Rita & Romilda - Discreet
Who : Romilda & Rita
When : Monday evening.
Where : Kitchen.
Rating : G
Summary : Rita and Romilda have a look at the first riddle.
( Read more... )
When : Monday evening.
Where : Kitchen.
Rating : G
Summary : Rita and Romilda have a look at the first riddle.
( Read more... )
Rita was paired with Romilda for the week, which would be interesting, to say the least. But where had the damn girl got to?
After a search of the house, Rita found her in the kitchen, papers strewn all over the table. She stopped behind her and looked over her shoulder at all the calculations on the table.
"Hmm," she murmured. "Do you really think it's a mathematical question? Don't riddles usually... sound like something different to what they are? You know, like the one about the crows in the tree and the killing curses? Where there are twenty and three curses are thrown but all the bords fly away after the first one? Or have you never heard that?"
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She had noticed Rita come in, but hadn't looked up from the riddle. She frowned. Romilda put her quill to the parchment again and began to scribble.
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Rita peered at the riddle again. "Hm, yes. I don't see anything hidden there, really. Don't see how it's possible to get anything else from it, at any rate. Would we... well. You'd have to figure out the heads first, yes? Or am I...? Bloody hell. I hope there aren't any arithmancers in this house." She leaned down to rest her elbows on the table and picked up Romilda's quill. "Well, for a start, you have to have... one head for every eight legs that belong to a spider, and... wait." Rita's brows furrowed. "Are an acromantula's offspring also acromantula? Or is there only one and the rest are just large spiders?"
She turned her head to look at the girl, wondering if she knew. She was trying to remember the news reports of the battle at Hogwarts. She knew spiders had been involved, but she couldn't remember whether they'd been referred to as acromantula or not.
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"You're making it too hard on yourself..." She took the quill from Rita and started scribbling. "Acromantula's have eight legs, Nogtails have four... Runespoors have three heads, Ashwinders just one... Hmmm... I think this could be a simple exercise of substitution."
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Rita frowned. "But it doesn't make any sense for it to be that easy. For it to be simple maths. Otherwise we'll all get it right, and we'll all be on even footing. Ashwinder's don't live very long - they come out of fires, lay eggs and die. So you could say that they have neither head nor legs, couldn't you, if they're present in the forest as eggs?"
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She started scribbling. x = Runespoorheads ; y =Ashwinderheads ; x + y = 267
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Rita laughed. "Yes, I suppose I am giving them too much credit."
She watched what Romilda wrote, and still had no idea how they were going to work it out. Mental arithmetic had never been her strong point.
"I don't see how we can work out the legs, though," she said. I mean... if there are 568 legs, that's.... 71 lots of 8, yes? But 4 goes into 8, so how do we know how many of each 8 is two creatures and how many is one? Unless we work out the heads first and see how many leftover heads we have when we add up multiples of three?"
Rita's brain hurt.
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She turned back to her parchment.
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Rita had no idea. She really didn't. She was no good with this sort of thing at all. Watching Rolmilda work might as well have been like watching someone write Chinese - she could do enough maths to get by everyday, but creative equations? She was a reporter, not an arithmancer.
"If only my quill would calculate," she murmured. Then lifted an eyebrow. "I wonder if it would. It writes stories for me, based on intent. I wonder if it would calculate for you?"
As soon as she said it, she was uncomfortable with the idea of Romilda using it. But if it would help them win the challenge, she supposed she could deal with it.
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She looked at the answer.
47 Runespoors x 3 heads = 141 heads
29 Ashwinders x 1 head = 29 heads
45 Acromantula's x 1 head = 34 heads
52 Nogtails x 1 head = 52 heads
=> 267 heads
45 Acromantula's x 8 legs = 360 legs
52 Nogtails x 4 legs = 208 legs
=> 568 legs
47 Runespoors + 29 Ashwinders + 45 Acromantula's + 52 Nogtails = 173 creatures.
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Rita watched Romilda work in a kind of braindead awe. She had no idea how one equation moved into another or how Romilda had done it, but there it was, on the page, neatly divided into numbers.
"I..." Rita blinked. "Yeah, that looks good."
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"So, what would you be pulling out of that trunk if we win?"
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Rita chuckled. "Well, if it had been up to me, we would have been here until midnight. So... one to you, I suppose. I hope they're not all like this, or I'll be no use to you at all."
She smiled at the next question, and thought about it. "Merlin, I don't even know how that will work. What we'd be allowed or whether what we want the most will just appear. But if there are no restrictions, I think it would be a copy of the Prophet. I want to know what's going on in the world outside."
She arched a brow. "What about you?"
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"Hmmm... I don't know, really." She honestly admitted. "My mother's Tarot cards maybe... She might not be a witch, but Tarot always fascinated her and I grew up with them. I should have remembered to bring them with me..."
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"It is," Rita agreed. "If not the Prophet, then my owl, Odeon. Provided I could send him out, that is."
She was intrigued by the idea of tarot cards, and that Romilda would be interested in them. "Do you usually prefer the divination side of arithmancy, out of curiosity? Or are the cards an anomaly that way?"
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"Well, I never was much into Divination anyway. The cards are just something I've known as long as I can remember, and I rather use the Arithmancy to wave into wards and all." She explained. "There was a reason I wanted to be a Curse-Breaker..."
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