Box answers the questions:

"I am a rogue modron," he laments. His having reverted to the first-person singular pronoun providing a good sign. "I am to be destroyed. This illusion led me to believe that this was no longer the case."

The second question gives him pause, but he answers, "I can take no satisfaction from anything false. I am prepared to return to you at the first opportunity."

"I cannot see you. I feel that I am physically present in a different location, with all sensory information promoting that delusion."

"I possess total recall of all events which I have experienced, including touching the gem. I was led to believe that doing so opened the door which led to a portal to Mechanus, and that there was an emotional parting of ways which led to me coming here while you continued with the dungeon at Delhumide."

Dunn's message is received with silent consideration.

The dagger sounds its alarm in response to a creature arriving upon the landing outside the barricaded door.

"Joshua, quick, bring your wand and come with me. Yul, Dunn and Mel, we'll hold them off the best we can while you figure out how to get Box out of that door. Emfrid, do you fancy facing off with a demon or two?"

Morlan draws sword and dagger and heads for the barricaded door.

Emfrid grins, tossing her hammer head over haft and catching it easily again as she heads off after Morlan.

The door is still barricaded, with no sign of anyone attempting entry. Listening carefully, Morlan can hear a muffled buzzing from the far side of the door.

When a voice speaks in Abyssal on the other side, Joshua translates in a whisper. The voice reminds you of the cambion you met outside the Styx Oarsman in the Hive Ward of Sigil.

"Patience, [untranslatable Abyssal insult]," it commands. "Another botched attack and I'll make a lunch of your young."

Morlan retrieves Dunn's dagger of alarm in case he doesn't have the chance later. He whispers to Joshua and Emfrid:

"Sounds like a cambion with the chasmes, so I guess both teams have joined up. I suggest we wait for them to make the first move, give Dunn and Yul as long as we can. If they start breaking in I'll turn invisible so I'll get a chance to backstab that cambion. If we can kill their leader the others might break and run."

"Emfrid, do you have any useful spells for this kind of thing?"

Joshua readies the wand retrieved from the Drow priestess and fades into shadow waiting to use it.

Standing by the door, Morlan suddenly remembers something.

"This door, it had a symbol on the other side, didn't it? Waukeen, the goddess of commerce, wasn't it? I wonder... do you suppose the key to the other door lies in doing some kind of trade?"

He quickly dashes back to tell Dunn and the others his idea, then returns to guard with Emfrid and Joshua.

"Yul, ask him if there's anything unusual, something out of place. Maybe there's a key back that looks like something that doesn't fit in a horrid place like Mechanus. If he seeks that out, maybe it will get him back?"

After Morlan's suggestion, Dunn says to Yul, "I'm not sure what we can trade, without getting someone else trapped in there. Maybe something inanimate, with a spirit, like a ghost or other magical intelligence? I've got nothing like that. Nothing comes to mind. I'm not about to get someone else trapped in there, if any other option is possible. Even then, who's going to volunteer to be stuck in a door for all time?"

If box does not have the anomaly-as-key-out option, Dunn will whisper, "what do you think would happen if we broke it?"

Emfrid pulls Morlan aside to cast Bless on herself and the elf, leaving Joshua out of its area of effect.

"I have little else," she says. "I wasn't prepared for tanar'ri."

She thinks for a moment before patting her hammer's head to his chest. "Well," she clarifies. "No more than usual, that is."

---------

"As a construct of my own mind, it does not surprise me to find nothing unexpected in my environment," Yudumbox observes. Asked about possible effects from breaking the door, he has little to offer.

Mel, on the other hand, shakes his head at the idea. "The Netherese valued cleverness tremendously, and rewarded it generously. This was such a deeply held value that one finds it manifested even in their architecture. A Netherese wizard could not conceive of a trap that would not allow a clever man to pass... Nor one that would not punish a brute."

He adds, "The door uses necromantic magic, apparently draining the life force of those who come into contact with it. Either it has failed to have this effect on the modron, or it takes a while to accomplish."

"Stand by," Box thinks to Yul. "I will attempt to leave."

"Waukeen is the goddess of trade..." Mel mumbles to himself. He will, carefully (gloved if necessary), touch one coin of every denomination that he has to the gem in the center, without touching the center gem itself. If that fails...

"Could this be like a magic jar? I don't know. Perhaps a cure light wounds or other reversed necromantic spell could do something? I would try, but I am dubious about the possibilities should I fail." He will wait for the others' ideas before proceeding further.

Box's body stirs slightly, then releases its hold on the gem. It backs away from the door as machinery chugs within.

Turning to his friends, Box offers a concerned expression. "Are you fabrications?" he asks. "Or have I returned?"