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The more seasoned adventurers, including Black Dog, begin the long torch-lit plod up the stairs.

Several landings are passed in silence … the place is quiet as a tomb.

Elcroon, Delx, and Black Dog pass several upward turns of the stairs before arriving at a genuine landing with an opening off the stairs.

Elcroon's torch reveals, through the opening, a dusty passage that extends into darkness. The faint outline of a doorway on the right side of the passage can be glimpsed at the edge of the light.

Elcroon considered how many feet away the stairs were from the lift on the level below, and the direction of the passageway before them, and position of the door, and tried to judge the location of the shaft.

Due to the meticulous, nay obsessive nature of dwarfish stonecraft, Elcroon's estimate is easily made. The stairs form four sides of a square that is fifteen steps across; you have made so many turns; the hallway runs sideways to the elevator shaft, it does not lead there.

“I hoped stair and shaft ran parallel
But our path splits and rambles
Bishop, alone, may find his death knell
And leave our quest in shambles.”

Elcroon looked to Delx for his opinion.

Bishop! Delx cries. Come back down and meet us at the bottom! Let's go up together!

Elcroon followed Delx back down to the shaft. As Delx’s call echoed, the bard looked up into the reverse pit’s Stygian depths and wondered where Bishop and the woodamaton were.

Silence.

“Were we too late?
Has Bishop met his fate?
How long should we wait?”

With a whispering whine, the metal platform glides down to rest at the bottom of the shaft. The woddamoton and its maker stand there looking relieved (Bishop does, anyway; the woddamoton's body language conveys nothing).

What now?