Jasper slowly walks up to the collapsed wall with spear at the ready and peaks into the courtyard.

PERCEPTION:   20

Rel continues walking forward behind the party scouts, quarterstaff in one hand and the other hand free.  She says in a low voice:

"It looks almost like the entrance to a lair of the duergar.  The gray dwarves of the Underdark, sour and always scheming.  Roywyn and I barely escaped with our lives when we stumbled near one.  Yet this place has a feel as if... as if those that carved the statues are long gone.  Does anyone see any evidence of more recent activity?"

Falver keeps an eye out for trouble, and investigates the 3 piles of rubble... looking for anything out of the oridinary. 

"What are these heaps of rubble?" he says in a low voice to the others.  "The footprints, obviously not a dwarf... be on the lookout everyone..."

(Stealth:  24                             Investigation:    26

"I think the piles of rubble may be the debris of the excavations of the dwarves..." Khessa speculates, keeping to look around, but her blue eyes always coming back at the disturbing entrance flanked by the statues "while digging, they might have discovered the entrance to this temple".

(Apologies, I am posting from work so I can't update the map yet but I will when I get home!)

Echo notices a set of what look like dwarf bootprints leading behind one of the big piles of rubble in the courtyard. As she strains to listen, she can just make out what sounds like muted conversation.

Jasper and Falver notice the sound as well. As Falver rounds one of the piles of rubble, he sees two dwarven men, their backs turned to him. They seem to be bickering with each other quite heatedly, their arms waving to and fro. Every now and then they cast their eyes toward the entrance of the ruined temple as if expecting something to come out.

"No, no, no, we can't just leave," says one of the dwarves. "There's still loot to be found, I know it!"

"We've found nought but dusty old bones and hideous monsters! I say it's time to call the whole venture off and return to the village," says the other dwarf heatedly. 

Jasper hearing the voices, he turns to Khessa, Rel and Echo and raises his finger to his lips. Seeing Falver walk around the rubble, Jasper positions his spear behind his shoulder and slowly follows...

Echo waves to Rel, Khessa, Falver, and Jasper, trying to catch their attention. She points to herself, mimes a talking motion with her hand then points to where the sound of conversation is coming from. She looks confusedly at everyone as if asking, 'should we talk to them?'

Rel stays quiet but agrees with with what she thinks Echo is trying to communicate.  Whispering lightly and using a Message cantrip to speak inside Jasper's mind, she asks:

"Jasper Mooncrest, are you seeing the dwarves we were sent to speak with?  If so, should we be sneaking up on them?  We want them to trust us."

Khessa, seeing how her companions are behaving, finally realizes that they must have found... someone behind one of the big piles of rubble. And, for some reason, nobody seems to start the conversation. Are they afraid of something?

The blonde arcane warrior approaches the heap of debris, turns around it, so as to emerge from the opposite side to that from which Falver and his companions are (in order to draw attention to himself instead of them - in case what is behind is hostile). Khessa is relieved to see that it's just two dwarves; they may be just what they were looking for! She approaches them with determination and greets them: "Good morning!" she smiles brightly "Are you the dwarven prospectors? Harbin Wester, the Townmaster of Phandalin, wishes to warn you of a serious threat..." her expression becomes a little more concerned "do you already know about the white dragon, Cryovain?"

Jasper is startled by the sudden voice in his head. He turns and stands up straight and nods to Rel. “I was just being cautious. Forgive me.” 
Jasper walks up behind and to the right of Khessa. 

Just as Falver was about to address the two dwarves, he sees Khessa approach from the other side. 

Gods help us... they like to talk to everyone... he thinks as he crouches, ready if the conversation turns sour. Although, considering what happened with the manticore, perhaps letting Khessa talk is a good thing. 

MAP

At the sound of Khessa's voice, the two dwarves whirl around, their eyes wide. One wields a warhammer, and he hefts it into a defensive stance.

"Don't do that!" the dwarf with the warhammer shouts. "You just can't go sneaking up on people like that!"

The other dwarf, with voluminous mustaches, shakes his head. "Calm down, Norbus. It's clear they aren't monsters. Sorry for my thickheaded friend here. My name is Dazlyn, and this is Norbus. A dragon, you say?"

"Thickheaded am I?" Norbus growls, interrupting. "Where is this dragon? Do you think he likes the taste of dwarves? I've got an oafbrained friend here who'd make a fine snack."

Without further ado, the two friends turn and continue throwing insults at each other, the newcomers seemingly forgotten.

"I'm tellin' you, it's not worth it!" says Norbus. "We're no match for those damn jellies, and there's nought but bones in there anyway."

"No match for us, lummox, but maybe not for our friends here..." The one called Dazlyn eyes the newcomers with a thoughtful look, stroking his mustaches with one thickly callused hand.

"Jellies?"  Rel steps out to greet Dazlyn and Norbus with a polite nod once she determines that they are not duergar from the Underdark, but rather just hill or mountain dwarves.

I am just going to have to become accustomed to going on a first-name basis with surface-dwellers I think!

"Sentient slime?  When I was escaping from the Underdark, my... friend and I were forced to run from a black pudding.  Nasty creature.  What do the jellies you are speaking of look like?"

