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Eben has a moment of surprise at seeing his arrows drop the kolyarut but then he steps forward and enthusiastically joins in on the 'pound the pile of inert metal' party. Specifically, he aims for the neck. "Astraden, you still want the head for a paperweight or something?"
Seeing him swinging a blade next to Farrukh is kind of cute, like watching someone's younger brother try and play with the big kids. It is also visibly ineffective.
"Wow, this thing must be completely invulnerable to longswords!" He pauses, wiping a bead of sweat off his brow. "Anyway, hauling him back to the lava would be a pain- we'd have to drag him up that cliff. Getting Bermintrude down here was hard enough. Almost impossible. I still don't understand how we pulled that off. I say we tie him up AND toss him down the waterfall. Long way down, and even if he can heal himself back from that, that's a really tough climb. Not everyone is half-goat like Farrukh."
"Wow, that is incredibly racist."
"I don't know." Carina sighs and lets Farrukh, Eben & Astraden have their fun beating on the constantly-healing kolyarut. "It won't be the same as killing him for good."
"Unless we have a way of countering its regeneration, he'll be back."
Not one for kicking a man while he's down, Tanith leaves beating the unconcious construct to the others.
"I still say we just tie him up. Maybe we'll find something downstairs that'll prove we're not just here to rob the place."
"Wow, that is incredibly racist."
"What, I'm just saying you climb really good!" Not seeing much point in attacking the longsword-proof inevitable, Eben pokes around for lost arrows.
He's unable to turn up the two misses. It's very possible they went sailing into the waterfall themselves. Sighing, Eben begins transferring his backup arrows from one quiver compartment into his ammunition compartment.
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Not one for kicking a man while he's down, Tanith leaves beating the unconcious construct to the others.
"I still say we just tie him up. Maybe we'll find something downstairs that'll prove we're not just here to rob the place."
"Good idea. We should steal some kind of identification that proves we're not here to steal anything."
"...so, are you guys making camp, or leaving, or throwing him down a pit, or what?" asks one of the lantern archons.
"Yrovinn!" admonishes another.
"What? I'm just trying to keep us moving. I'm kind of supposed to be doing this birthday thing in about an hour."
Carina lowers her crossbow and puts it away. "Since it appears we don't have any way of stopping it for now, I'm feeling partial to the 'throw down a pit' idea. Just as long as we can rest at some point..."
"If it comes back again, no more discussion. Lava pit time."
The group moves over and hefts the kolyarut over the pit's edge. Down, down, down it goes.
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Farrukh watches it go down.
*CLANG*
"You know, I thought it'd be deeper."
*CLANG*
"Okay that's more like-"
*CLANG*
"Surely that's the bott-"
*CLANG*
Farrukh pauses for a moment to make sure.
"What is that? Like 400 feet? Maybe you guys were right."
Farrukh watches the body fall down into the darkness, quickly vanishing from view. Several clangs sound. Then, he hears the sounds of metal grinding against stone and splashing around in water—it sounds like the pit has something of a slope. Then the grinding stops. A second later, he hears the sound of metal slamming into stone very hard.
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Before dropping the inevitable down the waterfall shaft, Eben produces a length of rope and nods to Tanith. "We should still tie him up, just in case. And since you're a wrestler, you are, of course, an expert at knot-tying. Everyone knows that's just how that works."
After the knots are tied and the metal man goes sailing downwards, Eben slaps himself upside the forehead. "We should have cast a light spell on him before he went! Even if it wouldn't have shown anything on the way down... it would have looked cool!"
Eben's assement being 100% accurate, Tanith gladly binds the inevitable with knots that would make the most senior sailor jealous.
Carina winces as she hears the inevitable bouncing off Fharlanghn knows whatever rocks and debris are in the pit, but she can't bring herself to feel any sympathy for the being of pure law that tried to crush her soul under its metaphorical heel.
Walk it off.
"Maybe the River King will have a pet rust monster or something, and we won't have to deal with that dude again."
"Maybe."
Still feeling emboldened by Eben's spell, Astraden returns to the hallway of melted weapons and looks for traps on the doors.
Astraden finds no traps.
"Not that I don't trust your senses, but let me check."
Not trusting Astraden's senses, Farrukh himself finds no traps on the door.
Farrukh opens the door.
"I get it. You trust my senses, but not my sense."
