This traveling cleric isn't an adventurer, quite, but he can take a look; if he can't solve the problem himself he can at least learn some things for the next person.

The first step, of course, is to talk to the family. "What have you been seeing?"

"Odd lights, at all hours. Colorful, mostly. Della glimpsed it. Said it was like a flower or a mushroom, kind of. Something smells like - I don't know, I guess salt? We haven't dared go down to check properly, though."

"That might be some kind of fairy, actually. I'll have to go see, I guess. It hasn't come up to bother you?"

He shakes his head. "Not at all."

"All right. I'll just need a few minutes to get ready - I have a teleport spell; if I come back to the front door rather than coming back up the stairs that's not necessarily a trick."

The farmer nods and wishes him good luck, and tells him to let them know if he needs anything of them.

He prepares - spells to boost his chance of throwing off hostile magic, mostly, but also a casting of Tongues, just in case - and heads down. "Hello?"

A sort of rustling, dry noise is his response - not really words, but curious, lonely.

Whatever that is - it's certainly reasonable someone might have described it as an aberration. It shifts through an array of warm colors, and smells like a forest after the rain, and gently wriggles in place, looking like it's made of leaves and light and feathers and glimpses of fur and wood.

"Aren't you pretty. Can you understand me?" He approaches closer, cautiously, stopping a pace away and offering his hand as though for an animal to sniff.

It shifts and trills. It doesn't really seem to understand the concept of expressive language, but it gloops out a leafy tendril towards his hand, hesitating just short of touching him.

"It's all right," he reassures, keeping his hand still.

The tendril wraps around his hand. The texture's like wet leaves.

The creature gives off a happy, multi-layered trill.

He grins at that, and pets the tendril gently with a finger from his other hand. "Are you doing all right down here?"

Sad trill.

(It's lonely, confused, and this reality feels weird, it seems to be saying.)

"Aw." Pet pet. "Is there somewhere you're supposed to be instead?"

Rippling shrug.

He nods. "Would it be okay for me to try to find you somewhere? The people who live here are worried about having you so close."

Agreeable trill, with a sad undertone.

"It's all right, you haven't done anything wrong. They're just not sure you can be good neighbors to each other. Do you want that, neighbors? People to live near?"

The aberration flutters, waving its tendrils.

There's a distinct sense of 'Yes.'

"All right. I know lots of people, I bet I can find someone you'll get along with. I'm sure that's not the only important thing, though - do you have a way you like to use to talk to people, or should I explain what I usually do when I need to hear from someone who can't talk?"

In his voice and intonation, though drier, more rustling - "someone who can't talk?"

"Nice trick. All right. You said you weren't doing well down here, is it just that you're lonely, or is there something else wrong with it?"

"lonely"

"something else"

"Okay. I might have a hard time guessing if it's not something humans need, but I can start with those." He takes a little notebook out of his belt and flips it open, one handed, to refer to a list on the inside cover. 

Curious trill, and the tendrils begin weaving properly towards him, some coiling about his feet.

"Gently, please. Can you read?" He turns the notepad with its list of traveling supplies around to face the main bulk of the creature.

Ripple, meaning 'No.'

The coils move more tenderly, though.

"All right." He reads it off, slowly - food and water and supplies for hunting and cooking, including something to start a campfire with; tent supplies, which prompts a digression into climate in general; sleeping gear; first aid supplies; navigation tools...

Water [approving noise]. Fire [confused alarmed noise]. Sunlight [happy trill]. Navigation and sleep and first aid all sound confusing, and hunting sounds pretty alarming, but not as alarming as fire.

"Okay." Pat pat. "Fire is pretty important for humans. We're pretty good at keeping it where it belongs, but it's okay if it bothers you anyway - would it be okay to be around people who used fire, if they were careful, or should I find you someplace where they don't?"

Rustling noise, then. "okay".

"All right. That'll make it easier. Did that cover what you need that you're not getting here - sunlight and water?"

