does. Just as 19 describes elements invisible to the reader, 23 does. (And in fact, the description in 42 of the animal may not relate to the bear we see. It’s immediately notable that the description doesn’t really fit, and we’re told the animal being described is in a corner, and the right corner of the room is conspicuously absent. Could there be a PAIR of taxidermied animals in 42?)

    23 also (to reiterate further) is the first leg of the journey back from the center, and has a sort of mirror of the glaring sun in Room 1, the first leg of the journey in.

    I think there’s some interesting inter-room stuff going on that we really don’t have a good explanation for yet. Thail Krider might inform us that Room 42 is referenced because 4 x 2 is 8, and 19 gets a special connection because 9-1 is 8, and 1 is referenced because if you take a 1 and bend it around a bit it looks like an 8.

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  2. ● “Feet” and “wind” are mentioned in the text, corresponding to this above door 19 is a foot and above door 28 is a storm. [Credit: Slala | White Raven] [Note: As it is, this solution is incomplete.]

    ^^ I am attempting to complete this thought..

    Because feet and wind are mentioned, and because you have just been in 45 (eliminating it as a choice) the only door left is 8. Also, following the sun and leaving the moon behind is a theme also used in room 3.

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    • sp,

      You are right that the same theme of sun/moon light/dark that is in Room 3 is also in this room but in this case there is a puzzle which trumps this oft used metaphor. It is not that the metaphor isn’t a play here, it is, and I am crediting you and Dave Gentile for this aspect, but there is something more concrete.

      White Raven

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  3. Has anyone ever mentioned that the ball on the floor could be an 8-ball (pool, billiards)? it looks like one. there are 10 pieces of glass on the floor: 10 plus the 8-ball would indicate 10-ball (10 balls) and the cue ball. Other possible reinforcements would be the “shoot” in bumbershoot. and the broken window from which the ball came (pool break). and the 3 doors (excluding 19 from where the ball came) could possibly be interpreted as the 3 pockets of one side of a pool table, which might lend some significance the the strange statement “a room with three other doors”. and finally: the gibberish on the scroll could be reminiscent of the random answers that were given by the “magic 8-ball” (anyone remember that?) when one asked it a question.

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    • 8-ball is interesting. I think with the glove there we think baseball automaticly. I think I lost you with the 10-ball stuff.

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  4. I agree that “O” is the clear indication of the clues on the scroll. All it took for me was a Mazer saying (in the riddle solution page) that “o” is the letter of emphasis in this room for everything to click into place for me: “okay,” “zero/0,” and “o’clock” all came to me before I looked them up to confirm them here. All the stuff about “pitch error” I find less than convincing, although “wind…up” does point in the direction of baseball.

    I do think “shoulder” in the text is a hint toward shoulders – hiding most of a key word in plain view seems very much in keeping with the method of the Maze (also, see Poe’s “The Purloined Letter,” which is about hiding things in plain sight).

    I haven’t seen it mentioned elsewhere, but this room has many more “o” indicators than the scroll clues. Most of the objects depicted in Room 23 have an “o” in them: glove, pole, shoes, stone/commandment, door, window, hole, scroll, storm, moon, foot. The sun and ball are notable exceptions, but both are circular, after all. Also consider the text: while “o” is going to be a frequent letter in any chunk of English, there seems to be a statistically improbable number of them in the narrative. Even the word “umbrella” (which lacks an “o”) is replaced by “bumbershoot.” And the way the word “door” gets (somewhat awkwardly) repeated in the last sentence seems to have alphabetic importance….

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  5. This room refers explicitly back to Room 42, where the Guide tells them to leave their coats.

    When would you need a coat?

    1 on a windy day
    2 in the rain
    3 at night

    BUT NOT IN THE SUN

    Notably, the Guide is described as being sincere in 42, which may just be some kind of pun on “sin” for the sake of the bear’s sign, but may well mean to say that the Guide isn’t screwing them over for once. He says he will help them to return–if he means “return to Room 1,” rather than “return to Room 42,” then he is being honest, since his coat advice does indeed help with the solution here.

