Blue Raspberry wanted to be good at punching. They never really liked using weapons, preferring to just use their own, gooey body as the weapon along with their lightning powers and acid. Maybe Zarius could show them some moves? Zarius had had some fire on his hands, that was kind of like lightning, sort of. They didn't know him that well, but he was already friends with Astrid, and Astrid was their bestie, so that made him friends with them too right? Maybe they'd wait until after this mission was over.

The ooze didn't question Zarius's motives with the man at all. Mistrust for someone they thought of as a friend, or at least as a friend of their best friend, just didn't even cross the naïve blob's mind. The unconscious Snow was already being carried by Bstrid, so Blue walked over to the unconscious man on the ground and picked him up, throwing him over their shoulder without much care. If it hadn't been for Zarius being here, they would have been tempted to ask Astrid if they could just eat this guy. He was some criminal that had done something bad enough to be chased all the way up into the mountains for. But, for now they would just carry him.

Blue just looked at Astrid. They didn't know anything about ancient Dwarven stuff, so they really had no answer to Zarius's question.

Astrid looks around at the new details revealed on the walls of the ruins. It really is a wonder how she's managed to stumble into another abandoned dwarf home completely on accident. "Aye," she breathes. "I s'pose that's possible. I've seen older carvin's though..." Stepping over to the wall, she runs her fingers along some of the reliefs, consequently smearing bug guts across it. "These ones ain't worn away as much as some of the ones I saw in Frost Gale. They still got some edge on 'em." Her finger scrapes at the worn but defined edge of one of the reliefs. The walls are largely made up of imagery of dwarven soldiers marching with hammers in hand. Cloudy skies with bolts of lightning roll overhead. 

"We saw a different carvin' back closer ta the entrance," she continues. "Part of it'd been scratched out from the bugs or somethin' though. Whole bottom part was worn off. Looked like Ginma was upset with whatever might've been there before." 

This is definitely something she wants to explore when they have more time. She shakes away the bubbling curiosity. "We gotta find the people! Me two, keep an eye on Snow!" Without further hesitation, she takes off running deeper into the dwarf home. 

“Hey! Do not go running off on your ow- and she is gone. Tch.” Zarius puts his hands on his hips and looks at Wolfe. “Must be tiring trying to keep up with her all the time.”

Zarius walks along with the knight…and the second Astrid. Damn this was too weird. Adventuring with Astrid always turned out this way. What was it with halfies and quarterlings just being ridiculous people who get into ridiculous situations? The world may never know.

He supposes that it doesn’t really matter. The child would do whatever she wanted regardless of what anyone said. The fact that she hadn’t gotten severely hurt or even killed while out adventuring was pretty impressive. She either had crazy luck…or a blue haired guardian angel watching her back.

The tiefling glances at the knight out of the corner of his eye. He still hasn't really figured out what exactly this man's deal is. Or even what he specifically is. It is possible that he just has strange magic that Zarius had never really seen before.

There was plenty of magic he knew nothing about. Even magic he had access to from...well...he isn't even sure of its source himself. That wasn't important to think about right now though. The strange knight might be able to better explain some things about himself that would at least maybe clear up the tiefling's confusion. No harm in asking, right?

“Mr. Wolfe, this is the second time I have seen you with Miss Astrid. Does she rope you into these rescue missions often?”

Blue just watched Astrid run off as they walked along next to Zarius, the unconscious guy slumped over their shoulder keeping them from just running off themself. That was fine, Astrid knew what she was doing probably. She should be fine and she'll find those missing villagers.

"Rope? Nah, she doesn't use any rope at all except that one tied to one of her hammers! Me and Astrid go on all sorts of missions together all the time. Saving people, fighting things, saving people on a boat, fighting bandits. Got eaten by a Chocolate Bon Brush once and met a wizard. We went looking for a ghost once. Oh, we went and searched an underground city to go get a bunch of weapons or something and almost got killed by some big robot for a lady named Veliky! That robot was a big jerk the whole time and then went and called us organic! Rude, right? We killed that jerk and brought the head back to Veliky. That was fun. Drank a weird potion during that. Won't drink that again. It did taste pretty good though..."

