Why do we even have that lever?

He lieks his meat nicely seared. No really, it´s for cooking!
(Also leaving blank cause there´s two more orphaned ones)

 

This factory was made before fantasy OSHA was founded and they just didn't have the funds to bring it up to code. They're mostly hoping there aren't incidents.
(go do the other one)

 

Because they're broken.
Each door on the ring of doors has a portal in it, so when it rotates into place the doors all lead to different places. However the mechanism had a thing you need dropped in it and so it can't rotate all the way.

Go get the thing and you can actually reach the other two doors!

I understand why this teleport well is in a cave-it's a really nice cave-but why does the only entrance have rotating spiked maces in it?

 

Anti thievery measure. Originally they were designed to pop out when someone came in but now they're just sort of stuck.

Why does every path in the maze lead you back to the start?

 

Because there is a rock in the way of the actual path to the finish. A really big rock. That you can climb over to get to the finish. It's not supposed to be there but it is.

Why are there flowers that spit weird glowy projectiles on a timer in front of this door?

 

it was originally meant to a be a very fancy flower clock, but it hasn't been maintained in who knows how long. So now the flowers just spit out glowy bits every so often.

Why are there eyes peeping through the cracks in the walls, stealing tiny bits of health in the here?

 

They're the eyes of a critter that eats magic and you are a mage. Having your magic eaten hurts. There are many eyes because there are many creatures living here.

Why is this person's swimming pool filled with purple waterlike poison and not actual water?

 

Oh, sure, just assume everyone swims in water. Not like there aren't any perfectly normal demons out there who want to take a relaxing dip in their own personal pool of poison, in their home that just so happens to look a bit like a dungeon if you squint, where you have so rudely barged in and started making a mess of the decor. Why don't you harass the hellcats and chop up the carnivorous flytraps, which he's been cultivating since before your civilization was born thankyouverymuch, while you're at it?

Why is there a series of bottles on this table with a riddle cryptically explaining which six are poison and which one is a shrinking potion that will get you through the door to the next room?
(hard mode: it's not a party game)

 

(I realize this got answered, but I just want to say that my answer would have been "it's a dyeing vat for the local cloth industry.")

 

(This got long, oops.)

A game? Is that a common party activity where you come from, or some sort of rite? Oh dear, I'm being rude, aren't I?

No, those were Agnes' bottles. She was a royal apothecary when she was younger. A prodigy. Made a bit of a stir, or so they say. Wit like hers is bound to turn heads. And ruffle feathers. But that was ages ago. She must have been retired for a good 20 years before she passed. She was a fixture around here. Intimidating but kind, had good advice, always won at cards. Enjoyed cooking even though she was fully aware she was a shockingly bad chef. Her death hit people hard.

She faded fast near the end. Her grandson said she'd started getting confused. We'd all kind of noticed she was forgetting things, and I guess she wandered off a couple times and got lost, but she never went far. Nobody expected... It was a terrible accident. They found her there with that batch of potions and a recipe in her own shorthand.

They managed to work out what she'd been making. A shrink potion, can you imagine? They said it was brilliant, an amazingly simple process, but it made quite a few toxic byproducts. You're really not supposed to store poisons in regular potion bottles, but Agnes was kind of infamous for not being a stickler for rules. Or labels. She'd always had such a good memory. She always seemed to know exactly where everything was, so I guess she didn't see a need. And you're definitely not supposed to test a new potion by drinking it right away, but everyone who knew her professionally said that was very much in character. Apparently she'd made herself ill on more than one occasion in the past, just never, you know, that bad.

They investigated, of course. She hadn't been a controversial figure for years and years, but it's best to be sure. For the family, you know. They even brought in a medium to communicate with her spirit. His name escapes me, but you're probably familiar. Yeah, that's the one. Oh, you've met him? Hah, yeah, I hear he tends to make that sort of impression, but you have to admit he's good at what he does. Those must have been his notes you saw by the potions. I heard they were remarkably coherent. If you've ever worked with a medium before, I'm sure you know cryptic the spirits tend to be. He said she was focusing really hard on which bottle was which all the way up through the end, but she seemed to be having a lot of trouble keeping her thoughts organized.

