Lumina Rikujo

Lumi (by Mariha)

**Lumina Rikujo** (離久浄 ルミナ *Rikujō Rumina*) is a character in the Hidden Bats ARG.

Lumina is a university student from Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. Prior to May 18th, 2022, she was kidnapped for an experiment conducted by Hidden Bats, in which she and Mariha Monzen were locked in rooms and only able to communicate via Twitter every 48 hours to solve their puzzles.

## Design

Lumina is a young woman with amber eyes, dark green hair worn in a shoulder-length braid, and square glasses. She wears a sleeveless, cream-colored cable knit turtleneck over a long-sleeved white blouse. Lumina also wears a green and red plaid shawl or jacket, and carries a small leather shoulder bag.

## Story

In elementary school, Lumina befriended Mariha Monzen. Though they did not speak as much by the time they entered college, they remained friends.

Lumina mysteriously disappeared one night in May 2022. Sunaiku Foundation reported her and Mariha's disappearances on the 18th, and began cooperating with the police to resolve the case.

On May 21st, 2022, Lumina awoke in a dark room with only a phone and a locked box with numerical buttons. She was given 21 minutes to use Twitter through the phone, after which it would deactivate again and she had to wait 48 hours to seek help again. Through the account prepared for her, Lumina tweeted about her situation and posted an image of the puzzle she needed to solve just before the time limit.

Two days later on the 23rd, Lumina began tweeting again and thanked everyone for the code. She unlocked the box to find another locked box and another puzzle, which she tweeted a photo of. She was surprised to learn that Mariha had been kidnapped, and saw her tweet asking her to press the red button. Lumina found the button (nearly pressing the wrong one thanks to the darkness), and a bottle of water came out. Before the time limit, she replied to Mariha's tweet hoping the two of them could work together to escape.

On the 25th, Lumina once again thanked everyone for the puzzle solution, and unlocked the next box. She found two pieces of paper inside: one with the puzzle, which she posted a photo of, and another with a set of instructions. The paper told her to send Mariha her birthday, which Mariha would then send to the contact on her phone. If the date was correct, both would receive drinking water. Lumina sent the date "2001/5/1" to Mariha, and wondered why they were being made to cooperate. Just before the time limit, she thought she saw a figure of a young boy.

On the 27th, Lumina opened the next layer of the box and posted the next puzzle inside. She noticed she had not gotten any water, and checked whether Mariha sent her birthday. She realized the date she sent was wrong and wondered why Mariha had not corrected it to her real birthday, May 11th. Before the time limit, she replied to one of Mariha's tweets, insisting they should not be fighting.

## Puzzle Questions

### Lumina: Question 1

Lumina's first puzzle was the word "ANGEL" written in multicolored letters, followed by a row of letters and colored boxes. Filling in the boxes with the corresponding letters resulted in "RED PENGUIN ORANGE DOG GREEN ELEPHANT," which matched animals in the Bats489 video spelling out "SET." Entering this Nirvana Spell in the Hidden Bats site revealed the code [384845419] to unlock the first layer of Lumina's box.

### Lumina: Question 2

Lumina's second puzzle was six animals over a 5x5 grid with a few letters filled in. The animals corresponded to two-digit numbers in the Bats489 video, which were coordinates for a square on the grid. The grid could be filled in alphabetically from left to right, top to bottom, and thus each pair of coordinates matched to a letter, spelling "DOUBLE." Inputting this Nirvana Spell to the Hidden Bats site revealed the code [211408710] to unlock the second layer of Lumina's box.

### Lumina: Question 3

Lumina's third puzzle was the line "@User roar real petals simulation" followed by five minus signs and five animals. The animals each matched a letter from the Bats489 video. (The mouse should be considered red, resulting in the letters "A," "L," "M," "U," and "S.") "Subtracting" these letters from the phrase resulted in the Twitter username @ErrorRepetition, which had posted one tweet with the word "TWIN." Inputting this Nirvana Spell to the Hidden Bats site revealed the code [807327384] to unlock the third layer of Lumina's box.

### Lumina: Question 4

Lumina's fourth puzzle was a row of animals and pigpen symbols. Matching each to lettered resulted in the word "CONFLICT." Inputting this Nirvana Spell to the Hidden Bats site revealed the code [488481417] to unlock the fourth layer of Lumina's box, as well as the following text:

> Consider a jar with balls in it.
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> There are three types of balls: white, gray, and black.
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> The balls represent man-made technology.
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>
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> White balls represent beneficial technology, such as railroads or antibiotics.
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> Gray balls represent technologies that can be seen as either beneficial or detrimental, such as gunpowder or nuclear fission.
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> Black balls represent technology that is completely harmful and will destroy civilization once it is taken out of the jar.
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>
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> Mankind continues to extract balls without stopping.
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> The balls cannot be put back in the jar.
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> So far, mankind has been lucky enough to only have taken out white and gray balls.
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> Can this be considered mere coincidence?
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> Mankind has a long history of invention, and new inventions are made every day around the world.
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> Why have we never drawn a black ball?
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> Is there is some "will" preventing it?
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> Until next time.
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>