Garreth leans over to Bleu and whispers, "Should we be afraid?"
Bleu says, "That is an interesting philosophical question. Of what virtue is fear?" During her long spiel about fear, she says that the gorgons have a turn-to-stone breath weapon.
I fly back. "So it sounds like it's the bad kind of getting stoned."
Stonemaul asks, "Are they hostile, is there a reason to kill 'em?"
I shrug. "I'm sure they're hostile. Fluffy bunnies don't have stone breath."
Bleu nods. "Hostile yes, but not inherently evil, it is the hostility of the cat regarding a mouse."
Garreth says, "Tell ya what: if they let us pass without attacking, I'll let them live."
Stonemaul asks, "And is there a reason to kill 'em? They worth something?"
I fly over the gorgons, and see that the path from the room to the left of the fork looks like it goes around and meets up, but the gorgon room forks. I fly back and tell the others. "They are definitely in the way of exploring exits from that room. There might be another exit as well. I didn't peek to the left yet."
Bleu says, "They are of only animal intelligence"
Garreth asks Bleu, "Just wanting to know if they can be negotiated with."
I say, "I don't speak Stoned Bull, Garreth. Do you?"
Polly says, "You can totally negotiate with animals if Zaber doesn't pick fights with them."
I say, "The only time I'd get into fights with them is if they bogart the beer. Otherwise, as long as they share, I'm cool."
Garreth floats into the room with the gorgons. They look at Garreth as if he was tasty but do not strike right away.
We look to see how many rations we have, but Stonemaul pulls out a scroll of Create Food, and prays to know it. He then spends the next hour casting Create Food to turn big rocks into food for the gorgons. The gorgons eat the rocks, and look uninterested in eating Garreth now. "What do you know? They can be negotiated with."
Stonemaul says, "Well, that's refreshin'. First spell I've cast when working with you lot that was not Bless or healin'."
Polly says, "See, because Zaber didn't do it"
I say, "What's with the sudden lip, Polly?"
Polly says, "I still remember the ant queen incident."
I don't. "Was she an intended conquest? Sounds kinda MLIF-y, the aunt queen."
Polly says, "You told me she was a capitalist oppressor that was oppressing the smaller ants in a totally not-nature kind of way. And later we learned that the small small ones were kittens and they starved."
I say, "She was a capitalist oppressor! W-w-w-everyone else of the world, unite!"
We float over the gorgons and go left. Down there, the glowing red shaft opens into the ceiling of a stone crawlspace about thirty feet down. The area below is tight, only five feet high, and there is no light coming from beyond. The crawlspace is a lava seal, a niche carved into the rock about twenty feet above the floor. A narrow ledge, a flow ledge, runs along the wall on the right-hand side. It is only about six inches wide.
The cave structure down here is unlike anything we’ve seen before. The walls are smooth, almost as if someone worked by spell or skill, but the floor is pockmarked and littered with fused rubble. The flow ledge leads to a cramped crawlspace. There is a smooth, round shaft carved in the ceiling of the crawlspace, and it faintly glows by the light of red sigils carved onto its walls.
I check out the shaft, and find that it leads back to the Demonhold near where we fought Balfosa. "Looks like we try the next passage, and hope the bulls are still eating their rock-steaks." However, I catch a glimpse of bone or something in the rocks by Garreth's armor. "Garreth, what's that?" Garreth yanks it loose, and finds a skeleton in the rocks. It has a nice-looking longsword, a shiny long knife, a staff that radiates redly and warm, and an amulet, 10,000 worth of platinum, and a steel necklace showing a hen bowing before a man in a jesters cap.
Garreth tells Bleu to look at the sigils and the longsword. She says the sigils read, "Demons: Keep out," and that the longsword is meteoric.
I ask Bleu about something I heard at the Slumbering Drake years ago: "Hey, you know anything about the Fellowship of the Humbled Hen?" She doesn't, so we go back and see the gorgons are still eating.
