level B3 · the dark shop · every colour glow comes in
Arlesglad Caverns, level B3
Glow Go Gee Gaws
Glow-in-the-dark toys and trinkets, in every colour glow comes in. Everything on these shelves is dark until you give it some light. Hold a thing up to the rail, take it away, and watch it give back what it kept.
The rail
The caverns’ handrail runs along the front of every shelf, and it is the only light in the shop. Hold a toy up to it and the toy drinks the light in; take it away and the toy gives it back, slowly, until it has none left. Nothing here makes a sound: the answer is the glow on the toy and the line of words under it.
and watch which colours let go first.
On the shelves
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Ceiling stars
A handful of stars for a ceiling, the kind you stick up over a bed and look at from the pillow.
Glows green. Down here it lasts about 40 seconds.
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Bouncy ball
A small, heavy rubber ball that bounces higher than you meant it to.
Glows aqua. Down here it lasts about 32 seconds.
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Dinosaur skeleton
A skeleton in pieces that press together, bone by bone, into something that was never quite this shape.
Glows blue. Down here it lasts about 28 seconds.
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Moon and planets
A moon and a string of small planets to hang from a thread, turning slowly when anybody walks past.
Glows white. Down here it lasts about 24 seconds.
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Rubber bat
A soft bat with its wings folded, the right size to sit on the edge of a shelf and watch.
Glows violet. Down here it lasts about 20 seconds.
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Glow putty
A tin of putty to stretch, fold, press flat and roll up again, for as long as your hands want.
Glows yellow. Down here it lasts about 16 seconds.
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Bracelet beads
A string of round beads, loose enough to turn one at a time with your thumb.
Glows pink. Down here it lasts about 12 seconds.
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A pair of dice
Two dice with the spots in glow, so you can read the roll with the lights off.
Glows orange. Down here it lasts about 9 seconds.
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Keyring
A little tag for a set of keys, so they can be found in the dark at the bottom of a bag.
Glows red. Down here it lasts about 6 seconds.
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Glow stick
A thin plastic tube with a glass capsule inside. Bend it until the capsule cracks, and the two liquids mix and light up.
Bend it once and it glows until you leave. It is chemistry, not stored light, so it cannot be charged again.
How long a glow lasts
Down here a glow lasts seconds, not the hours a real one can, so that you can watch one go from start to finish.
Green lasts longest, and red and orange go first, which is true of the real pigments. Green glow is the brightest and longest-lasting there is. Red and orange are the dimmest: partly because the pigments that glow those colours are weaker, and partly because your eyes are least sensitive to red in the dark. The order of the colours in between is ours, not measured.
The glow stick is the odd one out. It is not charged by light at all: bending it cracks a capsule inside, two liquids mix, and they glow until they are spent. It only goes once, so ours glows until you leave.
House rules
- Nothing here is for sale. Trinkets or not, you play with them on the page.
- Every colour glow comes in is on these shelves, blue included.
- Nothing flickers or flashes, at any setting. A toy lights up at once when you charge it and fades once, smoothly. At Gentle it stays lit for its time and then goes dark in one step, and the words under it say exactly the same.
- Nothing in here is radioactive. Glow pigment stores light you give it; it does not make its own.
- Nothing is counted and nothing is kept. The shelves do not remember which toys you charged.
The toys, the drawings and every word about them are ours; the facts about how long each colour glows are credited in the liner notes.
Job marker — a glow-in-the-dark star, fallen off a ceiling onto the shop floor
You have found a job marker. The Adventurer’s Guild is a shopfront on the street, and it posts jobs that send you round these rooms. Take the code below to its board and that job is done. Nothing here is scored, nothing expires, and one is a perfectly good number of jobs to do.
The job: The dark shop
Before the code: Of every colour glow comes in, which one lasts longest?
Hint 1
Press Hold everything up to the rail at once, and watch.
Hint 2
It is in the second paragraph of How long a glow lasts.
Last hint
The colour of the ceiling stars.
Give me the answer
The answer is Green. Green. Green glow pigment is the brightest and longest-lasting there is, and red and orange are the dimmest and first to go, partly because those pigments are weaker and partly because the eye is least sensitive to red in the dark. The shop's own tool refuses a green that does not outlast every other toy on the shelves.
Taking the answer is a real way through this, not a lesser one. Nothing is watching and nothing is written down.
Quest code: AFTERGLOW
That is the one.
Green. Green glow pigment is the brightest and longest-lasting there is, and red and orange are the dimmest and first to go, partly because those pigments are weaker and partly because the eye is least sensitive to red in the dark. The shop's own tool refuses a green that does not outlast every other toy on the shelves.
Quest code: AFTERGLOW