Grand Caliber

"Wait, so this grand caliber of mine that you were talking about," Lyman said as he stared in disbelief at what Garrett was pointing to, "was to translate a door?" He crossed his arms, insulted.

"You're the only one of us who knows Dracon," Garrett said, trying to boost up Lyman so he would cooperate. "We can't get any farther without you."

"Hmph, and here I was thinking you would require my skills of combat expertise," Lyman said, putting away his rapier into its sheath. "But, if you all cannot handle such a simple task, then how can I not possibly aid those who require me?" He turned to the door and looked carefully at the symbols on it. "So, the door says 'Bring forth the skies.'"

"Bring forth the skies?" Iadre repeated, pressing her finger to her forehead to try and figure out what it meant. "It couldn't possibly mean that we have to blow a hole in the ceiling, does it?"

"No, I don't think that's it," Garrett said.

"Well, we got that stone from that icy room," Zerat said, pointing over to the room and Garrett's bag. "Maybe we just gotta put the stone on the door?"

"I mean, it couldn't be that simple, could it?" Iadre asked, looking over at Garrett.

Garrett shrugged and pulled the stone with the sun and moon carvings out of his bag. He held it close to the door and looked at his party members. With an agreeing nod, Garrett put the stone to the door. The stone's carvings glowed a brilliant white as the door rumbled and slid open. The party members all looked at each other before nodded and making their way inside.

Inside the room was a large box on a pedestal. The room itself was a dark yellow hue of fine brickwork. It was quite warm inside, despite seeing no sources of heat anywhere. As they walked around the room, they noticed that there were four more boxes on pillars, each in the corner of this rectangular room. Garrett and Iadre went to look at the boxes in the corners while Lyman and Zerat investigated the box in the center of the room.

"Strange. There are some weird writing on these boxes," Iadre said after fluttering around and looking at the boxes in the corner. "They look like lines and circles."

Indeed, they were. They were the numbers 00, 01, 10, and 11. Though, the numbers were less concerning to Garrett than the fact that they were written in the standard numbers found on Earth. Garrett hadn't found before any kind of written language so far that used characters from Earth, so why were they here. More to ponder, there were holes inside of the boxes, large enough they could stick their hands through them, and the boxes themselves couldn't be moved. Inside of the boxes were small raised buttons without any sort of marking on them.

Meanwhile, the box that Zerat and Lyman were at had the lid on it shut tight. No matter how hard the two of them pulled, it wouldn't budge. "Open you fiend and reveal the secrets of your contents!" Lyman pounded his foot against the pedestal the box was on.

"Hey! Be careful!" Iadre said, noticing the lizard's aggression. "What if you accidentally trigger some kind of trap?"

Lyman grumbled before reluctantly lowering his foot. "So, we need whatever is in this box?"

"It would appear so," Garrett said as he walked over to investigate the center box himself.

"What does this say?" Iadre said, gesturing to some letters on the lid. On the lid was the word "BLLOOD" written in raised letters. It was very weird to Garrett to find English in here, but at the same time, this wasn't the right spelling of blood.

"It says blood," Garrett said, translating for them.

"You can read this?" Zerat asked as it tilted its head. "It's no language I've ever come across."

It took Garrett a few moments of contemplating how to tell them before remembering that he told the three of them about Earth. "Yeah, it's in English. It's a language from my world, which is strange that it's here. It's also not spelled correctly. In English, blood is only spelled with on L, but this one has two." Garrett pointed to the character recognizing that they might not know what the letter L is.

"So why does this one have two L's?" Lyman asked.

"I'm not sure, but I have a feeling to open this, we have to do something with these boxes in the corner." Garrett walked over to the one that was labeled 11. Lyman walked to the one that said 01, Zerat over to the one with 10, and Iadre flew to the box with 00.

"Maybe we have to press them all down at once?" Iadre said as she fluttered above her button.

"Then, let us get ready to do so," Lyman said, hovering his hand above his button.

Zerat and Garrett both did the same, but Garrett had an uneasy feeling in his stomach. Still, Garrett put his right hand in. As they were about to press the button, the holes suddenly tightened around their arms, trapping their hands and Iadre inside.

"Hey! What's going on?" Iadre shouted, pounding on the sealed opening of the box.

Lyman and Garrett both pulled as hard as they could, but they weren't able to pull their hands free. Then, Garrett looked up and noticed sharp blades being lowered from the ceiling. "Guys, look up!"

Zerat and Lyman both looked upwards towards the blades, which only made Lyman struggle harder. "I shall not lose my hand in some infernal device! Release my hand, you foul box!"

"Wait, look," Zerat said, pointing up at the blades. "They aren't moving." Garrett and Lyman both looked up at them. Zerat was right.

"It's like they're waiting," Garrett said as he turned down to the boxes.

"Guys, what's going on?" Iadre said, muffled from inside of the box. "I didn't press my button yet! Was I supposed to?"

"No!" Garrett shouted, trying to make sure Iadre didn't set off anything.

There was a bit of a pause before Iadre replied. "Okay, I'll wait in here, I guess. Just tell me what to do when you need me to!"

Garrett took a deep breath and began to assess the situation.