In the echo of silence,
The whispers of the divine are heard,
A melody sung by the universe,
A song without a single word.
Listen to the echo, my dear,
And let your soul be stirred,
In the silence, you’ll find,
The divine’s sacred word.

The guide has a far more sinister plan as demonstrated by his bell ringing disruption of the silence. Perhaps that is Rumi shown in the picture in Room 20…

My decades of experience with Maze don’t give me any expertise to determine what makes sense and what doesn’t. Plenty of folk with lengthy Maze experience, including the owner of this website, disagree completely with me about their general understanding of Maze. But one advantage my experience gives me is that I have seen a lot of people do the kinds of things you’re doing, convincing themselves that they have tapped into the mindset of Manson and retraced his methods, when to others it appears that you are drawing meaningless connections of the sort that will always arise when given a book full of deliberate and archetypal symbols, and an unbounded field of potential references. (Basically, you can look for any resonances between Maze and anything in human culture before 1985–history, art, science, literature, mythology, ANYTHING.)

The kind of stuff you’ve been suggesting across this site does not look intentionally inserted in the book, and does not seem like a rational message or puzzle on its face.

Shakespeare is all over the house, not just room 45. Room 16 has a comedy mask looking at (firstfolio) 36 with W S written on it for shakespeare. Ingredients used in Macbeth cauldron seem to appear around the house (nose of turk,lips of tartar, eye of newt-on,etc). I believe Room 16 has an answer using First Folio index (7th tragedy is Macbeth, door 7 with Macbeth cauldron is right door). Door 36 is very prominent in room 45. Room 36 has comedy and tragedy masks. An answer to riddle of the path is atlas/globe and Globe is Shakespeare’s stage/theatre. If Perry fable index 226 is valid then surely First Folio index can be, it’s one of the most influential books of all time.

Manson recently designed a puzzle in Blue Prince gallery (room 7 in both BP and MAZE). you get the word “ruminate” then go to Room 8. But the number of pins changes from 37 to 36 between gallery and room. We are tricked into going to ruin/36 instead of a good room ruminate (37). I found out that it’s a shakespeare reference: “Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate” is in Sonnet 64 (which is 8 squared and room 8 has squared floor beneath the 8). This is an obscure single line in a sonnet which Manson uses; while for MAZE room 16 and 26 I’m just using the name/index of the play in first folio, or an ultra famous scene (cauldron).

Thank you for that Prospero’s Palace fact, it’s very compelling and first I heard of it. Masque of the Red Death has 7 rooms representing 7 stages of man, just like Shakespeare’s “all the world’s a stage”. The rooms have colours just like Blue Prince, and I think Blue Prince may be referencing it too. Prospero is main character in tempest which is first folio 1 and we start in room 1.

(The prospective title for the Maze sequel was, at least at one point, “Prospero’s Palace,” which I’m guessing was a reference to the Shakespeare character, though it could have been a reference to the Poe character. Or both. In any case, I don’t think we have plausible evidence that Manson incorporated any arcane Shakespeare information into Maze.)

There’s a salt shaker and its about seasoning/condiments.
This is room 26 and there are 26 letters. It’s about ciphers.

The devil in trapdoor holds an A and the fork is an E. He is being seasoned with salt. Vigenère is a type of cipher. Vigenère -E +A = Vinegar.

A devil tail points to 36. 36 is number of plays in Shakespeare’s First Folio. And this is a theatre stage.
First Folio play 30 is Julius Caesar.
Caesar is both a cipher and a salad dressing.
So 30 is the correct answer.

Part of the text reads: “They objected to my tone, but it distracted them from the real clues.”
There very next sentence (Her comes the real clues): “The game usually goes AS I PLAN IT, despite the inTENtions of my visitors, or perhaps because of their inTENtions.”

Viewing the image of the room. The letters “AS” are clearly displayed. The 1 above the door can be read as “I” and the prop of Saturn can be read as “Planet”. So, from the bottom up, “AS I PLANET”

The focus here is the planet Saturn. There is a big moon displayed in the background to the left of Saturn, perhaps orbiting it. “Saturn X” is a nickname for Saturn’s moon Janus. Janus is a god in roman mythology.

A quick AI blurb about Janus:
“Janus is a Roman god primarily associated with beginnings, transitions, and endings. He is often depicted with two faces, one looking to the past and the other to the future, symbolizing his ability to oversee all transitions. Janus is also the god of doorways, gates, and passages, and is considered the guardian of the heavens. ”

If you search up images of Janus, you will get an idea of how his two faces are commonly depicted. He is also seen often holding a key. I believe the two audience members in the image are meant to represent the faces of Janus. One looking to the past at door 1 and the other to the future at door 30. Janus, a god, presides over your passage through the room from door 1 to door 30.

Concerning the number 10. If you look up synonyms for the word plan (PLAN IT), the words intend and intention often come up. The sentence containing the words PLAN IT and INTENTIONS also seems nonsensical to me. It’s a sentence technically, but with no real meaning. Kind of like “Curious dreams have green thoughts”. “The game usually goes as I plan it, …. perhaps because of their intentions.” What does that even mean? Are we to believe the guests have come to the maze with their own machinations in mind, fully prepared to manipulate the guide into doing… what he already plans to do? It feels like a throwaways sentence Christopher Manson came up with to satisfy the needs of his puzzle. “I need a sentence with the word TEN in it somewhere. Janus has two faces so I’ll put it in there twice.”

The bindings left and right curtains have X symbols and could be intended to fit the “Saturn X” theme.

Other thoughts:
- There are devils in the room with the letters SA displayed. Another name for the devil is SATAN. Perhaps the missing TAN is supposed to be interpreted as TEN.
- “Which way now, children?” and “They gathered around and I realized they were close to something.” Perhaps this is a reference to moons being like small children that gather around close to planets.
- “Not enough light in here” maybe a reference to Saturn’s distance from the sun compared to Earth.
- “Holding their ears they ran out the door to” along with the two men ‘shushing’ may be a reference to the lack of sound in space.
- ” a dramatic room with four entrances and exits.” There is only a single entrance to room 26 in the entire book which is from room 1. I’m not sure if this has any significance. Maybe it indicates the other three entrances are used by the devils coming up through the floor.
- There are 4 months in the year with 30 days: April, June, September, November. A and S are clearly displayed. N is a bit of a stretch, but two of the quotes in dialogue start with the letter N. The composition of salt is NaCl. Na is the 11th element on the periodic table and November is the 11th month. Moon and Saturn end with N. I cannot find anything related to the letter J other than Janus.