Oban, as quietly as he can, walks slowly up the hallway, making only slight crunching noises on the fine gravel that makes up the cave floor. As he gets to the end of this hallway, he sees that the room contains several dining tables and chairs sized for Small folk. A stout wooden cabinet against the east wall holds tin dishware and utensils.

Oban Perception: 23

With a Perception roll of 23, Oban hears the faint sound of what seems like...muttered conversation coming from straight ahead of them. Looking into the next hallway, Oban can see another path, this time, it has 2 right turns off of it. He thinks the muttering is coming from the second turn at the end of the hallway.

Wanting to stay behind the others, but extremely curious, Kwisatz is peering under and around their legs. Unable to see well he looks up to Duncan and says "I'm small, but you're even smaller! Go up with our friend and let me know what you see!"

At that point the white raven on Kwisatz' shoulder hops off, and darts between the legs of those in front of him up to just beside and behind Oban to report back to Kwisatz.

perception for raven: 10

(ooc: in what way can/does the raven communicate? In words psychically? Emotions? With pictures? Also, I'm at work, so I won't be able to respond again for another 8-10 hours.)

Duncan reports back to Kwiz everything that Oban has seen using an image of a hallway, the idea of moving forward, and the sound of chattering. There is an emotion of - hope? - attached to the sound of the chattering. 

Can anything be made out from the chattering? Can he tell what language it's in at least?

It's muffled, so he can't make it out real well, but it sounds like gnomish.

Rush will move up the passage towards the voices but turn at the first intersection

Rush moves up towards the chattering, and as he gets closer, he can hear it get a little louder. It doesn't sound like angry chatter...it sounds more like someone mumbling to himself with one or two other voices chiming in every now and again. They're speaking a language that Rush doesn't speak. 

As Rush gets closer to the voices, but before he gets too close, he decides to take a few steps into the hallway to see what's around the corner. From his current vantage point, it looks a lot like the rest of this has looked up to now. There are drab, earth toned walls that have been smoothed down by hand tools. The floors are as clean as you could expect for being in a cave with only a very fine and thin layer of sand or gravel covering an otherwise smooth floor. This hallway, though, curves back to the right a little bit. Part way through the curve, there's a left turn that appears to be the entrance of a room. There's a sign above what looks like a doorway, but the sign is written in gnomish.

Hearing a friendly language, and seeing his companions not seeming to worry about any threat, Kwisatz comes out of Duncan's vision, and heads forward towards the voices saying aloud, in Gnomish, "Hallo! Anyone here? My friends and I have come from the town nearby searching for information. Please don't be surprised, it was dark and quiet outside so we just came in."

Letting Rush take point, Oban will stay 10 feet behind, but making sure to keep Rush, and a view of what is ahead of him, in eye sight. Signaling to Rush as he walks past, "I"ll cover you"  he whispers.

Kwiz approaches the end of the hallway and calls out. Immediately the sounds of chatter stop. As a matter of fact, all commotion stops for what feels like 5 minutes when it was really only about 10 seconds.

"Hello? We don't recognize that voice. Who are you?" [In gnomish]

As Kwiz gets to the end of the hallway, he looks around the corner to see a kitchen with 5 gnomes: 3 females and 2 males, hard at work. Two of them look to be making green colored bread with some green mushroom tops sitting nearby. One of them is pressing a red mushroom top's oil into little flasks. One is standing precariously on top of a barrel labeled "Mushroom Wine" in gnomish. The fifth gnome is poking around inside of an oven.

They're all staring towards the hallway, expectantly.

Oban moves up a little bit so that he is in the intersection between where Rush went and where Kwiz is heading so that he can see both directions.

(ooc: I'll post another map screenshot later today. I'm about to leave for work.)

Continuing in Gnomish "Ah! Sorry sorry! I'm Kwisatz. These are my friends~ As I was saying. We came from town on the rumor that you'd found something that might be effective at dealing with dragons. As you may know, there have been reports of dragons harassing the area around, and while I'm fascinated with the idea of meeting and studying a dragon, I also fear I couldn't effectively deal with it yet... I've only left the...Ah... um... yes. Sorry. I tend to go on and on heh. So... what are you cooking?"

(ooc: here is the map...)

The five rock gnome recluses look at you, still somewhat confused. One of them, over by the bread, looks down at the dough and then back up, slowly and says (in Gnomish), "Well, I'm making bread. But, I'm sorry, we have been given strict directions to let any new guests know that they need to go speak with Fibblestib or Dabbledob in the workshop."

"Understood!" Kwisatz replies, then looking to back and translating to Common to his companions. After doing so he looks back to the gnomes, and, continuing in Gnomish, says "Where exactly shall we find Fibblestib or Dabbledob? And after we talk to them I do hope to try some of your mushroom concoction there!"  with a friendly grin

((I never thought Kwiz would be our Face :P))

[Gnomish] "Oh! Well, so long as our Kings approve, you're more than welcome to try some of our mushroom bread. But, Fibblestip and Dabbledop should be in the workshop. You have to go back the way you came and past the entrance. Then follow the tunnels to the bridge. Cross that and the next room will be the workshop." With a couple of quick smiles, they quickly get back to their work.

Giving a traditional (Forest) Gnome greeting, Kwisatz steps back, looks down to Duncan to hop on his shoulder, and says to the group "They said we've got to talk with their kings! I've never spoken with a king before. Though some of the researchers back at the Library often thought they were kings... Let's go back down the cave and find them!" He then heads out down towards the main cave, (perhaps overly) confident that things will work out

((my color isn't working.... :( ))

Rush follows Kwisatz, happily.

((I noticed the colors weren't working for me, too. I wonder if the website is just having some kind of server issues or something.))

So, turning around to head back the direction you came, do you just follow your steps back down, or are you exploring the hallway that Rush was looking down?

((Kwisatz isn't. He's been told where to find the king! ^^ Though the others can, and may stop him has he heads out. Lets see how they reply. Though considering Rush was the furthest in and is already heading out...))