Veron actually doesn't mind either the dark or the closeness. He can see in the dark just fine, and the closeness is only weird if they make it weird. He reaches into his bag of holding to retrieve a trap for the door, then pauses.

"... Iron," he observes, finally connecting the dots and feeling a little like a dolt. He recalls the bit about faeries and how they react to iron. "Right. Running?"

Harry might be a little bit weird about the closeness, but he's handling it admirably!

"Iron. Uh, we've probably got a minute with the running, but let's move with purpose and all that." He looks around. There's a door to what looks like some kind of storeroom, equipped with a rusted padlock, along with a shining metal double-door at the end of the hall. "Can you open that lock? I'd like to see what resources we've got, here."

"Yeah." He knocks on the locked door; a silver band on his fingers glimmers, and the padlock clicks open. "After you, I'm going to figure out if I have iron things on me."

Ex-Enserric might be, but also eats souls. Aceleka is made out of ice, his other short sword is made out of adamantine... maybe some of the throwing knives..? He starts investigating his person for iron or steel throwing knives.

Harry enters and begins efficiently rummaging through the supplies. After some thought, he appropriates a box of nails and a crowbar, leaving a small piece of faded green paper in the box where he found them. He also picks up a device similar to the one Toot-Toot wore on his belt and clicks out a tiny iron blade. "Think you could get any use out of this?"

Meanwhile, Veron starts to despair over not having any normal metals on him. Adamantine, ice thing, adamantine, silver, adamantine, solid... gold...? He peers with utter bewilderment at the gold throwing knife. Why does he have this. Where did he get this? ... Oh, right, Undermountain. He flicks it a couple of times, in case it's under some kind of illusion. It is not under some kind of illusion. Damn. Back to searching.

Adamantine, adamantine, why did he get so many throwing knives from the drow, shadowsteel... Maybe shadowsteel will count?

"Maybe, but I'd hate to leave you unarmed." He holds up a couple shadowsteel throwing knives. "Think weird transformed shadowsteel counts? It used to be steel, anyway."

Harry hefts the crowbar. "I'm covered. Those look like better knives, though. And as long as it was steel, it should be at least okay. The box cutter makes a decent backup if it turns out they don't, I guess." He clicks the blade back into its boxy sheath and tosses it Veronwards.

Veron catches it easily, and then the box cutter disappears into his sleeve. "Thanks. Now if there are no objections, I think I'll go poke my head out of the door and see what they're doing."

"...Objection: They'll shoot you and then you'll be dead."

"Counter objection: I will be invisible and intangible."

"...I see. No further objections."

He smiles at Harry warmly. Then he turns on his heel, touches his hand to his orphaned earring, and disappears.

He then turns intangible and pokes his head through the door. What are their pursuers up to?

One is watching the door. Two others are arguing quietly in a strange language, full of grunts and glottal stops. The one Veron stabbed sits in a snowdrift, being bandaged by a pixie barely larger than the bandage roll she carries, and bleating softly with pain.

The argument between the two gruffs breaks off. One of them backs up and takes a running charge at the door. He slams into it hard, shaking the frame and sending brick dust in a cloud around it, but fails to dislodge it. He sprawls away from it, his horns smoking and his fur badly singed, and his conversational partner gives him an I-told-you-so look.

Veron ducks back inside before the gruff hits the door, then pokes his head out again to investigate the damage. ... Hm. That's an awful lot of force brought against the door. If they put it in a place that was not the iron door they might actually get somewhere. Which means they don't have very much time. He makes an estimation of the most likely place they'll burst through, then removes his head from the door and returns to Harry, dropping invisibility and intangibility. He only has so many minutes of either, no sense wasting them.

"They're going to break through the wall, probably through right there," he informs Harry in a business-like tone. "Those are iron, right? Can I borrow them?" He points at the nails.

"Yeah they're iron, sure you can borrow them, oh shit they're gonna break through the wall. At least I can get a shield up this time, not having my eyes destroyed is great."

"Yyyyeah you're going to want to have a shield up. And maybe be a bit further down the hallway. And also maybe take this and put it on immediately." He tosses the ring of protection he'd planned to give to Toot-Toot to Harry. ... Then, upon reflection, his necklace, too. "I'm going to be mean."

He retrieves his earlier trap and combines it with the nails, through a complicated and very technical process that only a professional can accomplish with the proper tools and training. That is, tying the nail container to the explosive trap with string. He sets up the trap against the wall in question.

"Right, so. Vague plan outline: I go invisible and intangible, walk through to behind them for an ambush. They burst through and immediately experience regret, we introduce them to even more regret before they can shoot us. Alternatively, we just run, but I don't think these guys are going to stop chasing us, so."

"No, yeah, good instincts. Whatever's going on here, they're persistent. And I think that sounds like a plan."

Veron nods, and tries on a smile.

"All right then. Lady Luck watch over us when we can't watch out for ourselves, and please don't get shot."

"Igualmente," Harry says with an answering smile. He fiddles with a shield charm on his bracelet absently.

Right then, to work. Invisibility, intangibility: go. Time to sneak back around behind the gruffs and get ready for an ambush.

The gruffs are themselves doing the same thing! Well, less "ambush" and more "frontal assault". They gather in formation behind the one who argued against targeting the door, who is in a sort of digitigrade runner's stance.

The elected battering ram (no pun intended) smashes through the wall with a roar. Then there's a BOOM and the roar turns to a panicked scream. Nails fly everywhere; one nicks the ram who is still smoking from his door-related encounter, and he rears back in horror. The other raises his submachine gun grimly and gets ready to advance.

Correction: the other is stabbed in the back with a box cutter. Or, well. Stabbed in the neck by a box cutter, to be more precise. It's just that Veron happens to be behind him so he doesn't get shot, because he is no longer intangible and thus not immune to getting shot. Now to get the submachine gun away from the gruff. Hey, shadowsteel dagger, how do you do when sliced along the delicate part of this gruff's inner elbow? He hopes you do well, so that thing that shoots bullets can get dropped.

It works pretty well, though it's almost irrelevant; that neck wound is spilling gouts of green flame like nobody's business, and the gruff is mostly preoccupied by screaming. (The shadowsteel doesn't do as much damage, and it elicits less flame, but oddly, its flames are purple.)

The second gruff recovers in time to level his gun at Veron before a bolt of pure air-blurring force collides with his side, slamming him against the alley wall. The gruff comes out of it somewhat battered, as does the wall.

Harry steps out from the cloud of brick dust that was once the wall the gruffs broke down, hand outstretched with a shimmering force-shield hovering in the air before him. His staff glows with power, and his expression is more than a little frightening.

... Huh. That's definitely an expression that Harry has.

But now is really not the time.

What was that, second gruff? You would like some new shadowsteel piercings? Why, Veron is happy to oblige! Here, have three shadowsteel daggers.

The gruff gurgles his way into unceremonious death.

His compatriot, despite his unresponsive right arm, manages to fire off a left-handed burst of gunfire at Harry before recoil forces the gun out of his hand. The bullets strike against the shield and drop to the ground, their energy spent. Harry reaches into his jacket -