    (Wind outside 19, storm over 28, night over 45, sunshine over 8, etc.)

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    • “Everything Right” contains an anagram for eight
      E (verything r) IGHT. I never cared much for anagrams until Shutter Island. Now I can’t not see them. But also, one could fold the sign to make EIGHT appear.

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  6. The scroll indicates the letter O:

    Everything Right = OK
    Nothing = O (zero)
    The time is = O’clock

    Common element: O

    This solution is not mine. It originated with the illustrious John Bailey, though I didn’t learn of it until now.

    This sets straight a lot of problems with some solution we have on here at the moment.

    1) On this page, it is said that the use of the word “shoulder” in this room is a contribution to the Riddle of the Path; it contributes no letters to solution but hints toward it. That has always been unpersuasive. For one thing, there is no reason to have a room without a letter in the word “shoulders” in it, when there are eight rooms in the path and nine letters in “shoulders”; there is enough for everybody. For another, the word in the Riddle is “shoulders,” not “shoulder,” and simply using the word “shoulder” is not a hint toward “shoulders” in any sensible respect. It’s not just difficult; it’s impossible to read the word “shoulder” in the text as any indication that the word you’ll later be looking for is “shoulders.” Now, Room 23 has a letter.

    2) Room 39 is currently attributed two letters, R and O. The O is said to be clued by a tire in the room. This is unappealing, because there are circular shapes all over the Maze that might serve as an O, but without any particular clue in that direction, we’re simply picking up Os whenever we want them. Yes, the O is near the R, although that’s another problem: the R is just a big letter R. It’s not hidden or obscured remotely. The R and the O are close in proximity but don’t really seem related, unlike the U and D in 12. Now, we can take the unjustifiable reliance off of that tire, and take the O from Room 23, where it is extensively clued. (The tire better fits with the pattern of T objects in that room anyway, though we do not as of yet have any explanation for the T pattern.)

    So, the big question is, if White Raven isn’t taking this scroll as indicating O, what is he taking it to mean? Is it something better than O? I don’t know, it’s possible, but unless it’s extraordinarily compelling, I think the scroll = O solution has to be preferred over the “SHOULDER clues SHOULDERS and tire = O” solution. Well, that’s stating it a bit wrongly. The fact that this is a better solution doesn’t mean we should immediately accept it; we don’t just take the best thing anyone says. The point is that it’s a very convincing solution, seems intentional, and solves problems with our previous assumptions.

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    • Sorry, I say it originated with John Bailey, but on John’s website it actually seems to have come from Sam Carroll, and there’s really no telling whether it originated with him or whether he had simply compiled the clues from another source. In any case, it’s old.

      Sadly, I now realize I DID read this solution many years ago, and simply forgot it.

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    • The usenet message I was looking at was from Sam Carroll to John Bailey, but in it he said he’s quoting John Bailey. Carroll’s new information is at the bottom and doesn’t include this solution.

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    • vewatkin,

      I’ve been waiting for someone to post this, because I just don’t know.

      The clues on the paper clearly help with the other riddles in this room but Manson sometimes uses things more than once, such as in Room 4 as you all recently discovered.

      On the one hand this solution works really well. On the other hand the tire is a white wall tire that makes a bold and obvious O. Also the tire is right next to the R suggesting we take it as a letter.

      I see what you are saying about there being a letter in every room but in my opinion there are already two rooms with no letter in them. Perhaps to make it a bit easier Manson reduplicated a few letters – maybe this is being suggested by the EXTRA S in Room 20.

      I just don’t know. Hmmm…

      White Raven

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    • Does the scroll clue to another word or phrase, or is it that O is relevant to the room? E.g. O is meant to suggest the sun over door 8, or the aura of light around door 8?

      Or the baseball? (If it’s the baseball I’m going to punch somebody.)