Unsure trill, and a ripple.

"All right. Is it that you're not sure if that's everything or not, or that there's something else but you're not sure it's important, or something else?"

"everything or not"

"All right, that's okay. I think what I'd like to do is bring you to stay with my friend Everia, who runs a druid circle, for a little while. They live outdoors and in caves, and don't use very much fire, and there's a lake, and she's used to working with people who don't talk very much, and she can call me to come help again if you have a problem that she can't help with. And if you get along with everyone she'll probably let you stay, and if you don't, or if there's another problem, I can find you someplace else. Does that sound all right?"

Happy trill!

"Okay. I should go up and let them know what we're doing, and then I can teleport us there. It shouldn't take long at all." He shifts his weight a little to get free of the tentacles at his feet.

Sad trill, but the being recedes.

He gives the tentacle around his hand one more pat before pulling away to go upstairs.

"I'm fine," he reports to the farmers. "I'm not sure what they are; some kind of plant monster, maybe. I'm going to teleport us out to my druid friend, it seems like they'll be happier there."

"Thank you so much for the help!" the farmer says. "And yeah, plant creatures do seem like a druid sort of thing."

"Mmhmm. We should be gone within fifteen minutes or so. Good luck with your harvest." He heads back down. "I want to send a message to my friend to let her know we're coming, is that all right? It'll just take a couple of minutes, I can do it right here."

Curious chirp, and "all right?"

"All right." He comes a little closer and sits crosslegged on the floor. "I'm a cleric of Fharlanghn, the god of travel, and he gives me spells every day. And since I travel so much, I have friends all over the place that I might want to talk to, so I get a spell for it a lot. I'm going to need to chant for a few minutes and move my hands around to cast it," he makes a demonstrative gesture, "and then I'll be able to talk to her for a few seconds, and when I'm done she can tell me something, too, if it would be a bad idea for us to go right now or something. But I don't think it will be, I just don't want to surprise her."

Happy hum, and the tendrils bob up and down.

And so he does; the chanting and gesturing take about ten minutes. "Everia? It's Raafi. Found what I think is a lost plant creature, can you host them? I'm prepared to teleport now." A pause, and then he nods. "We can go. I just need to chant for a second for this one." He pats a tentacle again. "I'll put us by the lake, but it'd be polite for you to stay with me until I can introduce you."

"introduce - me" - happy trill.

"Mmhmm. Do you have a name, by the way? It's fine if you don't, you can pick something later."

It makes a noise, like leaves crunching and wind blowing, and ripples an orange-red-yellow like autumn leaves.

"That's pretty. Maybe one of the half-dryads will figure out a way for me to say it. Anyway, are you ready?"

"Ready!" It seems to have figured out how to alter the intonation when it's replaying his words, though the tone sounds off still.

"Okay." He chants, just a few words this time, and the scene around them changes; it's warmer, a little, and the sun is higher in the sky between the leaves of the trees that surround them. The promised lake is a little ways away; they're on the path that leads down to the pebbly, loamy beach that surrounds it. A bird calls in a nearby tree, alarmed at their sudden appearance.

October repeats the bird call, then turns a bunch of very delighted yellows and oranges, and waves tendrils around, exploring.

"I'm not sure how long Everia will be - ten minutes or so, probably, but I don't know if she was busy. You can look around a little while we wait, she won't mind."

The being chirps and starts spreading out, investigating, meandering towards the water - still, keeping a tendril near Raafi. Of course, it's very big, and apparently can spread out quite a bit, so it's able to get pretty far rolling down the path before it's stretched itself too thin to stay near Raafi and keep going at the same time.

He follows, when the problem becomes obvious. "I'm not going to stay long, I don't think," he adds conversationally, "but maybe a day or two. I'll be back, though, I usually spend at least a few weeks here in the winter. Nice climate for it."

The being makes a humming noise - seems more contemplative than sad, at least - and pokes towards the water.

