"Okay, so there are four blades, one above each of us," Garrett said, making sure that the details were clear. "We have buttons inside of each of these boxes. I can reach mine. Can you guys reach yours?"
"Aye," Zerat said, "I can feel it."
"Make sure you don't accidentally press it," Garrett said as he turned to face the box in the center. "I'll figure out a way to get us out of this." Though, despite saying this, Garrett's last few encounters with puzzles and traps usually ended with someone dying.
"Well, have you figured out anything yet?" Lyman asked, keeping his eyes on the blade that held above them. "We Draconians can regenerate some parts of us, but I would not enjoy going through the pain of losing my hand."
"Alright," Garrett said as he looked around the room. No bricks were out of place as far as he could see. There was nothing else on the ceiling or the floors to give any sort of indicator of what to do next. The only other thing was the box in the center that had "BLLOOD" on it.
'...There has to be some reason that there are two L's in the word as opposed to one... Maybe there is a word here that is spelled like that?... I don't nearly know enough about the world, so I have to assume that it's like on Earth...'
Garrett then turned to the box and looked at the number on it. The number 11 was on top in black, similar to how the other boxes all had numbers on them. Was it binary code? It's possible. That was the only code that Garrett knew that involved 0's and 1's. However, he had no idea how to translate the letters into binary.
Maybe there was something else about the numbers and the letters that connected them together? It couldn't be a simple substitution cipher. There wasn't any letter that corresponded to the number 00. That was another odd thing. Why go the extra effort to label 00 and 01 with two digits rather than just 1? So, there had to be something about the two extra digits.
Could it be as simple as pressing the buttons in numerical order? After all, Lyman, Zerat, and Iadre didn't recognize the numbers. Still, there wasn't any way to tell that these were supposed to be the numbers from Earth. This was Asuria and these numbers could be entirely something else. Running out of options, there were very few things else that Garrett could consider.
"I have a few ideas," Garrett said as he turned to face everyone else. "The problem is that they are all based on concepts from Earth. Here in Asuria, I have no idea if they're the same or entirely different."
"Well, explain the concepts from your Earth then!" Iadre said from inside her box. "Maybe we'll figure it out then?"
"Alright. I have two main theories right now," Garrett said. "First, there is what is known as binary. It's a code that machines use and is a series of 0's and 1's. That's what the lines and circles on these boxes are. I think it's that a series of 8 combinations of 0's and 1's translates to a letter."
"You think?" Lyman asked, concern rising in his voice.
"Hey, I never had to learn it. I just know it exists," Garrett said. "And, with that, the theory is that we have to press these buttons in order to spell out the word on the box in the center. The problem is that I don't know how to spell that word in binary."
"Well, that's a dead-end," Zerat said, rolling its eye. "What about the other theory you had?"
"Numerical order," Garrett said. "Since you all don't recognize these symbols as numbers, you would have no idea how to put them in numerical order."
"But since they're from your world, you know how to," Zerat said.
"Exactly," Garrett said, though there was still a look of concern on his face. "But, why would concepts from Earth be here? It doesn't make any sense."
"Well, then what do we do?" Lyman asked, turning his attention to Garrett. "Both of your theories have huge holes that you pointed out, but we don't have many alternatives."
Garrett looked over to the others and gulped. He then turned his head to Lyman. "Look, if I'm wrong in this, only you and I will lose any parts. Iadre's safe inside of her box and Zerat's 'hand' that is stuck is part of its armor. There's no problem with it losing a hand, right?"
"Sure is right," Zerat said, waving the other five floating arms.
"And you even said that you can regrow your missing parts, right?" Lyman's face shifted to one of concern but nodded.
"Garrett, are you saying that you are willing to sacrifice your hand to free us all?"
Garrett sighed. "Right now, we don't have enough information to get out of this in one piece. We can't break out of these boxes." He began to speak in a lower voice. "Honestly, I'm more worried that these things won't open back up and Iadre will be trapped."
Lyman could feel himself wanting to object to Garrett's sacrifice, but he had to agree with him. They weren't able to figure out any other way to get out of this trap. With a reluctant nod, Lyman braced himself.
"Alright, I'm going to press my button. Whatever happens happens," Garrett said, turning to the other three.
"Okay, Hero Garrett!" Iadre shouted from inside of her box.
"You got it," Zerat said, giving Garrett a thumbs-up.
Lyman, however, was still struggling with accepting this situation. "Lyman, are you ready?" Lyman gritted his teeth and nodded, reluctantly turning his head away from Garrett.
"Here we go. 3. 2. 1." With that, Garrett pressed his button. A few seconds passed, and then all the blades came down, slicing cleanly through Garrett and Lyman's wrists.