We check another passage and find more spellruin ivy. Down another passage, there is cave with a big rent in the floor that lets heat come into it. At the rim of the crack is a huge vine of spellruin ivy coming up through it.
I fly back, and get Blah. "Now, Bore of Babble-On, what the hell is that?"
Bleu says, "It is spell ruin ivy. An impressive specimen."
I ask, "Is it special besides being big?"
Bleu says, "It would make flying through the hole challenging."
I ask, "That leads to the obvious question: how do we get rid of the ivy? We've had trouble here." She ignores me.
Garreth asks her about a herbicide, but Bleu says that since Roundup isn't magic, this isn't her problem. We talk about digging it up and hacking it to bits, and Bleu says, "It will regrow quickly, but more kudzu-quickly than wereplant-quickly."
Polly asks, "Want me to try a cutting arrow?" She fires. The vine takes a decent cut from the shot, and it resisted about as well as Garreth's armor would. It is of normal plant thickness, like an ivy, so a 1/8th of an inch or so for any given bit. It does look like someone can climb it; great handholds. Well, not for Logan; we think it would likely dispel him back to his bag, and regardless, it's not Adventurers with Disabilities Act compliant. It looks like it would wear out ordinary steel pretty quick, and shatterproof wouldn't help.
We choose to ask whether Quintus in town can come up with a plant killing poison that we can dump on it, though Polly thinks she can clear it with "enough arrows." Garreth gets a sample with his non-magical sword, and we check out the rest of the level. There is another spellruin ivy-clogged vent, and another vent that is so hot that our salamander amulets can't hold back the heat. I can see that that tunnel slopes downward suddenly, and ends in a pool of magma.
We go back to Cillamar. We send Bleu to do some research about the Fellowship of the Humbled Hen, and she finds that it was an adventuring party who came to Felltower 38 years ago. Its four members were gnome bard Peduncle Hillspek, arcane knight Sinj Spellsteel, Belda Hammerfell, and fighter Gabel Soufas. Gabel died in Whiterock, Belda retired to Cillamar, and and Sinj and Peduncle are unknown.
We do recall meeting a gnome named Peduncle in the grotto with the strange submarine gadget. Before going to Whiterock, he spent several years "resting" at Haverhold Asylum. So, I go looking for Peduncle in Cillamar. When I get to his home, he opens the door and says, "What? You're back? Why are you back? Are you here to see the beetles, don't hurt them."
I ask, "How did Gabel die?"
Peduncle says, "Gabel? Behir. That's why I decided to stay here, away from everyone, after Gabel died."
I then ask, "And what was Sinj's power item?"
He says, "He didn't have any great power item, just used his robes, he spent all his money on a meteoric sword which totally can't be a power item!"
I ask, "Anyone have a fireball-enhancing staff?"
Peduncle says, "Yeah, Sinj did."
I ask, "Do you know her fate?"
He says, "She wanted me to keep exploring Whiterock with her after Gabel died. No way, no how; I am staying here with my friends where it's quiet."
I nod. "Good move, it seems. She didn't make it out."
He hugs the apparatus. "My best friend"
I tell him, "We found her staff. A skeleton was clutching it."
He says, "Oh, hey, maybe I could use that to create fires down here and keep warm. Or I dunno, I guess maybe you can use it more. Hey, can you bring me some everburning torches to keep warm and cook with and you can keep the staff?"
I say, "Sure. Sorry about her."
Peduncle says, "Yeah, but you know, it was noisy. So many explosions. It's quiet here."
I pipe up one last question: "Where is the Asylum?"
Bad move. "South! AND I AM NOT GOING BACK! It's quiet here. I am not going there. It is not quiet there. It is quiet here."
I chuckle. "Sounds like a fun place. But why did you go there?"
Peduncle says, "I was supposed to rest! They did not appreciate my artistic genius, I was a great bard you know, the greatest, a real virtuoso. But it must be quiet, maybe you should go, I need it to be quiet, we've had a nice chat, chat later, how about you go now." And with that, he shoos me to the door.
