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((How close are we to the staging area at the bottom of the shaft?))

Galiena rushes closer, her weapon still not drawn from her belt. As a cleric of peace is she honor-bound to not attack first. She uncovers her light, as there is little point now in keeping herself and Fr Micheal nearly blind.

"Committee! Let us pass! Comrade Ursa has violated the trust placed in him and brings dishonor to clan McCain. I cannot support your cause with him in charge." In her hunched position to avoid hitting her head on the roof, the speech may not come across as she hopes, but still she must try to bring this to a peaceful resolution.

The McCains are not intimidated by Pint. With six of them and only one of him, it was an impossible attempt. They draw their weapons, which are mining pickaxes, not real weapons at all (and very inferior to Pint's urgrosh) and take attacking stances. Then Galiena and Fr Michael appear.
"Wait" says one of the dwarves, who she recognises as Kaynin, "how has Comrade Ursa violated our trust? If you can't answer, we will cut you to pieces. We're not just anyone, we're the committee."

Kaynin... he struck her as the worst of the lot; greedy, conniving, quick to violence. And that catch phrase of his was beginning to make her wonder if he had suffered some blow to the head. She'd addressed them as the committee, after all.

"I did not think you a murderer, Kaynin," she stated, searching his eyes for a moment, then glanced to the other committee members to gauge their appetite for murdering two clerics and a fellow dwarf. Their attack stances were far from reassuring.

"Ursa tried to force himself upon me, a married woman and a cleric acting in good faith to do what I could to find an acceptable and peaceful resolution to this conflict," she began. "He then offered the diamond to me. An insult to me, as if I were a common whore. And an insult to you, that he would give away the McCain's property like that without seeking the committee's permission."

She let that sink in for a few seconds before continuing, "He still thinks of himself as more equal than the rest of you, whether he will admit it or not."

The six dwarves, some of who you recognise as the committee, face you off with pickaxes. The party is standing in a triangle arrangement with Pint at the top tip, and Fr Michael and Galiena at either side, and slightly behind. Galiena is to the left of Pint, the tunnel to her left isn't designed by a solid wall but by the "gob", an area where coal has been taken out then allowed to collapse.

Kayin pushes to the side of Pint, and faces Galiena. His face is pushed up against her chin, his beard straggling down her breast. She can feel his deep breaths. "He gave you the diamond?" he says, "Where is it? Where is the big diamond?"

Pint scowls as Kayin pushes past him and keeps his Urgrosh at the ready. Giving the other dwarf a hateful look as he stares down at Galiena, Pint considers skewering him from behind. It'd be easy, Kayin has his eyes away from him and is wide open.

However, before doing anything reckless, Pint looks up to Galiena and makes a subtle motion with his Urgrosh. Should they give him the diamond or stab him? Pint's good with either.

She resisted the urge to physically push Kaynin away from her.

"I did not accept it," which was technically true. Though she had seen Pint pick it up. How many white (or not so white) lies had she told tonight? Did the end justify the means? "Perhaps you should go fetch it."

Kayin's face distorts into hate. "I know you are lying" he says, "why would you not accept it? Give me the diamond!"

The other five make ready to attack.
"Keep them alive" says Kaynin, "they might have hidden it somewhere. But take them into custody."

Alright, looks like it was going to be a brawl after all.

As much as Pint was confident in his own fighting skills to get him through a battle even against multiple opponents, he always liked to stack the odds in his favor even if it meant fighting dirty.

He reached for his pocket in his cloak and pulled the large diamond that Kayin was looking for.

"Oh, ye mean this diamond?" He held it up over his head to make sure that Kayin couldn't just dart for it. His other hand was still clutching the handle of his Urgrosh, ready to spear whoever dwarf made the daft move to simply reach for the diamond bare handed.

Galiena takes a single step back away from Kaynin, buying herself some room to maneuver and draws the hammer, though still does not attack the dwarf.

"You will incur the wrath of Ulesh and St Barbara both!" she warns. "Let us pass!"

Kaynin is completely focused on the diamond. He lets his pickaxe rest on the floor, the head down, the handle pointing up. His hands make greedy grasping motions.
"Give me that diamond" he says, "It is not yours, it is the property of the McCain worker dwarves"
Kaynin is sandwiched between Pint and Galiena. However there are another five dwarves, all armed with pickaxes and ready.

Pint holds the diamond away from Kaynin's greedy hands.

"I dinnae, mate. I kinna took this diamond fair and square from Ursa. I told him not to do somethin' and he did it anyway, see? So I took this as compensation."

"But how 'bout I trade ye fer it? Fair deal. Ye let us pass and I'll give ye the diamond."

While Kaynin is distracted, Galiena takes the opportunity to slip by him. If things come to blows, which seems likely, at least Kaynin would be cut off from the others. Hopefully the others wouldn't want to see him killed or injured. Then again, he seemed a most unlikable fellow, so maybe they're hoping for just that.

