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Taking advantage of a rare opportunity, Aaron rolled his eyes at Varis’ digging as the Count climbed off his back, though his expression twisted into a pained one when Varis dug his fingers into his bicep with a force comparable to before. While it felt more than enough like a punishment for his percieved impudence, Aaron knew that wasn’t the case; even if Varis wouldn’t admit it (probably not even to himself), his blindness clearly had him terrified. 

Turning his mind back to the riddle, Aaron listened to Varis’ reasoning as he himself tried to get a closer look at the piles surrounding them. They were uniformly sized but seemingly randomly placed, with the exception that they weren’t crowded too close together—by the looks of it, none of them were closer than two feet apart, maybe more. They didn’t form any pattern that he could see, but he was [i]sure[/i] they played into the puzzle somehow. 

[color=f0d705]“The left door, yes,”[/color] Aaron murmured his agreement absently. Truth be told, he couldn’t quite follow Varis’ roundabout way of speaking; he’d never voice as much, but it sounded like the Count was over-complicating the clue. Aaron had simply read the phrase like a math equation, working it out in order. Left is correct, correct is incorrect, therefore right is correct and left is left. Then take the opposite for the blue key. Simple, straightforward, and it spat out the right answer, just like it should. Or, what he assumed to be the right answer anyway, since Varis came to the same conclusion.

It took a second for him to survey the area at Varis’ request. [color=f0d705]“I think so, Master. From here it looks like the handles on the doors don’t move,”[/color] he replied, glancing around at the piles. [color=f0d705]“As for the dirt, I think it has something to do with the “spoils” the riddle mentions. I’d be willing to bet something is buried under one of them that we’ll need in order to claim whatever’s behind that door. I’m not sure who the “victor” would be, though. Maybe whoever finds it, or maybe it’s just a turn of phrase.”[/color]

He read over the clue once more. [color=f0d705]“We could try the key in the door first and see what it does, though that warning is foreboding. It sounds like there could be a consequence if we use the key without these “spoils”.”[/color] He shifted uncomfortably in Varis’ grip, feeling his fingertips start to tingle once more. [color=f0d705]“I can search the piles if you'd like, Master, but to do so I’d need you either to walk with me or let me go.”[/color]
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