Post by kamqute on Dec 26, 2005 5:39:45 GMT
OK. I could not for the life of me figure out the answer, as no matter how I interpreted the riddle (can lieutenants of night become loyal servants and/or dwellers of the abyss, do the dwellers of the abyss leave before or after the lieutenants' addition counts as doubling the original number, does the original number of loyal servants have to equal the end number, etc.), I got some answer in terms of x, the most straightforward being x=x. Except one, in which x=0. This happens if you take the following:
'When the loyal servants and the Dwellers of the Abyss were counted together, their total number was doubled when my Lieutenants of Night arrived.'
to mean that the number was doubled before the lieutenants of night arrived; as in "I had just doubled the number of seedlings in my garden when my grandmother arrived"--in this case, the initial number of servants is 2, and you would have no idea how many lieutenants of night there are, so they couldn't join the ranks of any other group. So then you ignore the dwellers leaving, and then when half of the remainder leave, you have 1 left, who's the traitor. So the answer would be 0. But there is no 0.
So then I searched the forum, and apparently that riddle was created wrong and there is no answer unless you take x to be roman numeral 10, which assumes that you are using x as a variable anyway. However, at the bottom of the page, it says this:
'turn to the entry which bears the same number as your answer.'
well, 10 "bears" 0, right? So that is at least less cheesy. But the bottom line is this: This riddle is screwed up and impossible, right? If so, what do y'all do when you get to this point?
'When the loyal servants and the Dwellers of the Abyss were counted together, their total number was doubled when my Lieutenants of Night arrived.'
to mean that the number was doubled before the lieutenants of night arrived; as in "I had just doubled the number of seedlings in my garden when my grandmother arrived"--in this case, the initial number of servants is 2, and you would have no idea how many lieutenants of night there are, so they couldn't join the ranks of any other group. So then you ignore the dwellers leaving, and then when half of the remainder leave, you have 1 left, who's the traitor. So the answer would be 0. But there is no 0.
So then I searched the forum, and apparently that riddle was created wrong and there is no answer unless you take x to be roman numeral 10, which assumes that you are using x as a variable anyway. However, at the bottom of the page, it says this:
'turn to the entry which bears the same number as your answer.'
well, 10 "bears" 0, right? So that is at least less cheesy. But the bottom line is this: This riddle is screwed up and impossible, right? If so, what do y'all do when you get to this point?
