As I continue my work I find I want to be disturbed less and less. And yet, still, the 8-legged guardians I place at my home’s door do not deter as many as I would like.

So, if you are to enter – I shall make it harder for you to leave. A cunning system of doors that can only be opened through a specific means will deter unwanted guests escaping and telling others of my presence here.

Apparently though, I have made it harder for me to leave also. The spiders do well to respond to my beck and call, but do not have the same capabilities as their underdark brethren when it comes to mastering my lock’s complex mechanisms or following my simple instructions.

I do not know if they are stupid, or simply lack the capacity to communicate effectively with each other at a distance, but when I instruct them which hieroglyphs to depress they do so – When I instruct all 10 of them to do so at the same time, they do not.

Without my oversight they either depress the correct ones, but at random moments - or they depress random hieroglyphs, rather than the specified 10, leading to mechanism malfunction, or in some cases, their injury or death. And that is AFTER I have set the dials to the correct numbers.

It has been so long since I have left these catacombs that I often almost forget the correct hieroglyphs myself. Perhaps I need some riddle to remind me…

Check sleight of hand

For Warden so Grave

Match it to Linguist

So cunning and brave