Hiker's Cabin Mystery | Pt. X

Question

Before we get into it, I'd like to take a moment to congratulate everyone on us reaching part ten, but especially you because you've been putting up with this nonsense and travelling all over the world to search for this person.

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But you still obediently head over to the

Zytglogge Tower

^{(Answer to Part IX)}

because of his note. You notice that the clock tower looks... rustically beautiful. Unsure of what to do, you walk underneath the tower.

Suddenly, four walls close around the tower and you are plunged into pure darkness. You hear a zap and find yourself whizzing through space. Your feet land hard on solid ground and, immediately, you see lights turn on. You are in a corridor and have no choice but to start walking forwards. Eventually, you reach a crossroads. There are two options of where you can go. In between the two passageways, there are three symbols carved: ᛖ ᚨ ᛈ

The passageway on the left has a picture of a domed building over it, rather like a mosque. The passageway on the right has a picture of waves (e.g. water) inside a trapezoidal glass over it.

Which passageway should you take and why?

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Hint 1

https://lingojam.com/RunicTranslator

Hint 2

http://peoplebyinitials.com/

Hint 3

You suddenly notice something else scratched on the wall: ᚨ ᛚ

Hint 4

For more hints, see the comments under @El-Guest's answer! :)

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WOW! Now we have some magic and teleportation coming into play! How much more of this will we have to endure? And where's the hiker? And what's going on with his mystery? Solve Part X quickly, and get ready for a part of these questions to be GRANDLY REVEALED!

Answer 1

Based on

The first hint, we translate the runes to English, yielding EAP.

Then,

The second hint tells us to call them initials — and EAP stands for Edgar Allan Poe. One of Poe’s poems is this one, entitled Annabel Lee (clued by the runic hint A L), which is a poem about a kingdom by the sea. In that poem, Annabel Lee lived by the Sea (ie. the glass of water) and when she died she was buried in a sepulchre (the domed building is representative of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, hint 4). Therefore life is in the direction of the Sea (glass of water) and death is in the direction of the Sepulchre (domed building). Therefore we should go right towards life.

Answer 2

Okay, I have a guess...

One should take the passageway to the left.

Reasoning:

The three symbols on the wall are constituents of the Viking alphabet. They spell out "eoh-aesc-peorth", which I take to mean "escape". As Viking legends tell, "When Ragnarök came, the sun would be swallowed by the wolf Skoll and the moon by his brother Hati, plunging the world into darkness while, at the same time, the great wolf Fenrir would ravage through all the planes of Yggdrasil. The god Heimdall would sound his great horn, calling the gods to battle, and Odin would call up all the heroes from Valhalla’s halls to join with the gods in defending creation. The gods fight valiantly but, in the end, they fall in battle as the entire universe is consumed in flame and sinks into the primordial waters." (https://www.ancient.eu/Vikings/) This seems to suggest that the water represents the primordial waters in this case, and you should probably take the passageway to the left, which represents civilization.

Obviously this is a very rudimentary answer, and feel free to reject or elaborate.

Answer 3

A random guess:

The letters are part of the Elder Futhark Rune alphabet, in which each letter means the following:

• ᛖ means horse
• ᚨ means god
• ᛈ refers to a "p" sound, but when it is rotated 90 degrees it looks like a bridge.

In the game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, there is a location called "Horse God Bridge" in which you can interact with a Horse God.

Here is the map undergirding that quest:

Notice that Going right from Horse God Bridge takes us to Malamya Spring, hence the reference to "waves" in the riddle. Going left from Horse God Bridge takes us to Nette Plateau, where you will find dome-shaped boulders.

The solution is to go right, as it will give you the opportunity to unlock a Great Fairy in the game, which will allow you to bring any horse back to life (which you may need for your escape). Also, by the time you get to this part of the quest, you will have already done what needs to be completed in the Nette Plateau.