Round 4

As the stone slab shuddered and released its weight, Sister Hale lunged forward with a cleric's urgency, grabbing at Gravedigger Renn while snatching the rope. "Don't you dare fall in! Hold fast!" Her voice cut through the grinding stone like a whip, her robes swirling as she braced herself against the ash-slick ground. The heat from the molten rock radiated toward them, pooling ominously near the rope's anchor point.

Jeane stepped forward with calculated precision, her fingers tracing an intricate sigil that glowed faintly red in the gloom. "Sister Hale," she said, voice sharp as polished iron, "stand back. Let me handle this." Silra crouched low by the pit's edge, her dagger tip tracing the seam she had found earlier with a mixture of irritation and calculation. The heat was wrong, too hot for mere steam.

As Jeane drew power, the air seemed to vibrate with anticipation, the city's pain echoing through Renn's terrified gaze across the road. The stone slab slid down, its jagged edges scraping the floor and sending a spray of hot steam toward the party. The ground trembled beneath their feet, and a thin line of molten slag curled up from the pit's edge, threatening to spill onto the rope.