You follow Octavius through the factory. As you approach the corner of a corridor, he motions for you to stop, and then to approach the corner quietly.

As you do, you hear what sounds like two people talking, but as you peer around the corner you see two bots, one speaking in two voices to the other. You remember that Dantar's old colleague Aurelia found her bots spreading the virus to each other using audio signals, maybe this is it. She didn't mention multiple voices, you have zero idea why the bot doesn't just use one.

You realize that Octavius has pulled a recording device from...somewhere. Once the infected bot has finished speaking, you both sneak away to analyse the sounds.

Click for audio

Submitting answers

To submit your answer, do the following:

• Join the Sidequest Ninja Discord server.
• Send your answer in a direct message to the Octavius bot, in the format

  !answer This is the answer

  The bot will tell you whether your answer is correct.
• If you've solved part of a puzzle, send what you've got so far to the bot (in the same format), it may confirm that you're on the right path.
• For the sake of clarity, the Discord version of Octavius will reply in proper English.

Hints

If you're having trouble, you can highlight the obscured text below for help. Each bullet point is a separate hint.

• The dots and dashes are indeed Morse code. If you convert them to text you'll find it doesn't make sense, but that's OK. Check your text with Octavius to see if it's correct.
• The male and female voices are encoding something separately to the Morse code. Again, Octavius will confirm if you've worked that part out correctly.
• The Morse message looks encrypted. What could the decryption key be?

Solution

If you're totally stuck, these spoilers will take you through the steps of solving the puzzle. Again, each bullet point is a separate step.

• The Morse, when translated back into text, reads "ihctfoxwujusvhhswgalziihw".
• The male and female voices are a message in binary. The low, male voice represents 0, the high, female voice represents 1.
• The binary message is the ASCII representation of the word "macadamias".
• The Morse message is encrypted using the Vigenère cipher, and the binary voice part is the decryption key. There are various online tools that will allow you to decode the message.
• The deciphered message is "whatcolouristheskyatnight".
• Therefore, the answer is "black".