Deeper Underdark

I will stay back and keep the door open.

As Brewner advances, the voice says, "Wait! You're surfacers! Please free me. I've been trapped here for so long. Please help me get out!". He finally gets a good look at the speaker, it is a female duende. She looks like a gnome, but her skin is stone gray, and her hair and features are the colors of gray and mud. "Please get me out of here quickly and then close the door. They don't know the door is magic."

Oliver had just taken a few steps into the passageway and was nearby Ealdwig.
"Uhhhh, we don't know enough about these doors. What if we close them and we can't get back?"

"I mean, do the passageways move around, or are they just magically blocked with a wall?"

Using the magical circlet, Oliver keeps tabs on whether the wine he placed behind the door they came through is still there.

"Oh, right, but we should help her for sure. Yeah. No doubt about that."

" Don't worry we shall free you and bring you to a safe place" Brewner says as he comes close to the women duende.

Grin stands just inside the door-room, holding Havoc back and feeding her some bread. To Felix, he says: Oi, Sir Finger - maybe see if she needs some healing too?

Grin tries using the 9 Duende sign language dialects to indicate that we are friends.

Ealdwig looks at Grin motioning with his hands again. What is he doing?

Feeling a sense of connection with the trapped Duende. Ealdwig speaks the light command and his chromacloth glows as he rushes to aid Brewner release the prisoner.

Ealdwig nervous and a little frantic, rattles off a ton of questions, not waiting for answers. How did you get here? Why are you here? Who is holding you? How long have you been here? Did you say "they"? Who they? Where are they?

Brewner sees she is held with limited movement by a chain around one of her ankles. However, he's pretty sure he can break the chain quickly with the hammer. They can deal with the manacle when they are back in the main room.

"I can answer those questions after we get out of here. We need to move quickly!"

Felix took position behind the other enthusiastic rescuers, and kept alert for any unwanted visitors.

"Oh, oh, oh! We got these nice thingies, right!"

Oliver ceremoniously holds the psionic communicator with both his hands and talks to Brewner, grinning proudly at their new toy.

"All good?"

He's not quite sure how many words his message could convey, but better safe than sorry. He stands next to Ealdwig and looks around, drawing out his bat.

Brewner allows Grinfletch to communicate in his people's secret language, clearly trying to convey some important message. He then breaks the chain with his Warhammer and accompanies the lady duende to the main room.

He nods at Oliver "I can barely keep up with so many fascinating discoveries"

When he is in the main room he uses his strength to open the handcuffs

Seeing this new captive that was freed that he didn't see in the initial freeing of the captives Stee wonders if she knows about this room and its mechanics.Hello ,I am Stee Jans. I would like to ask you a few questions. Who was holding you captive? Was it the morlocks? Because they didn't go to that much trouble with the other captives I freed.

As you move back toward the main room, the captive moves quickly to a spot beside the door and retrieves an object on a rock behind one of the doors you hadn't noticed before. After grabbing that, she quickly goes through the door and encourages you to quickly close them. She says, "Thank you so much for getting me out of that prison! I would have died in there had you not pulled me out! Is there a way to stop the magic of the doors? My captives don't know they are magic, and they were due to visit me again. If they try to visit me while the doors are being used by the magic, they might figure out that magic is going on, and that would likely be bad. Can we stop the magic?"

Now back in the main room, you finally get a better look at the former captive. She is definitely a gnome, but unlike any you've see before. Normally, gnomes are very colorful, where their eyes and hair, and sometimes skin, can be any color in the rainbow. But this one is mostly sepia tones. Her skin is the color of brown stone; her eyes sparkle, but are dark brown; her hair is the color of mud. Her clothes were once nice, but are now rather tattered, but they also stick in the earth-toned spectrum. Despite the odd coloring, she is still attractive.

In response to Stee, she says, "I'll answer any questions you have, but can we please turn off these doors first? How did you get them to turn on?"

"I will have to admit that this room still hold more secrets than answers for us, but we shall try to do as you say and calm your nerves... Name is Brewner."
Brewner goes towards the panel touches the groove swiping to the left.
"If this doesn't work we will have to open and close all the doors"

As Brewner touches the right most end of the long groove, he feels the sensation that Grin and Stee had reported. As he moves his finger along the groove, the light keeps shortening to end where his finger as at that moment. Once his finger reaches the right end of the groove, the light in the groove goes out. If anyone is watching a door, they see the brief flash of light in the seam between the doors again. At the end, the panel still shows five lit circles, but the groove is again dark.

"Does that mean the doors no longer go to that room, now?" she asks. Brewner takes her back to the doors she came through and shows that the doors will no longer budge. Reassured she says, "Thank you!"

