The Tithe of the Watching Eye

You enter a circular temple chamber where black basalt sweats with oily warmth. Three iron controls stand around a bronze door sealed in red wax: a horn-shaped lever, a gold bowl, and a dial depicting three stages of an eye. Faint red light pulses through channels in the floor, always flowing from the kneeling figure in one wall relief toward the sealed door. The air smells of hot metal, old incense, and singed parchment. Whenever anyone approaches a control, a distant voice whispers, "Name the price. Mark the witness. Speak the command."