The brass instruments are called “natural” horns/trumpets/bugles etc as they have no valves etc and “there are no means of changing the pitch apart from the player’s lips.”

The pointy ends of the instruments point to all the doors except door 1. “I knew, naturally, but that wasn’t the point.”

Some trumpets that are not “natural” include: the slide trumpet and the serpent, a wavey looking keyed trumpet. Reinforcing the snakes/ladders/slides theme. And showing not to take the slide door as it’s not a natural type brass instrument.

”’“How can we trust that thing?” one remarked. “Who knows where it ends up…””’
- this is also talking about the pointy ends of the instruments as they have their pointy ends up. It says not to trust the pointy ends again. Don’t use ladder or door 10; they both are pointed to.

“They were pretty sure of themselves, and went right on to…”
- two of the instruments point (but not the pointy end) to the correct door, door 1. They were right, on two.

toadstool, toedstool, toad’s tool, sarcophagus, sarco-fungus…

Several ways to connect these things, but no good explanations for why they’re here.

It’s one of the shortest dialogues in the whole maze, so there wasn’t much for me to do here. I think at this point it’s a fair assumption to make that the guide is subtly trying to lead the visitors to their doom (some people might find fault with this statement); therefore, when he says he “thought [the slide] might appeal to his guests”, it should be a pretty obvious warning to stay away from it. Could relate back to how he refers to himself as the maze’s architect – if he placed the slide there on purpose because he thought it might lure people into the trap?

Ok, next, the visitors seem pretty hesitant about the slide: ““How can we trust that thing?” one remarked. “Who knows where it ends up…””. However, when they left the room, they were “pretty sure of themselves”. We can assume the guide said nothing to change their minds, because, well, he doesn’t. If they were hesitant about the slide yet confident in their choice of door, this should be a pretty obvious textual clue to avoid the slide. This could also be applied to the ladder to 35, which would save them some time by avoiding the loop. This is two rooms now (just finished looking at 14) where the implied choice of the visitors in the text ends up being the correct door(s).

Mushrooms – “mush” means go, so “go room” 1. Sorry, this one was so laughably stupid I just had to put it.

I can’t see the feet of the toad with these low-res images, but they look like the feet of a horned toad (horned lizard). So does the mouth. Or maybe all toads and lizards look the same. Either way, the horns in the doorway to room 10 could be a warning in association with the fairly obvious “fly in a trap” clue leading you away from 38.

Another use of the word “natural(ly)” here, which takes us away from the synthetic picture of the frog/fly and towards the real, living, natural mushrooms. Reinforced by the fact that he says naturally after saying “I knew” (but wouldn’t say). He knows the correct door, but he won’t say it. Am I beginning to sound like David Gentile? Maybe that’s my cue to stop.

Oh yeah, the doll has hollow legs, I don’t like that.