The Piano frozen in stunned silence as the gate went down in a cloud of dust, rust, and clanging metal. It... had not expected that. Archimedes's ironic last word came tragically too late. It sighed, which made a light ringing noise like a breeze brushing over undampened strings, good-naturedly.

Defenses against fire? The Piano wracked its brain, running through the list of magic that it knew. "...No," it concluded, then added wryly: "Perhaps your torch isn't the greatest fire hazard in here after all." It thought for a moment. If the fire came from something alive, it could deal with that when it came to it, but if it came from traps? It scanned the pieces of gate remaining to see if it could pick out a still-intact piece of metal. Its strings grasped a smallish and awkwardly-shaped, but still usable, piece.

"If you think the ground ahead looks suspicious," it said to Archimedes as it followed the rat inward, "we can test it with this before stepping on it ourselves."

@Archimedes and gm tagging

The Piano would quickly notice that the ground was ancient, crumbly... and the farther forward it pressed, the more blackened it was. Ahead a dim light cascaded downward, barely illuminating a more open space at the short tunnel's end. A conglomeration of what looked vaguely like fallen boulders lay in the center of that room, a tall and pristine, silvery glaive leaning up against them.

Archimedes might note that the rocks were oddly similar in size and shape, and unlike everything around them, seemed untouched by flame.

Archimedes remained just behind the Piano, watching as it prodded the crumbly rock. None of it seemed immediately dangerous, so for the time being he turned his attention up ahead.

"Those stones look suspicious, no?" he murmured, drawing up alongside the Piano's... "wheels." (Archimedes had never looked at those before, and he quickly decided not to do so now.) "All the same size... unburned. What do you think this is?"

He couldn't quite parse it. A hidden flamethrower sort of weapon? A safe haven from the fire? Maybe they were stones that could shield--maybe the Gembounds needed to find similar stones to add to the pile..? He didn't know, and the untouched gleam of the glaive only aroused his suspicion further. "Any ideas?"

@The Piano

"I am not sure," The Piano replied. "Perhaps the remains of a golem? But surely they would not all be the same size... Perhaps it is what caused the fire in the first place? But I am simply speculating." Not to scare themselves off before they'd even started, and all that.

It was very interested in that shining glaive, though, and it told Archimedes as much. "I wonder if that weapon is magic. Even if not, we might find someone willing to take it. ... Assuming it is not trapped to attack us the moment we touch it." Thinking, it cast out its magic in query. Was there any magic at play here? (And if so... could they take it home and profit?)

@Archimedes

It was perhaps lucky The Piano was greedy enough to search for loot.

Almost at once, the pile of 'rocks' in the room's center ignited in its magical vision. It had been exactly correct, this had been a golem.

The problem was... it was still 'alive.' It was unclear what would trigger its activation, here, but perhaps simply selling the location of the glaive would be enough? Unless the pair could think of some way to nullify the danger, but the pile of rubble--when activated--would be about the size of the Piano itself, and made of solid, moving stones.

@The Piano (tagging again so Piano can first react to this information)

"—Never mind." The Piano said in a totally deadpan tone as magic flooded its senses. "It's a golem."

This was intensely frustrating and massively disappointing. The Piano wracked their brain running through a list of abilities and found none that it'd feel confident in relying on to overpower a pile of rocks as big as itself. But. It wanted that glaive. "I don't suppose you have any ideas of how we might defeat it? Or avoid waking it up in the first place? It would be a shame to let that weapon go to waste for fear of a mere construct."

It gnashed its teeth in a horrid scraping sound. "I suppose we could take a page out of the Collector's book and merely sell someone the information about where to find it, if there is truly no other option. His business seems to thrive regardless. Still, it would set us apart if we could take it for ourselves..." Its strings flexed, as if it were seriously considering just snatching it from the pile of rocks in a spate of motion. The alien script on its side took on a faint glow; it seemed The Piano had decided now was also a good time to improve its own vision. Possibly to admire the glaive better.

@Archimedes

Archimedes studied the pile of rocks with renewed wariness, and considered. "The only way to know if it will wake up is to try and sneak past it," he hazarded, his tiny head cocking to one side. "Hmm."

He sat back, paws brushing through his whiskers as he studied the rocks, his beady eyes bright with thought. "Either it has senses or it's activated by proximity, I would assume. Otherwise it would already be attacking us. I am faster," he concluded. "Let me try to slip past. If that works... we can reverse roles if you like. You can sneak past and move on, and I can see if I can wake it up and draw it back the way we came. Then you can take that thing and move on. Or you can join me and we can sell the information," he agreed. He didn't mind. He felt that the risk was fairly low; there were a lot of cracks in the stone where he could hide. Unless, of course, the golem smashed the stones he hid in.

At length, Archimedes hopped off his Charger and stretched his legs. He was generally a lazy sort of rat, in that he believed in working smarter rather than harder, so he wasn't exactly in peak physical form. Still, he was a rat, and quick enough. "Hide a bit back down the tunnel," he suggested, and gave it a moment before darting forward, around the edges of the room, to test the golem's activation. Or lack thereof, he hoped.

The golem remained still and silent as the rat bolted around the edges of the room.

It seemed that proximity was the likely answer--that, or tampering directly with the stones or glaive. The Piano could safely navigate the edges of the room, if it so chose--whichever further option the pair decided to go with.

@The Piano

Waking up the golem on purpose to distract it sounded dangerous, but The Piano supposed that Archimedes knew what he was doing. "If you feel confident in your ability to draw it away safely," it decided, "then so do I." His cleverness, combined with his small size, likely enabled him to do many things The Piano would have more difficulty managing.

Like sneaking around, for example. The Piano followed Archimedes's lead, keeping as wide a berth between it and the rocks as it could as it wheeled itself around the edge of the room to where the rat had already managed to get. However, it was not a subtle ordeal. Its heavy wheels crunched noisily across the uneven ground and sent small pebbles skittering out of the way. The Piano kept its—eyes? vision organs?—nervously fixed on the pile of rocks, watching for any signs of activity.

@Archimedes

The pile of stones remained a pile of stones, magical or not.

The Piano could have stormed around the edges making a cacophonous racket... probably. It seemed proximity, more than sound, was the answer--and that probably made sense; the golem was unlikely to have any ears.

The Piano was welcome to move onward, or whatever it wished to do.

@The Piano