Chapters 1, 2, and 3

Sarith looks oddly thoughtful and takes some time thinking before he speaks up, I don't know the way to the surface, no. But the gnomes of Blingdenstone often trade with the surface races, they might know the way," he pauses for a moment, "But that does nothing for our myconid friend, he still has to go home."

Jimjar speaks up at this point, "My people could certainly lead you home to the surface. I'm fine with going wherever you choose, you've made things interesting!"

Stool is quiet through the exchange, but finally you hear in a sad tone in your minds, "I just want to go home..."

"We go around, that's the only way. Should only take a month or so." Sarith says. Suddenly he grabs his head and sinks to his knees, groaning in pain.

Sarith stands up a few moments later, shaking his head, "No, I don't think so... maybe just a delayed reaction?"

You're surprised to learn that he looks a bit afraid and confused.

Sarith sees Mai'ngor watching him, "Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. Let's be on our way to the Neverlight Grove."

Sarith sighs and sits down. He looks truly exhausted, even more than the rest of you, and he has a haunted look in his eyes.

"Alright, let us head for Blingdenstone, then. Just give me a moment," he says, remaining sitting for a few more minutes before he rises, shoulders his supplies and gestures for you to follow.

"And maybe they can help me get back home?" Stool responds to Hunter, hopeful.

The passageways of the Underdark are ominously silent as your party follows Sarith (sometimes with Jimjar's advice) to Blingdenstone. During this time Sarith seems less rude and a bit more helpful, even helping the others climb through some of the chutes they encounter in their travels without complaint.

Ten days into the trip you are wandering down a passageway, which is pitch black apart from the makeshift torches that Sarith has shown you how to make with certain plants in the underdark. The tunnel is about 10 feet wide with narrow passageways cutting across your path to the left and right ahead of you.

Suddenly you can hear clacking noises and the sound of heavy footsteps from the tunnel on the right. They are approaching rapidly, and you watch in fascination as a couple of huge beasts. Xeliss recognizes them as hook horrors immediately, but all the others see are large creatures with vulture-like heads, with the body of a beetle covered in bony spike that jut out from its exoskeleton, and its arms end not in hands, but in massive hooked claws.

You see them just for a moment as they cross the passage in front of you and run into the side passage on the left side.

Hunter has learned in her studies that hook horrors are mostly blind, but they have incredible hearing. Sarith confirms this information, so even if Soliin had a torch lit it wouldn't make a difference to the hook horrors noticing him, so long as he was quiet.

It seems more like they're fleeing from something than giving chase.