"Sorry for the sneaking, Norbus" Khessa doesn't lose her smile. "It was not my intention to surprise you, but, as I have just explained, simply to warn you both. Coming to your question about dragon's tastes, I fear yes, that beast would like the taste of dwarves - it seems to like the taste of pretty much everything. You two here, alone, could be in trouble, should the dragon spot you. We'd better not linger here too long. But" she is now speaking to Dazlin "if you have a problem with jellies, we could actually help you!" the tall adventurer's blue eye shine with excitement, both at the thought of the mysteries (and perhaps treasures?) that the building can contain, and for the anticipation of the challenge with these monsters "Tell us what you know about these jellies; it doesn't matter if a little or a lot - from what you tell us, at least we will be able to recognize them. And maybe we will also be able to guess some of their strengths or weaknesses. Then, we'll make short work of them! Oh," she adds, as if for further thought "and if you know something about this building, that could also help... we might better anticipate dangers, if we know what this place is".

While waiting for informations, the blonde arcane warrior is pondering and planning already in her own toughts: 'Jellies? Rel speaks about a 'Black Pudding', but I do not have an idea of what it is. Anyway, perhaps are these jellies amorphous monsters? If amorphous, they should be simple. Primitive. So, no way to befriend them, probably. But at least they should be pretty stupid. And not too quick. And most likely unable to hit from distance. So maybe it will be enough to have them chase us, then keep distance and take them down with spells or throwing weapons...'

“Yes...we can help you with these creatures.” Jasper says to the dwarves.  “I think I can also help us as well. Please gather around me.”

Jasper holds his moonstone amulet and begins uttering a prayer in elvish. The amulet begins to glow with a pale blue light. The light flows into and surrounding Jasper and within a few seconds, the light expands into a 60 foot sphere centered on him.

6

All including the dwarves gain temporary hit points and the light dissipates in 1 minute.

"Yea, we got you! But did these jellies cause whatever happened here?" Echo asks, gesturing to the collapsed buildings.

To what Jasper cast, "Hey, thanks! That was very pretty." Although she has no idea what this light is doing.

While waiting for informations by the dwarves, Khessa is pleasantly surpirsed by the soft light that suddenly seems to embrace her. She takes the time to stop her planning for a moment and turn her head to the elf in a flutter of blonde curls: "Thank you Jasper, your spontaneous contribution is always welcome!"

Jasper smiles awkwardly and nods at Khessa and Echo. “I’m happy to help. Hmmm! That took a little out of me. I might have to take a little rest before I can do that again. But I’m good to go.”

Dazlyn and Norbus exchange glances, their eyes gleaming. 

"Aye, we could sure use some help with the jellies, 'tis true," says Dazlyn. "I'm afraid I don't know much about them. They resembled large piles of yellow ooze but sentient, though they didn't seem too clever, eh Norbus?"

"Probably cleverer than you," Norbus shrugs. "We didn't stray too close. I'll fight goblins any day but those things in there give me the creeps!"

Dazlyn nods. "We've been clearing this place out for months now, haven't found much of anything that's valuable. The jellies didn't cause all this ruin. Looks to be some sort of avalanche or rock slide crushed the inhabitants long ago."

Norbus stares balefully up at the dwarven statues with grim faces. "'Tis a temple of evil, this is," he says darkly. "It's a Temple to Abbathor, the dwarven god of greed."

If either dwarf perceives any irony to this truth, they do not show it. 

"Stop brooding so much," demands Dazlyn. "We did find something of value we could give you for clearing out the temple of those monsters. Let me show you."

Dazlyn digs into a leather satchel and withdraws what first appears to be two plain, although very smooth, stones. "These are [Tooltip Not Found], good for sending messages long distance," he exclaims. 

"Well friends," Khessa turns to her fellow adventurers "apparently we don't know much about these 'piles of yellow ooze', but we can make some reasonable assumptions. From how they describe them, they must be very simple and primitive organisms. Not very smart. And almost certainly not very fast, since they have to crawl. They have no eyes or ears, so they can't 'see' or 'hear' us. They probably detect things using touch; they may be able to perceive nearby creatures from the vibrations of the ground, but almost certainly not too far away. And since they don't use objects, I doubt they can strike from a distance. Should they even be able to 'spit', i do not expect this to be a very far reaching attack".

The blonde arcane warrior takes a deep breath before stating her strategy proposal: "Based on all this, I would suggest: let's go in and light up as much as possible, being careful to notice these 'yellow oozes'. One of the magical hands that Rel Serafin or Echo can produce could makes something (a rope, a chain) crawl on the ground and I could illuminate the object with a Light spell... So the object might precede us. The ooze should detect the object, even before they detect us, and start following it. But even if they detect us, no problem, we just need to be careful not to get surprised. We'll be followed by the ooze. We'll be faster than them. So, we can back off and hit them, either with ranged weapons or spells. They won't be able to catch up with us, nor to fight back. If we see them getting too close, we might stop attacking them for a moment and run back, restoring distance. With any luck, they'll be too stupid to know they started a chase they have no hope to win. So they will continue to chase us. Without ever reaching us. And we will keep hitting them. Until we kill them. But even if at some point they give up the chase... we should at least have weakened them a lot and maybe at that point we could chase them and finish them off. It should be a painless win".

The tall adventurer's blue eyes glide excitedly over all the companions: "What do you think? Does anyone see problems? Or do you have suggestions for improvements?"