"I do sometimes stay longer. But I think you'll have plenty of friends here, even without me. Do you swim?"

A ripple, something like a shrug, and the being flows into the water a bit more - then back out then the leaves become a bit waterlogged.

"I guess not. That's all right, the beach is nice too." He finds a rock to sit on, and does so.

The being curls around him, trilling happily.

He pets them again. "Do you want to hear more about-"

"Hey, city boy," the call comes from up the path. "Where'd you go?"

"By the lake!" he calls back.

Everia stumps into view a minute later - a small creature, shorter than the farmers' children, who seems to be made of grey rock in a feminine humanoid form, vaguely enough so that the lack of clothing simply seems practical. "What did you find this time?"

"Well, I'm hoping you can tell me. Friendly, though." He gestures with the tentacle wrapped around his hand.

October trills happily, waving several leafy tendrils at the new potential friend.

She comes a little closer and offers a hand, the same way Raafi did at their first meeting. "Leaf and Juuni should be here soon - Leaf's a half-dryad," she directs at the creature's main mass, "and might be able to understand you."

"They do talk a little, mimicking - I've got Tongues on, I'm not sure they'd understand me without it." He repeats Everia's message about the half-dryad to the creature, in case the language magic is helping.

A tendril curls around her hand.

"Leaf! Juuni! Friend! Half-dryad?"

"Mmhmm. Dryads are a type of fey who are partly trees, and live just in one place like that, but they have a body like mine or Elveria's too. And half-dryads are more like us, they can go wherever they want, but they're still a lot like plants, and can talk to them. And Juuni is a baby dragon, I bet he's really going to like you."

    "-huh, I understood that."

"Trees! Dragon! Friend?" These are very exciting concepts!

"I expect so."

"Friends are good."

"They are! You're getting better at talking, too."

"Talking good. Talking is good?"

"Mmhmm."

    "Huh - plant was a good guess but it's not looking like that to me. They don't learn that fast."

"Oh, hm. Do you think they can stay anyway?"

    "Let's see what Leaf thinks, and we can talk about it."

Curious trill.

"I'm running a druid circle, not a home for Raafi's foundlings."

Sad noise. It curls around Raafi a bit.

..."Druid?"

"It's all right, sweetheart." Pet pet. "If this isn't the right place we'll find something else. And druids are - they take care of wild places, and the creatures that belong there. It's hard for my kind of person to live near natural places without damaging them, and sometimes people don't even try to be careful, so the gods of nature have druids to protect them, like my god has clerics like me to help people travel." (Everia nods.)

The tendrils bob around, and the being trills, sounding happy.

They're very cute.

    "You want to stay and see what we're about? I can't promise we'll have a spot for you, but we can see what you can do."

Happy chirp.

She nods. "You stay with Raafi, though, unless he finds someone else to stay with you. Don't go wandering off on your own."

"Stay with Raafi!"

"Good. I'm going to go see what Leaf's gotten up to, I think, I'll be right back." She attempts to disentangle herself.

The being lets go.

Everia steps away, and walks up to and then into a tree.

"So that's Everia. I know she's not the most friendly - her work is important, and she thinks if she's too nice to people it'll make her worse at it. But she's fair; if she says she'll give you a chance, she will."

Contemplative noise. "But nice is good?"

"It is, but it's not the most important thing, sometimes. One of the things she's in charge of here is guarding something dangerous - I don't know if she'll say I can tell you what it is - and if she's too nice to the wrong person, and lets them get close to it when they shouldn't, a lot of people could get hurt."

The tendrils bob thoughtfully. "I want to be nice."

"That's good. There are lots of things you can do where you don't have to worry about being too nice; I don't."

Happy noise. "You are nice!"

"Well, I try." Pet pet. "Part of it is that this is my job, helping people explore new places, but I wouldn't've taken it if I didn't think it was good to do."

Happy rustling. "I want to be helping people."