Blue thought back to that whole crazy mission. It was at the very start of that mission that they'd made up their new name for themself, Wolfe. That made them think of a question for the Tiefling.

"Hey, do you know Veliky? You're both friends with Astrid, right?"

While Astrid makes her way through the cave or hall or ruins or whatever they’re calling them, the webbing gets thicker and thicker and less manageable. She activates her gauntlets, letting fire wreath her hands so she can more easily cut through the sticky substances. Occasionally, her foot or cape gets stuck, and she has to free them, but overall she’s making progress.

Little does she know, Blue Blabsberry is telling Zarius all the juicy details of their adventures quite a ways back.

---

Short post because I just want to see this conversation between Blue and Zarius continue

The tiefling patiently listens to the knight’s ramblings. For a man that talks a lot he sure does leave out a lot of details, just listing the things that they have fought without any context for the situations they had found themselves in. Most of them do not sound too crazy until there are a few words that just make the tiefling look at the knight confused.

"A chocolate what?"

Ah, he just keeps rambling off other things.

He frowns a bit at the mention of Veliky and her constructs. From what he could gather, one had gotten out of the quarterling’s control and ran amuck. Some of Veliky’s golems weren’t that threatening, hardly seeming to be able to do anything of any use without guidance. But hearing that one attacked the strange man and young adventurer was concerning. For someone who constantly accused Zarius of not being responsible and endangering kids, that story sure did not make her look any better.

"Yes, we are acquainted. She does not like me much. What did Veliky say after you destroyed her golem?”

While Veliky seemed to not have too much emotional attachment to...anything really, that must have been difficult to explain to the business focused, no nonsense quarterling. Constantly replacing those golems when they break down can't be cheap. 

Blue Raspberry thought back to what happened when they got back to Miss Veliky's after the whole incident. Their memory wasn't the best. They'd been mostly preoccupied with the fear of what would happen once she found out about them being an ooze and whether she'd try to kill them with robots for what was probably the second time in their life, but they remembered a bit of it.

"She didn't care about the robots much, but she was real mean to Astrid and me about it! Said she barely made passing grade! All those bots on the mission got broken, but only a little of that was my fault, and it was only because of that weird potion! It was mostly Buffalo! Oh, Buffalo is the name of the big jerk bot that went crazy. Astrid says Miss Veliky's softer on the inside. She told Astrid to be careful and stuff, but she fired me! I don't think she liked me at all! And she just seemed even more mad when I gave her all the weapons and stuff we found. I just don't understand. Something about paperwork. But I'm probably not going to see her again anyways since I don't work for her, so whatever." Blue ranted.

Blue didn't even realize until they'd started ranting about it how frustrating that interaction with the Halfling had been for them. She really seemed to blame them for that robot's smashing of all the others and didn't care when they explained themself. And she seemed to especially dislike the ooze knight from the moment they met.

As they walked along, the guy slumped over their shoulder suddenly let out a weak groan and reminded Blue that they were even there. Blue pointed to the man with a wolf-like claw and looked at Zarius.

"So, who is this guy again? You said he's a criminal, right?"

After finally carving a path through all the webbing, Astrid makes it to a chamber deep within the dwarven ruins. It's completely stuffed with webbing, a whole nest for the awful cave bugs. There are a few oblong cocoon shapes in the webs, stuffed into different nooks and crannies. 

"Hello?" she calls. "Anyone in here? I'm here ta help ya, and me friends are right behind me somewhere!" 

Suddenly, one of the cocoons moves! It wriggles back and forth as much as it can, so Astrid hurriedly carves a path through the webs until she reaches it and starts tearing it open with fiery fists. She starts to see an arm and clothes, and the arm struggles against the sticky webbing! Astrid rips the cocoon open, burning away as much as she can, and the woman trapped inside takes a deep breath. 

