FireCat5's Dragon of Icespire Peak

The gnomes seem convinced. The female slowly lowers her hand and the magical darts dissipate. "You may continue." The male shouts.

Does any of you want to ask/say/do anything before continuing?

Thenmer turns to them

”So if we seek a thing to help against a dragon who would be the best people here to talk with?”

"Against a dragon?! I doubt you'll find it here." The male says. "But, if there is anything that could help you in that in Gnomengarde, Fibblestib or Dabbledob are the ones who'd know that."

Barthrum says, "Thank you. Going to write down those names." (and he does so)

He continues after a moment, "Would one of you be able to accompany us to help find them? We don't really want to wander around blindly and aggravate neither your or other defense forces."

"We can't help you, unfortunately. We were instructed to guard against any shapeshifters and must stay here. You'll find Fibblestib and Dabbledob across the bridge." He points towards the exit at the north-western corner of the room.

Barthrum says, "What are shapeshifters? And why do you need to guard against them?"

Thenmer sort of half listens to the question about shapeshifters, being more interested in moving on.

He shuffles his feet while he waits for that conversation to end so they can go across the bridge.

"Honestly, I don't know. Our king told us to guard against them, however, so we're doing just that. I'm not sure what exactly we're searching for either. Does any of you have any experience with shapeshifters?"

Barthrum says, "No idea, sorry. We better be going. Thank you for the directions." And follows Thenmer across the bridge. (changing the marching order: Thenmer -> Barthrum -> Dolgrim)

You walk out of the room, down the stairs to one of the ledges. This one oversees the pool, right next to the waterfall. A rope bridge extends from it across the pool, the waterfall within hand's reach, to another ledge. You cross the bridge. It is slightly unsteady but as long as you walk carefully, it seems to hold just fine. When you get to the other ledge, there's a set of stairs leading up. You climb it and both Barthrum and Dolgrim hit the one in front of them, almost pushing him into the room, as he abruptly stops in his place.

You didn't notice it because the room is lightly obscured from mist originating from the waterfall until you almost got cut in two. In the room are two rapidly spinning devices that look like turnstiles fitted with stacks of long, sharp blades spaced 1 foot apart. The northern turnstile spins counterclockwise, while the southern one spins clockwise.

Barthrum looks over the shoulder of Thenmer and yells out, "Anyone here?"

Does he see anyone operating this thing? Or determine a way to cross this in a safe way?

(so the turnstiles are vertical and have horizontal blades 1 foot apart from floor to ceiling? and from our point of entry, do they turn "away" from us or "toward" us? And how fast are they spinning? As in would we be able "go with the flow" and with right pacing walk through?)

"Well that's very weird"

Thenmer studies the mechanism with interest, he has not great education in these things but they still fascinate him

"Why would someone make a thing like this anyway"

Vertical with horizontal, yes. The way the blades are spinning and the speed in which they do, you probably can't be completely unharmed, but maybe you'll be able to reduce the damage.

Anyone who studies the devices - make an Investigation or Perception check.

Thenmer tries to make as much sense of the mechanism as he can. His rather eccentric view of reality does not help him much but he tries anyway

"So how does this work. The whilrlygig thing connects to the thingummy and turns the whatsit......"

(Investigation attempt 3 )

Barthrum just looks at it and tries to see if the rotation syncs up or if any of the blades seem poorly attached so that he might be able to jam something with his javelin.

Perception check: 8

Barthrum doesn't spot any deficiency. It looks like this machine was finely crafted. Thenmer can't seem to make out how the machine works.

(Also, I think I said it, but the area here is Lightly Obscured by the mist rising from the pool, because of the waterfall. "In a lightly obscured area, such as dim light, patchy fog, or moderate foliage, creatures have disadvantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks that rely on sight." - The PHB.)

Thenmer looks at the room and looks at the way they came in, looking for any earth loose enough that he can manipulate it with his magic. 

He wonders if trying to clog the machines up with a huge pile of earth while they get through would be enough anyway.

The stone seems too hard to move around with his magic, as previous experience tells him. There don't seem to be any rocks lying around either.

Meanwhile, you can all smell something coming from inside the room, ar at least from that direction. Something burnt... leather, perhaps? 

Barthrum says, "Well, this is not welcoming at all. Lets head back and ask them about it. I want to hope that they they did not mean us to get hurt here."

Thenmer nods

"There seems no point trying to press through here and getting hurt"