"That's good. Do you have an idea of how? - I guess you probably don't have enough words yet."

"Words!"

"All right. I think we'll be staying a while, so we can ask people here to tell us about what they do, that should help. What I do - I travel a lot, I've never been happy staying in one place for very long, and I like being out in the countryside, I don't like cities as much. So a lot of the people I see don't get to see clerics very much, and might have the kinds of problems we can help with - being sick, or hurt, I can help with that with my magic, or having an argument with other people around, that I can help with by talking to them and figuring out what they can do so they're all okay. And sometimes they need to leave where they are, and I help them figure out where they should go and how they can get there - if something bad is happening where they are, or they want to do something they can't do where they are, or they just aren't happy, that's usually a good idea. And sometimes there are other problems, and I just kind of do the best I can to figure out how to help, or if I have any friends who could come help. And sometimes I hear about a problem - a disaster, or a war, or something like that, that I know people are going to need help getting away from, and I go help with that."

"Other clerics of Fharlanghn help with building roads and things, sometimes, or write about different places so people can figure out if they want to go there, or travel with trading caravans to help them out and keep them safe, or spend their time talking to important people to make sure they don't do anything that makes it too hard for people to travel."

"People have problems?"

"Mmhmm. It's hard to make a list of them, even a vague list, because there's so many different kinds of things that people can want and need, and so many different things that can go wrong to stop them from getting them, and all of those can be problems, and sometimes very different ones. It doesn't work very well to try to help everyone with everything, since they are so different; most people narrow it down somehow. Either they pick a group of people to help, and learn to do the kinds of things they need, or they pick a kind of problem and learn to solve it, or they pick a kind of solution they'll like to do and learn that. Lots of people do the last one, since it lets you decide ahead of time what you'll be doing, and pick something you'll like - that's what I did; I like travel a lot and decided to help people that way. You might like the first one, though, since you like people so much."

The being makes an understanding noise. "I like a lot of people!"

"I noticed! It's very charming."

Happy noise. "People are charming!"

"You know, you might actually want to try living in a city. It'll be harder, and it might take some pretty strong magic to let you do it, but that's where you go if you want to be around lots of people all the time."

Considering noise. "Magic?"

"Mmhmm. My kind of person - we aren't always very good with surprises. A lot of people assume that if they see something they aren't expecting, it's a problem, even before they know anything about it. And that's good, a lot of the time, because it means they'll be careful with things that might be dangerous, but it's not going to be very good for you, since you're kind of surprising." Pat pat. "But there's magic that can make you look like one of us, if you want, and then people won't be surprised."

Considering noise.

The being then slowly goops up into a very wobbly humanoid. Still orange, of course.

"Oh!" He stands as they goop up, moving to offer a hand to help with balance or catch them if they fall. "That'll help, yes." 

The being doesn't seem about to fall, at least, and does wobble into a more human-ish shape, even forming eyes (mushroom caps) and a crude mouth (that's somewhat too wide).

"Not bad. I don't think that's quite close enough not to worry people, but I'm sure you'll get better at it. Eyes are the most important, I think."

The being nods. "Want to look at people!"

"Everia should be back soon, and then I bet we can meet some more druids. Or I know a couple of other places we can go, if she doesn't want us to stay."

"Yeah!"

"Do you want to learn a game while we're waiting?"

"Game?"

"Mmhmm. Something fun to do to pass the time. Like, we could see who can spot more fish before they get back, that's a simple sort of game. The more complicated ones usually have more rules, and sometimes the person who does the best gets a prize. We could do something like that, if you want, but I don't know what kinds of things you might like yet - I don't think it would be fair for me to get a prize if I win, I probably have a lot more practice at this kind of game."

"Complicated ones!"

