Riddles by the Water

During their exile with the Pandava brothers, the Quintet of Capriciousness - Sir Uther, Adalard, Ush-Goth, Dro'vahkin, and Luna - decided to enter a forest to avoid those potentially hunting them. During this time, their water supply ran out, so the brothers and adventurers agreed to split into two parties in order to hunt for water. The quintet set out on their search, and soon divided up even further in order to maximize their ground covered. Ush-Goth, the Barbarian, eventually came across a lake, where he heard a voice say, "Answer my riddles or perish here." Ush-Goth, being a man of action rather than intelligence, bent down to drink anyway and was slain.

Several hours later, Adalard, concerned for Ush-Goth's safety, due to not having heard a war cry in considerable time, found his way to the lake. He also heard the voice call for him to answer its riddle, and looking around saw a Sphinx, sitting on an island across the water. As always, Adalard tried to sweet talk his way out of a situation, and said, "But how can I answer your riddles if my tongue is stuck to my mouth?"

The Sphinx said nothing but stared on with disdain, so Adalard bent forward to drink, and the Sphinx leapt forward and mauled him, making him the second part of the meal.

Next, Luna came across the Sphinx, unleashing a flurry of arrows at the Sphinx and attempting to escape into the forest, before the Sphinx finally caught up to her and made a meal of her as well.

Soon after Sir Uther succumbed in combat to the Sphinx after several minutes due to dehydration sapping his strength to fight on.

Finally, Dro'vahkin came across the Sphinx, and spoke first, asking, "Who are you?"

"I am Yaksha, and you will answer my riddles for a wish, or perish like the others" answered the Sphinx.

Dro'vahkin leaned on his staff, tugged his beard for a minute or two, and said, "Let us make this more interesting, and have a battle of riddles? If you win, I will teach you a summoning spell so you can bring travelers here for your riddle games, and then you can eat me, but if I win, I get two wishes."

Yaksha thought for a minute, but the temptation of an actual battle of wits was too much for him to pass up. He started, saying, "I run smoother than most any rhyme; I love to fall but cannot climb."

Dro'vahkin thought for a minute, then correctly answered, "Water." Next, Dro'Vahkin asked Yaksha, "I know a word. Six letters it contains. Take away one. And twelve is what remains."

Yaksha ruminated on this for several minutes, then guessed, "Dozens". Yaksha then posed, "What falls and does not break, and what breaks but does not fall?"

This one stumped Drovahkin for a long while, until he finally answered and then gave his next riddle. "What is black when you get it, red when you use it, and white when you are done with it," to which the Sphinx responded with the answer.

This battle continued for round after round, until Dro'vahkin challenged Yaksha with, "what word starts with "E", ends with "E", but only has one letter?"

Yaksha thought and thought, but finally had to give in, and acknowledge Dro'vahkin the winner of the battle. Dro'vahkin then used his two wishes to bring his friends back to life, and to ask for them and the Pandava brothers to be unrecognizable for the next year while they finished their exile. Yaksha complied to these requests, and the party set forth once again, ready for another adventure, but fully hydrated this time.

Author's Note:

This week, I took the story Riddles by the Lake, where the 5 Pandava brothers, overcome with thirst, come one by one to a lake. The first 4 die trying to drink the water, but when the fifth one passes by, he answers all of the yaksha's (nature-spirit) riddles, and uses his two wishes to resurrect his brothers and make them unrecognizable for the duration of their exile. The yaksha is then revealed to be Dharma. In my story, I made Yaksha the name of the sphinx, due to its known love of riddles from other mythological and D&D settings. The riddles used were all ones actually used by my DM in a D&D campaign, so I thought they would be fun to put in here. Three riddles intentionally do not have answers, because I wanted to leave them to the reader to have some fun to solve. Other changes were the Quintet of Capriciousness replacing the brothers, even though the brothers are in the story. Finally, I changed the riddles themselves to a riddle battle, rather than a one sided asking of questions, in order to hearken back to some of the greatest settings in fantasy literature, such as J.R.R Tolkein's Riddles in the Deep chapter in The Hobbit.

Bibliography:

Indian Myth and Legend by Donald A. Mackenzie

Image Information:

Cover Image: Oedipus and the Sphinx, from Here be Dragons

In-Text Image: Sphinx, from pinterest