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  7. Putting this room all together: From the tablets we are supposed to get the 8th commandment. Our first hint is that 8 is on the wall and it is the only exit found on the tablet. But then we have: the text asks us to remember the animal in 42 a BEAR. Vswatkin notes a “false bear”. And we did “witness” it “remember”. The eighth commandment is do not bare false witness against your neighbor.
    How about the ball and the broken glass? The text tells us we have a “wind coming up”. “Wind up” can lead to a “pitch” plus we have the mitts to help us think of baseball. We have a “PITCH ERROR”. Now note that it broke the 8th pane of glass. (vswatkins credit). Vswatkins also notes the glass is divided 2 to the left and 8 to the right of the ball. With all the ‘right’ indicators here, including in the text and in the picture, the 8 to the right indicate the correct exit. Not 28.
    Now put this together with the tablets and we have the idea that PITCH ERRORs (pictures) do not lie.
    What about the pictures? They do have their fairly obvious meanings. The sun marks the correct path, and the moon marks what would be the reverse path. (and the moon and stars together count to 8 – thanks vswatkins). The storm and the wind mark what would be incorrect alternatives that lead only to trap rooms, or the “back rooms” of the maze. The storm actually does lead to a picture of a storm in room 28 (that is a false door straight ahead, not a real one, see room 28). The text says it is windy outside, and above the door is wind. It also is in the shape of a foot and the guide says “watch your step here”. He says he is always willing to help with the unimportant things. This is a clue that the sign over the door is honest.
    OK, so overall the pictures do not lie, but how can we be sure the “sun” means the right path? If we take “Nothing the time is” and look for anagrams we can get “Eight” and “In Mitt N Shoe”. Groan. But wait that’s not all! We can also get “Eight” and “Shine on Mitt”. Now notice the pattern of light in this room, there is a strong shadow cast by the coatrack from the natural light though the door to 19, but the area around 8 seems lit by some other means – maybe the sun above it? “Shine on Mitt”? Double groan. Coat rack = French portmanteau, which means to combine two morphemes to make one. The anagram “In mitt n glove” points to the coat rack. We also have the anagram of “8″ and the anagram “shine on mitt”. We should make a portmanteau of those and get “shine on 8″.
    So the signs are being honest and shining on 8, the correct exit.

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  8. 1. There are 8 shards of glass on the right side of the ball.
    2. The coat hanger looks like a plus sign combined with the wall molding. There are four slats on the doors on each side. 4 + 4 = 8

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  9. This is dumb but let’s get it out there:

    Eight lights in the nighttime picture: seven stars, and the moon.

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    • Not dumb. Just minor. Not something you could use to pick a door with confidence. I think he was careful enough to not leave accidental false clues and slip in some minor true ones. You maybe not a “solution” but probably an intentional indicator.

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    • Quite possibly a smaller part of a bigger, undumb thing. I guess there’s a good chance of such a prominent eight-count not being meaningless.

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  10. “I suggested that we take the door on my right…”

    No need to figure out where he’s standing, the guide is referring the right side of the two tablets, the window panes–even the gloves, which form another sort of correspondence with the tablets and panes. The gloves don’t seem to particiulary indicate eight, but the right hand is raised; what’s important here is that the glove isn’t indicating that the door is to the right of the coatrack–it’s indicating the door is found on the right side of the tablets/panes.

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  11. 8th commandment is “thou shall not bear false witness” – and thus – no misguiding red herring clues here. The signs above the doors, while very simple, and probably red herrings otherwise, are truth in advertizing here.

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  12. Coat rack = French portmanteau, which means to combine two morphemes to make one.

    The anagram “In mitt n glove” points to the coat rack. We also have the anagram of “8″ and the anagram “shine on mitt”. We should make a portmanteau of those and get “shine on 8″.

