The wall of fire snuffs out almost as quickly as it arrived. Enga hurls herself at the forge-fiend. Its belly-jaws snap at her as she charges and rams her spearpoint into its metal-and-stone body.
"Arrgghh! Stupid ugly thing, chewing my armour! You leave that alone!"
Illes runs into the next room as a blur and begins a sonic assault on the scanderig's mind and senses. Bestial screeches, the intensified sound of a forge, amplified church bells and a mourner's wailing hammer into the elemental from all sides at a punishing volume.
The scanderig shudders as Illes' spell hits it. However, nausea for a creature that eats rock and metal is dangerous for anyone nearby.
Enga screams, more in anger than pain, as the scales and flesh are melted from her bones and she is reduced to a blackened smouldering heap on the ground.
Camlo moves into the next room,
Illes!
Demiarchos clamps his jaws on the scanderig and Alwyn closes on it, greatsword swinging. His mighty blow causes the foul fiend to shatter, its molten insides forming a pool which the Gorumite has to jump back to avoid.
"Ha!" booms Demiarchos. "A great fight!" he looks at the burnt remains of Enga. "A shame about the small one. But I am sure the Lord or Battle will look kindly upon her soul in the Great Beyond."
Sefayll walks over the remains of the kobold and nudges it with the toe of her boot. After a moment, she turns away without making a comment about the small one's demise.
She looks at Alwyn, "I have some modest healing available, if it would be of any use."
Illes looks mortified at Enga's fate while circling the reamins. "I... I didn't know that could happen. I've never heard of anything like this before... She was a murderous little beast, but hell, she was our murderous little beast. She deserved better than that." He shakes his head and offers a little prayer to Desna that she find her way in the next world.
"I have an idea though. There is a Varisian counter song that the elders use to guard against witches charms and curses. I mean, its a very different thing, but I want to try it on Elisile before we move on. It might work. If Desna smiles."
The group troop back up the ramp to where they stashed Elisile's petrified body. Illes tries out his spell, and to everyone's delight Elisile is returned to her normal fleshy self.
Camlo is brought near to tears by Engas fate. He takes a few minutes to compose himself while they walk back up. He's pretty much a gibbering wreak by the time Illes starts muttering his spell, but when Elisile comes back to wakefulness, he throws himself at her leg and hugs it like some sort of lost puppy.
As Illes’ spell reverses the scanderig’s petrification, Elisile completes the scream she had begun when turned to stone, whirls and almost falls. After a moment of disorientation she seems to understand the situation, and bows her head in thanks to Illes, patting Camlo absently on the head as the halfling hugs her leg.
“Thankyou Illes Elandru,” she says. “For how long was I out? Did you defeat the creature that did this to me?” She looks about. “Where is the kobold?”
In something of a monotone, Sefayll replies, "The forge-fiend is no more, but not before killing Enga."
After a pause, she offers a handshake, "It is good to have you back with us."
"Well, Enga died a good death, doing what she loved. We should all be so lucky." Alwyn nods at Elisile. "Lead the way."
The tunnel leads to a plain and fairly featureless 20' by 20' room that was, presumably, the lair of the scanderig. It is shaped almost like a silo — its ceiling arches up to a vaulted height of one hundred feet. The room itself appears to be empty. Another tunnel leads off north, which rejoins the main tunnel as it veers to the north-east before opening to a wide corridor.
This long hallway has a looming ceiling forty feet above and is decorated with an intricate display of stone supports and beams. The walls are carved in long swaths of densely scribed runes — the seven-pointed star is repeated often. To the east, the hallway has caved in entirely — a battered door protrudes from the rubble, but the hall beyond is completely filled with rubble. To the west, the hall ends at an immense bronze double door that bears a huge mirror-like silver inlay of the ubiquitous seven-pointed star. This bronze double door has no obvious hinges, handles, or locks, save for a single tiny star-shaped indention at the center of the larger mirrored star. Double-doors also lead north and south.
Elisile's ears detect nothing but silence from the northern double doors.
"Ohhhhh, that looks interesting! You don't happen to have a ring that would fit it, or a necklace or anything? I could happily while away a few hours playing with that lock. If it weren't for the feeling of impending doom and the giants that I fear will bring it!"
"These don't look like a sign to you? Massive bronze double doors with a mirrored inlay of the Sihedron rune? See anything else that looks like Mokmurian's lair around here?" Illes hisses quietly, "We can search those other couple rooms first if you guys want, but I'm betting we'll be back here in about ten minutes."
"Ok, you lot keep a look out." Camlo says as he moves closer to the doors to have a look.
“Oh, I suspect you are right,” Elisile agrees with Illes. “It also looks to me like a door that might bear a trap, and I hope – however small the chance – that we might find a key somewhere about.”
Camlo quickly identifies that there is a magical trap incorporated into the door - by his judgement, one that would summon some sort of powerful creature from the beyond. However, as (formerly) the best burglar in Korvosa (bar none) he is undaunted by traps either magical or mundane. He traces the lines of magical flux with a sprinkle of rock salt and is able to disrupt them with the application of a dusting of graphite and the sharp tap of a copper chisel at just the right point. However, he is also aware that the enchantment is an extremely powerful one and will not stay quiescent for long - he now needs to get the door open, the lock of which is similarly magically enhanced, before it reforms.