The Danger Gang Should Have Done This Months Ago
Quietly resting in their hotel room, the Danger Gang wait for word from their contact, the vizier, Hormle Dirtdigger. Eventually he comes knocking, and says that the king is willing to meet with them. It is agreed that they'll meet in his palace, the Emissaries just need to swim their way in and they'll meet in this fancy back room kind of deal. Agreed.
The emissaries suit up, and Wino gives them all a dose of water breathing. They dive in the underground river and swim along, all the while trying to keep Mr. Cool from swimming back to pluck all the gemstones from this big old pool full of gemstones they saw.
Eventually, they swim into the palace. They find themselves in a room with a big statue with a hammer for one hand and a pick for the other. Also, there is Thurgrim Cavecricket. He's decked out in his fancy armor, with a fancy shield and a fancy hammer to go with it. He begins to question them, but they keep succeeding in making their saves, so his ESP hammer or whichever gives him ESP isn't doing him any good. That's when Mr. Cool stabs him in the back, literally. The statue comes to life and starts fighting and Cavecricket is fighting and then Dirtdigger busts in and Dirtdigger turns out to be some kind of Werebadger, which no one has ever seen before. Zombres casts Phantasmal Killer on ol' Cavecricket, and the bugger makes its way through his defenses and kills him stone dead. Boom. The Golem and Dirtdigger quickly follow suit, though Dirtdigger is just dropped to a negative. They grab all the rich stuff they can off of Cavecricket, and turns out that underneath the armor, he's a Werebadger too. Looks like people are going to have some explaining to do. They grab Dirtdigger and dive back into the river, sneaking their way out of town underneath the bellies of some cave fish. Unfortunately, the river becomes impassable before they can return to the surface. They need to figure out their next move.
They wake up Hormle, figuring a werebadger ought to be able to to dig pretty well. They tell him that if they get caught, they'll out Hormle as a werebadger and since he's the one that arranged their meeting with Cavecricket and all that stuff, he's just as likely to be executed as they are. He sees the logic in this and agrees to start digging up. They heal him a little bit, and, with a little trepidation, allow him to use the Hammer to scan for softer pockets of dirt to aid his dig.
So, he's digging for a couple of hours, when a tiny salamander comes crawling out of a crack in the rocks. He starts freaking out, "It's Laura, oh no!". Karl, on watch, doesn't need to be told twice, and slides down the tunnel to grab the rest of the party. The little salamander turns into a lady and starts fighting them. Dirtdigger keeps whining that he always thought she was just a myth to scare dwarflings. But this myth is real, baby. The gang is still able to beat her up, though. So that's good. She retreats back into the rocks, probably swearing terrible revenge. Back to digging.
A few hours later, Gniping, a ghost dwarf, floats up into the tunnel and starts fighting. He has some sort of crazy, self-willed sword named Glyptar that almost turns Barry Ceasefire into stone, but Barry makes his save. There's a good amount of fighting with this guy, who seems pretty amped up to get the glory for catching Cavecricket's assassins, but they take him out. Karl snags Glyptar out of the air, enchanted by the large gemstone in the pommel. Back to digging.
They're almost done digging when the Hook Horrors show up. Apparently, the Bhijiminis use them as blood hounds. Then Glyptar turns on Karl and tries to petrify him. Karl throws the sword away and it sinks down into the earth. The boys are able to defeat the Hook Horrors anyway. No problem.
Soon they have reached the surface. Zombres creates a distraction with 10 Feet Away and his scintillating robe. The others sneak out of town, back to that inn where they met the dwarven jugglers. Zombres has already teleported himself there. Boom.
They check in to a room, ready for a good night sleep, agreeing to heal up Dirtdigger a little more tomorrow before parting ways.
That night, a tiny dwarf with a looooong beard comes knocking at the door. He wants to talk to Dirtdigger. They step into the hall for a moment. When Dirtdigger comes back, he tells them that was the legendary Dwarven hero Seven-Lengths-Of-Beard-Three-Lengths-Of-Body, rumored to return when...something important was going to happen to dwarves, I can't remember what. They go back to bed. It was probably that matte-black disguise artist that works for the Earthly Beauty, anyway.