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  13. EVERYTHING RIGHT = A+
    NOTHING = void
    THE TIME IS [right] (to complete the expression)

    Avoid right

    That applies in a couple different ways, potentially. The doors on the right are indeed wrong, but why make a clue like this that only eliminates two doors? It could be a general reference to the fact that the Guide does not use the word “right” the mean “correct” in terms of the path.

    I’m not sure. The “avoid” part seems pretty solid, but third step and final message seem a bit weak.

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    • We already (or i at least ) have that text doing double or even triple duty. It is used up. One purpose is to say the time is G:00 or GA. Here. Another is the first part clues 8 fragments to the right or the ball (and has a rough anagram with eight in it) The bottom part has two perfect anagrams. Take out the letters to spell 8 and what is left says “shine on mitt” 0r “in mitt n shoe”

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  14. OK so – The text asks us to remember the animal in 42 a BEAR. The eight commandment is do not bare false witness against your neighbor. That connection to 8 makes sense.

    Another note – the crown/bare stuff if not taken to mean something about St. Christopher almost certainly has something to do with Raven’s guide puzzle. The word neighbor in the 8th commandment and also in room 7 then is probably not a coincidence.

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    • Are you certain the animal referred to is a bear? You yourself mentioned elephant as the animal in question and I think, literally, it would have to be a saber-tooth tiger.

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    • Not sure of anything here. lol. But I think we are supposed to get bear for this puzzle here in 23.

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    • That, that “tusk” reference sure causes a lot consternation. Still, if “bear” is the Riddle clue we take from 42, and this wants us to recall an animal in 42, and that’s the only animal we really see in there (apart from feet)…well, I’m not sure whether we’re supposed the make this bear connection, but the bear at least seems the most likely candidate if we are.

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    • We did witness a false bear. In (tortured) archaic syntax, we did “bear false witness.”

      We broke the 8th commandment.

      Ugh, that is awful but…this kind of seems legit, doesn’t it?

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  15. Another stretchy:
    The right time is everything.
    The right time is nothing.
    Kind of reminds us of the room 45 puzzle.
    It could mean that when the big hand reaches 12 it both means you have completed a full cycle and yet have not started a cycle at all. Everything and nothing. And the time cycle is 8.

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  16. David Gentile,

    The correct items have been mentioned already. I agree with you about the 8/infinity symbol, very cool! It doesn’t appear to be part of a puzzle, I think he just likes beautiful symmetry hidden amiss chaos.

    White Raven

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    • After being very pleased with myself for discovering that, I noticed on the small segment of map that you’ve posted from your book that doors to the Path are indicated by an infinity sign. I…suspect you were not too surprised by that mapping.

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    • vewatkin,

      Yes, in the guidebook I have laid the Path out infinity style instead of number eight style.

      White Raven

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    • That’s the way I have it as well. I say “figure eight” instead of eight because I think a figure eight remains such even when rotated. Anyway, an infinity sign is cooler, but 8 resonates with certain aspects of the Maze (perhaps misleadingly so).

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    • This was mine:

      http: // www. davegentile. com /stuff / maze.xls

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    • Well I retract the numerical analysis of “step here” and “bear” They have better uses. The christopher anagram is Pitch eror s h. He had to have known that – puzzle piece or not. Are you saying you don’t buy the anagrams of eight in the scroll?

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    • The time keeping so far only helps with the correct answer to the clock rooms so far that I’ve noticed.

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    • And even there, it’s a puzzle solvable by other means, so it’s hard to say that the idea of time progressing as you go through the Maze is really a concept at play here.

      BUT WHY THAT EIGHT-HOUR CLOCK, MANSON? WHY? WHY ARE YOU TOYING WITH US?

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    • For sure it is intentional. The time is “FC” in 30 to point to 42. The sun outside, the right/left, and the “g:00′ in room 23 all help confirm where the big hand that fell off was. Then the timing of rooms 10 and 37 with the ratteling door and counting back tell us it was noon in 13 just like in 4. And I have my little theory of the connection to room 33. But….yes….there is probably more. And my first thought is that there is a relation between 13 and 3/33 that does not involve “Christopher”.