He chuckles. "All right. I think I have a deck of cards -" He does, but he only gets partway through explaining suits before Everia comes back, leading a man a little taller and more slender than Raafi, with darker skin and mossy green hair and a reddish-brown scaled creature about the size of a cat, but much longer with neck and tail taken into account, perched on his shoulder. Just before they get close enough to call a greeting, the little dragon launches into the air toward Raafi, the flaps down his sides unfurling into wings as he gets enough clearance for them.

    "Mister Raafi mister Raafi mister Raafi! Is that your friend? Are they nice? Where did they come from?" He flaps twice in the intervening distance and then pulls up to land claws-first on Raafi's vest, scrambling up to his shoulder to peer at the stranger. "Are they a boy? Everia said 'they' but they look like a boy."

"Hello, Juuni," Raafi grins, offering his free hand for the little dragon to butt his forehead against. "I don't know if they're a boy, I don't think they've seen enough humanoids yet to know how to look like a girl. And you should pay more attention to what people want than what they look like, anyway."

    "Yeah, all right."

"This is Juuni," he tells the shapeshifter. "He's a baby dragon - dragons are another kind of person, and babies are very young people who don't know very much and still need a lot of help with things because they're so new to everything."

"Hello Juuni!" the being says, rippling a bit. "Am I a baby?"

"Maybe! I didn't think so, because babies usually already have someone around to look after them, and if they don't they're usually in a lot of trouble, but maybe your species doesn't do it like that. Do you remember anything from before you were in that basement where you met me?"

"Anything. It is different."

"I remember my egg, a little bit." Juuni looks to Leaf and Everia, who've come up while they were talking, and hops over to the newcomer. "-you're squishy."

"You're not squishy!" says the being, firming up under Juuni a bit, then rippling.

"I'm not squishy. I'm a dragon." He butts the side of their head, gently. "Are you gonna let Leaf see if you're a plant? Plants are squishy sometimes."

Rustling giggle. "Yes!"

Leaf reaches out, and there's an odd sense of... taste, almost, at the tips of his fingers where they touch.

"No," he says after a few seconds. "Not any kind of plant."

   Everia nods. "Well, you can stay for a few days, anyway."

"Okay! Thank you."

    "Mmhmm. Do you remember how to get to the pillars from here?" she asks Raafi.

"I'll show them!" Juuni prances on his new friend's shoulder. "I can do it!"

    "All right, little one. Don't leave Leaf behind."

"I won't!"

It's not far, but it's not fast, either, following the little dragon, who wants to show them everything and is only barely managing to restrain himself to things that are even nominally between here and there - here's a fairy ring (the fairies are shy) and here's a stream with good rocks in it and this tree over here has prism wasps nesting in it which they shouldn't eat and that tree has special bark and here's where Mhaenal and Sarra keep the wine they're brewing (he doesn't know why, it tastes gross) and over here...

Raafi and Leaf follow along comfortably enough, catching each other up on the news and gossip.

October has a similarly short attention span, fortunately, and is fascinated by all the things!

They'll have a good interesting walk, then!

And eventually they make it to the pillars, or rather to one of them, a rough stone cylinder some thirty feet high and maybe eighty feet wide that looks like a chunk of the earth was pushed up from underneath. The area around it is cleared of underbrush, and the trees thin out, giving the humanoids gathered here space to move around easily.

Most of them are elves, of a few sorts, though the difference might not be obvious to casual inspection. Halflings are also well-represented, one speaking to a group of gathered children while another two teach a handful of adolescents the finer points of using a sling to throw stones and a fourth lounges under a tree petting a giant snake. The rest of the people here are more of a mixed bag; one looks a bit like Juuni, but with duller scales and standing on two legs like Raafi and Leaf; another looks mostly like Raafi from the waist up, except for a pair of horns on her head, but has furry brown legs that bend twice instead of once and end in shiny black hooves; another is entirely bald, with grey skin veined like marble.

"Do you see anyone you want to meet?" Rafi asks. "Or we can find somewhere to sit and they'll come over and talk to us when they're ready."

Uncertain rustle.

"When they're ready?"