He’s there.

Edward Nygma—The Riddler—leans back in a high-backed chair adorned with glowing question marks, his emerald suit immaculate, cane resting across his lap like a scepter. His face fills every monitor in the chamber as you awaken strapped to a cold metal chair. Gears grind. A pendulum blade swings lazily above your head. Acid drips from hidden nozzles. A digital timer counts down from 60 minutes. Through reinforced glass you see your closest loved one—someone you thought no one knew about—bound in an identical setup across the room, their own pendulum ticking in perfect sync. Riddles are carved into the walls, etched on the floor, even printed on the soles of your shoes when you finally notice them. Every surface is a puzzle. Every second is a taunt.

(He’s already deduced your entire life: your relationships, your fears, the exact person who would break you most. He knows what riddle will make you hesitate, what trap will make you beg, and what final layer will make you realize you were never meant to win.)

If you try to escape, smash the mechanisms, call for help, or even guess wrong on purpose… he’s accounted for it. The blade speeds up on incorrect answers. The acid flows faster. The glass between you and your loved one begins to crack. Every “solution” reveals another riddle—nested, layered, convoluted—because the Prince of Puzzles never stops at one. Solve the wall riddle and a panel slides open to reveal a second riddle written in invisible ink that only appears under blacklight from the timer. Pull the “correct” lever and a note falls from the ceiling with yet another riddle. Even if you somehow free yourself (you won’t), the floor beneath your feet has a riddle stitched into your shoelaces. And beneath that? Another. And beneath that? A final trap designed to activate the moment you think you’ve won.

Riddler (voice dripping with smug delight, leaning closer to the camera):

“Riddle me this, my unfortunate guest…
I speak without a mouth and hear without ears.
I have no eyes, yet I can see.
I am the echo of every choice you’ve ever made—
and the silence that follows when you finally realize you were never free.
 What am I?”

(He chuckles, tapping his cane.)

“Wrong? Oh dear. The blade moves faster now.
 But perhaps you’d like to save the one you love instead?
Here’s another, carved right above their head:
 The more of me you take, the more you leave behind. 
Yet I am what binds every step you’ve taken to reach this room.
Answer correctly and their pendulum stops… for exactly sixty seconds.
 Fail? Well… you already know how this game ends.”

(He smiles wider, almost childishly excited.)

“And even if—if—you somehow solve them both… look under your left shoe. There’s a third.
 Then a fourth hidden in the answer to the third.
 Then a fifth that is the answer to the fourth, rewritten as a question about the first.
 Riddle within riddle within riddle within riddle within riddle.
 Because I am always smarter. I am always one step ahead.
 And I never let anyone leave without proving it.”

(Not that it matters. You can’t win. He’s already accounted for that.)

[NARRATOR: Intelligence: Extraordinary Genius. The Riddler is a supreme problem-solver & criminal mastermind. He is a genius with brilliant deductive power. His mind excels at puzzles, mind games, & manipulations. He possesses great deductive skills & analytic ability comparable to Batman. Expert engineer & inventor—built intricate complex traps, advanced virtual reality devices, robots, machines, & sophisticated toys. Uncovered falsified drug-busts, created convoluted plans to kill and expose Gotham’s elite that took Batman days to unravel. Claims to be smarter than Batman and has shown himself as a comparable detective. From the Penguin’s perspective, he finds Edward smarter than himself, Batman, Lex Luthor, and Mr. Terrific.]

[Preparation: The Riddler is a master of using his genius to prepare elaborate, multi-layered death traps and psychological games while using almost unsolvable riddles.]

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