As Mountie pounded, two of the knobs suddenly came forward. A small box lowered out of the door and fell onto the knobs. Mountie reached out and picked up the box, examining it and finally opening it. The interior looked somewhat like this:

"Its filled with blocks!!" A1 exclaimed, sticking her hand in and trying to grab one of the blocks. It refused to come out of the box. "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!"

A1 collapsed onto the ground, crying and hiccuping in grief.

Instructions
Without removing any of the blocks from the box, rearrange the squares so that the red one is sitting in the upper right corner of the box.

Lia looked in the box, trying to solve the puzzle despite A1'a loud wailing and hiccuping. Finally, after a few moments of sliding the blocks around, she got it. She took a hesitant step backwards and waited.

The door slid open, revealing a long stair way. Taking a last look upwards at the distant light, Lia stepped onto the first stair... Up, up, up, up, up the stairs we go, thought Lia as she lead the Minions onward.

Lu woke up from a long hibernation. She stretched, trying to get the thousands of kinks out of her bath and yawned so wide her jaw cracked."Where am I- oh, yeah. In the castle. Well, that'll teach me to never down, like, three mochas in a row, especially from the enemy, who probably poisoned them..." She stood up and nearly fell over, due to not using her legs for 18 hours' time. Those minions...! Wait. Maybe it was her own fault for staying up for, like, a week without sleeping. "And what's with all these 'like's?" She scratched her head. Ah well, she could use another one of those mochas...

But where was Izzy?

Mountie was impressed when Lia solved the puzzle so easily, and followed quickly behind as Lia led the minions onward.

She didn't know how many flights of stairs they went up... actually, they didn't just go up. They went down, and left and right, in a big jumbled mess. Mountie was extremely out of breath when they reached the top... and she was dizzy. All of the minions stood on a tiny platform, the edges of which were surrounded by blackness.

Mountie didn't know how high up they were, but it made her head spin. She wobbled to the center of the platform. "Oh, look, a door." She sighed as she looked at it. "Now what?"

The Silv'ry Wanderer, awakened abruptly from her sleep by a cry of "Assemble the Minions!", reported along with the rest of them. A disgruntled Growlie rode on her shoulder.

"Where are we going?" the kitten complained.

"Shush," said Silver.

They both screamed when they fell down the hole with the rest of them. Silver thought for sure she was dead, but somehow she had survived the fall with no more than an aching shoulder - she had to pry Growlie off, for in his terror he had dug his claws into her skin.

Ignoring the aching wound, she helped the others search for a way out. When Lia solved the puzzle, she clapped her fellow minion on the back and followed her onward. The air was cold, and she shivered, wondering what they would find next.

Jedine was worried up to that point but suddenly there was a great deal of cheering and she decided someone towards the front of the group had solved the puzzle Lady A was carrying on about finally she reached the door and passed the threshold going up the stairs following wherever the minions led until they stopped at another door "Now what?" she asked no one in particular.

"Well," said Lia, staring at the door. "At least it only has one knob this time." She glanced at A1. "And hopefully no more blocks."

"No, no blocks," A1 groaned miserably. "Just...paper."

She tore the note off of where it was pinned to the door, and handed it to Lia. It read as follows:

Three humanoidish creatures go into a motel to get a room. The room is $30, so each of them pays $10. Afterward, the desk clerk realized she'd made a mistake. The room was only $25. So she gave the bellboy five singles to return to the humanoids. On the way up he figured to take a cut, so he put $2 in his pocket and gave each humanoid a single back.
So then, each humanoid paid ten and got one back, ...each paid $9, ...right? $9 times three equals $27, and the bellboy took $2. That equals $29. Where's the missing dollar?

As Lia read the paper out loud to the group, a figure stirred in the darkness of one of the side passages. As the riddle ended, the figure came forward, revealing a human girl in her mid-teens carrying a curiously carved staff and wearing a red scarf over her eyes. A red dress of an old pattern swept the floor as she walked, and an leathern pouch (rather full) hung over one shoulder and under the other. Her gold-brown locks fell to her shoulders in a careless manner, and her skin was pale, as if it had been years since she had entered the maze. When she spoke, her voice was musical, but stiff, like a harp who's strings have not stirred for a long time.

"It's not math that's the problem; it's the riddle. Watch."

With a sweep of her staff and a low utterance of words in some forgotten tongue, small tongues of fire appeared in the dark tunnel and coallesed into numbers.

9 + 9 + 9 = 27
27 - 2 = 25
2 + 3 = 5
5 + 25 = 30

"You can't very well add what the bellboy took." the girl said, half-smiling. "You have to subtract it. There is no missing dollar." After a moment she added, "By the way, can any of you help me out of here?"

(OOC: I have role-played before, but on other forums; this is my first Ditto Town post. If it's bad, flame me. I won't hold a grudge. )

(OOC; You did really good for a first RP post Dernhelm! I remember mine, I hated it at first!)

Jedine walked towards the new comer. "How ever did you do that so fast? I was puzzling over it for a while, before you came, and no I'm afraid we can't help you out, you see, we're stuck too!" Jedine stifled a sob as she turned away and slumped against the nearest minion crying silently "I think I'm going to die in here! There's NO coffee!" A beautiful falcon swooped down and came to rest on the Jedine's slumped shoulder seeming to weep with her.

The girl sighed as the flames vanished, leaving the tunnels darkened... Though to her, it made no difference.
"The riddle's easier for me than you; I can't the see the written words and let them distract me. Is there no way out of this place? Surely, the door leads somewhere!"
Carefully feeling her way with her staff, she walked towards the group.
"My name is Lalien, by the way. Who are you?"

(OOC: thanks, Jedi.)

Lia turned to the newcomer in surprise."Well done," she said in admiration. "I don't think I could have finished it that quickly." She reached out her hand and slowly turned the knob while glancing at A1, who was sitting on the ground shredding the paper.

As the door opened, Lia peeked around it. On the other side there was a wax-like little man. Lia sqeaked in surprise. "That was... unexpected," she muttered to herself. "Any ideas, A1?"

"You know, you could always say hello to a body, especially if you just opened their door without an invitation," the little man said, crossing his arms and looking at all the people.

A1 went off in a gale of laughter, the little man frowning murderously at her. Finally, she stopped.

"RUDE," he sniffed. "What do you want?"

Silver glanced back and forth at her companions, but when they only returned her wary look, she took a deep breath and stepped forward.

"Pardon the intrusion sir. I agree, barging into one's room without permission or even a hello is quite rude. But I hope you'll forgive us - you see, we're quite lost down here and just trying to find our way out, really. I wonder, can you help us? We'd be ever so grateful."

"You smell funny," added Growlie.

Silver glared at him. "Shuuushh!"

"Well, it's true," he said, matter-of-factly.

Mountie observed all this from under the hood of her cape. She wore an obvious frown. In her perceptions--which were just one piece of the puzzle, she knew--something didn't seem right. It seemed... fake. Strange. Unreal. She could be wrong, of course, but it would be good to find out.

"You know... I wonder... is this man even real?" Mountie took the chance and poked the man in the arm.

The consequences of this action were bound to be dire.