Room 13

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…room number 13.

They weren’t really comfortable here and I knew why.

“No, no,” they said. “We’re not all superstitious.”

“Only some of you, then?”

They were worried it might be Friday. Well it’s true that it was closer to the end of the week than they realized. It takes a great deal of experience, certainly more than they possessed, to understand how time works in the Maze. The clock thought it was six in the evening.

Quickly moving on we came to…

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

 

Room Type:  LOOP     Doors:  18  25  27

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

● The progression of time on the sign on the left helps to draw attention to the importance of periods of time, such as the hour and day, and frames the solution listing these increments. The middle paragraph of the text reads, “They were worried it might be Friday. Well it’s true that is was closer to the end of the week than they realized.” Only Saturday is closer to the end of the week as Sunday is the first day of the week. [Note: a universal assumption in 1985 America.] Saturday = 7. The text continues, “It takes a great deal of experience, certainly more than they possessed, to understand how time works in the Maze. The clock thought it was six in the evening.” Six in the evening = 18 military time. Of the increments of time listed on the left the only ones we know are Saturday and 6 PM. 7+18=25 the number of the correct door.  [Independent Credit: David G | White Raven] [Note: This solution is incomplete]

● In the illustration are pyramid shapes with four balls on the bottom and one on top. In the text, the two lines of dialogue read,  ”No, no,” they said. “We’re not all superstitious.” “Only some of you, then?” The phrase “No, no…” is a reference to the two incorrect doors, the rest of the dialogue is to assist in interpreting the pyramids to find the correct door…you are looking for part of a whole. The one ball on top and four below is meant to suggest 25% or.25, the number of the correct door. [Credit: Kon-Tiki]

● The folding supports for directors chair make two Xs (though only one is clearly visible) the megaphone is a V shape. XXV = 25. [Independent Credit: Aria | White Raven]

● The sunlight streaming down on the sundial illuminates two of the hour segments on the far side of the noon divider and five on the near side. 2 & 5 = 25 The object being a sundial reinforces that conclusion that we look for sunlight. [Credit: Aria]

● The cord for the lamp makes a long stretched out 2. The bracket for the light makes a “V” (5) Roman numeral. 2 & 5 = 25. [The "V" could alternately be found in the lamp legs.] [Credit: White Raven]

● The director’s chair, megaphone, lamp, and sundial together suggest a sequence of events: 1. The director uses the megaphone to call out “Lights! Action!” or the more common “Lights! Camera! Action!” [Independent Credit: SP | Kon-Tiki | White Raven] 2. The light is turned on. 3. The gnomon (fin) of the sundial casts a shadow which looks like an arrow pointing at door 25. [Independent Credit: Aria | White Raven] The lines of the sundial outline the shape of the shadow-arrow. [Credit: SP] The word “action” suggests we take action and follow the arrow. [Independent Credit: SP | White Raven] The director’s chair reinforces this solution by suggesting that the riddle provides “direction” (the arrow). [Credit: Dave G] The sunlight from above which casts a clear shadow suggests that the solution is shadow related [Credit: Kon-Tiki], as well as the fact that the object which cast the arrow-shadow is a sundial (which functions via shadow) [Independent Credit: Aria | White Raven]. The shadow of the cord and tripod of the lamp may also produce an arrow. [Credit: SP]

View related images >

 

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216 thoughts on “Room 13

  1. More arguments in favor of the 1/4 (.25) theory:
    1/4 is a part of a whole , a subdivision, so:
    -they weren’t “really” comfortable = not wholly
    -we’re not “all” superstitious = not wholly
    -only “some” of you = a part, a subdivision

    -millenium, century etc. = subdivisions of time
    -”end of the week ” could be interpreted as end of the WORD “week” which is the letter K, which is 1/4 of the word.
    - a week is 1/4 of a month ( and, incidentally, the only subdivision in that list that doesn’t add up perfectly to the next higher level in the hierarchy)
    -on each of those elongated pyramids, there is one ball on top and 4 balls below = 1/4

    ok, some are better than others.

    p.s. “end of the week” could just mean “weekend” which effectively cuts the week into 2 and 5.

