Dragon Harem Quest - Or: Saying You Were Gay Wasn't The Conversation-Ender You Hoped For

Hrmmm. Hrmmmmmmmm.

... you know with all the tricks he's already pulled on you and his general Makram-ness, he really deserves to get taken down a peg at least once. And how better than right now, as he's so eager to watch you fail? So eager, perhaps, that he'll slip over the proverbial edge in his enthusiasm to give you a push? You stroke your chin and stare at the door, hiding your wicked grin as you put your plan into action.

It mostly involves a lot of waiting. And waiting. And making 'hmm' noises as you genuinely try to work out the riddle in your spare time. The shadowed water drips and babbles as it flows endlessly on.

"Need some help-"

"No," you snap immediately.

"As you wish," Makram finishes airily.

The automatons are, of course, as still as statues. You do a few circuits of the room itself, partly because you're thinking, partly as something to do. Upon closer inspection it's not just the gloom, the water really is black. In fact is it even water? It's very close, that much is clear, but there's a certain viscosity to it that leaves you wondering. Some type of oil? You take a curious half-sniff. Doesn't smell like water either.

"I bet you wish this riddle were-"

"You stop that!" you cut him off. It's quite easy to play the role - mostly because you're only half pretending. He is so very annoying and insufferably smug, you're starting to wonder why you bothered bringing him. All the sweeter when he finally gets a taste of humility for a change. Hm, maybe you should've brought the magic jug. Given him a blast of water to cool him down. Or maybe the mayonnaise like you first tried. He can feel sticky and unclean for a few hours trying to clean it all off.

More time ticks on marked by the low, gurgling babble of the black water as it flows endlessly on. You sneak glances at Makram out of the corner of your eye as you do more circuits, inspect random pieces of the surroundings for clues. He's starting to get bored and antsy, you can tell. He keeps shifting positions on his silly dust-cloud-thing restlessly, legs swinging in the empty air as he casts his eyes around.

"This really is just getting embarrassing," he says at last. "Just use your wish already so we can both move on with our lives."

"No!" you shout as you turn, jabbing an accusatory talon in his direction. "Because I know the only reason you're even offering all the time is to piss me off, I know your game by now and it won't work! We will stand here in this tower all night if we have to because that would still be better than giving you the satisfaction!"

"I mean I suppose you can see it that way if you'd like," he retorts languidly, checking his golden claws, worrying away at a little imaginary dirt. "If we just sit here waiting for you to solve it we shall be very old men by the time you're done."

Ohhhh that emphasis on 'you' solving it. He already knows, or thinks he does at least. He's just trying to make you squirm. Well two can play at that game, sunshine.

"Y'know what?"

"I'm sure I could fill several books with what I know in comparison to you but go on," Makram replies half-sleepily.

"You don't know either, do you?"

He slowly arches an eyebrow. "Beg pardon?"

"You have no idea what the answer is," you say. "Here you are taking every opportunity to talk about what a big fat smartypants you are but you're holding back the actual answer. I don't think it's just to try and make me 'waste' a wish. I think if you knew you'd blurt it out the first chance you get just to prove how much quicker you did it. I think you're bluffing."

Makram scoffs, waving his hand as if to dismiss a cloud of rancid air. "Preposterous."

"Is it? Mister Makram 'I'm-Too-Good-For-This' Djinn." You leer at him triumphantly. "That's why you're needling me to break down and wish for the answer. Because wishes let djinn do otherwise impossible things. And if I wish, just for a moment, you'll actually be as clever as you think you are."

"That's a very cute theory you have there," Markam retorts with a scowl. "But I must question your endgame. Do you plan to stand here with me for days, boring me to tears, as some punitive measure?"

"Oh no," you say. "I already know the answer's 'War'. I just left it this long to fuck with you."

Makram laughs uproariously, slapping a gilded hand over his toned stomach to keep it from leaping too high as he practically barks. "You idiot! All that preamble and hot-air blowing and you get it wrong! I knew it was 'Water' in five-!"

There's a long, pregnant pause as it fully sinks in.

"Your answer is adequate," the constructs intone as one, and step aside with a synchronous metallic crash. A wickedly devious grin spreads across your snout from ear to ear, baring damn near every fang you've got. Makram makes a face like he's experiencing a powerful urge to shit an entire barrel and he's not quite sure whether to hold it in or pass it through. Mmmff, gods you could savour that expression for days, it's the finest treasure you could ever hope for. But if you push it too much he might ruin it so instead you turn away, safe and secure in the knowledge that you beat him and he knows you know. You have a spring in your step as you stride up to the great brass doors and fling them open, practically feel the urge to whistle. You hear no footsteps, of course, but you can all-too-easily imagine Makram following like a very sulky golden stormcloud.

