Gordok suddenly throws up.

A lot.

It's gross.

The trio tromp across the Hall to Rothar's. Even if the lovebirds weren't around, a taproom is always a good place to find someone willing to get the shit kicked out of them for money.

Rothar's itself is... well, it's difficult to say. The room is so poorly-lit and smoke-filled that it's hard to get much of an impression beyond the general din and the unpleasant mossy odor. Delic puts his hand on several unpleasantly damp objects and Gordok is very nearly trampled on.

Garrmondo staggers forward until he collides with something solid at chest level and reckons that it must be the bar. Pulling a few coins out of his pouch, he waves them across in the air until a calloused hand snatches them away.

When three tankards of ale come skidding over the counter directly into his chest, he tries not to take it personally.

Garrmondo staggers from table to table looking for a place to sit, but the only free chairs are at a table occupied by an unfriendly-looking pair of ne'er-do-wells squabbling amongst themselves.

"That's the problem with you", one shouts over the din. "Always the wallflower. We're never going to pick up the fly honeys if you can't loosen up a little." It looks a lot like one of the armored fellows Garrmondo met atop the Fang, but this one's wearing chainmail on top of his plate. Seems a little redundant.

A pale green dragonborn across the table from the iron man takes a hesitant sip out of his mug, winces, and buries his snout back in Edwin Palborter's Encyclopaedium of Various Peats.

"Flies don't produce honey, last I checked. You must be thinking of bees."

"Bee honeys? No, man, that's stupid. I want to catch them, not be them."

The dragonborn slams his book shut with a thud and glowers incredulously at his companion.

"We're in a taphouse 3 miles underground and you want to catch bees? We're a stone's throw from the Underdark, any bee you might find would be a 10' tall albino covered in spikes."

"Bees? The hells are you babblin' about now, scaly? I'm talkin' about ladies, not bees! How do you even get those mixed up? They got nothin' in common!"

The iron man downs the rest of his tankard in one long draught and slams in on the table.

"Although I guess bees do have those narrow waists. That's kind of womanly."

The dragonborn buries his face in his hands, exasperated. "You don't even have genitalia", he mutters.

"WHAT'S THAT?" shouts the warforged.

"I SAID, WHY DON'T YOU SING US A GENTLE ARIA!"

"Well now, why didn't you just say so, home dawg?"

Reaching out behind him and pulling out his lute, Glock began to play a tune.

Get the Flash Player to play this audio file:

Gordok and a line of rats are drawn to this mysterious, beautiful sound.

Seeing as how he's got a small audience, it dawns on Glock that he might be able to take advantage of this situation.

"You, General Tom Thumb. Eat one of those rats and I'll buy you another beer."

Having emptied his stomach earlier Gordok was more than happy to comply, and besides, rat was delicious. Another beer please! Gordy smiles brightly at yet another wonderful man made of metal as he slurps down a tail and gropes around for another squeaky morsel.

Disturbed and delighted by the man's (or so he thinks. It might just be a child. It smells like it was just burped recently, at the very least) willingness to go along with what he says, Glock gets up and goes to order another jug of ale.

"Well, that was the best 2 gold I've spent in some time" he thought to himself in delicious beeping binary.

As he gives the little thing his reward, Glock realizes he's made a new friend. At the worst, all he's doing is providing copious amounts of alcohol to a minor. At best, he's got a new toy he can probably influence for the worst.

And should he ever get bored of it, at least it's small enough to punt a great distance.

"Hello small one. I am Glockenspiel McSteelchest. But you can call me Glock. [and if you do not, I will tear you in half]. Who are you?"

Gheth winces at the sound of gears grinding as his friend's jaw works in solemn melody.

"Look, dogs or bees, you're going to have some trouble with results. If you can ever afford an...upgrade...I may have a tincture for that. Let's see, it was gallbladder of lemur, jellyfish venom, shaved human horn..."

Gheth trails off and grimaces, realizing that not only has he missed another conversation in progress, but that it looked as if a newcomer to the conversation had just eaten a rat.

Well, more power to him. He's building a better immune system, he muses.

Glancing back at his scaled friend, Glock just mutters "Or I could weld on a 10 inch steel pipe down there, I ain't paying you for shit. I've seen how you operate."