I guess no one's had the heart to put her final project in storage yet. Apparently it's so innovative that it's still going to take quite a while longer to even understand her thinking, let alone do any testing. No one even knows for sure if it works.

....You did WHAT? But, why?!

But why didn't you use a charm? I mean, heaven knows they're slow and inefficient for shrinking but...

Charms! No, charms, you know... You don't know? None at all? How did you manage to get to your age... I'm sorry, I'm being rude again. It's just, you could have been hurt or killed. How did you even know which one to drink?

You can't be serious. You're serious. A medium's notes from the spirit of a woman who died by drinking the wrong bottle. I feel faint. Even if they were accurate, what if the bottles had been moved? Actually, I'd rather not dwell. I'm just glad you're okay. You must have been born under a very lucky star.

And, uh, just between us, I think Agnes' spirit must be very satisfied that it worked.

Why is there an enchantment on this dagger that makes you stab yourself instead of your opponent?

 

It's part of an initiation ritual for a religious order serving the goddess of justice, done as a test of faith. The initiate is told that they will be locked in a room with a violent criminal who has been told they can go free if they kill the initiate. The initiate is allowed to choose from a variety of weapons to defend themselves- daggers, axes, swords, etc. However, to kill without seeing proof of the accused's guilt is against the order's precepts- thus the enchantment, so any attempt to kill the "criminal" (actually a member of the order in disguise) will turn back on the initiate, resulting in their injury and failure at the test.

Why does the gravity in this room change direction when you press a button?

 

@LadyNighteyes Thank you! That dagger has seriously been plaguing me since childhood. I'm pretty good at not noticing bizarre fictional things or explaining them away in my head. (I find the new questions part of this game like exponentially harder than the answers part. Weird shit? In my video games?) But that fucking dagger. It was like the one thing in the entirety of the Zork text adventure game that struck me as at all strange. Headcanon accepted, with relief.

 

It's an astronaut training facility! The button turns on the gravity machine.
It's not supposed to be set to reverse gravity, just change the strength or turn it off, but someone messed with it.

Why is there a gauntlet of swinging pointy objects and working flamethrowers over the bridge leading into town?

 

The flamethrowers are an emergency decontamination system from the last plague; they're supposed to activate automatically when they detect it, but due to poor testing when it was created, it actually reacts to the antibody against it. Everybody these days is vaccinated, so everybody sets it off. The swinging pointy bits are supposed to keep people from moving out of the decontamination system's range. The townsfolk actually go in and out via a causeway around back, but they get a historical preservation grant to maintain the bridge, and it's such a local landmark that everyone in town would be horrified if you suggested making it less life-threatening.

I'm playing Tales of Symphonia, and I desperately need someone to explain whatever the hell this is. (compatibility with the canon of the source game not necessary)

 

That's the final project of an arcane encryption student from a local college, his project was displaying encrypted data in a three dimensional space, using the elevators correctly inputs the decryption key, allowing access to the information. They were just a bit too much of a show off to make a normal, desk sized display like the rest of the students.

Why is there a magical portal leading to a lake filled with treasure and piranhas in the Elven temple?

 

The piranhas are sacred and the treasures are the offerings made by generations of supplicants.

Why do all the doors leading out of this room slam shut and lock themselves when you lift the extremely valuable antique vase off the plinth in the center of it?

 

That's the museum's security system for that particular room.

Why does the route to your house have mashy heavy rocks on ropes that try to mash you when you're on the path?

 

That's what's left of a homemade version of one of those executive desk-toys, crafted by a hill giant who found the clacky spheres to be soothing but too small for their tastes. The route only recently came into use, since the usual path is currently overrun with some particularly nasty bandits.

Why is the grass in the gardens carnivorous?

 

After a while, just cultivating roses gets boring, and the owner of the estate wanted to experiment with magical botany.

Why do most of the exits to this maze just lead you back to the beginning of the maze?