"Oh, thank the gods!" she says, falling out onto the cold stone floor and breathing heavily.

Astrid helps her sit up and offers her some water. "Are ya alright??"

"I thought I'd die in there! Get sucked dry or eaten by grubs!!" the woman exclaims. She snatches the waterskin and drinks quickly. "You've got to get the others out! There might still be time!"

Spurred on by this win, Astrid jumps to her feet and starts opening up the other cocoons. One of them has a full skeleton inside. It must have been here for a really long time. Two more have living people inside, though they're both frail and unconscious. She carefully sets them on the ground, but a healthcare professional she is not. 

"Oh, Carl! Oh no!" the woman wails, crawling over and sobbing over one of the unconscious men. 

"Hopefully he'll be alright," Astrid says cheerfully. "Looks like he's just sleepin'."

"Goodness, me, child, you can't have fought all those beasts on your own!" the woman cries. Then a horrific realization crosses her mind. "Y-You did kill them, right?"

"Aye, I think they're all dead, but I weren't on me own. I've got friends with me. They're just... Well, they're somewhere! Maybe they took a wrong turn..." 

Zarius can't help but be amused by Wolfe's ranting. It was nice to hear someone else had issues with how Veliky treated people sometimes. The quarterling could be quite abrasive and difficult to work with. 

"Miss Veliky is a...complicated and troubled individual. Seems like she has a lot of issues she is not willing to address. Perhaps one day she will find someone who can help her."

He muses at the thought. That person would have to be pretty stubborn to crack through the quarterling's prickly exterior. Astrid is pretty stubborn. Maybe she'd manage it one day. 

Speaking of Astrid, the sound of her voice draws the tiefling's attention and he picks up the pace to catch up with Bstrid and Wolfe trailing behind him. 

"Yes, he is a smuggler." Zarius doesn't explain much more than that unless Wolfe asks further questions. 

He reaches the same area that Astrid had found with all the victims of the cave fishers. It's a miracle that many of them are still alive. Seeing that some are in worse shape, Zarius rummages around in his back and pulls out his medical kit along with his own waterskin and some rations. He starts checking over the two unconscious individuals. There isn't much he can do without any healing magic. 

"We need to get these people back to Sky Peak as soon as possible," he says to Astrid, but then glances past at the other two unconscious people they had. "Carrying all of them will be difficult. We may need to wait here until Snow wakes up at least."

Blue Raspberry walked up behind Zarius to take a look at the scene. They wanted to ask Zarius what a smuggler was, but he didn't seem very talkative since he had sped up to reach Astrid more quickly. The ooze didn't want to slow them down, also worried a bit about Astrid. Zarius immediately got to work trying to help the people.

The man still on the knight's shoulders groaned again and started moving. He had already been tied up, so they weren't really worried about him trying to escape, but they just didn't really know what to do with him. Blue wanted to try and help these people too. The knight lowered the man to the ground and put him down.

"Stay here, okay? If you run, I'll..." They thought for a moment on what would be a good threat to stop the man from running. "I'll... I'll eat you!" They said the first thing that came to mind. Wait. Darn, they probably shouldn't have said that! Well it was too late. That was the threat they'd given and they couldn't think of a new one.

The smuggler looked half confused, half horrified. Had this knight really just threatened to eat them!? What the fuck! He just watched as Blue stood up and walked over to the people. Wait. Did this knight have wolf claws and a huge snake tail!? Maybe that threat had been genuine!

One of the villagers turned to look at Blue as they heard the approach of their clinking armor and started to scramble back with a look of fear.

"Hi, I'm here to help! Here, you must be thirsty." They pulled a couple of mismatched cups from behind their back filled with a blue liquid that smelled like raspberries and offered them to the frightened villagers.

---

Ever Flowing Chalice

With Zarius and Blue Raspberry here joined by Bstrid and Spicy Pawsage, they’re all able to take care of the people pulled from the webbing cocoons. The ones offered the blue liquid by Blue take the cups cautiously and drink them, finding that the fruit juice flavor is quite good. They’re happy to drink more, even if it’s kind of weird that the knight threatened to eat the person who’s tied up.

