During the rest period after the group has gotten the first key of Nodden-Torr, Alexis addresses the group.
“We’ve been talking about the ‘reset rooms’. Maybe they reset when the four-part key goes in the door. That’d explain the bugbear bodies still being there when we came back.”
He pulls his whip off his belt, coiling it loosely in his hands.
“But if Hadonis came back after getting thrown out, there should’ve been dead bugbears from his fight. Blood. Something. Maybe the portals let you skip the room entirely; teleportation. Would’ve been a lot more hospitable if the dwarves put that bypass before the summoning chamber.”
He shakes his head, half a grin. Then he looks up at the others, settles on Ethelred.
Rask waits for others to speak up, his brow furrowed.
“Maybe Hadonis used the circles and demon to bypass the rooms?” He blurts out.
“It is clear that we underestimated Hadonis. He did a good job of seeming weak. The spider soup must have helped with the illusion.
We do not have enough information. Could the ‘reset rooms’ yet reset after some time?
Since Hadonis had already been down here he probably knew how to bypass these traps?
As Rask said, maybe he used the portal to move around? We have yet to uncover everywhere. Hopefully more of the mystery will unfold as we explore?”
Ca’armine nods. “There are two main possibilities– either he bypassed the tests that we faced, or he went through them and they reset. I thought of a third, though, based on what Hadonis said to us as we were facing the stone giants– he told us that we needed to take the giants’ hearts so we could return, and not get lost in… I can’t remember quite how he said it, but my sense was, he was saying there was access to other dimensions– like the creature I dismissed, accessing different worlds. So I am thinking about all three.”