Quindarin's Entrance - Basement level

Near the center of the basement is a double-stair five feet wide and five feet deep leading to a puzzle lock of some kind based on rotating horizontal stone wheels that is either securely blocking any further exploration, or is damaged and can no longer be solved to allow further progress to the bottom of the stairs and the levels below. Many of the walls are covered in interesting historical or fantastical stone reliefs, some of them continuous scenes as much as 70' long and executed with considerable skill. Other than the resilient artwork that has mostly resisted attempts to deface it, this level has been completely looted of anything of interest over the years and only twig and leaf debris from the ground level above remains.
While the temptation is to seek the solution on the walls, the scenes appear to have no relationship whatsoever to the selection options on the puzzles; they're reliefs of armies fighting on horseback, representations of what the Slow River must have looked like 300-ish years ago, or variations on the Heiroglyphic Monad symbol that Quindarin became obsessed with and wrote his semi-famous, rambling and essentially incomprehensible book about. There are no animals, no random substances, and after all this time, no remaining painted colors to relate back to the puzzle lock.
The puzzle: 4 tungsten posts with stacks of cuffs on each that seat themselves on a selection when rotated. The leftmost pillars have 3 cuffs, the middle has 2, and the rightmost has only 1 cuff at the bottom.
Top row: First two columns from the left have cuffs that are made of highly detailed greenish marble carvings showing the remains of paint in the edges and cuts. Both repeat the same following possibilities:

• Walrus (DC12 nature check to know what it is)
• Weasel
• Wraith
• Windmill
• Wolf
• Wasp
• Whale
• Wineskin
• Werewolf

The last two columns are either missing their cuffs, or never had them.
Middle Row: The first 3 columns from the left have cuffs made of a peculiar metal, like a thin green-tarnished brass, that radiates strong illusion magic under a detect magic spell. They have nondescript panels that give slightly to the touch and produce a flavor in the mouth that feels real though visibly nothing is actually there. Spinning the cuffs and touching them with any bare skin creates the following effects, with each panel having a different one:

• The taste of salt water
• The taste of blood
• The taste of a hearty ale
• A bitter, acidic taste
• The taste of peach juice
• The taste of mud
• The taste of milk
• The taste of chicken broth

The far right column is missing its cuff, or never had one.
Bottom Row: All four columns have a cuff, but they are blank of any image or effects. They are simple stone rings/cuffs, half black basalt on one side and half white marble. They click into place in either the solid black or solid white positions.

Mechanics & Inner Workings

The pillars are tungsten, and the cuffs are either metal-lined stone or actual metal. The cuffs rotate effortlessly using some kind of magnetic attraction/repulsion effect that lets them rotate on the X axis without sliding up or down on the Y axis, without friction, but they snap into place.
Unlike a traditional puzzle trap, there appears to be no trap, or at least nothing injurious remains from when it was made three centuries ago. The puzzle has tens of thousands of possible combinations, assuming that none of it is missing, but no obvious ill effects accompany an incorrect selection. Nothing indicates a correct answer when the first or any ring is spun to any one option.

Item type

Mechanical

Current Location

Quindarin's Tower & Undercroft

Dimensions

Each pillar is 4' high and 5.5" in diameter, made of solid tungsten and rooted solidly in the ground. The cuffs stacked on each pillar are 8" high and 2.5" thick.