Trying to avoid the thought of steel erections and their respective licensing codes for now, Gheth cocks his head and looks closer at the smallish young lady in front of them.

"You know, little girl, it really can't be good for you to have your brain on the outside of your body like that."
A note of concern enters his voice. "Can it?"

He quickly shuffles through Dynasarus' Tome of Humanoid Anatomy, coming to an oft-earmarked page displaying a musculoskeletal system.

"No," he says, putting a finger on the page with authority. "Clearly not. But I'll take it right off for you if you wish. Gheth McGarnigal, M.D., at your service."

"I say we call him Scampy." Glock mused.

"Anywho, I figure you all look like you're on the job. Normally I'm not this willing to team up with people who keep children as pets, but I'll be frank. We need the work. My compatriot here...sort of got us fired from our last one. I told him many times that was the patient's liver, not their heart. Motherfucker didn't realize he had the book upside down"

"We've spent a few days just chillin down here, hoping to hide from the bastard's wife. Drowning our newfound unemployment in this shitty beer. Can you believe all they serve down here is Coors? God damn."

"Long story short, I need to holla holla to get some dolla dolla. You down?"

Get the Flash Player to play this audio file:

BEEEEELLLCCHHH!!!

"Ah, my apologies. Sometimes I lose control of my other facets and then they display themselves."

Gordok squinches his features a bit and the bulbous brainy part diminishes revealing an otherwise normal halfling face.

"Ah, so then let's see. I would be.. yes yes. I am Gordok of Zark. After my mother. A wonderful brute she was. Used to make rat stew for me as a special treat. Anyway Gordok or Gordy or Gord is good by me. Really, anything is good. Call me what you like."

The halfling takes a nice swig from Glock's reward.

"Yeah, so nice to meet ya, Glock! Oh that reminds me! We met some giant metal men on top of a wonderful cliff by a lighthouse a few weeks back. Got one of them to throw me must have three stories high and how knows long into his metal box of a ship, right. Perfect aim! A bit dizzy afterward but goodness what a thrill!"

Gordok admires this metal man as well and decides to share a common interest.

"So yeah, I too play a lute meself. Not nearly anywhere as good as your performing but I can do a little ditty or two for my amusement. Got a little thing going on in my head related to this two group's deserters. They were an interesting pair. Now it's not quite there yet I realize but I think it might get me a few coppers on a lucky day."

Gordok pulls out his lute and plays a few opening strings then starts strumming somber notes.

Get the Flash Player to play this audio file:

Well I heard about some strangers
What met down in a wet ol' cave
One was tall, thin, and handsome
The other dumpy but surely brave
They set off on adventure
To escape an early grave
But were set upon by fiends and foes
For days and days and days

Now you must come to understand that love's a strange old thing
Under candle light and evening stars their hearts did sing and sing

Through battle of the mighty
They danced with staff and blade
Igniting those with passion
In their unrelenting raid
They commanded all their fury
To those they chose to aid
But oh the dwarf in all his course
Never did get laid

Their flirting was outrageous and not a thing to miss
You'd think they would get on with it yet no not one sweet kiss

Herald this strange odd couple
Of fair elf and suitor by his side
Heaven decreed that it would not be
So I say although I wish I lied
In happiness and health of both
A dwarf and his elven bride
But no
I fear they both have died

Gordok blows some foam from his face and sets down his mug.

"I like fermented yak piss!"

"Sounds good to me. Let's rock and roll, my new homie."

"Let's get the hell outta here, though. Even I'm beginning to become annoyed by the unique...musk in the air. I'm sure the avid reader here will follow suit once he's done his chapter on the basic anatomy of mollusks."

"But there's something I need to look for right quick. Come find me outside when you're leaving."

Grabbing the three empty mugs on the table, and noticing a distinct lack of napkins, Glock looked around for an implement to dry the mugs out with.

Spying a rat Gordok hasn't eaten yet, Glock picks up the rodent and uses it to mop up the beer piss at the bottom of the mugs.

"Ok. Dry. Not necessarily sanitary, but it'll do.", he thought to himself.

