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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jeremy" data-source="post: 9744118" data-attributes="member: 4036"><h3>2/5/22</h3>Speaking with snails had always taxed Gribitz's limited attention span but the trapped nature of the huge creature awakens his shepherd instincts and he can't resist the tug.  He asks the snail how long it has been down here, how long it has been trapped, if it has any friends, or if it wants him to try help him escape.  The painfully slow response eventually comes that it doesn’t particularly care.  About any of that.  The rebuff rolls right off Gribitz's shoulders and he just moves on to much more fun things to talk to.  He summons up the girls from the Feywild again to have a look about but as they zip off and return they don’t see any trouble initially.  Beyond one of the nearest doors comes the sound of slithering, Gribitz suggests it could be more gricks.  Veldra opens the door and confirms that it is a few of them, dispatching the first.  Rho roasts a few and some of the fey spirits decide to get in on the fun and confuse a few of the others which begin infighting to the titters and giggles of the tiny fey.With little effort expended, the gricks are efficiently dispatched.  Beyond are more hallways and tunnels and rooms and doors.  The flail snail calls out and asks if it can have any of the boulders it saw in the grick room while also happily devouring one of the gricks that had fled into its reach.  The party and their fey scouts investigate the various paths.  One of the rooms has a knightly statue that is bedecked with several rings.  There is a desk with some disintegrating parchment describing a ritual and a recipe and carvings and something about giving life.  The statue has rings on every finger except one, Grath puts the ring from the previous floor on the one empty finger, animating it as a stone golem.  Gritibz insists he is the master of the golem and it insists he is not.  Gribitz persists as does the apparently unintelligent golem for ten minutes while the others try to piece together clues from the drawings and schematics.  The golem speaks with Rho and Veldra about feeling the presence of its master nearby but he doesn’t know where.  They ply the golem with other questions but the simple automaton doesn't know what his name is, what his master's name is, how long ago he was created, or how long he has been dormant.  During the discussion the final ring slips off again and it resumes a resting state.  As the golem would not accept any commands from any but its master and as it didn't seem to have any standing instructions, the party leaves it as is for now.The party surprises another sleeping goblin and Gribitz falls back into his role as the herald/crony of the terrible dragon/demon Rho.  The goblin exile is panicked and rapidly babbles that the goblins above were traitors and that the boss still lives down here.  Gribitz lies and convinces him Rho already killed that boss too and is the new boss of the whole tower.  The party pumps the goblin for information about the various creatures ("new thralls") on this level.  It relays that some of the goblins have had their brains eaten and are puppetted by brain things.  There are small green things that babble words and have paralyzing eyes, also floating tentacle brains that float down in ambush from above, and finally things that sound like the gelatinous cubes that Flint had previously fought with the rug of smothering.  Rho is very uncomfortable with being the center of all these lies but Gribitz manipulates the goblin into heading around and disarming traps it knows of.  Unfortunately it dies in the first trap it tries to disarm.The girls find a little gazer babbling, “Why did Ocelot leave me?  Where are you?” over and over.  Gribitz roasts it when it comes into view with overwhelming bluster that just confuses the little abberation more.  Moving past the addled beholderkin the party finds the remains of some former group of explorers' camp site.  Among the abandoned belongings is a locket with the image of a man and woman within.  In a large trunk are the remains of food and the remains of people, at least two of them.  The party is various levels of appalled ranging from Grath's horror, to Veldra's distant look, to Rho's stoicism, to Gribitz's casual goblin opinion that everything is always only seconds away from a gruesome end.In the next room there is a barrel of preserved blood going bad and beyond that a large bed that Gribitz unwisely climbs into revealing another large mimic that tries to eat him.  Rho however is very experienced in wrecking furniture and between him and Veldra they quickly free Gribitz before he’s too roughed up.  Gribitz just claims this reinforces his point.Kith pockets some gold from a chest and bribes Gribitz when she gets called out on it.  Brain pipes up that it detects the spores of its own kind somewhere nearby unfortunately when it hops down to waddle that way it goes right into the loving embrace of a gelatinous cube.  Gribitz swiftly pulls Brain free with supernatural (and completely uncharacteristic) strength just before Rho spews jets of fire all over the gelatinous creature.  After the giant ooze is dispatched the party finds a whole section of the tower tunnels that have been colonized by myconids.  The fungus have apparently been fighting duergar as several of the dark dwarves' corpses have been animated as guardians by the myconid spores.  The myconids are grateful for Brain being added to their number and offer to introduce us to their patriarch that can answer the questions of the party.  Their colony is fairly sizeable and the patriarch is massive.  He offers to let us rest in safety among his people and Gribitz is ecstatic to stay there.  He moves around tending to the mushroom farms and enriching them with a combination of his druidic magic and his own goblin love of tending to mushrooms.  The myconids are even more appreciative of the enthusiastic work of the shaman enriching their home with years of growth in but hours of work.</blockquote>

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