The Danger Gang Meet Some Friendly Little People
After a quiet night at Theoritus's house, the Danger Gang rises, feeling well rested and ready to investigate Aege.
As they head towards the ruins, Martialis decides to do a little investigating. He asks a Blue Bird if it had seen a confused, naked man, or a korred. Unfortunately, it had seen neither. It does, however, warn them against the dreaded Moratanya, an evil black rooster ghost. They take it in stride.
They soon arrive at Aede, but there seems to be no ruins in sight; just a hill with an oak tree atop it. They investigate it a little more and find a foot wide hole in the ground between some roots. They widen the hole a little bit to find that it leads to an underground chamber. Can ties a rope around the oak, and down they go.
They find themselves in a fifteen by fifteen foot room with four doorways, one in each cardinal direction. A quick listen check reveals two things: the sound of moist clay hitting the ground to the west, and a small, high-pitched voice to the East. Its decided that the sentient is more pressing, and so east it is. They cross through the doorway, brushing aside roots that hang from the ceiling. They only get so far before the roots come to life and grab everyone but Arben. Insects come crawling out of the wall, ready to attack those so entangled, but Arben dispatches them with a gust of wind from his magical dagger. A high-pitched voice yells "Death To The Iron Holders" in some fey tongue. Two tiny men blink into view and fire arrows at Arben, then disappear. Karp yells for them to calm down in Bulgar, and luckily, they understand. They accuse of having kidnapped an ambassador from "the doodya of the north". Karp assures them that we're friends of the forrest, and would do no such thing. Arben urges him to explain that they're friends with the dryads and Martialis says to tell them we defeated the uties from the eastern part of the forrest. The doodya try a little chicanery to fool the Danger Gang, casting an Audible Glamour claiming to be a utie, but the Danger Gang is not so easily fooled. The doodya seem to be less hostile, and bring out their leader. Karp and Tobin successfully broker peace with the wee-one, and even offer to search for the missing ambassador, who is pressumably in the western part of the dungeon. He hopes for a long peace between the "jelyu" (what he calls normal people) and the doodya.
The Danger Gang praise him for his wisdom and compassion, then leave to find the guy he was too cowardly to track down. They begin to explore the western half of the dungeon, and soon find a door, behind which emenates a noise that could only be described as barking. It's agreed that Karp should go track down Ramble so that he can help disarm any traps that they encounter. Karp runs back to town and informs him of the situation, but then his melancholy nature rears its head. He is too depressed to return. Ramble pops up and they kick the door down. Behind the door they find a Three-headed dog with a tail that is a snake chained to the wall. It barks at them angrily. Arben tries to sooth the savage beast with some music, but only calms it down to a mean spirited growl. The naturalists in the party declare that it's an abomination, and must be slain. They fight the beast and evetnually slay it. Ramble skins it, in case anyone ever needs any three headed dog skin. In doing so, he notices its organs are a twisted mockery of what organs are supposed to be. Ramble then investigates a small chute in the north side of the room. It leads down about fifteen feet, then levels off. It is decided that the chute can wait. They want to finish investigating this level of the dungeon.
They explore more of the dungeon and soon find a small room with a bas relief of the boatman Charon carrying a small cup. A voice calls out "One obelis for the ferryman". Ramble drops a gold coin in the cup, there is no rattle. The voice calls "To the left is the cave. To the right is the grave." Others head into the room and hear the came request from the disembodied voice. Those who drop a coin in the cup receive the same information. Arben is curious about this cup, and decides it bears closer investigation. The coins they dropped in are not there. Martialis casts Detect Magic, and it is indeed magical. Arben takes an arrow and pokes it through the bottom, it passes into some unseen space. He's really anxious to cut the thing out of the wall and shake all the accumulated gold out (and get a Stone Cup of Holding in the process), but everyone else wants to move along. They head out the other door in the room which leads to a T intersection. The T leads to two identical rooms with thirty foot deep holes in them. There pretty sure one leads to the cave and the other to the grave, but they're not sure which one they want to go to (cooler heads argue for the cave). They still want to finish up this floor, however, so they double back to another unexplored corridor.
They soon find a barred door. Karp presses his ear up against it, and instantly decides he should head in. He opens the door and barges through, making a bee-line for the other barred door in the room. "Come on guys, we have to get this door open". He starts banging away at it. Everyone looks at him confusedly. They look around the room. There are three cages; one has a tiny winged man in it. Another appears to be empty. The third is empty, but its door is wide open. Martialis peers behind the door to find a tiny man, vaguely raptilian in appearance. He immediately starts questioning him as to what's going on. He urges us not to open the door. Everyone asks Karp why he's so anxious to open the door, but his only response is that some guy wants him to. He casts Flame Blade and starts trying to melt his way through the door. This is unlike the normally prudent Karp, so everyone is a little disturbed. They urge him to slow down and think about his actions, but he'll have none of it. He's a man possessed. Can decides to Web him so they can talk this all out. Unfortunately, Karp is not caught in the web. Now, Martialis seems pretty eager to kill the little reptilian fellow, but Arben wants to talk to him a little more. Martialis will have none of it. They light the web on fire. It burns up the small man in the cage, and everyone else gets a little charred. Ramble starts chucking holy water at the "empty" cage to reveal an imp. Everyone is getting a little sick of these diminutive men (everyone except Karp) so they agree to kill them all and lot God sort it out. They splash more holy water on the imp and cut up the reptilian gentlemen (upon his death, he turns into a pool of sperm). The imp begs to be left alone, but the Danger Gang will have none of it. They keep splashing holy water on him until he dies. Karp comes out of his Charmed state, and apologizes for acting so weird. Everyone mutters that they're getting used to it. Can picks up an amulet that the reptilian fellow was wearing from the pool of sperm he became. Arben chides him that the perfect compliment to that amulet would be a pearl necklace. They have a good laugh.
They press their ears against the door that Karp was trying to break open. On the other side they hear the sound of clay. "What's going on? Someone making another homunculus in their?" Can quips. He then kicks down the door. On the other side is a Clay Man, roughly three feet tall. He says "My name is Nydon. Pleased to meet you." It then starts fighting the Danger Gang. They send Karp out to find the Doodya to see if this is, indeed, the missing ambassador. He returns with the doodya Rodesco, he quickly proclaims that Nydon is not made of clay, chastising them for falling for such a simple ruse. They ask him to Entangle it in the hanging roots, which he does. The roots grab a skeleton and pulls it out of the ooze. They lead the clay monster into a room cleared ot by the doodya and slay it, unfortunately destroying many tiny childrens' toys in the process. After all that, everyone is pretty tired. Arben juggles a little for the children to smooth things over.
