The Fourfold Contract

You enter a circular chamber of black basalt where four faceless iron statues kneel around a sealed bronze door. Ember-light crawls through grooves in the floor, illuminating four infernal symbols: a crown, a chain, a coin, and a masked eye. Five red-glass plaques hang above the door, their letters glowing like banked coals. A brass ring surrounds the door, and a two-pointed dial waits beside it. The air smells of hot metal and old parchment. Somewhere behind the door, something scratches once, then becomes still.