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    • “-on each of those elongated pyramids, there is one ball on top and 4 balls below = 1/4″

      Boom, you just sold me on that one. I think you thought that was the bottom of the barrel, but those pyramids are a non-random design element that I couldn’t figure out. That’s at least a plausible explanation for those things.

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    • Kon-Tiki,

      Wow, great puzzle cracking!

      I am sold on the pyramid aspect and the reference to “We’re not all…” “Only some of you…?” I believe that these two aspects form a fairly solid solution. Especially with the “No, no…” added in (see posted solution above).

      Good job!

      White Raven

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  2. Beelzebibble on 2 September, 2014 at 8:51 am said:

    “There’s no “code”.”
    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
    You are right, I made it all up. It is just a 16 number coincidence along the path that even Manson didn’t realize was there.

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    • As far as anyone here can tell there is no code. I’ve seen one useful thing in all your output so I my natural assumption is that there is no code as well. However if there is a code then please demonstrate this by listing the 16 examples. If they all arrive at the correct answer in the same way then clearly there is a code. If However, as I suspect each one involves something different and each one lacks farther support then there is no code.

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    • HM, Beelzebibble was trying to explain to Kon-Tiki your point of view, not critique it.

      By saying “You are right, I made it all up.” are you being sarcastic?

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  3. A sundial (or gnomon, viz.: one who knows) normally points to “True” north or Polaris: the “Guiding” star. It just so happens to be pointing at door 25.

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    • it’s not north that’s important, but “True” as in true path, and guiding as in being guided and finding one’s bearings and direction.

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    • I was going to say, but there is nothing in the text supporting this, but there is the word “true” in there.

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  4. It would seem that the text code for room thirteen accurately points to 25. The ‘sum’ of 25 is 7. Simple really. If I’ve gotten it wrong, don’t tell me.

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    • There’s a missing element to the solution listed at the top of this page but, on the face of it, Thail Krider’s solution here makes more sense to me.

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    • That’s pretty straightforward and elegant, and seems like the kind of thing Manson would do. I like it more than the 18+7=25 solution, just because I don’t think there’s sufficient grounds for Manson to expect us to add those numbers together when 18 is already a door here. I’ve always held that “The clock thought it was six in the evening” is simply an anti-clue for 18 (by the text’s implication, it’s *not* 18:00 military time, so avoid 18). Your way of getting 25 out of the text is cleaner for not having to include the 18 stuff.

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    • There’s no “code”, that might have been misleading wording on HM’s part. He’s just trying to interpret the room text.

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    • The idea is that “end of the week” means 7 (7th day), and 25 is closer to that than they realize, as its relationship to 7 (the sum of its digits) isn’t immediately obvious.

      Of course, 27 is here as well, which is itself “to/ the end of the week.” (2/7) Does that monkey wrench this interpretation for anyone?

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    • Well, it all seems a bit contrived. The problem is that, as usual, we’re working backwards looking for clues to an answer we already know. The text can suggest 7, but many other numbers as well. I don’t see 7 being that prominent. The allusion to the number 13 is just as prominent, as well as other numbers.

      plus, i interpret “closer to the end of the week” as just the guide’s way of avoiding saying “Later”, which would draw too much attention to the fact that it’s later than 6 in the evening: hence the 6 in the morning interpretation.

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    • The confirmed answer makes sense to me. The first half of the big paragraph in the text gives us 7 and the second half gives us 18.

      “They were worried it might be Friday. Well it’s true that is was closer to the end of the week than they realized. (seven) It takes a great deal of experience, certainly more than they possessed, to understand how time works in the Maze. The clock thought it was six in the evening. (eighteen)”

      Adding 2 and 5 from 25 does give us 7. But the text gives us no reason to look for 7 by itself and as vewatkin said it could just as easily be about 27.