Everyone gets together in the main room by the panel and she says, "I promised to answer your questions once I was safe, so I will do so now.

"My name is Yoci Tulbosog. I am from the deep dwarf city of Brahdhavehl. A month or so (I don't know, I've completely lost track of time) I was supporting a scout team performing a standard patrol sweep when we are attacked by a duergar attack squad. Most of the team was killed and I was captured. They have been trying to get information from me for this entire time, though I have none to give them. Honestly, I think they just like torturing me and hadn't gotten tired of it yet."

"Who was holding me? I was the captive of duergar. There is a duergar outpost not far from Brahdhavehl that is fairly regularly testing our city's defenses. This has been going on for a long time now, unfortunately. I don't know of any organized morlocks. We will occasionally run across a small part or band of morlocks, but they have learned to avoid us for the most part. Usually, they won't even attack lone traders, as the reprisals can be pretty severe."

"Yes, I am a svirfneblin, not a dwarf. We live together with the dwarves in Brahdhavehl. Two generations ago, we svirfneblin lived in our own city and traded with Brahdhavehl. Unfortunately, our city was attacked by the duergar and, when we realized we couldn't win, we fled for Brahdhavehl. They kindly took us in, and our combined might has been able to successfully fend off the duergar ever since. Our combined forces were even able to make counter-attacks which crippled their offensive capabilities and kept them from successfully using our former city as a new stronghold. Unfortunately, that also means our old city is now no more and we will never be able to return to it."

"The other main threat is an orc enclave that is farther away than the duergar. Fortunately, they are closer to the duergar than us, and both of them hate each other as much as they each hate us, so both spend a lot of their efforts on each other, rather than us. If one side won, or if they combined forces, we'd be in serious trouble. Those are the only two organized opponents we have. Everything else is just normal dangers that happen in the Underdark."

"If you are all willing, I would very much appreciate if you could help me get back to Brahdhavehl. I am no one important, so there is no great reward tied to my return, but I am sure that the help would still be appreciated and you'd be quite welcome there. Along the way, I'd be happy to provide my services. I am an acolyte of Callarduran, the patron of the svirfneblin, and know the arts of magical healing. I'm not much of a fighter (which, I guess, is pretty obvious), but can still help with a sling. If I had one. Also ..." She produces the item she had retrieved from behind the doors before leaving the room, showing it to be a pendant on a chain, and places it around her neck. "This is a holy symbol of Callarduran. As a bonus, I can activate it to show me the way back to our temple's main altar. I'd show you how to use it, but you have to be a member of the temple for it to work."

EDIT: The pendant is a gold six-pointed star. The top and bottom points are twice as long as the other four. The edges of the side points look like a capital "M" on its side (with the top pointing out and the insides filled). It appears to be made of gold and is hung on a gold chain. In the middle of the star is a round red gem.

"I am marvelled to find that the underdark runs so deep as to hold these cities and wars."

"Oh, forgive me. These things are indeed terrible, though I am still honestly amazed. I sometimes lose track of what's important and just behold at that which is shiny. Oliver Otter, at your service."

Oliver waved his hand enthusiastically. Then, he approached and handed Yoci Tulbosog his beloved sling.

"Also, I can lend you this for the time being, so you can defend yourself. Meanwhile I will be using this bat. You could say I'm almost proficient with it -meaning I'm terrible but I hit very hard-."

Felix listened bewildered by the tales presented by the attractive mud person.

Wow, it’s like a whole different world down here, not just caves and haunted lakes.

Taking you back to the Dwarf city sounds great - I’d love to see what a society down here was like.

Felix hoped that future doorways wouldn’t be as confusing as those in this room.

Stee look around at the others that he just recently met because of these magic doors and their new companion Yoci. Sounds good to me. What do you think Grin? Onward and Tally Ho!!!

Grin is torn. He feels so sad to hear of the torture and fighting. He is so excited to find out about other little people here in the underdark. He imagines the city to be like a special home away from home.

Grin bows to Yoci and strikes a heroic pose. Dear Yoci, I am saddened to hear of your plight! Please permit me to share some of this chuul meat with you! I shall cook it upon a flame! He looks through his pack to find the meat and find a small hole in his bag.

Uhhh, it seems my new companion Havoc the goat has found and devoured the meat, but fear not! I have some more food here somewhere… Grin cannot find the rest of his rations… the goat ate them too. He feels very proud of Havoc, but is also embarrassed.

You know what - the big folk are getting impatient.He rolls his eyes. I guess we don’t have time to snack. Let’s get going right away.