Dungeddin and Fognewtin hurry on ahead. Mazzel walks a bit slower, to accompany everyone back into the thicket to his hidey hole. At Rhys's question, Mazzel puts a finger to his ruddy lips and winks but says no more. With Thisbe snuffling for mushrooms out front, the blazing haired gnome guides everyone into and through a thorny bramble to the base of an old oak stump that, by the look of it, was struck by lightening and cracked in half. "Just down in there. Mind your heads, now, mind your heads!" The gnome points to a hollowed out knot at the base of the tree with a cleverly hidden set of hardened clay stairs leading downward. Though it's hard for some of the taller to squeeze through the knot, the inside of the tree opens up vertically and is surprisingly spacious. Though narrow, the clay steps give way to stone and everyone soon finds themselves down below the tree in a round well-furnished room complete with a wooden plank table, four small chairs, one bench seat, a hearth with a flue that must open somewhere up in the wood, and a hearth that has a bit of copper piping running from the back of the cooktop to the hearth flue as an impromptu exhaust. Bundles of wild onions, dried mushrooms, lavender, and thyme hang from pegs on the walls.
Dungeddin and Fognewtin have evidently been quite busy in the interim, for a copper kettle on the stove whistles with steaming water. Fognewtin pours cups of tea and brings these round while Dungeddin lays a platter of creamy oyster and woody morel mushrooms out on the table for the guests.
Once inside, Mazzel winks again at Rhys. "Arquestan's a queer sort. Human, I guess." The gnome knits his brows. "Or not. Hard to say. He don't ever say when he'll come around, and we don't see him but once every blue moon. Saved me and me brother," Mazzel points at Dungeddin, "when we were both but runts. Never done me wrong, that much I can say, and saved my hide more'n once. So when he come 'round earlier, saying to expect guests and point 'em on their way, I says yes."
