Elfo, Nars and Gourbain continue helping the cultists and kobolds disassemble the guard tower on the bluff above the camp. While they are doing that, a cultist comes up from down below and begins to talk to the main cultist directing the disassembly. Though everyone is too busy to hear their conversation completely, the one from below seems to be saying that they have another prisoner, and instead of packing the guard tower on the cart, they need to build it into a boxcar to hold the prisoner. Indeed, the first cultist directs the workers to unload all the tower parts that they had already loaded on the cart, and they start building them up a different way, starting with a platform, and then connecting walls to it.

Bilbo, feeling disguised enough to perhaps not be recognized as a vicious half-dragon-slayer, makes his way back into the camp. Nobody pays her any attention until she meets the dragonclaws at the mouth of the cave, and one of them asks where "he" is going. The disguise seems to be working well so far. "Just to the barracks," answers Bilbo, and that seems reasonable enough to the dragonclaw to let her pass.

She makes the hard right turn down the partially obscured passage, heading toward the barracks. Where the passage forks, she hears a whisper to the right. "Hey Bilbo, come here. It's Leosin."

Bilbo makes the turn to the right, into a storage room which is now empty except a little refuse. If you recall, Leosin was wearing Hooflepoof's Cloak of Invisibility when they got into an unexpected confrontation with the berzerker that turned all charmed, and nobody knew where Leosin went. "Your friends all got assigned to jobs," he says, "I'm not sure where they all went, they were in three different groups going different places. I have Hooflepoof's cloak, but I really want to take a look around this cave some more while we're here. Do you (or somebody) want to meet me back here in a couple hours, and I can figure out how to get the cloak back to you?"

"Sure," whispers Bilbo. "Do you think I can get a job too?"

"I don't know," says Leosin, "but probably, if you talk to Zokar. He was in the barracks a few minutes ago."

"I think we might all meet up at dinner. Do you know where these guys eat?"

"No idea."

"All right. Well when you're exploring, see if you can talk to my friends. And try to find out when and where dinner is, maybe we can make some sort of plan around that. I'm going to go down to the barracks and see if I can find Zokar to give me a job."

"Ok," says Leosin, "I'll see you later," as Bilbo heads off to the barracks.

Elbolin and Karat, meanwhile, are on guard with a couple of kobolds. Elbolin chats idly to Karat, as if reminiscing about happy times together. "Remember that one time in that village... what was it called, where there were those two trees, and you were by one and me another? And we both chopped down our trees, that was pretty funny."

Karat doesn't remember such a village, but does get the idea, and moves toward one of the kobolds while waiting for Elbolin's signal. Just behind the kobolds' fields of view, Elbolin gives the signal, and they both attack - quickly, but quietly, so as not to alert the half-dragon and bezerkers in the next room. Elbolin launches a flurry of blows but does little damage to his kobold. Karat throws Inflict Wounds and kills one. Elbolin then sings an old kobold marching song that he learned from somewhere a long time ago, and if the kobold wasn't confused before, he is now, but Elbolin still can't land a blow on him. Karat casts another Inflict Wounds, killing the second kobold, but that singing can't have gone unnoticed.

Hooflepoof is over in the drake training cavern, trying to figure out what he can do to help Black Barry, who has been taken hostage. Hooflepoof offers to help escort him somewhere, but the kobold says they aren't ready to move him yet, it will be a while.

"What about the drakes, aren't we training them?" asks Hooflepoof. "Or was this all just a setup to catch the tabaxi?"

"No no, we're really training the drakes, and we'll continue in a few minutes. We just can't right now because the prisoner is in there. We can let you know, if you just want to go chill in the barracks or whatever." He seems to indicate a passage behind him.

Hooflepoof heads to an exit to the west, where there is a stairway heading down. Unfortunately nobody points out that he needs to avoid the top step, which is rigged with a trap. It gives way, releasing a rumbling behind him, and he stumbles on the stairs, barely regaining his balance as he stumbles to the bottom. He saw this room briefly before; there are mattresses of straw and badly cured furs scattered around the messy chamber, and a lot of kobolds - 12 in total, 6 of them winged - lounging and eating.

One of the bigger kobolds speaks up derisively, in a low greasy voice. "You stepped on the top stair!"

"Sorry, it's my first day."

The kobold laughs, "Even on my first day I was smarter than that."

"Well, I'm clumsy," says Hooflepoof.

"Where are you going?"

"Well I was helping with drake training, but we captured this tabaxi so we can't train them right now. So they said I could hang out down here."

"This cavern is for kobolds. Cultists have your own barracks, up by the cave entrance. Maybe you want to go there to hang out."

Hooflepoof isn't in a mood to argue with a dozen kobolds, so he heads back up the stairs. Only when he gets back up to the top does he realize what happened. His near-fall on the stairs may have saved his life; the trap released a volley of rocks from the ceiling, and as it so happens, killed all four of the kobolds who happened to be hanging around in the area right at the top of the stairs. Well, that was lucky.

Just then two of the kobolds come up the stairs to check out what happened. They see the devastation, and the bodies on the floor, and they grab Hooflepoof.

"You don't seem like a new guy," they say, "or at least, not a very good one. We are taking you to Anamith."

Well, Hooflpoof doesn't want to go talk to Anamith, so he kills them. In small groups, kobolds are no match for him. He takes a couple of the rocks and places them on the bodies so that it looks like they got killed by the trap. Just then two more kobolds come up the stairs, and he dispatches them similarly. After placing rocks on their bodies as well, he calls out down the stairs, "Hey can a couple of you guys come up here? I need some help moving these rocks."

A couple more of the kobolds come up the stairs, and he surprises them and takes them out without much trouble. In groups of just two, when surprised, they are hardly interesting. And not so bright are they, that it even occurs to them that something is amiss. He manages to cut them all down two by two, leaving nearly 20 kobold carcasses strewn about the chamber. He tries to arrange the rocks to make it look remotely plausible that all the kobolds were killed in the collapse, but there aren't enough rocks to make it really convincing.

Hooflepoof digs around for the original kobolds who were here, and after a few unlucky guesses, finds the one with the key to the stairwell gate. As soon as he unlocks it, the drakes rush out and without much hesitation, begin to feast on the kobold bodies. Black Barry is also happy to be free.

Bilbo, meanwhile, heads into the cultists' barracks, and asks, "Is one of you Zokar?"

"No," a cultist answers, "he went somewhere. You looking for a job to do?"

"Yeah," says Bilbo, "I didn't get my assignment yet."

"I think I know where he went," says one of the cultists, "I'll go see if I can find him."