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    • Only sum, ONLY SUM

      18 and 27 both sum to 9; but 25′s sum of 7 is the onliest sum of its kind in the room.

      Pbbbbbbblllllllltttttt

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    • I agree with Kon it seems pretty weak. It really only works if we know that 25 is right.

      In the solution up top 18 and 7 are both true clues making 25 but each by themselves point to the wrong doors so apart they are wrong and together they are right. Now THAT is elegant.

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  5. “The clock thought it was 6 in the evening”. I take this to mean that it was 6 in the morning which would be one “quarter” ( 1/4 ) of a day (24 hours). 1/4 is also represented as .25 (hence door 25).

    the style of the sundial also seems
    to be pointing to the 1/4 mark

    on another note: Y = 25th letter of alphabet, so when the guide says “I knew why”(Y) , or “only some of you” Y is part (some) of ” YOU”

    ok this last one is heckler material, but maybe not the rest. sorry if any of this has been said before.

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    • I actually like the heckler material. The “I knew why” bit has been mentioned before, but I don’t remember reading the “some of you” as “part of the word Y-O-U” before.

      The question here is, do we think “some” is doing double duty as both an indicator to “sum” other numbers (either 7 and 18, or 2 and 5) and as an indicator to look at part of “you”?

      Considering the “I knew why,” the “some of you,” and the Y in “day” being near the end of “week” on the time sign, there seems to be a lot suggesting a Y = 25 solution.

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    • My old argument for “Y” = 25 can be added to the recently mentioned ones and they reinforce each other. The end of “day” on the sign is very close to the end of “week” and the end of “day” is “Y” = 25.

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  6. Not seconds, ‘hours’. There are 24 hours. (6 pm would make 18 hours.) 24 is one short of 25 hours.

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    • Time for saying stuff!

      Well, maybe those pyramids mean something in light of this interpretations; pyramidal structures combined with the circular top. The circular top representa the clock, the pyramid the list of ascending time value, indicating an addition between the two?

      Additionally, I guess the hourglass atop the time term list could in itself be an indication to add the hour there, to whatever number you get out of the list, which for the sake of this solution is seven I guess.

      Any parallel with cones and triangles elsewhere in the room? I don’t know, the sundial points to the time terms, maybe represents hours itself? The bullhorn on the chair maybe points to the clock if you’re as generous with your geometry as we’re being with interpretation…

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  7. We have no no. “No second” etc. Backwards noon? So the sundial with the light off represents midnight. 24:00. The director chair suggests lights camera action. 25mm camEra. So we go 24,25,quickly exit.

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    • Close to the end of “week” on the board there is the Y in “day.”

      “…and I knew WHY.”

      (Y, 25)

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    • David Gentile,

      Correct! Bumping it up two!

      It is stronger a solution that it would first appear, there are several aspects supporting this riddle.

      White Raven

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  8. Vswatkins notes the squares in the exitways to not seem lit to the same extent. I note that about the base of the stone structures. We seem to have a light/dark indicator favoring 25. More explicitly, just as in room 8, unlighted lights point directly away from the correct exit. (This connects with Medieval notion of “seeing” as direct experience and hearing as faith. We can’t rely on direct experience here. We can’t see with no light). The directors chair can relate to direction=path=Tao as well. Somewhat bother some is that we could make “middle path arguments here. 18:00 is half way between noon and midnight but represented here. And 18 is also the middles door, although 25 is the most middling number.

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  9. “second” is brought to our attention. Perhaps we should take the second door in numerical sequence? That would be 25 counting up or down.

    Also – from “year” on up I don’t know why we need those words. I looked for events in 1825 related to some prime suspects, but nothing of note found.

