“I’ll allow one answer from each member of your party, to be gracious,” adds the sphinx, adjusting their bowtie and grinning benevolently. 

“Through wicked eyes do devils glimpse the vivid, brightened day,
Through holy noise may angels hear the moon, stars, milky way;
Yet gods have no such limitations, and so I must ask:
What did they crave to then create the present, future, past?”

“... um. Intricacy?”

“I can see how that might be a reasonable response given the threefold structure, it taps into a successful intuition, but nope, zing, splat, not what I was looking for, not what I was looking for at all. Decent enough that I might you give you, say, another riddle about the mortal souls, instead of the response that the right answer would give you, though, decent enough, if that’s the best you can do, which I hope it isn’t.”

Jace sped herself up upon hearing the riddle, to give herself more time to think.  She slows down again to answer:

"The eikosi?"

“Clever girl,” the sphinx says, as if complimenting a velociraptor, “but nada, nope, not quite. That would be the how they created the present, future, past, say, not the why.”

"So that the universe can experience itself," Morgan says, carefully.

“- I was totally gonna say that -“

“Zing zing zing, correct! You’ll find your hostages down a ways through doooooor seventeen!” the sphinx says, pointing; the relevant door is then briefly surrounded by an illusion of brightly flashing lights, clapping and cheering, and a small wooden sign saying ‘warning: may trigger epilepsy’.

The illusion on the door, and the sphinx themself, disappear.

THREE treats for Morgan.

Morgan's ear gets bitten.

Ugh.  One treat for Morgan, two for her beshouldered companion.

Jace looks kind of incredulous.

“Thank you for solving the riddle!”

"Uhhhhhh.  Yeah."

“I was totally gonna say the same thing.”

“Thank you for also solving the riddle!” 

“Y’welcome!”

He does a victorious crab dance over to door seventeen, and opens it; it leads to... a... void? - a corridor painted in magical vantablack, still with the same light fixtures and with occasional chips in the paint, on closer inspection. The walls and floor are oddly warm. 

He proceeds.

The rest of the party follows in their previously determined marching order.  "Anybody else super thrilled about the mortal souls we're allegedly seeking?"

“I suppose that means there’s some reason we ought to be in this dungeon other than ‘because a bard said so’ after all?”

"Joyous day."

“I’m sorry that you ended up roped into an adventure when you’d been planning on taking a break, it seems really unpleasant and you didn’t deserve to have it happen.”

"Thanks?"

“You’re welcome!”

Follow follow.

“Are you the ‘I’d like distracting conversation’ kind of upset or the ‘please stop talking’ kind of upset?”