Kakrish actived the mechanism that allows the door to open. The door is difficult to move at first but then it finally open and allow the group to see the room beyond.
A single pillar in the center of the room supports this wide, domed chamber. The pillar is surrounded by a pit, but a stone bridge crosses the pit on the south side. Dozens of arrows jut from holes in the pillar, facing every direction.
There are two other doors in this room. The one across the room has the same type of mechanism that you just used to get in this room. The one on the right seem to have two locks on it.
That doesn't look safe...
Tamora puts a finger close to her lips.
"We could always return to the entrance and try the southern door. Perhaps there is a switch somewhere."
She throws a rock, imbued with a light spell, to test the grounds. Simultaneous to her action, she uses her senses and detect magic to scour the area.
"This one thinks this is a challenge meant for those who come to relight the flame." Red Raven observes. "Perhaps there's a pattern to the arrows."
Tamora scan the room and like before she is rewarded with multiple finding. The floor of the room seem to have multiple trigger plate placed at random interval. Making very hard to avoid them all. Also, the door on the right has a magical aura on it.
Tamora's brows furrow.
"This is very troublesome. Where the other room have one trigger plate, there are many here. It is not the pattern we should be worried about but the placement of the triggers which are completely random. One misstep and we will likely be skewer by arrows. Although we could try the exact safe method that we tried in the other room. There are many bodies littered in the entrance after all."
Sounds good to me, Hoga says. Any arrows we can set off now are arrows we won't have to suffer.
Garrik shrugs. "Can't hurt to give it a try I suppose. Hoga, you want to come with me to gather a few bodies?" the Hunter says heading back toward the entrance hall.
The half orc smiles. It looks a bit gruesome. Of course. They're a bit heavy, but we'll manage.
He goes with the half elf to finish this grim business.
"Can you mark the trigger plates?" Red Raven asks. "This one could get to the other side. Find a switch, perhaps?"
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"So you guys just want to throw some bodies in here and hope that expends all of the arrows? I'll be surprised if that works!" Kakrish doesn't have any better ideas so he steps aside while Garrik and Hoga move to execute their plan.
"Yes, that is the plan unless you thought up a better one."
Tamora unveil rocks that are positioned between her fingers.
"Sounds good. But you should look before you leap once they landed. That is a decision between life and death. Still, the marking will make it easier for our placement."
With that said, she flings the rocks to mark the triggers. If she runs out of rocks, she will return to the entrance, restock and repeat.
Hoga returns, a corpse borne over his shoulder. Not all the arrows, Master Stonetoe, but a few, if we're lucky. We would make this as safe as we can, if not exactly safe.
He brings the lifeless meat to the forefront, and aims it where Tamora's rocks bid.
Looks like I should toss this poor fellow over there, milady, he says, pointing to his left. That should trip quite a few arrows, I think, I.
"Well, it is more of all the arrows it can shoot out when they were triggered. Let's hope that our loads can maximize the amount of trigger plates it can land on so that we suffer little to no arrows as we cross."
Tamora laughs.
"This is really embarrassing. Milady is just too formal. Tamora is fine. Just let me finish marking the first set before you toss. Let's make it every toss for each subsequent set of plates."
While Hoga and Garrik head back outside to find a corpse or two, Tamora tries to mark all the pressure plate with small stones. She soon runs out of stone and barely covered a third of the room. She's about to turn around when Hoga and Garrik reappear with a nice "volunteer" to trigger the trap. Garrik and Hoga get side by side and start swinging the corpse. They release it and it goes flying through the room, landing with an awful squish sound and slides on the floor. While not the most elegant way of dealing with the problem, it still seems to have the desirable effect.
The first thing that happened is a noise coming from the door. Then it starts closing by itself. Garrik and Hoga, being in the doorway, are pushed toward the room. There is also a loud "clang" that come from the door across the room.
At the sound Kakrish immediately turns to the door. It begins moving closed. "Garrik, Hoga, get out of there! The door is closing.". Kakrish positions himself for leverage and tries to hold the door open.
"I think I can hold this door for a bit. But hurry!"
"Not good." Garrik says as he dives to get out the way of the door.
Red Raven moves up in Garrik's place and braces against the door from a higher angle than Kakrish, helping him keep the door open.
Yipes! Hold that door!
Or don't!
Oh, no!
"Hoga, hurry. We have the door for now." Kakrish shouts to Hoga urging him to come through the door while he and Red-Raven are holding it open.
