The Adventures of Krinsblag: Curioser and Curioser

This time I catch up with the rest of Krinsblag's adventures in a gnome town.

Entry Two:
Things have taken a very strange turn in our expedition. We found a small hut that turned out to be occupied by a gnome named Wallhorn Tallcrippler. Apparently the settlement of gnomes has remained alive down here for the past four hundred years, although how I've no earthly clue. Tallcrippler wanted to know what we wanted and I like Tidingston do most of the talking. Tallcrippler wasn't too thrilled to see us, we had to explain we thought everyone down here was dead and we were very surprised to find anyone down here. Eventually Tallcrippler told us to go down to the main settlement and meet their leader, but not before Tidingston picked up a doll on Tallcrippler's shelf which proceeded to bite him. The doll, I mean. It's a little weird but I decided it was better not to probe too deeply into it.

We headed down into the settlement and it just doesn't make any sense. On one side there are a bunch of houses where the gnomes live and on the other there's a giant wall that they're working on. What's worse is that the gnomes are suffering from bleaching as well. Apparently if gnomes don't experience new things it starts slowly killing them and making them age. As far as Tidingston can tell buiding this wall is so mind-crushingly tedious that it's literally killing them to finish it. Overall it doesn't look good.

The town guard escorted us up to meet their mayor or headman, whatever you call it, gnome by the name of Foster Foechuckle. I don't really care for him, bit of an asshole and he wouldn't speak to anyone other than Tidingston. Foechuckle outlined the bleaching problem and Tidingston said we might be able to help if they let us poke around. Foechuckle wasn't too happy about having strangers in his community, but he assented so long as we help build the wall. I'm not looking forward to helping with the wall, but it's an unfortunate necessity. There's also a cleric of Asmodeus in here too, a sort of tiefling, but I don't care for him either.

Foechuckle assigned us quarters in one of their dormitories and we met a couple of the locals. The young ones seem to have some spirit left but most of them are utterly crushed in terms of morale. Whatever this bleaching is it's hitting them pretty bad.  While I was out doing some exercises the cleric showed up and talked with Tidingston, Soma, Feron, and Meda (That's the dwarf). Apparently he wants to meet with us at the worksite at midnight. It's about eight now so we'll just have to see how that goes.

Entry Three:
Everything has taken a turn from the strange to just plain don't make sense. We met the cleric at the worksite and he showed us why the wall's been taking over four hundred years to build. Every night a crew of gnomes disassembles part of the wall and shifts the bricks around so that the gnomes on the day shift have something new to experience to take the edge off of the bleaching. Where it doesn't make sense is that according to the cleric if they didn't tear parts of the wall down every night the wall would be done in a matter of days. Weeks at the outside. Which would mean the gnomes could leave this damn place, contract fulfilled, and be cured of the bleaching. Yet if Foechuckle knows this, why on earth is he making them tear the wall down every night just so it gets built again in the morning? It makes not damn sense and I suspect someone is lying to us.

The trouble with adventuring parties, I will admit, is that when the party reaches a crossroads everyone has to add their opinion and then debate it endlessly. Even Meda got involved. What we concluded was if we disabled enough of the night crew they wouldn't be able to tear down the progress on the wall and it'd actually get finished. I suggested we get some booze from the surface and get them rip-roaring drunk or, failing that, have me start wrestling them, which sounded like a lot of fun. I think Meda suggested we use me as a distraction while everyone else went to kill Foechuckle, although it may have been Soma. Point is someone said if we got rid of the incompetent leadership we'd be able to get the wall finished. We continued to debate about it and Tidingston ultimately decided to start the wrestling distraction with my assistance.

The wrestling actually started out rather well and I managed to tie one of the overseers up but then the guard got involved and it got pretty nasty. The guard had these bladed gauntlets, which is a weapon only amateurs use by the way, but the nasty part was the poison. It stung me pretty good but we managed to knock them all out too. Tidingston pulled out a swarm of spiders which was pretty awesome. I wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of one of those. Once we took care of the guards we realized the rest of the party had run off, presumably to kill Foechuckle. Hopefully they haven't gotten themselves into too much trouble.