You step into a small circular antechamber with no other door - it seems skipping the riddle and forcing your way in with your mighty dragonstrength would've been in vain. The brass doors slam shut behind you, and just as you feel a stab of worry that you somehow fell into a trap the entire room begins to slowly rotate. You don't feel any ascending going on so it can't be a regular elevator, maybe some other arcane mechanism to fold space so you wind up in the tower proper? Damn wizards can't just get a nice big lock on the door or something.

"So do explain your reasoning, I'm dying to know," you say at last while you wait for the room to finish turning, glancing at Makram.

"Mm? What? I'm very tired all of a sudden I think I need to take a nap," the ifrit mumbles lazily as he shuts his eyes and takes said nap right there on his hovering dust-cloud. Or just pretends. Both are equally likely.

"(Enjoy the sleep of failure~)" you singsong under your breath, loving this far too much than is probably healthy. You keep waiting and see to your mild surprise that the room has turned beyond 180 degrees and is busily making its way right back to where it used to be. Indeed once it returns to its old position it finally halts, audibly locking into place with the doorway - no way it just spun you in a circle, that's oddly mundane for it to just be a wizard fucking with you. You slowly stride forward and push the double doors inward, and indeed find an entirely different room than the one you left lying beyond the threshold.

It's pretty much everything you expected and/or hoped for in a wizard's inner sanctum. One part laboratory to one part observatory to one part library to one part office to one part living room. It's richly decorated in the signature Tanin style, brass latticework and filigree everywhere someone could shove it, custom-shaped bookcases and shelves piled high with scrolls and tomes along every available surface, a high domed ceiling through which the stars can be glimpsed even though you're sure you didn't take so long night fell conventionally outside. There's a collapsed mechanism up there suspended in the dome, no doubt ready to unfold down within easy reach into a complicated and horribly expensive telescope at its master's command. The space isn't wanting for cushioned reading nooks either - it's downright cosy in its own way, although you think it needs a lot more piles of gold lying around to be proper lived-in. The central workspace is full of desks and benches piled high with alchemical glassware and research notes, enough quills and ink to arm a squad of professional scholars mixed in with a dozen of the newer fountain pens. That's all very interesting but- aha, there in the back, a row of wooden chests from which you smell magic and money.

Okay so you've smelled magic ever since you came in but there are subtly different types and- look dammit you trust your own nose in this and your nose knows that you should be leaping across this room and smashing those boxes open with your big scaly fist right now.

And then you remember yourself and realise you aren't alone. You don't feel too bad, though - the other person in the room doesn't realise it either. It looks to be the wizard who owns the place, buried in whatever notes they're making and scribbling away in a black-gloved hand, so focused they might as well be blind and deaf. It's hard to tell much about their build beyond their average height, their many-layered linen robes draped over their frame with about as much care and eye for fashion as a couple bath towels, wearing such an impressive conical wizard hat it boggles the mind. It casts their entire face in deep shadow, hanging so low it must be half-covering their eyes at best, the brim alone about six inches wide on each side.

It looks like they're multitasking, come to think of it. The bench directly behind them has an experiment still running, a beaker of the black water from the 'level below' bubbling away above a burner as a squiggly thing drip-feeds something hot-pink into it. Perhaps they forgot to turn it off before they started making notes, or just figured they had the time to do it between stages.

The black water boils higher and higher, louder and louder, climbing the sides of the beaker until it's near slopping over the sides with each bubble popped. The hot-pink fluid just seems to be pissing it off even more, and-or the flame beneath it is getting hotter, and clearly something dramatic is about ready to happen in the next four seconds, give or take.

[ ] Rush in and stop the soon-to-be-explosion. If it goes off it might affect you, and you care about you!
[ ] Rush in and push the wizard out of the way of the soon-to-be-explosion. They might be so grateful they offer a reward!
[ ] Tell the wizard that their thing is about to explode. That way they can handle it and you have no culpability if it still fucks up.
[ ] Use this as a distraction to cross the room and loot the place. Hey, you already broke in, might as well make the most of it.
[ ] Do nothing. You kinda want to see what's gonna happen.