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    • Simply adding 12 to room 13 gives 25. “Room 13″ is in the text – so that is a clue we can do math with it. Still it would help to have a something that would suggest we should do this addition.

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    • On the other hand – 1812 has some stuff happening. War on 1812 in America, Napolian invades Russia and fails that winter. Grimm’s fairy tales is first published.

      Nothing significant there at this point but at least potential.

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    • OK so:
      Millenium and century : 18 (18 from door)
      Decade and year: 12 (from sundial when light is on)
      Month: 6 (from the clock)
      Day: 18 (from the door)
      What happens? The war of 1812 starts.
      What about WEEK?!? We skipped it. Nope. That would have been week 25 of that year. (And 25 is the correct door).

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    • Millennium (in MAZE) is misspelled as Millenium according to spell check. Oops? I think so.

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    • Or maybe misspelled on purpose. “No second” is a thing. Focus on the second “no” in “no,no” is a thing. No second n? Probably intentional.

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  10. The text has “not all” and “some”? One chair is clues by lack of comfort in text. Room 13 is explicitly in text. Clocks come in 12 and 24 hour types as clued. 12+1=13 our room number. But 24+1=25 our exit number.

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    • Maybe “lights”,”camera”,”action” can suggest it. We think of this because of the chair. “light” will show 12 on the sundial. Add this to room 13 and you have 25 and in a 25mm camera, and then action is walk out the door.

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  11. Putting some already said stuff together. The chair means “direction” the megaphone points at the pendulum and it swings for 25. The sundial points at the missing second also indicating the pendulum measuring seconds. The sundial also points at the lamp and the lamp switch points at 25.

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  12. the missing word ‘second’ – the pendulum on the clock, which i would presume counts seconds, it pointing to the right door.

    i think the director’s chair is to invoke ‘lights camera action’ – when you look at the light, the switch to switch it on it facing the right door. the light switch is deliberately hard to see, but manson put it there!

    we’ve seen the hour glass before, in 29, hinting us to flip the book. when i do that here, a readable word is ‘NOW’ from ‘MONTH’. Not sure why I’m mentioning this, it’s a bit weak.

    ps. i guess it’s worth mentioning that the sundial superficially looks like it’s pointing to 27 (actually it looks more like it’s pointing at where ‘second’ should be) but the actual arrow part is pointing to 25.

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    • Flipping book: good one. “EE” in week too. EE is the time in this room. Midnight is the time in 33. Finding “33 now” upside down is a connection to this. Midnight with book upside down. Artificial noon right side up.

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  13. 24 + 1 works – I justified it with “close to end of 24 day” instead of close to end of week. Not a strong one, but a rough thought.

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  14. It has always been sort of confounding that the guide says the clock indicates 6 in the evening when there is no apparent am/pm indicator on the wall clock. Could he be refering to the sundial? It’s a chronometer, but is a sundial ever referred to as a clock?

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  15. Here’s a possible solution that came to me due to abyssian terminology. Today I read someone use the term “director” to denote a clue that pointed toward a particular door. Coming back to this page, I see the director chair and the megaphone.
    If you use the sundial for orientation, the left side of the page is 12 and the right side is 6. This means that the megaphone, rather than pointing at door 18 is actually pointing at the 5 on our imaginary clock.
    Take the highlighted by its absence “Second” from the wall hanging and you get a 2. 2/5=25

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    • The clue to look to the chair might be “They weren’t really comfortable here and I knew why.”
      Further, the light- which I had assumed was more directly related to time- when taken with the director’s chair, suggests it’s a stage light. What’s the movie? Who’re the actors? Well, the stage is the sundial and the movie is time. The director decides what time it is, and in her absence, her megaphone takes over.

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    • Yeah, my thought from the director accessories was, “Lights, camera, action!” Although, only the first part applies here. What would it show here if the light were turned on?

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    • The film rolls in the next room 25. Then 35 has stop or cut.