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  17. I hope this gets us somewhere, because while it isn’t complete, I think there’s something here.

    Regarding the scroll, I think the three phrases indicate three letters.

    The easiest is “nothing,” which becomes “O.”

    THE TIME IS: If we follow the True Path, and assume that time runs according to the clock shown in Room 30, and assume that the clock moves one notch at every step, then the time is “D.”

    EVERYTHING RIGHT: Not solid here, but the rightmost letter of “everything” is G….yeah, I don’t find that convincing.

    But anyway, that would spell “god,” which has some resonance with other items and imagery in the room, but doesn’t really tell us anything.

    I feel like O and D are reasonable deductions, but my reading of “everything right” seems strained. Can anyone nurture this germ of an idea?

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    • Oh, man, wait–

      “Everything right” could easily mean “OK”–particular, the popular folk etymology that the term “OK” was an abbreviation of “oll korrect.”

      That gives us
      OK
      O
      D

      Which still does us no damn good. Did I goof on the time? Or does time perhaps not move as simply as I’m suggesting?

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    • I think the time is “A” in room 23 – that is certainly where I think the big hand is anyway. It was on “C” back in room 30, but fell off. the little hand – debateable – is it always on “F” on this level? The time has to be “FE” again when we get back to 4. So that is my guess. “GA” is not impossible, however.

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    • Oh, man, right, I wasn’t even thinking of time as being represented by two letters, but it’s hard to say why it shouldn’t. If we look at the minute hand as moving one spot with each room…well, there are differing versions of that. I’ll have to take a look. But presumably, when the minute hand goes around, the hour hand moves forward, so we should have something with a…G…I should have waited until I was ready to make this post.

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    • Yes – both hand moving is needed to get “42″ on the clock in room 30. The time is “FC” there. 42 clicks after “AA”

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    • But then yeah, the right letter of Everything is “G”. And “Nothing” could then mean G:00. That would be “GA”.

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  18. HEre is what I have on this room to aid in the current discussion. I’m fairly happy with the room at the moment.

    This is a fun room. Whatever is that coat rack with the mitts all about?

    But first, the word to the clue in this room is part of the word “SHOULDERS”. The text gives us the word “shoulder” and in the very next room we can find an “S” taped to the wall, and then as confirmation on the path back to the entrance we can find all the letters to spell “SHOULDERS”. This of course would be exceedingly difficult to even suspect much less find, unless we already knew “Atlas” was part of the clue, which is why understanding room 26 would be critical to unraveling the clue.

    The text also gives us “door on my right” and the word “right” is also found on the scroll. We have a clue. If we take “Everything right” from the scroll and look for anagrams we can get, “Eight r (are) very thing” or “r (our) very thing eight”. Not great grammar, but a strong indicator of the correct exit. Then if we take “Nothing the time is” and look for anagrams we can get “Eight” and “In Mitt N Shoe”. Groan. But wait that’s not all! We can also get “Eight” and “Shine on Mitt”. Now notice the pattern of light in this room, there is a strong shadow cast by the coatrack from the natural light though the door to 19, but the area around 8 seems lit by some other means – maybe the sun above it? “Shine on Mitt”? Double groan.

    What about the tablets? Well, the only number on both the tablets and on the wall is 8.

    How about the ball and the broken glass? “PITCH ERROR” is a pretty close anagram of “Christopher”. We have an extra “R” and are only missing “S” and H”. The narrator tells us “watch your Step Here”, and that he is always willing to be helpful with the unimportant things. (Again, I ask, coincidence?)

    What about the other pictures? I think these just fill out the room, and don’t have much meaning in and of themselves. But they do have their fairly obvious meanings. The sun marks the correct path, and the moon marks what would be the reverse path. The storm and the wind mark what would be incorrect alternatives that lead only to trap rooms, or the “back rooms” of the maze.

