The Search for Knowledge: New Beginnings

Chapter 34

"Sheeron, Toley, press two different buttons at the same time." She said, trying to gather more information.

"Nothing happened when I pressed two before, though." Toley protested.

"Just do it, please." She said a bit more sternly, if she was right about her hunch, she wouldn't have to explain anything to him.

A bit taken aback, Toley positioned himself to press the button, as did Sheeron. After a quick count to get their timing right, they pressed the buttons together. Both lit up, although nothing else happened, and after a few moments, both pillars turned back to their original color.

"Feera, join them and press 3 at the same time." She said after the color faded away.

The elven girl nodded and walked up to the pillar next to Toley, after another count to get their timings straight, they all pressed their buttons. Again, the three buttons under the individual's hands lit up. After a few moments, the color went back to normal.

"Sheeron, press two buttons while the other two of you only press yours," Kara said, asking them to press all four buttons at the same time now.

They all looked at each other, wondering where she was going with all of this preparation, but inevitably went along with it. The three of them pressed their designated buttons at the same time, however, only three of the buttons lit up when pressed. Kara smiled.

"It seems like each of us can only light up one button each. If I had to guess, we all have to press the buttons at the same time, but I don't know what will happen when we do." She said, informing the party of what she had worked out so far. "So let's try it."

The party nodded and she took her place among them to press the indents. They counted together, then pressed the buttons. All of the buttons lit up, but unlike every other time, the spiral of odd carvings above the gate also lit up. Every member of the party watched the spiral, hands still on the buttons. Every second, starting with the first symbol carved into the top of the spiral, one of the markings would stop being lit up. As if it were counting down.

Anxiety swept across the party, they realized that it was not merely a spiral carved out of odd symbols, it was a count down timer. What it was counting down to, they had no idea. Whatever it was, though, they only had nineteen more seconds to figure it out and the clock was ticking.

The timer went down each second as each member of the party began to wrack their brains for a solution to either stop the timer or open the door. Sheeron and Toley both ran to the gate and tried to break it down with their weapons, however, their weapon strikes were met with an extremely powerful barrier. Feera and Kara stood at the pillars, trying to figure out what they could do.

In a panic, Toley ran back to the button he had pressed. The timer was down to the equivalent of fourteen as he pressed his button again. Everyone looked at the clock after he had to see if anything had happened and, oddly enough, the timer had restart.

"What?" Feera said out loud, voicing the same thing that everyone was thinking.

Kara immediately added the events transpired to her mental notes, trying to use the new information to solve the puzzle. As she did, the rest of the party were taking turns resetting the timer whenever it dropped below fourteen as they started to search the room once again for new clues or some kind of change that may have occurred. They were unable to find anything. They grew frustrated as time went on and the only conclusion Kara was able to reach was that they had to let the timer drop.

So they did. They all stood at their individual pillars, watching the spiral timer count down. Each foreign number losing its light made their hearts beat a little bit faster. As the timer dropped below the halfway mark, ten, the room started to lose its light. It grew darker and the red light of the buttons began to spread down the pillars in unfamiliar runic patterns. Quickly spreading towards the gate as the timer reached nine. They all watched in fascination as the timer hit eight and the light climbed slowly up around the gate, framing it in a beautiful red hue. By the time the spiral reached three, the gate itself was also turning red and the whole room was pitch black. The red lighting was the only thing they were able to see before it turned orange at two and then yellow at one. The moment the timer reached one, not only did the lightning turn a bright yellow, but the rest of the room became covered in green runic symbols as well. They glowed brighter as the spiral grew closer to losing its light. However, before the timer could reach zero, Toley hit the button again

Instantly the room was reset. As if nothing had ever happened and the timer was back to counting down from twenty. The entire party looked at him as if being drawn out of a trance.

"Sorry, should I not have done that? I was afraid something horrible was about to happen." He said, looking apologetic.

Kara shook her head, "No, thank you for worrying. I think we were all too drawn into what was happening to stop it." She looked at the others who nodded, then continued, "I think we need to let the timer run out, though, so that we can reach the next step in this puzzle. I can't believe that this would be made so easy as to just have to wait for a timer to end." The others nodded once again in agreement, then looked back at the spiral timer. To wait and watch as everything repeated itself one last time.