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    • That is damned interesting! You’re right about 25 clearly featuring a film strip.

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    • The idea that the totem in 35 is a semaphore signal is interesting too.

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  16. Why lime the 3/33 area with the clock in 13. Yes, it is sort of a loop, but so? Room 3 is probably the authentic author’s signature. It is really the only *good* case for both a Christopher and a Manson in the same room. and the 33/EE sigh is here. The “Christopher” in room 13 falls out of “directors chair” and megaphone” with no help. Loosely maybe we have “Produced by Christopher Manson”.

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    • David Gentile,

      You will know when you find the authentic signature, it is part of a riddle in that room that points to the correct door. It is not a difficult riddle but in order to find it you have to let go of “Christopher.” This name does not appear in the book anagrammed or even as a pseudo-metaphor. The director’s chair and megaphone are part of a larger riddle in this room pointing to the correct door.

      White Raven

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    • I’ll certainly take your word for it that there are more puzzles. But, did Manson say there were no “Chistopher”s here at all? Or is that your interpretation? Clues can work two (or more) ways often in the MAZE – for example here they chair could be part of a larger puzzle as you say, and still be a “Christopher”.

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    • David Gentile,

      Great question! Thank you for asking.

      Manson has confirmed my solution to the identity of the Guide. He has also confirmed a few other solutions of mine that are not presently out there, but not because I thought they were in doubt but because I was using them as examples of how interpretive principles can be used to solve puzzles in MAZE and elsewhere. Each time we have talked we have generally stayed away from confirming specific solutions. He wants to keep his secrets (for the most part) and we share an appreciation for secretiveness. I talked openly about my understanding of how MAZE works in general and he freely confirmed my approach. So even though we did not specifically talk about “Christopher” I can say with confidence that the few times anagrams appear in the book they are indicated by a visual cue that groups them, such as all being on a poster. Of the basic puzzle types anagrams appear the least.

      You are clearly have a very impressive innate grasp of cryptographic technique. MAZE is, however, not cryptographic in nature, it mainly uses simple puzzles devilishly hidden and metaphorical/analogous riddles like the fiendish one you solved in Room 26.

      Also, items almost never do double duty, this is a principle that Manson approved. If, say, a pencil is part of one riddle it is “used up” by that riddle and not involved in another. Once all the items in a room have been “used up” the room has been solved. There are some exceptions, (such as in Room 45 where a separate riddle indicating the correct door would distract too much from the main puzzle) but they are not the norm.

      I hope this is helpful.

      White Raven

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    • Thank for the full info!

      Regarding 45. I think there is an exit indicator. The table and chair are the only things NOT used for the Riddle. C + T = 3 + 20 = 23 = the right exit.

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  17. Assuming my hypothesis is correct that loop/trap rooms are more about the maze, it is interesting to me in light of the atypical way MAZEtime behaves that there is a director’s chair complete with megaphone right next to the sundial.

    The wrong clock is cradled by skeletons.
    If 18 is ruled out, 25 becomes the second door. Seems a stretch, though.

    Notable that the lamp appears to be off. If it were on, the sundial would point to door 27.

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  18. I always felt that the sign listing ever-shorter increments of time (from millennium to minute) seemed to be missing an obvious word: “second.” This seems to indicate the second door, but again, this would be incorrect.

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  19. A good point, I have always thought about it being 6, but you are right, it would be 18. Also, you are right that it is the wrong door. The correct door is 25 since the other doors will eventually lead you back here, only 25 leads out of The Loop. Good work!

    Now we just need to figure out what in the room tells us that 25 is right door. Anyone?

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  20. Text mentions six *in the evening* which works out to 18 hours military time. However that the clock ‘thought’ this suggests 18 is wrong…. (???)

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    • My apologies Dr Blipenstein for the wait in approving your comments, I was swamped with other responsibilities. Now that I have approved you as a member you may post freely.

      Welcome to the Abyss!

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