My Prince. You have entered a mysterious cylindrical room with a cylindrical chamber up the middle. Of course, you see that the door has closed behind you, so we must find another avenue to escape this chamber.

The room is divided into four quadrants, each at a different height. On each wall is a ladder that goes down to the depths and up to the ceiling, but these ladders do not lead out of the room. But I have discovered another ladder ... in the inner chamber. It could be used to escape, but it seems enchanted! When you try to climb up or down, the ladder slides so as to keep you in the same spot.

If only we had some way to block this inner ladder from sliding ... Wait! I see a small hole entering the inner cylindar as if something is supposed to slide into it. Of course, if it did, it would slide straight through the ladder, keeping it from sliding away. On the outside of the wall, at the level where we are now is a similar hole. No doubt something that we must do will cause a bar or pole to emerge from the wall.

I have done some preliminary exploration for you, and I have discovered the following:
* On each wall, next to the ladders that you can see, is a lever. No doubt the ladders are to provide access to the lever no matter what level the floor is.
* In the center is a button. I know not what it does.
* On each section is a symbol. The four symbols are earth, air, fire, and water, and similar symbols are on the ceiling. In the ones on the ceiling, the fire symbol is to the north.

With a little experimentation, you discover that the button in the center rotates the entire floor 90 degrees counter-clockwise. Each of the levers changes the heights of two or more sections of floor. From past experience, you suspect that each is based on a simple rule, such as "West up 2, Earth down 2". Of course, the earth symbol moves with the floors, so this rule might do nothing if earth happens to be on the west side. Your first step will be to figure out what their rules are.

Here is an applet I've made to simulate the process. Because there is no animation for you to see what actually changes (as there would be in the real game), when there is a change the applet displays the amount of the change in parentheses after the current height.

Whenever the fire symbol is in the north, then four horizontal bars attempt to come out from the walls (i.e. your goal). However, unless all the floors are at or below your current level (level 4) they won't be able to emerge.

If the buttons get cut off, then resize your browser. I'm not sure why this happens. :-)

I hope you enjoy the puzzle.
-- Zag