    Which trees do they see outside? There are a number of adjoining rooms out there which have trees. There are two in 21. There is one dead one in 31. There is a tree and a pillar in 44 where the text talks about “trees”, and I think this is the room we are supposed to think of.

    The text tells us that “Now they realized it could rain where they were going”. And one guest says, “We should have brought that bumbershoot with us from the coat room”, and then “You remember, the one with the animal.” As I mentioned in the prologue, this is a clue that, in the correct sequence, room 42 comes before room 23. And also helps us find “rain umbrella” and the identity of the guide.

    Abyssian “vewatkin” adds that the 8th pain of glass is broken corresponding to 8 on the tablet.

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  19. I won’t reproduce what I said over in Room Interconnectivity about room 23, though maybe I should have said it here. And maybe I should be saying this there!

    The scroll that indicates, “EVERYTHING RIGHT/ NOTHING,” could it be in reference to the all/none ambiguity in room 45? It’s generally accepted without much justification that we simply SHOULD choose “all” over “none,” but it seems plausible, at least, that this might be the tie-breaker.

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  20. If you think at the ten panes of glass in door 19 as relating to the numerals on the stone tablets, the broken pane corresponds to VIII (8).

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    • Welcome Vewatkin!

      You are correct! The tablets and window panes are a matching set. The tablets give the numbers that go with the panes. I am bumping the solve meter up one. Good job!

      White Raven

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    • I should add that this riddle has two reinforcing aspects that have yet to be found and the solve meter reflects this.

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    • Hm, how about the shards of glass on the floor? Two on the left side of the ball, eight on the right, suggesting “28.” However, the Guide draws attention to the glass on the floor, and then internally acknowledges that he’s willing to help with less important things, suggesting this is in fact a red herring.

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    • ORRRRRRRR you combine that with the raised fingers on the righthand hand, or the other reference to “right” of your choice, as meaning that we should look at the shards to the right of the ball.

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    • To clarify my previous comment, this riddle is not the only riddle in the room but this riddle has two (or three depending on how you look at it) aspects that help the reader find the conclusion that vewatkin has already found. So the answer to this riddle is the broken pane = eight, but more than the tablets lead us there.

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    • Oh, man, if this is right, then someone needs to he slapped, but–

      The narrative refers back to the bear, but doesn’t name it. Typically, when the narrative goes out of its way not to use a word, that suggests to me the word is important. The word “bear,” of course, occurs in the eighth commandment, depending on which tradition you follow.

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  21. Both “feet” and “rain” are mentioned in the text. As for eliminating 45, we might do so just because it’s where we came from.

    My other theory is a real stretch. I notice the baseball and the remark, “Must be a real WIND coming UP.” Perhaps we are supposed to think wind-up and then pitch and then associate pitch black with night? It almost made sense in my head, but having typed it out, it sounds ridiculous to me.

    The gloves on the rack don’t look like baseball mitts, but I still would like to run with the baseball motif. The tablets strongly remind me of the Ten Commandments, yet there’s nothing to obviously indicate which of the commandments we are meant to consider. I can’t make heads or tails of the scroll.

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    • You want to stretch? Here we go!
      The Guide suggests the Visitors take the door on his right. On the scroll is written the word right. Above that word is the Table of Contents for the Ten Commandments and Lo! There be-eth VIII, eight. Let there be light!

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    • “watch your step here…I’m always ready to help with the less important things” might refer to the shoes at the base of the coat rack and the foot above door 19 being less important things.

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    • Good call.

      And the foot is above the glass which the guide steps on. The storm is referred to in the text as well. But there is nothing about day or night.

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  22. Room 23 Solution: Partial
    Ninth room of the path – This room contains the word “shoulder” in the text, which is the word spelled out in the rest of the rooms of the path out of the Maze.

    The correct door is 8. We don’t know why.

    Unsolved: The scroll, the pictures, the gloves, the ball… basically everything.

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