"Skameros also good at hiding and sleeping...sometimes at same time."

Perigrog looks curiously at Skameros, "How did you take a bugbear?  Did you raise it from a pup?  Never mind... the underdark has been chaos of late, this is hardly extraordinary."

Taking a look at all of you, Perigrog seems to consider the situation, "I don't know what you know already, but the Blingdenstone recolonization effort has pretty much been a disaster.  None of the colonists are really front line fighters.  We were supposed to rely on our summoned earth elementals to do that work, but something in Blingdenstone makes them go crazy.  That means we have to fight with our own weapon and lives.  Unfortunately, we seem to be under assault by oozes of all sorts and our weapon supply is non-existant.  So we have to mine for barter for weapons from the Duergar.

Here we mine salt.  Good quality salt is worth quite a bit, and we have plenty of it.  Unfortunately, it is deeper in the mines and our access has been cut off.  There's a path that oozes seem to travel that bisects one of our tunnels.  There's so much ooze traffic there that they have actually etched a trench.  Regardless, we are stuck mining poor quality salt or risk losing more Svirfneblin to oozes.

It would take us one shift to mine our quota if we had access to the high quality salt and return to Blingdenstone.  If you are looking to help, then you can choose:   Help dig a tunnel to bypass the ooze highway.  Or help us mine the less good salt.  Or offer your own solution to this problem of ours."

Rodolfo was already attentive, but the mention of oozes got him super curious.

"We have some experience with oozes ourselves and might want to actually investigate if we can solve the problem instead of diverting it." He looks at Skameros, "Instead of digging a tunnel around it."

"Is the ooze traffic one way or both ways? When did it start and how frequent is it? Also, would you know of the types of oozes that seem to be traveling there?"

Perigrog answers, with a look of distaste as he seems to be recalling, "One way. Too frequent to risk miners travelling past.  All types, sizes and colors."

"They must be going to see King too..."

Beegred: "I hope we can solve this ooze problem without more acid baths.

"Hey Pirogi, so at one time there wasn't an ooze caravan bugging you? Anything you can think of that happened around the same time traffic picked up, like a new area visited or a strange object found?"

"Did you consider simply increasing the height of the tunnel where the ooze are crossing and just...build a bridge over where they cross?  Would probably be a lot easier than digging a whole new tunnel.

Perigrog thinks for a while and answers, "All I can say is the oozes started showing up, then gnomes started catching the OB sickness.  As for your bridge, if the oozes sense us, they attack and chase.  A bridge wouldn't be a solution."

After a pause, "Oh!  The oozes also started shouting 'Food for the Faceless God' every time they chased us."

"Not the faceless god again..." Narstin mutters under his breath.  Then, louder, "Yes, that would make a bridge less helpful if they attack when they sense you.  Was it only recently that this new path started to be used by the ooze?  Have you tried blocking it off?"

Perigrog gives his best answers, "I suppose it's been months by your surfacer calendar.  Deep gnomes are not really that interested in keeping time.  As for blocking it off, are you volunteering to try to make a liquid tight seal out of a fissure oozes can sprout from at any given moment?"

Rodolfo says, "What's the OB sickness?"

Perigrog looks a little surprised at his own verbosity, and a little ashamed, "Well, we don't really know.  Svirfneblin that spend time outside of Blingdenstone seem to become afflicted by behaviors that are not... well... very gnome-like.  They become distrustful.  They sometimes steal or hoard.  They lie, laze about.  Many become obsessed over various 'things' and some develop odd personality ticks.  Babbling.  Hallucinations.  Temporary paralysis.  Because it seems to affect those outside Blingdenstone more than others, we've come to call it Outside Blingdenstone Sickness.  Or OB sickness.

Our priests are kept busy doing their best to reduce the effect of OB sickness, but they can't seem to cure it.  None are wise enough and are all very much out of touch with the old gnomish gods who's worship they have rekindled."

Rodolfo thinks for a bit, "Maybe these things are connected. Might be worth investigating where the oozes are going to and whatever the Faceless God may be."

"But that's a longer term plan. We should figure out a way for you guys to be able to continue working. It seems to me that spending some time to dig a tunnel to bypass the problem will return the investment very quickly and is definitely a better use of our skills than just mining some poor quality salt for a day or two."

He looks at the others and then back to Perigrog. "Please show us what you have done so far and what's the plan and lets figure out the best way forward all together."

Perigrog leads you down the mine, across a dizzying quantity of forks and vertical shafts.  Eventually he arrives at his destination.  "Down that way around the bend, is where the oozes cross our tunnels.  There's a large fissure and we're not sure just how far deep it goes, but the oozes can travel in it, so we need to avoid it.  We've started this tunnel, working on it when time permits.  We figure it will be several hundred feet long before we can rejoin the tunnel below.  We just hope the fissure doesn't go this far or else our effort is wasted.  At a couple feet per day, we should be done in several months if all goes well."

Beegred scratches his head, as this thinking is a lot of work. "Is it like a thick river of blobs? Or that there is risk of encountering one or two while going to your salt mines? Are the mines themselves safe? If you are asking for bodyguards there and back, on the stray chance of a blob encounter, then doing that for your good word for us is something I'd be willing to do."

Perigrog answers, "No no, not a constant stream.  They come in one and twos, every once in a while.  But once they become aware of us, they pursue us until we destroy them or manage to outrun them.  We just do not have the equipment left to fight them all the time.  We have no choice but to avoid them as much as we can."

Rodolfo says, "We have fought some before, so our first approach would be to see if we can help you guys through and back. Lets go take a look"

Perigrog leads you down to a bend in the cave and dares go no further.  You all peek around and with further description from the fearful gnome, this is what you face:

(What looks like a river in this map is being re purposed as the etched trench along the path the oozes take, as they go from bottom right to top left.  The 'bridge' is something the gnomes have to put down to cross this trench, but is set aside to avoid having it be dissolved by the oozes.  You will all be coming from the top right of the map.  The gnomes want to follow the tracks to the bottom center to access the lucrative pure salts.)

Rodolfo listens if the can hear the ooze screams.

Then whispers to Skameros, "Throw a rock to the other side of the trench, see if anything crawls out to investigate."

"Across the bridge?" And Skameros will grab like a head sized rock and throw it over the trench.