Left on your own, you spend the rest of the evening reveling at the Inn, until you feel the need to rest.

When you wake, the inn is empty.  There is a note on the bar for you from Tappy:

"Off getting supplies.  Inn not busy during Svirfneblin work hours.  Food and drink prepared to break your fast.  You are free to leave Inn, but public opinion of your party not great.  Even inner Blingdenstone not safe from creatures.  Be careful."

While you partake of the food and drinks left by Tappy, a very young female deep gnome enters and introduces herself, "Nomi Pathshutter.  Dorbo and Senni have summoned me to grant you an audience.  I am currently the ranking member of the Stoneheart Enclave," she says as she points to a brooch on her collar, "while Yantha is away conducting business in Mantol-Derith."

Rodolfo bows, "Well met, Nomi Pathshutter. We learned last night from Dorbo and Senni that you have a situation on your hands with which we might be able to help. It's the four of us and we very much would like to see this settlement survive and thrive amidst all of the chaos in the Underdark. Please tell us of your troubles, what have you tried and if you have ideas on how we might be of help?"

Nomi looks taken aback, like a novice speaking among experts.  "Surely Senni already told you our summoned earth elementals can't go near the eastern part of Blingdenstone, lest we lose control of them and they turn on us.  What have we tried?  Uhh... we keep them away from Blingdenstone now.  Those that have gone berserk are either still loose in the Rockblight, or were lured outside of Blingdenstone where they still wreak havoc, hopefully travelling further away from Blingdenstone every day.  

They won't sit still for us to study them.  I suppose if you bring back pieces of them once they are defeated, I could try to study the pieces.  In fact, that's a good place to start.  I'll even pay you for pieces of destroyed elementals.  The bigger the elemental, the more I'll pay!  Or you can brave the Rockblight and maybe find the cause directly?"

Rodolfo continues, "That's good information. Are they vulnerable to anything? I don't think we've encountered earth elementals before, have we? What should we know about defeating them?"

Nomi looks perplexed, "I suppose they are vulnerable to explosions, or magic that mimics the surface world thunder.  I saw the surface world lightning once, and the thunder it makes.  Fascinating.  But I'm glad to have a proper stone ceiling above my head once again.  Oh, and if your weapons are not magical, they're not going to have good effect on the rock their forms are made of."

Rodolfo says, "We're not doing too good on the magic weapons part."

He thinks for a moment, "I have to ask - might you have some magic weapons we could borrow for the day? Or can anyone do short-term enchantments to make our weapons magical? Or a third option would be if you might have some spell scrolls of arcane magic somewhere that I could learn from? I am an arcane practitioner, but my repertoire is fairly limited as of yet."

"One more question though - how much would you think an average earth elemental weighs?"

Earlier, Beegred was glad that Rodolfo was doing the talking, so Beegred could barely stifle himself. From the way Dorbo was talking, you would think the smurf-blin were bailing out the party, instead of the other way around. (Maybe Dorbo secretly loves oozes, so wants to shift the blame away from them? When Beegred's fellow soldiers were wiped out by stone giants, he blamed the giants, not the other surviving halflings.)

For the current conversation: "For magic weapons, we just need one to help our brawler, Skameros. Swings a mean axe, but still needs a magical boost against elementals and acid things. If you know a friendly forge-domain cleric, maybe they could give his axe a Blessing of the Forge in the morning that would last while we check things out."

Skameros snorts awake at the mention of his name, looks around and nods.   

Nomi looks besieged by the questions..."... ugh... I... ugh.  I mean... if we had magic weapons... ugh.  The elementals are supposed to be our.... ugh... magic weapons.

How much does an earth elemental weight?  They animate the rock that is here.  They weight as much as the rock that they are made of.  Ugh... tons?

A what cleric?  You want a cleric?  Father Gurnik. He's a priest of Callarduran Smoothhands.  If anyone can make your weapons magical, it would be him."

With that, she looks ready to bolt out of the door, waiting for the first indication she can go.

Rodolfo nods, "Yeah, that makes sense. Tons.. okay. As a last thing, would you know where we should look for Father Gurnik at this hour?"

Nomi is looking glad to offload your questions to another and replies quickly, "If Father Gurnik is not at the Speaking Stones, he'll be in his home."

(Assuming you ask around, the Speaking Stones are on the map at area 13)

Rodolfo thanks Nomi once more and says to the others, "Lets go find Father Gurnik and see if he can help us."

He will then lead the group around, looking for Father Gurnik.

Glad to be released, Nomi leaves in a rush.  You gather your party and head out into Inner Blingdenstone.  Underdark civilizations don't work on circadian schedules like surfacers do, but at this time in their 'day', it seems most of the deep gnomes are settled in their homes.  You still manage to find some wandering gnomes to ask directions to the Speaking Stones and you are provided easy to navigate landmarks that keeps you away from some of the more dangerous areas.