This room has a low ceiling, about eight feet high, and is caked with ice. The air is very cold. Where the floor should be is nothing more than a slowly churning pool of snowflakes. It looks to be about ten feet deep.
"Who wants to go first?"
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Eben, seeing the pit of snowflakes, already seems to be having a hard time holding himself back. Upon Farrukh's deferment, he quickly yips out "Me!" and, with a running leap, hurls himself into the room, yelling "Snoooooow daaaaaaayyyyyy!"
...Well, that's what he would do, if he weren't in a tomb with dangerous things lurking around every corner. Instead, he gets out the group's rope of climbing, and has it knot itself and tie itself off to the door, and then gently lowers himself into the snowstorm. As he does so, he lets out a wistful sigh over the missed opportunity.
As Eben lowers into the chilly snow, he has a strange sense as though he is not alone. Faint whisperings and murmurs tickle his ears. There is a presence in here.
A second later, the faint presence turns into a frigid feeling of unwelcomeness. Eben feels a powerful, crushing force of law pressing in on his chaotic heart. A feminine voice breathes, "FRIEND TO ENTROPY! BEGONE!"
"I'm getting kind of low on mojo. I wouldn't mind that rest Carina was talking about soon," Rodrigo comments. He watches Eben curiously, trying to see what is going on.
Eben shivers as he descends the rope, but the cold doesn't quite touch his soul. "Lady, I'm no 'friend' to entropy! I hate when my backpack gets all disorganized and I can't find anything!"
"You know, maybe I should stop asking. Nothing in here seems to like you guys."
Eben hauls himself back up the ten feet of rope, shivering as he goes and relaying his experiences on the way back up. "It's really, really cold down there and something nasty tried to freeze my heart and told me to leave, and I can't see anything below the snow cloud..."
"Hmm. Wonder if this is the tomb room . . . they'd need to keep the carcass cold to preserve it." Astraden turns as Eben climbs into view. "Well, I don't really have anything to see through snowstorms. If we're turning back for the day I can get a clairvoyance spell prepared, and try to look past the storm."
"Hey, Carina, toss one of your Firebombs in there, let's see what happens."
"She's out of bombs. One of the reasons we should settle down and rest soon."
Carina grumbles. "Believe me, I'd love to. But to do that, I'd need to take a break and mix more. Preferably long enough to get better from that inevitable's soul-crushing law cubes."
"Might be worth trying to dispel the snowstorm too."
Tanith shrugs. "We can fool with the magical underground snowstorm more when we get back. In the meantime I would kill for a pint."
The members of Spiny's Six make their way back up. Flycatcher is nowhere to be seen in his lair. They exit the Whispering Cairn and...
"I'm with Tanith...let's get tipsy.." Rodrigo suggests, licking his lips.
"Well, if there's any beer to be found in a burned out town... but we should check up and make sure Allustan made it back OK. And it beats camping out down here..."
Carina just nods. "We should see if Allustan's alright--and I hope Robin's going to be okay for a while..."
"Yeah, I don't like the idea of leaving Robin with the spiders, but we've got no choice. Tomorrow we can come back, try and blast out the River King, and get him safe." Astraden rubs her side where the morningstar gouged her. "And we could all do with some patching up. I hope Allustan has some diamond dust stored away."
The group reunites with Allustan, who eyes the prominent gap in their numbers. "What happened?"
When apprised of the situation, he nods. "Very well. I wouldn't worry about that feeling, Carina and Tanith—unless I'm very much mistaken, those were enervations you were hit with. Perfectly harmless, long-term, unless you let them build up. They'll dissipate in a day or so." He sweeps forward with his hand. "Then let us return to Diamond Lake. I can..." His face falls slightly. "...well, I can't treat you to anything other than a good view of the rubble, I suppose, but I'm sure something can be scrounged up."
"Thanks, Allustan. It's been a long day. I'm sure everyone just wants to get some sleep and not think about how Robin is in the clutches of a dimension hopping spider at this very moment."
"Allustan, are you seriously worried more about our comfort than about the people in this town? I'm not meaning to be ungrateful, but dozens of damaged houses seems like a more pressing need than getting us food or lodging," Astraden says, chiding the bourgeoisie wizard.
"But er, what I mean is, what would really help is some diamond dust," she says, pointing to her still-scarred arms. "Got some demon ghoul fever to recover some. If you've got any stored away."
"Actually, I'm really good with getting food and lodging, myself..." Eben chimes in from behind Astraden.
"Me three," Rodrigo says.