'You enter a massive Dwarven underground city, held up by four huge columns...'
'If past experience is any guide, our plan should be to simultaneously explode all four columns to destroy the city.'
'Vorsum Brightarm, your Dwarf NPC companion, goes pale at that suggestion.'
'...and comes up with a better plan for us?'
'I command my Axebeak to jump off the ledge and attack the Fire Giant!'
'Does your Axebeak have a fly speed?'
'It has a falling speed, if that helps.'
A guard appears on the ledge above us, some forty feet up. That poses a bit of a quandary for us, particularly as our baboon carrying a rope has disappeared. We have to quickly work out how to get enough of us up to the ledge before the guard can raise the alarm.
Pasha can cast fly, and fly himself up to the ledge, but the wizard by himself will be a bit useless, even more so in combat. He can carry Nerrick on his shoulders, which helps, and it seems like he could carry one more. The monk is the best choice, given his lack of ranged attacks, so Pasha and the monk grab a rope between them.
Pasha flies upwards, with both Nerrick and the monk having readied actions to attack the guard when they get in range. Not a problem for Nerrick, who gets in range when Pasha reaches the ledge, and attacks the guard successfully. The monk can't reach, though, as he is holding a rope and dangling near Pasha's feet.
Never mind, we can see our baboon, squatting in a nearby corner! Pasha's bonus action instructs the baboon to rush the guard and shove him over the ledge, which should cause a healthy amount of falling damage. The charging monkey somewhat catches the guard by surprise, and the guard topples over the ledge.
'The monk's readied action triggers! When he falls, he must get in to range, right?' Sure enough, the monk punches the guard twice on his way down, adding just enough injury to further injury to kill him in one round. A successful plan!
'You see someone looking down at you. He looks surprised. But not surprised.'
'What?'
'He's surprised, but not surprised.'
'Yeah, that's not helpful.'
'He is not surprised, but he looks surprised.'
'Oh. Oh! So he's not surprised enough to give us a mechanical advantage, but you want to convey his emotional surprise at seeing us. That could have been easier.'
'You have successfully killed all the mushrooms!'
'Somehow, I don't feel particularly heroic.'
'There's no railing around this, so you'll have to be careful, Blaise.'
'Typical. Dwarves have never cared much about elven safety.'
Having gone down the dry well, we travel along its tunnel until we reach the end. Or an end, I suppose, and one that may turn us back, as a grate blocks our way and we're not really a party built on strength.
Never the less, we probably ought to try to get through the grate. Nerrick, being at the front, and with no room to manoeuvre in the tunnel, is the obvious choice to burst through the grate.
Our halfling heaves at the grate, and nothing happens. Undeterred, he heaves again at the grate, this time moving it a little. Spurred on, Nerrick gives it everything he's got, and heaves once more. 'Finally, you hear a twang!'
'Has he given himself a hernia?'
After a brief battle in the kitchens of the underground dwarf city, defeating a goblin Steven Segal in the process, our accompanying scout explains what's around us and where to go.
'Over there is the cold store. Ahead of you is the general store. And that is...'
'The warm store.'
'No, the well room.'
'That makes no sense!'
We need to sneak our way through the underground city, rather than face countless guards and bring down the wrath of an army on us. Sounds reasonable. As we hear a patrol ahead of us in a corridor, we duck behind the nearest door, hoping that the room beyond will be less dangerous.
We find ourselves in a small anteroom before what looks to be another corridor. With there being five of us and only four squares available, one of us would have to stand in the corridor, which seems like the sort of thing that would get a person seen when we're trying not to be.
Luckily, we're not in combat, which means our movement isn't restricted, and Nerrick's being a halfling lets him move freely between the legs of creatures bigger than him, which is the rest of us. So the four of us stand in the four squares, and Nerrick constantly jigs around, avoiding the need to enter the corridor and become vulnerable to whatever threat obviously lurks at the other end.
For some reason, though, the GM simply won't accept this use of a character trait clearly described in the rules, and callously shoves Nerrick in to the corridor, where, apparently, 'there are three guards testing a magical repeating crossbow, which is pointing at the archery target next to you', (he has a name, and Pasha is a valid member of our party, so that's a little rude, to be honest), 'and as you step out you hear it fire two crossbow bolts. Initiatives, please'.
After a bit of a spat outside the entrance to the underground dwarven city, the inside seems a bit quiet. Eerily quiet, given that one particularly cowardly fellow decided he'd rather head inside than fight us. Maybe he's just cowering in a corner somewhere, unwilling to make a sound. It seems unlikely that he'd rustle up any kind of party to await our arrival. 'Unless it's a surprise party, with cake and jelly.'
'That would be explain why it's so quiet in there. Maybe they've cut up the gelatinous cube and put it in to small bowls with ice cream for us.'
'What happens, though, when you eat a gelatinous cube?'
'I imagine it goes right through you.'