Okay… Okay so, why did Gerald reach for the stolen lockbox? That thing had sat there for untold decades, maybe centuries! He couldn’t wait two minutes to finish pulling up Pinkerton and Rainart? They could have helped him get it! Instead he dislodged it and it sank into the abyss.

If from a writer’s perspective the lockbox needed to be lost (which I would understand perfectly), why not something that doesn’t make Gerald look like an idiot? Here’s an idea: Gerald does retrieve the lockbox, but Pinkerton and Rainart are too heavy to lift. So he uses the lockbox, heavy with gold, as a counterweight to help lift Pinkerton and Rainart back up (Pink and Rain on one end of the rope, treasure on the other, ledge as the fulcrum). Then, when all three are safe, they go to pull the lockbox back up, but it slips out of the rope and then it’s lost.

That way, Gerald would have looked both selfless and smart for literally using the treasure to save his friends!