Lavender & Fire

9. A Difficult Puzzle

The floor was covered with small square tiles, just larger than the width of Rahn's thumbnail. At first they had appeared to be solid gray but once she was crawling down on the floor, Rahn noticed little lines of texture going across them all in the same direction. It was as if they were painted with a brush that left strokes or some other type of manufacturing method.

Once she noticed this, paired with the fact that her face was so close to the floor, it made it easy to spot the oddity when she came across it. She ran her pointer finger over the tile that had the textured lines going the wrong direction. She pushed. Nothing happened. She tried to wiggle it and again, nothing happened. It was as solid as the rest of them. But after almost three hours of being in this room, with no other leads, she clung to the hope that this meant something.

"This tile is different!" She said in excitement, then inwardly grimaced. Did I overdo it? Oh well. "Does this mean something?" She rolled her eyes when they didn't respond and simply kept looking at the tile. "Droids." She muttered loud enough for them to hear. She kept trying to pull on the tile but it wasn't loose.

So she stood and approached the female. "You're not going to attack me if I touch you are you?" The female didn't respond so she continued. "I just need to find something to pry up that tile." She explained as she reached into the female's pocket. "Aha. This should do. It's my knife anyway, so I'm sure you won't mind me taking it back." She chuckled, knowing the woman wouldn't respond. She wondered if they would sit there while she drew crude images on their faces with permanent ink, wishing she had some with her. But instead she shook her head to clear her thoughts as she began to push and slice into the mortar.

"This is... really... set..." she commented as she worked on the hard adhesive. "I hope I'm not going through all of this effort for nothing. This could have easily just been a mistake." But she knew it wasn't. No one would take the time to make sure an entire floor of such small tiles were all going the same direction. Especially when you couldn't tell there was even a direction until you were up close. It had to be for a reason. And no one is that meticulous but then doesn't notice one going the wrong way. At least she hoped all of this was true. But even if not, what else was she going to do next? She hadn't found anything else to go off of.

The knife sank in slightly as the mortar broke apart. "Finally!" She applied more pressure and pried it the rest of the way. She pulled off the tile to reveal a button. It was practically the same color as the mortar around it, probably so it would blend in, but it was there. She pushed it without hesitation and looked up to the door, expecting it to open or at least unlock. When nothing happened, her brow muscles furrowed and she sighed.

"Seriously?!" She let out a grunt of frustration. But then her body tuned into the fact that something in the room was different. An energy pulsating behind her. She quickly turned and stood. "Woah." She said somewhat quietly. "You have a monitor wall like in the grand hall library?! I'm sure I don't want to know how much that cost." She knew that something about that wall was different and now she knew what it was. She just hoped the command for this one was the same.

"Link." When the wall flickered to life, colors pulsating across the wall in an outward wave, she sighed and her shoulders relaxed. "Show how to exit this room."

The wall flickered and in the blink of an eye, images of a keypad with instructions on how to operate it were covering the wall.

"Yeah, the problem is I'm not outside to use that keypad. And I don't know the code." She went and sat with her back on the opposite wall, looking across the room to the screen while crossing her ankles out in front of her. "I really wish I had some water right now. Maybe some bread. Cheese! Yeah cheese and bread would be nice."