"Right behind you," nodded Elwin, adding as an afterthought, "Wish we'd snagged a few of those safety vests... this climb looks like it's going to be pretty rough."

((everyone walking through the hoop then Del pulling it around himself sounds like the most humorous))

Del explains as we go to the house It's a one-room, mostly kitchen. There are cakes and tea but one or both is poisoned. The captives are through a hidden door into a cave - probably left open. Barleyman can shoot sticky threads, but like I said I think he fell down the cliff. He kept talking about his "auntie" coming soon, I assume she is bad news.

"Doesn't sound like Shadar-kai..." Mindartis grumbles.

As Del said, the house is one room only, with no bed or other signs of actually being lived in.  There is a table with a white cloth and a plate of cakes and three teacups on it (One full, on half-full, one empty) and four wooden chairs.  There is a kitchen with a small iron stove, an iron teakettle resting on it. There is a kitchen area with a long marble counter, with various baking tools and ingredients on shelves or hanging on the walls.  There are some cases here filled with cones of loaf sugar...maybe about 400 pounds of the stuff.

The hidden door Del speaks of can't be seen (it swings shut when not held open) but he presses his hand against one gingerbread wall and it swings in, to reveal a small cave with ten rough blocks of a clear substance, each containing a creature embedded inside...a tabaxi cub, a half-orc, three gnome children, one elf child, one sprite, and four pixies.

"Get the kids and pixies," Mindartis says. "I'm going to throw this stuff off the cliff," he starts trying to drag the cases of loaf sugar one by one to the cliff face and throwing them off.

((dndbeyond says my lift, push, and pull weight is 600 lbs so im assuming im fine))

"This place is unnerving..." Raven says as she takes in the place.  "Let's get done with what we came for and get gone..." She will grab one of the smaller kids to carry out, two if she can manage it.

Del starts ferrying the smaller creatures to the arrival spot Am I right, that places on the material plane correspond to places in the shadowfell? I think we should transit from that same spot. 

To Mindartis Can we all get the kids first? You can throw stuff and break stuff if there is time, or come back. Groff at least is gonna be heavy.

"Fine," Mindartis relents, putting the crate back down and going to lift Groff.

Del will also grab the teapot and a sugar cone - he already has a cake in his pocket For samples, in case the healers need the material, or for the Academy to study for a cure

When there is a stack of kidcubes, he will shuttle them back and come right back. If someone wants to accompany he'll bring them, or if anyone wants to take over hoop duty that would be ok. He just got a chill thinking of ways to get trapped on the wrong side of the portal.

“I’m not very strong but I could make Mindartis even stronger so he could carry more. It’ll only last for a minute but I don’t think we’ll be here long.” Quentin says as he goes to pick up Cup. Before adding, “Perhaps we can take the sugar with us, this might be where it’s going and we do have a shortage.” 

"I was under the impression that this is bad sugar?" Mindartis seems confused

I am not sure where the poison is added. I did not feel it until I had the tea, but Barleyman was encouraging me to both eat and drink. Could be in the sugar, could be added in cakes and or tea. Hence the samples. But risking time in the Shadowfell just to ease the sugar shortage doesn't seem worth it anyway. Maybe we can come back if the sugar turns out safe

"We don't know that. We can figure that out later though. But if it's just regular sugar then we've provided much needed materials during a shortage." Quentin replies, struggling with just Cub herself. 

"Doing alright there?" Mindartis asks, heaving the half-orc up and starting the trudge out of the house.

Quentin huffs as he says, "Physical.....lifting....isn't....I'm not good at this." 

"Maybe you should cast that spell on yourself," Mindartis chuckles. "Don't forget to lift with your legs, or else you're going to snap your back."

For the tabaxi, gnomes, and elf kid, Del will help Quentin with one at a time since we are the weakest. This should not take too many trips, five of us carrying ten - four of which are tiny, and only two of us are scrawny. Wish I knew where we'd end up teleporting from here, save all our backs

"Don't see why we can't try," Mindartis says.

It's no trouble getting the cube kids out of the house, but Groff doesn't quite fit through the door.

Also, while it's easy enough to get from rock column to rock column--only two to four foot gaps between 'platforms'-- taking those jumps carrying heavy weights might be more complicated. The pixie cubes weigh only about six pounds each, the gnome kids fifteen, the elf and Cup probably about 80 pounds, and Groff...somewhere around 200. So you might want to consider how you proceed.

Elwin offered to assist Del in transporting the children back to the material plane. He remained silent as he did so, an inner wrath growing toward the entity that would do this to these youth, already given up on by the rest of the world.