You enter a chamber with two exits.  In the chamber you find a circle of stone menhirs dominating the available space.  In the center of the circle, a gnome is prostrate on the stone floor, hands and face pressed down, chanting and emanating a minor magical aura.

Beegred is the only one to realize there is a second gnome, standing against the wall of the chamber, neither making an attempt to actively hide, nor making any attempt to be noticed.

Quote from Kerrec >>

Beegred is the only one to realize there is a second gnome, standing against the wall of the chamber, neither making an attempt to actively hide, nor making any attempt to be noticed.

 Beegred tries to be sly, and indicate the presence of the 2nd gnome without revealing that the party knows about the gnome. When the other party members are confused about his gestures and eye rolls, he blurts out loudly, "There is a 2nd one over there. Don't let that gnome know we know it is there." (You wouldn't have guessed that Beegred is not skilled in deception.

As Beegred loudly blurts out his message, the prostrate gnome chanting in the circle falters briefly and the his magic winks out.  He sighs and throws a frustrated glare at your party.

The second gnome steps forward and speaks, "Peace Wenzock, the stones will still be here on the morrow.  They can speak to you then."  The gnome in the circle kneels and stands, brushes himself off, nods in reverence to the gnome that spoke to him and leaves the chamber.

The second gnome turns to give your party his attention, "Word has spread of your arrival.  The gossip does not paint you favorably.  What brings you to the Speaking Stones?  Are there faithful among you?  Many here believe these stones are ancient galeb duhr, here as manifestations of the ancient gnomish pantheon.  Surely those of you who wish to pray to similarly benevolent gods may find it easier here."

Rodolfo bows and apologizes for the intrusion. He then gives a brief overview of who they have spoken to so far and how they ended up here.

He continues, "Nomi thought you might have some ability to help us deal with the earth elementals. So here we are. Skameros here," and he pushes him forward, "is very very good with this axe of his, but it's not magical. Would you be able to help with this, even temporarily? Or some other aspect of the task at hand?"

The gnome bows in return, saying "You have found Gurnik Tapfinger and our Singing Stones. It surprises me that Nomi has enough awareness of our capabilities to know that Callarduran can indeed bestow such gifts.  She usually prefers to bury her nose in topics of the arcane and daydreams during discussions of the divine.  Unfortunately, this is not Blingdenstone's temple to Callarduran Smoothhands.  That temple lies in the Rockblight and I can feel it has been desecrated, possibly by the medusa some claim to have seen, or by the force that corrupts our summoned elementals.  You wish to have magic weapons to fight the crazed elementals, or maybe the wererats?  Unfortunately, Callarduran does not allow a priest such as myself to just dole out such gifts.  A beneficial act, such as cleansing the temple would earn such a gift, or other similar blessings.  But the age old philosophical question comes to mind... what came first?  The basilisk, or the egg?"

Rodolfo says to the group, "This is going to be a bit of time, sit down and lets see where this takes us."

He nods to the gnome and gathers a couple of loose stones less than a foot across. He sits down and says, "Lets answer that question then in non-philosophical manner."

He holds one of the chunks of rock in his lap and ... it starts to change. Cracks appear, lines appear, the coloration changes and it seems as if it's turning to a chunk of wood. He pulls out his set of woodcarver's tools and with quick practiced motions takes some corners off, then some more, then whittles it down to a round shape. It starts looking like an egg.

Rodolfo then takes the other stone and repeats the process, carving a rough basilisk.

All of it takes roughly 30-40 minutes of quiet peaceful working, the room filling with the smells of woodcarving.

"It's in your hands which one came first, but without one there is no other. You should come with us and observe the process. You might witness things of one kind turning into things of another kind."

After watching Rodolfo explain the intricacies of the basilisk or the egg philosophical dilemma, Gurnik apologizes, "I seem to have touched upon a topic you enjoy discussing, but I think my meaning was lost on you.  As much as I would enjoy discussing matters of philosophy, your friends look rather bored.

No, what I meant is, I can do such a thing called a blessing of weapon.  However, such a thing requires a great service to Callarduran Smoothhands, it is not something I can freely hand out as I wish.  The temple of Callarduran Smoothhands here in Blingdenstone lies desecrated in what we now call the Rockblight.  Cleansing the temple would surely grant you enough favor to earn such a boon.  But to cleanse the temple, you have to enter the Rockblight and there you may have to battle unknown beings, some of which may possibly be crazed earth elementals.

Hence the conundrum that reminded me of the basilisk or the egg dilemma;  You want a blessing to battle elementals?  But to get the blessing, you may end up having to battle elementals."

Skameros squats down to look at Gurnik

"Skameros have no home, like nome home.  Only have friends.  Skameros try to help friends back to their home, maybe find new home.  If Skameros has to help nomes get nome home back before helping friends find home, then Skameros has one choice, clean nome home before we roam"

and he sits on his rump, exhausted from such verbal efforts.