The Rush to Nightstone

The escape from Arcadia having succeeded, the party decides to avoid the roads and make their way towards Nightstone via a cornfield so as to elude city patrols searching for them. Unfortunately, between the darkness and the now exhausted state of several of the party members, the cornfield succeeds at hiding the party from patrols but disorients the party to the point that much valuable time is lost. After some time, the party emerges from the corn to find a homestead with a couple of horses. Jade immediately begins to prepare the horses for travel, with no intention of compensating the owner for the beasts. Bob rouses the resident of the farm and offers to buy the two horses instead. The mood of the farmer being quite sour at being awakened in the middle of the night made the negotiations difficult for Bob, but a high price was agreed upon and the party now had horses to expedite their journey to Nightstone.
 
Upon arrival at Nightstone, the party was greeted with a discouraging sight. The banner of the Seven Snakes mercenary band was flying from the city. It appears there is no safe haven to be found here. Rather than taking on the mercenary band to liberate the town, the party decided to head for the Whispering Caves. It appears that Tim was busy while our intrepid heroes were in the Dwarven Isles. A group of mechanical guards were posted outside the now doored entrance to the caves. With little to no options, the party engaged with the guards and defeated them, removing one of the two barriers to gain access to the caves. Utilizing their new rope trick rope, the party took a short rest to patch up wounds and do some quick healing prior to Cornelius using some blood magic to open the door to the caves. The use of this type of magic made the party uneasy, but he does appear to be an ally so the party followed him into the cave. Once inside, Cornelius closed the door behind them to prevent anyone from following them inside. The smell of mold and death hung heavy in the air.
 
The passage led to a long dark stairwell, which eventually leveled out into a cylindrical, domed chamber. The walls of the chamber had four different mosaics and pedestal with what appears to be a button atop it in the center of the room. The mural on the far wall and left of the entrance to the chamber was of a dragonborn warrior with several tiles missing from its mosaic banner. The mural on the far wall and right of the entrance was that of an elven sorceress atop water with what appeared to be spells of lightning and thunder in her hands. There were several holes drilled at the bottom of the wall and several of the tiles portraying the water were loose. The mural on the wall just to the left of the entrance was that of a paladin bearing the symbol of the son on his shield. One of the tiles on the shield is a mirror. The final mural, to the right of the entrance was that of a bow wielding halfling riding on the back of a bear. The tip of the arrow in the mural is an actual arrow head rather than a tile. No other exit from the chamber could be seen. An attempt to detect magic revealed everything except the floor emanated a magical aura. Upon inspection of the pedestal in the center of the room, there were four dragon heads rising from the top, each of them facing directly at the spot where two murals came together. the pedestal felt as if it could move, but something was preventing it from moving. Bob decides to press the button atop the pedestal to see if that will free the pedestal. His hunch is correct, but that's not all it does. The entire room lights up, an outline of a door appears directly across the room from the entrance door and the entrance door closes. A green number 20 appears above the new door outline and begins counting down. When the number reaches 15, it changes from green to yellow. Fearing this is a countdown to something dangerous, the decision is made to press the button again. The counter resets to a green 20.
 
Many attempts to manipulate the pedestal and special tiles in the murals are made, but nothing changes. When the party decides to let the number run down below 15 they discover that a new light shines upon the dragonborn mosaic when the counter reaches 14. At the number 13, a new light shines on the mirror tile of the paladin. Upon reaching 12, the spell effects of the sorceress illuminate and at 11, a light shines upon the arrow tip of the halfling bear rider. Jade presses the button and everything resets back to 20. The party spends several minutes trying different iterations of manipulations of tiles and pedestal but nothing new happens. The decision is made to allow the counter to drop lower. This time, when the counter reaches 10, the entire chamber begins to violently shake, knocking a couple of people to the floor. As the number drops lower, the new lights on the mosaics go out at different intervals. When the timer reaches 5, the number changes from yellow to read. Pressing the button again resets everything back to where it started at 20. Once again, the party tries to manipulate the special mosaic tiles and the pedestal as effects take place between the number 10 and 5, but as with every other attempt, nothing different happens. The decision is now made to allow the timer to reach the number 1 before pressing the button to discover what happens when the timer drops below 5. When the number 4 is reached, the roar of a dragon is heard within the chamber. At 3, the smell of sulfur fills the room. When the timer reaches 1, a great inhalation sound is heard reminiscent of a dragon preparing to exhale a breath weapon. The button pressed and everything resets to 20. Realizing that nothing the party has tried has made any difference, the group decides to allow the timer to run all the way to zero and see what happens. To try and minimize any damage from the apparent fiery dragon's breath the group squeezed between the dragon heads on the pedestal. With everyone braced for the worst, the timer dropped down to zero and the lights in the room went to normal the entrance door opened and a new door opened where the door outline had appeared. Apparently, this wasn't a trap, just a mechanism to delay strangers from proceeding further into the cave.