Reacting out of Kakrish gets himself in the door frame to keep the door open. Garrik slips out of the way and Red-Raven takes his place to help with the door. Hoga, a bit slower than the other three, try at first to hold the door and then to move out of the way but end up staying in place.
Within seconds you hear a "click" noise from the pillar. Arrows go flying in all direction. Including toward the door.
[spoiler=Trap]
After a few seconds, the room become quiet again. The floor is covered in arrows and the corpse looks like a pin cushion.
Tamora rushes forth to heal Red Raven's wounds the moment after he receive them and the room return to calm. She turns to the others other than the one she is treating.
"Are you in good health?"
A lot of the small stones were displaced by the arrows, and now it would be very difficult to remark the trigger plate with all the clutter. However, looking at the pillar you don't see any arrows in it now.
"This one thanks you." Red Raven replies, testing his flexibility while he's wounded.
Tamora stow away the excess herbs.
"Looks like the arrows are spent. We can continue our current work or work our way through another path."
"So we won't have to deal with arrows. But this door, and probably the other one over there," Kakrish nods his head in the direction of the door across the room, "will probably close and we'll be stuck in here. Not sure if we want that."
We can try to block it, Hoga suggests, nodding at the grotesquely mangled remains of their trap-springer.
"We need something heavy to hold it open. The bodies won't be good for anything other than the trigger plates. We could somehow retrieve the guardian's remains and use them to jam the door while someone is holding it.."
Tamora closes the kit.
"Alternatively, we can try breaking it from our side if the outer layer is more durable."
"This one has a suggestion," Red Raven pipes in. "The hinges. Pull the pins or break them? A door cannot turn if there's nothing to turn on."
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If this is a normal door, yes. Let's see if this special door has any.
Tamora bends a little to examine the door.
Perception for hinges (Take 10) - 19
Tamora inspects the door and the mechanism that makes the door close by itself. The way it works is simple. To open the door, one need to crank the mechanism that release the pressure on the door. That pressure is then stored until the trap is triggered. One of the ways to ease that pressure now is to let the door close and restrain it. Another way would be to carefully and precisely detach certain pieces of the mechanism in a way to remove the pressure from the door. Finally, there have been always the let's bash those rods there and that connector here. There might be some stuff going flying and the door will become useless, but it would disconnect it from the mechanism.
Tamora straightens.
"It seems like this door works like any other movable door except that it is automated when trigger. Well, we have three option to deal with the door. Disable the mechanism, let the door go and reopen it or hit the moving parts of the door like the automated springs and the rods and render the door useless. Since we lack a rogue that can disable the traps, the only other two options are available unless you can think of another one. Hoga, if you want to ruin and detach the hinges with your axe, feel free to do so."
Red Raven will resume holding the door open.
"Ok guys. Not to complain or anything, but I'm still holding this door. I don't want to be stuck here forever!" Kakrish strains to continue holding the door open. "Are you guys sure that breaking this is the best way to go. Remember groups have been coming here to the everflame forever. Those other guys didn't have to break this door. Why should we?" Kakrish grunts as his muscles start to tire.
Tamora moves back to her original position.
"The other groups have the method and skills that we lacked to handle the door as subtle as disabling it. We will have to do with what we can. And I did not said we can only break the entire door for this particular door. I said we can break parts of it particularly the rods and the springs so that we don't have to deal with the door's mechanism and move it as we would a normal door. Of course, we don't have to break them and let the door run its natural course. However, we will have to deal with door closing on us again if we reopen it unless we can cross over without touching the pressure plates which will be extremely difficult."
"But there aren't any more arrows to stab us. So who cares if the traps trigger?" Kakrish grunts under the strain of holding the door.
"There is a difference. We either lock ourselves away or have a way out. I rather we have a path we can return to."
Tamora unsheathes her spear before trying to hit the mechanism that is releasing the pressure on the tiring dwarf and close the door.
"I agree with Tamora. Beyond that, Kakrish, like you said before many others have been through here before. I wouldn't be surprised if those arrows magically replenish."
Tamora stabs at the mechanism with her spear. She manages to do some damage, but not enough to render it inoperative. Kakrish and Red-Raven feel that the pressure from the door slightly went down.
With some well placed hit from his axe, Hoga disables the mechanism and all the pressure from the door disappear. You can now all open and close the door with no problems. Any fear of getting locked in the room disappears.