It took a few more steps toward the cave then stopped allowing Nell to dismount. There had been a growing sensation, a feel of being watched though there didn't seem to be any malice hanging in the air here. The place seemed to be devoid of all life though, no birds or the humming of bugs like crickets. Just silence.

The steed walked beside here, his eyes focused ahead of him as they moved though there had been nothing unusual about the terrain. No sudden movement or the like though the sensation of being watched grew then ebbed away entirely as it vanished completely.

Nell dismounted and stared uncertainly towards the cave. It felt odd somehow, like it was alive and watching her. The forest behind them was unnaturally quiet and it gave the girl a deep feeling of unease. She leaned again the horse, still holding the reins, and tried to get it to turn around on that she wasn't on top of it. "Come on, we have to go back. The professor is bleeding to death."

The horse didn't seem to be listening. It just continued forward. Nell debated letting it go but if she did she'd be stranded in the woods with no way of getting back to school. She didn't knew this forest and she'd had her eyes closed for most of the journey to the cave. She wasn't sure she'd be able to find her way back to the part of the forest she was even a little familiar with. She decided she couldn't afford to lose the horse... Besides, she didn't like the feel of that cave. She couldn't let the horse go in there so she continued to walk slowly beside it and try to convince it to turn around. "No, boy, we can't go in there. Not right now. Let's go back first and then we can come back and check this out later..."

Refusing to be turned around the horse continued on stubbornly. It neighed at her words though as she tried to convince him that turning around was best. It just glanced at her then straight ahead towards the cave then back as if it were silently trying to convince or tell her something.

By this stage though the sense of being watched had washed away. Whatever was out there or that she perceived to be out there had been gone, retreating from the area altogether it had seemed.

Nell felt the tension left off of her as suddenly as it had come. She looked around as though she expected to see something around her but there was nothing there. The horse still seemed determined to move forward and it seemed to be trying to tell her something as well. As though it thought there was something in that cave that she absolutely must see. She sighed heavily and gave up. "Alright, just a quick peek and then we really do have to go back, okay?" It seemed silly that she was standing there trying to compromise with a horse but for some reason she felt this horse was different. That it could somehow understand her. She eased up on the reins and pressed up against the animal. "I can't imagine what you think is in there, big guy. But you saved me before so I'll humor you. Let's just be care, alright?"

The horse neighed as they continued ahead. It stopped looking from her to the cave when she consented to give in to checking the cave out. The horse lead the way towards the cave entering into it. It was dimly lit from the light that spilled in outside while towards the back of the chamber had been a crude alter. There was a statue carved into the wall at waist height of a crude idol.

There was a basin here along the opposite wall half full of a pinkish liquid while there were smaller passage ways branching off of this one requiring her to stoop to proceed down them. A sound issued up behind the alter too, a droning sound like the sound of a fly buzzing about in flight.

Nell immediately froze when her eyes fall on the alter and she tightened her gripe of the horse's reins. "Okay... I'm starting to think this was a bad idea." Her eyes surveyed the scene from where she was. She seemed reluctant to go any closer. The insect buzzing noise did not inspire courage either. Her body tensed as though she wanted to bolt. She had an image of a rotting corpse covered in flies and maggots. She turned 180° so that she was now facing the horse's flank. "What could you possibly have wanted me to see in here?"

The horse bit on the sleeve of her shirt pulling her forward a step as she turned around as if there had been something present here. It released her after doing so just once. And while there was the droning sound there had been no associated smell of decay here. Just silence otherwise.

There had been a faint noise, a ruffling of some sort from behind the alter too, then silence other then the droning sound.

The stead remained stationary more or less as it seemed to be waiting for something to occur ...

Nell frowned as she was staring back at the alter again. The horse seemed quite determined to show her what was in here. She highly doubted it would let her leave now that they were in here. She didn't smell death or rotting flesh on the air, which was a good sign. Some of her nerve was returning to her slowly.

