My Magician

Chapter 11: Three Passages

About 5 minutes later I hear voices start to echo through the hallway I entered through.

"Oh my partners must be here already... that was faster than I expected..."

I see the three brothers walk into the room bickering about probably taking a wrong turn through what sounds like a maze.

"I guess one of their challenges was to go through a maze."

The smallest of the three brothers notices me sitting against the wall. Number 198 I don't remember any of their names honestly, they are too similar, but he wears a baseball cap.

"Hey! What are you doing here?" 198 asks.

"I am your partner for this next challenge." A smile crosses my lips.

I say while pointing to the boulders and pressure plates. They follow my finger to the objects. 197, the one with the beanie responds.

"Why should we work with you? You're just a little girl."

I get annoyed at the response then shake off the insult.

"Because it would be a lot easier for all four of us to just work together."

"And how exactly would it be easier?" 199, the largest one responds.

I start to walk closer to them. "There are four pressure plates and four of us."

They look at me blankly.

"It would be a lot easier to just stand on the pressure plates than move one of those massive boulders. Don't you think so?"

They converse with each other for a moment then seem to come to an agreement and nod. 198 responds.

"Alright we'll work with you for this, it looks like it would be easier that way..."

"I guess the one in the ball cap is the friendliest out of the three of them."

I nod. "Alright, shall we then?"

They nod then we all walk to a pressure plate and stand on one. Each pressure plate makes a click and the sealed door opens slowly. I smile to myself.

"Let's go." The largest brother says then he steps off of the plate, the smallest brother does the same.

The door shuts 1/4 then 1/2 of the way closed as they both step off and we all freeze for a moment. I try to figure out the way the door works.

"It looks like all of the pressure plates have to have weight on them for the door to open... but once the weight is removed the door closes a fraction of the way. Actually it's kind of sad I didn't get that earlier... "

The largest and smallest brothers step back onto the plates and the door opens all the way again. I look to the brothers. They look surprised to say the least, but I don't think they understand how the door and plates work yet.

"It looks like we have to leave one at a time to exit this room." I say to get their attention, they look towards me.

"What about the fourth person?" 197 asks suspiciously. His eyes narrow into slits.

"Yeah, we're not planning on splitting up." 199 said raising an eyebrow.

"I think we can all make it, we just need to leave one at a time. Let's have the furthest two away from the door leave first one at a time then go from there."

"The door only closes 1/4 of the way after each person leaves the plate, we should be just fine."

Me and 199 are the furthest away.