Galiena slips past Kaynin. So now Kaynin is cut off from the other five dwarves.
"Give me the diamond, you can go" he says.
Fr Michael moves close to Kaynin.
"How do we know you'll keep your side of the bargain?" he says, "Let sister Galiena out first. Then we give you the diamond."
"We don't need you" says Kaynin, "we can get the diamond if we want. But give it to us."
He holds his hands out.

Meanwhile, you hear a bit of a noise behind you, from further up the tunnel from where you have just come.

Hearing the noise behind him, Pint knows he needs to move quickly.

"Ye know how this works, mate! Get outta the way first!" Pint presses the tip of his Urgrosh spear on Kaynin's gut and starts moving along with Galiena, so that he has at least a clear way towards the exit of the mine, barring the five dwarves still blocking the way.

"Tell yer men to stand down." Pint lifts the gem up menacingly. "Lest ye want me to smash this thing on a rock."

"Don't you dare use violence against me" says Kaynin, to Pint. "You know who I am, I'm second in command of the committee."
But he's obviously scared
"Come on, sister Galiena" says Fr Michael, and takes Galiena by the hand. At a stoop, you run past the five dwarves and towards the mine shaft.
Kaynin does a double take. Then from behind you come Ursa and a body of dwarves.
"They've stolen the diamond" shouts Ursa, "and that traitor Kaynin is with them. Attack, attack, attack!"

They were past the dwarves! She and Fr Michael could flee to the shaft and ring the bell and her promise to not return until he was freed would be kept.

But, she realized with a sinking feeling in her stomach, she would be letting down Ulesh. She had taken a vow... to keep the peace at all times. And here, behind her, was a mob of angry dwarves in the midst of a schism for which she might be at least partially responsible.

Peace meant that lives shouldn't be lost in pointless conflict. And her vow meant she had to try to put a stop to it.

Tranquility is upheld through strength she repeated to herself as a reminder.

"Go, brother!" she said to Michael, letting go of his hand. "Ring the bell in the cage! I'll be there soon!"

She turned back toward the mob and beseeched Ulesh for his aid. Her voice boomed through the tunnel, enhanced by the will of Ulesh. "McCain dwarves! Cease these hostilities! There is no treachery here aside from what has stemmed from the murder of Chief Grimley! Your grievances are just, your strike legal, but the cloud of that unholy act must first be cleared. And for that, there is only 1 among you that needs to answer for that crime..."

She points her hammer at Ursa, finding herself wishing it had been Kaynin she could point it at instead. But her own preferences played no part here.

"Let us deliver him to justice. Only then can a resolution to this conflict be found."

((Cast: Thaumaturgy - Your voice booms up to three times as loud as normal for 1 minute. I'm not sure if she'd get through that whole speech without incident. So cut her off wherever appropriate! ))

Pint gave a nearly sadistic grin as Kaynin threatened him, almost able to smell the fear from the other dwarf.

"Mate, do ye think I give a dead dog's arse about who ye are?" If Kaynin was trying pull rank on Pint just because they were both dwarves, he was about to have another thing coming.

Before Pint could do something reckless like drive the spear of his Urgrosh into Kaynin's heart, he hears the other dwarves coming, quickly followed by Galiena commanding them to stop this madness.

Pint takes that opportunity to back pedal away from Kaynin and past his guards, so that he is in front of Galiena. He's not planning to flee just yet as he intends to stay and guard the foolhardly cleric, for all its worth. He continues to clutch the diamond on one hand whilst his other holds his Urgrosh as if it were a sword.

"Sister Galiena!" says Ursa, "how could you?" He's obviously hurt. "Grimley was in league with the human oppressor."
"They've betrayed the dwarf revolution and stolen the diamond" he says to the dwarves, "kill the humans and arrest comrade Kaynin".

"You gave the diamond of the dwarf workers to this human prostitute and her dwarf pimp" says Kaynin, "even she has admitted it. Arrest comrade Ursa!"
"I always knew you were a traitor, Kaynin" says Ursa, "and now we have proof. Dwarves for me!". The dwarves with Ursa charge forwards. There's confused fighting. Then you hear the mechanism of the cage being raised or lowered - you're not sure which.

Well... she had tried.

And failed miserably.

She looked on in shock for several seconds at the melee between those loyal to Ursa vs those loyal to Kaynin, but what else could she do to stop them? She had already basically sided with the greedy scumbag Kaynin.... who repaid the favor by referring to her as a prostitute.

"Let's ensure Fr Michael gets out..." she called to Pint and turned toward the shaft, but sounded defeated. Ulesh would not be pleased with her efforts here this night. It looked as if she had traded many dwarven lives for that of a single cleric.