The ruffling noise peeked her curiosity. Was there something alive behind the alter. "Hello? Is someone there?" She took a cautious step towards the alter as she spoke. She tried to get to an angle where she could see around the thing without getting too close to it.

Something back there stirred, a little man it looked like about a foot tall clad in yellow garments. The toes of his boots curled towards the heavens and he had a conical hat atop his bald head. His ears had been pointed and a black peppered beard extended half way down his chest.

The droning sound stopped as the little guy woke up, the sound akin to snoring. He leapt up to his feet at the sound that bombarded his keen ears and he had been startled by the sound of Nell's voice. His eyes went wide as he staggered back and said something incomprehensible as he waved his hands frantically in front of him.

Nell blinked in surprise and disbelief at the little man. She moved towards the alter and tried to get a better look. She'd read of such things in books but she'd never actually seen anything like it in reality. The little guy seemed to be panicking which cause her to stop in her tracks. She knelt down and spoke in a whisper so as not to intimidate the creature. "I'm sorry... I didn't mean to alarm you. My name is Nell. I'm not here to hurt you. I just came here looking for help..."

"Don't eat me ..." the little guy spoke, his words seemed to carry with it a thick accent as he summoned up the phrase with a little difficulty. He still backed up despite Nell's effort to place him at ease. His back had nearly been against the wall when she felt a tiny prick against the back of her left arm.

A piece of wood about quarter of an inch long jabbed her, a dart, smeared in something some sort of resin or poison that caused her to begin to drift off into sleep. Another of these beings, probably the one that was watching her outside, had been behind her and cautiously approaching her ...

Nell shook her head and continued to try to convince the little man that she was a friend. "I'm not going to eat you. I'm just want to... Ouch!" She suddenly felt a shooting pain in her left arm, followed by numbness. She turned her head and looked bemusedly at the dart sticking out of her arm. Her focus began to shift in and out. She looked up to see another little man approaching her from behind. She tried to stand but her whole body was suddenly like lead. The effort to move caused her to fall over onto her side. She tried to speak as she fell. "I'm not... enemy..." She blinked but her eyesight was blurring and darkness was creeping in. She closed her eyes again and this time they stayed that way and she drifted off to sleep.

When she awoke she found herself waking in a tiny room. Old vines had been wrapped around her pinning her arms to her side, There had been a small table here as well on which had been various tonics in small bottles present.

There had been a single door here as well though the door too had been small, about half as tall as an ordinary one. It had been the only way in or out of the earthen chamber that she found herself in.

Nell's flickered opened and she just lied still for a while stared up at the earthen ceiling for a moment. She tried to sit up but found her arms pinned to her side and unable to lift her so she rolled over onto her side instead. She stared at the tiny furnishing of the room and her brow screwed up in confusion. For a moment she thought she might be dreaming. Then she remembered the little men in the cave and the dart that had knocked her out. She closed her eyes for a second and tried to think. Had they been gnomes? Their hats had suggested gnomes. She knew about most fairytale creatures but gnomes had not been her strong suit.

She tested the vines around her hands to see if they would snap under enough pressure. She would forced herself up to a sitting position whether the vines break or not. The ceiling was too low and she was forced to duck her head down in the tiny chamber. It was like being trapped into a doll house. Nell was beginning to know how Alice felt in Wonderland. She stared down at the tiny vials of potions on the table. She wondered if one of those vials held the poison that had knocked her out earlier. It was so strange, she did recall anything about gnomes being apothecaries.

There had been many tales about brownies, relatives to gnomes, that worked on shoes for cobblers in the dead of the night when the cobbler had been sleeping or cleaning house but there was nothing about gnomes that had jumped out at her.

The vines strained as she flexed her arms in an effort to break them. She could hear them wringing as she did so but they remained intact as she sat up. A little more effort and she managed to burst them enough where she could wiggle out of the remaining restraints that clung to her body.

Wondering about the potions and tonics nothing regarding gnomes being apothecaries sprang to mind, the closest being that stupid cartoon way back, David the Gnome, where the lead character was a doctor.

She could her voices, whispers really though they sounded heated, beyond the door.