The prison is a ghastly place of terror: bars, spikes, stone walls and iron cages, bloodstains and flaming brands.
He was on a stone walkway high above the prison floor. A ladder behind him led down to a metal platform. Prominent on the wall was a switch - a sheer drop beneath! Taking up his courage, the Prince ran out and activated it, to his relief finding at once that it triggered a grill sliding from beneath one of the prison cages to land on. This he used as a platform to run to the switch on the wall beyond, and onto another beyond that, working his way swiftly around the room in this manner.
He heard each grill retract barely as he passed, so without pause he continued over each switch, until another metal platform appeared from below, clanking up to meet him just as he ran down off the last one. This platform cranked down a flight. Another wall switch, more cages. The Prince had an easy rhythm now, and made his way back around the room to another clanking platform, this dropping him down one more flight. The room at this level was wider, and the angle necessitated that as he ran over each wall switch, the Prince had to leap out to run across each metal grill now revealed.
Once more without pause - and with this little extra effort - the Prince made his way all around the room to leap, then swing off an alarming caged device (which broke away from the wall even as he leapt off it) to a ladder on the wall. Descending this, the Prince made his way back around the room, now making use of each hanging pole to swing to the grills as they appeared. Finally he landed on another ladder, to slide gratefully to the dungeon floor.
The walls of the room were lined with prison cells, bars blasted away. On the wall of one empty cell the Prince found a graffito of a hanged man, together with days marked off, precursor perhaps to the miserable fate of the wretch who had once occupied it.
A deep pit was open at the centre of the room. He could not see the bottom; last resting place perhaps for some who had passed through here. Bones and ghastly blood stains were evident around sluices on the cold stone floor. He noted a prominent yellow symbol on a large door, which he could only hope, would lead him from this dreadful place. In the guard's alcove beyond the very last cell he was relieved to find the corresponding floor switch. Clearing the surrounding impediments with his sword, the Prince stepped onto the switch. Indeed the door slid open, but as he ran to make his exit, it slid as firmly shut. He needed a weighted object to hold down the switch.
Against one wall was a metal cage containing the last remains of another forgotten soul. This man could be of use in death as he may never have been in life. The Prince dragged the cage all the way over to the switch. At last the way was clear.
Beyond the door a brick-lined corridor, and the Prince noticed one wall appeared ready to collapse... Disturbingly, he observed that beneath the grill under his feet was a river of blood. On rounding the corner he wondered if his own would not soon mingle with it - slicing with deadly, metronomic precision, a pair of sword blades cycled from the wall, preventing access to the barred gate beyond. Opposite these remorseless blades was a wall switch with a symbol matching the one on the gate. He knew what he must do. Timing his moment exactly, the Prince waited for the blades to nearly touch him as they swept forward, and in the split second they retracted to start their cycle again, he ran forward and up the wall to activate the switch. Even as he did this, the blades scythed beneath him, but he was able to jump back off the switch and run for the open door just a fraction before they returned. Now he found himself in a place even more horrific than the last.
Scattered about the torture chamber were the instruments of torture: iron maidens - mercifully unoccupied - racks, chains, and a brazier of fiery coals. Here too was a pair of pull switches. As he tried these, the Prince found each activated a sliding section to the wall, which too swiftly moved back as the seconds ticked away. It seemed to the Prince that he could operate these switches one after the other to bring the corresponding section of wall towards the other at the same time. Perhaps if he were then swift enough he could ascend the gap as a chimney before they moved back into place and left him plunging to his death.