I thought it was established by this point that we always do a short rest after an encounter unless interrupted...

Short rest it is, and a milestone too. Elden spends 2 healing surges to bring himself up to maximum (he's rather squishy, after all).

Elden removes the collars and studies them:

Arcana check: (1d20+9)[23]

Religion check: (1d20+9)[12]

He also searches the room for anything of importance:

Perception check: (1d20+6)[23]

Then I vote that we head down the doorless passage.