Astrid keeps working through burning the webbing while they wait, which is faster with Spicy Pawsage and his flame breath. Eventually, she gets most of the room cleared and uncovers a couple more of the cocoons, but upon opening them, what’s left of the creatures inside are shriveled husks. Luckily, neither of them seems to be people. One appears to be a deer and the other… she’s not entirely sure what it is, but she does know it’s long dead. Ew…

Now that a comfortable area is cleared for everyone to rest, Astrid looks around at the room they’re in. It’s nearly a perfect square with exact ninety-degree angles where the walls meet the floors and ceilings. She gets a better look at the reliefs on the walls too. Compared to the last dwarf home she found herself in, these are either much newer or much better preserved. Either option is possible. It’s kind of a cool thing to see, geometric dwarven art is usually reserved only for the dwarven cities of Frost Gale or homes for dwarven clans. She didn’t know there were any clans with full dwarf homes in Dragon’s Cradle, but the proximity to Frost Gale makes sense.

In running her eyes across all of the walls, she finds that one of them doesn’t have the reliefs of dwarven soldiers marching but instead has a massive image of a bird with wings spread wide. Astrid’s eyes lock on it, and she can’t help walking over to take a closer look at it. Her fingers gently run along the stonework, looking at the details. She’s almost mesmerized by it.

The bird has a raptor’s beak, and feathers on the head are carved that appear to resemble the horns of a great horned owl. Lightning bolts flare out from behind the feathers. Mountains pale in comparison to the size of the bird. Below, there are dozens of carved dwarves in bowing positions of reverence. Astrid figures this must be a carving of Avasha.

One finger catches a lightning bolt carving, and she follows it down directly below the bird, who she assumes is Avasha, and it eventually comes to a hammer on a plinth at the center of the bowing dwarves in front of a circular stone.

“That’s pretty cool,” she murmurs.

Something makes her brow furrow. What is this perfectly straight line along the wall? Perhaps it’s just where two slabs meet? Dwarves are experts at hiding seams in stone, so this one must have revealed itself over time. How long has this home been abandoned? It’s not that old compared to the other dwarf home she visited, so it can’t have been that long. She hasn’t spoken to many dwarves in Dragon’s Cradle, so maybe a clan moved out of their home in the last few decades.

Hearing one of her companions calling for her, Astrid steps back from the wall and blinks away her curiosity. She looks over at the others and the people they rescued and see they’re ready to go. “Ah, sorry ‘bout that,” she says. “Must be the ol’ dwarven ancestors tellin’ me ta appreciate some good stonework.” Collecting her things, she hurries back to the rest of the group. “We should get these folks home, yeah? And take that guy ta the guard.”

Seeing that the smuggler was awake, that made for one less person they had to carry. He could just walk himself. If he happened to fall down the mountainside and die, then too bad so sad. The tiefling had already gotten what he needed. Getting back to Sky Peak was all that was left. 

The other civilians were not in the greatest shape, but they would likely be able to make the journey so long as the party supported and protected them. With help from the others, they recover a bit and get ready to make the trek back to civilization. 

Zarius finishes any first aid that was needed before taking the unconscious Snow from the Astrid double. This was weird. Why did this kid multiply?

He looks at Wolfe who he presumes is the primary Astrid. "Sounds like a plan. Let us go while we still have daylight to work with. Traveling through the mountains is treacherous enough without doing it in the dark."

It didn't seem like Snow was going to wake up anytime soon, which was annoying, but it couldn't be helped. Zarius hefts him up a bit more onto his shoulders as they start to head out of the dwarven structure. The tiefling wasn't as interested in the place's history as Astrid may be.

The journey back to Sky Peak goes on without any hiccups and Astrid and Wolfe are able to hand over the man to the authorities if they want. Zarius stays out of it, focused on the unconscious catfolk and making sure they are going to be okay and recover from whatever the smuggler had done to their mind.