[1] The Lower Road

Following the kobolds, you're led deeper into the tunnels, past untold generations worth of decayed detritus and the abandoned accumulation of the eternity that the kobolds have been trapped unnoticed below the rest of the world. Tattered canvases look as though they'd crumble to dust if they were touched as they hang loosely in front of the tiny insets that the diminutive lizard-people unwillingly inherited from the drow - the only semblance of privacy they've ever had. But these slums are their homes. You pass several communal kitchens where rust monsters and slugworms are rotisseried above open flame, and you can't help but wonder how they could have lasted down here so long.

Finally, you come to a stop in front of a set of huge stone doors that reach at least twenty feet high - clearly gaintish construction. One of the two doors is open a few feet, and you're ushered inside. On the other side of the door, dormant arcane circuits are etched into the floor, but the patterns are seemingly broken or incomplete. In the center of the floor is a magic barrier of some kind, and inside it is an ice elemental that stands nearly as tall as the doors. It is frozen in place, probably by the barrier.

But as you study it, one icy blue eye - over the course of a minute - turns to lock onto you.

Laaesh discovers - with some time and study - that the circuit is complete, it's just out of place. Someone has, at some point in the far past, actually picked up some of the 200-pound stones and exchanged their places on the floor. The question is why? And the answer is obvious. Someone never wanted that circuit completed. So should you complete it now? You've heard stories of spells that had to be finished to be dispelled. But you've also seen what can happen if spells that were never meant to be used are used. The Mournland anyone?

With your minds made up, you begin to head back out, with S'sylin explaining that you must seek guidance on the matter (however you want to explain that). This does not sit well with all of the kobolds, however, and by the time you've reached the entrance to their tunnels, there is a veritable horde of tiny lizard-people surrounding you, yelling and cursing not only you but also each other. When you try to begin climbing back up, looking for handholds or some other way to get back up (Acrobatics/Environment check, DC 12), they begin pelting you with tiny stones, fish bones, and other pieces of trash. "No run away!" "Stay and help!" "Evil-hearted giants!"