Obtain three empty and dry beer steins.
Obtain and subsequently discard one beer soaked rat.
Place soggy critter in front of Gheth.

Getting up, and heading out the door, Glock looks back and says. "You, short round. You smell like you know the most about...feces. I'm gonna need your expertise. Come help me out here for a minute."

Get out of the bar.
Throw down a couple of GP to cover the bar costs of the mugs.

While outside, Glock looks around for any place in the cave where bats may have hung, and subsequently shit all over the ground.

Nature Check

CHOOSE YOUR OWN PANG

If nature check passes "find bat shit" challenge, go to area and begin search for mineral saltpetre, which might require either an additional perception check or another nature check. I'm unsure. Second roll is for this. If successful, harvest enough of the mineral to fill all three beer jugs.

Acer's assistance below is in dealing with initial nature check.

Gordok nods firmly, grabs the beer-soaked rat off the table, stuffs it in his pants for snacking, and makes his way out the door behind Glock to assist in finding wonderful fragrant guano.

Nature Check

For completely unclear reasons which probably have nothing to do with engineering gunpowder, SteelChest meanders around the Hall of search of great quantities of bat shit.

13 + 4 + Aid Another = 19; good enough

With the halfling's aid, he easily recovers enough guano to fill all the steins.

Reasonably advanced chemistry will fall under Arcana, since any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from etc

16 + 11: extremely good enough

Glock spends the next few hours purifying the guano, extracting from it a relatively small quantity of small white crystals. What possible use he intends for these crystals cannot be imagined.

Gheth spends a couple of hours in the bar, his only company the rats that have gathered to catch crumbs as he dines on a steaming pie that has entirely too many moving parts to have been cooked properly. A particularly furry centipede hangs from the corner of his mouth as he takes in his surroundings, and then the rats.

"Well, the important thing is that I'm meeting new people."

The rats seem to remember that they have prior obligations.

"Ohhhh..."


_____

Later, Gheth finds his way into the street, trusting that he stands out enough that his new friends will be able to find him wherever he goes. Taking out the copy of the map that Brugg not-so-kindly gave him, he heads for the Minotaur statue towering in the center of the cavern, and looks it over for any distinguishing marks or clues as to what they may encounter below.



Jinkies! Perception check!



Directly following his wussy display of usin' eyeballs, Gheth grabs his party together and prods them towards the underdark, while alternately pulling some chewin tabaccy from his pack, and holding his crotch.

Snapping his pimpin' scanner goggles to his face, wiping the poo residue on his tools onto the nearest thing that wasn't actually his (in this case, the clothes of an oblivious passerby), and hoisting the child onto his back, Glock went forward to join the rest of the group.

Wonderful science will have to wait!

Gheth examines the massive bronze minotaur most thoroughly, but there's not much to learn. The statue's arms are spread wide in an exultant pose, but looking around the Hall it's hard to imagine what he could possibly be so excited about. A circle of faintly glowing runes surrounds the statue, but Gheth's knowledge of the arcane isn't significant enough for him to even try to interpret this. Maybe some of the more permanent residents would know something, but it didn't seem terribly important.

The dragonborn patiently rustles up his new allies and makes for the Deep Stair. If it was mysteries and adventure they were after, it only made sense to head for the deepest, most dangerous parts of Thunderspire right off the bat. That's just basic efficiency.

Without any specific destination in mind, of course, it was kind of a toss-up where they'd arrive.

After two hours of wandering aimlessly about the ruined corridors beneath the Hall, the party finally stumbles upon something worth noticing. A tiefling in luxuriant robes sits by himself in a massive chamber with a vaulted ceiling, rifling through his pack aside a mostly-dead campfire. The tiefling looks up as the party approaches, smiling pleasantly.

"Hail, fellows! Are you as lost as I am?"

"Well, we've only just begun searching the area, really, but perhaps you could tell us if you've come across any minotaur ruins while you've been down here."

"Erm...why are you down here again? According to my friends here, there are only supposed to be a few wizards confined to the upper levels."

Insight check

The fire's almost out, so Glock goes to the side of it and picks out 4 ounces worth of the coldest charcoaled embers.

Because his plan is very...sneaky. And not obvious AT ALL.