[color=6ecff6][i]"Maybe the lock is frozen."[/i][/color] Chartose mused to the drow while she vented her anger upon the lock, watching the vilemaw scamper by and amuse itself on some snow. A commotion then occurred below and spooked all the creatures, Cartose and his familiar included. He saw Alya had fallen-down, but was sure that was not everyone's cause for alarm.

Chartose took one look at the crystalline Orc and cast his spear aside [[color=9e0b0f]nope[/color]], figuring it would be useless for blocking bludgeons and equally useless in doing any damage to it. Instead, he whipped-out a length of stout chain to lash at the facsimile-orc with, hoping to ensnare or knock-off a limb as he made a fighting withdrawal up the steps.

Fighting with two arm-spans worth of chain however great it is at providing a safe fighting-distance, is a cumbersome affair; it would not take long at all for it to snag or get caught on something, or for it to take too long to make-ready for another swing. In the highly likely event that the orc rushed too fast for him to make another swing, he whipped the chain off the ground and between the orc's legs with about as much force could be expected to come from a violently lashing five pound chain before he took his trusty tree-felling axe and counter-charged. Chartose was not patilcularily skilled at axe or club-fighting, but he was sure that tackling the orc head-first back down the stairs while driving an axe through its rock-hard skull would be the winning strategy of the day.