Level 5 is the level of the Obsidian Gates in the underground descent that begins beneath the temple: two monoliths, an obsidian gate, and the eastern sector of a Rift.
| Type | Place (underground level) |
| Spanish entry | Nivel 5 |
Route
The descent enters through Level One, “cellars beneath the temple”, and crosses Level Four, from which the priest of Set who negotiates with the Seekers comes down.
Description
- Two monoliths and an obsidian gate, usually called the Obsidian Gates.
- “Giant oxygen doors”, closures larger than human scale, tied to the discovery of what the level holds.
- “The key to the Midnight Circuit”; another reading has “the flame to the Midnight Circuit”.
- A Rift crosses it; Level 5 holds its eastern sector, under an unnamed ruler.
One area “was already painted with blood”; there lay the broken bones of Roderick, “eaten to the marrow”, the only recorded death of a named companion on any level.
The stack
Named levels: 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 12, 15, plus a basement of strange geology, ancient elements and primordial chaos.
- Level 6: transit hub (Troll elevators and gondolas, the Lost Inn, the domain of the sand, the Long Staircase) and “one of the most dangerous places”: fungi, two batteries of triggers, and one-way chambers whose far side must be secured first.
- Level 7: home of the trolls who run the elevators.
- Level 12: an organized hierarchy.
- Level 15: “the druid retreat”, caverns opening outside, home of an ancient nymph who wants to act again.
- Basement: reached only by “some trolls, the Varumani and more” experienced hunters.
The levels share the same means of transit. Stairs are not elevators: the Long Staircase “is not so convenient for teleportation”.
Open questions
- What the oxygen doors are and how they open.
- What the Midnight Circuit is and what the key or flame does.
- Who rules the eastern sector; what killed and ate Roderick.
- The halls’ height, light, smell and sound.
- Whether levels 2, 3, 8–11, 13 and 14 exist, and where the basement falls.
- How Level 5 connects to its neighbors.