Makara IC

Steam & Parveth
The genasi almost looks disappointed by the answer. "Wouldn't a shield do a lot better job of that than a big knife? Blocking stuff and such?"

The wood elf rolls her eyes at the dragonborn's response and returns to focusing on the ants.

The ant lead them down the path until it forks again, this time in three directions. The left and right paths look like they incline upwards while the straight forward one looks like it slopes downward. The ant leads them down the straight forward path.

Steam
"A followup sworrrrrrrrr-oohhhhhh." She points at the dragonborn as the realization hits her. "You could also just bodycheck 'em with the shield and make off while they're getting their standing again."

While Steam tries to give Ketha a lecture about swordplay, the path they're taking takes a wide turn. Once around the bend they see the path straightens out again and just at the edge of their vision they can see a pair of vaguely humanoid figures.

Parveth
Noting the humanoid figures, the wood elf's sense whirl from focusing on the ant to trying to ascertain information about...whatever they are.

Meta:

She can hear more ant chittering. She thinks coming from behind them, there it has a sort of echoey quality and yes... the figures seem to be chittering as well now that the ant the group is with approaches them. A few moments before the others can, Parveth sees that these figures have four arms. As they get closer they can all see that these figures, while bipedal, appear to be man sized and somewhat proportioned ants holding pikes in their lower set of arms and spears in both their upper arms. The pikes are crossed to bar entrance (at least symbolically, most ants would just walk right under the pikes).

Parveth also notes that right behind the pair of ant-men the tunnel narrows.

Parveth & Steam
As she eyes the people-ants, the wood elf says, "Adelinde, your speech with them might become useful again soon. Steam, have you ascertained any magic on our travel here?"

The genasi gives her a blank look. "Have I what?"

The wood elf pauses for a beat, continuing to eye the people-ants, before stating in something like disappointment. "You have not been scanning. I should not be surprised by this, given your focus elsewhere, yet here I am. Hmm."

The genasi shrugs, unconcerned but recognizing the shift in mood.

Short Rest:

"I am sorry," replies Ketha to Parveth in a hushed voice. She does not know how to feel about the ant-men, but it seems that to remain cautious seems to be the correct action here...

Parveth & Steam
Picking up on the dragonborn's hushed apology, the wood elf stops walking and fully turns to face her, somewhat worried. "What, what did you do?" Her eyes dart around quickly, checking for what the dragonborn might be apologizing for.

The genasi also pauses, but still seems pretty unconcerned. She does give Ketha Drachedrion a questioning look, however.

"I distracted Steam, and put us at risk. It will not happen again," Ketha solemnly assures the party...

The ant the group has been following walks right up to the ant-men and chitters something at them. They chitter back and raise their pikes upright so they are no longer blocking the path forward. Having perhaps gotten a bit closer you all may notice there seems to be blue light coming from somewhere past them.

Parveth & Steam
The wood elf looks at the dragonborn for a long moment, steadily becoming less worried, before stating unemphatically, "Oh. Well do not concern yourself with that," and turning back to concern herself with the ant.

The genasi nods in agreement with Parveth. "Yeah, don't worry about it. I'm a big girl; I probably should've thought to do the thing. Besides, I've got a razor-sharp focus, you couldn't distract me if you tried!"

The wood elf blurts out a "HAH!" The two turn to face each other, and Parveth very smugly says, "Hah," before once again returning her focus to the ant-men.

The ant men look at you.... somethingly. You don't really know. You can't read ant facial expressions.

Ketha remains wary at the ant-men somethingly expressions...

While Ketha stands there warily doing nothing the ant that was leading you walks past the ant-men, down what appears to be ten feet or so of narrow tunnel, and into what looks to be a larger room. Though none of you can be absolutely sure thanks to the dim glow and the fact that you're just standing right where you were.

"I guess we don't have to talk with...whatever those things were." She says with a slight shudder after getting past them.

Past the two ant-men, Adelinde walks through a short tunnel of about ten feet. After those ten feet it opens up into a huge room lit by blue lights of some kind. Once inside the room Adelinde notices two more ant-men on the other side of the short tunnel, armed the same as the other two. They look at her but don't do anything else.

Adelinde hesitates a moment on seeing more of them before continuing on into the next room following the guide ant.

Once Adelinde is a few feet past them, she sees one of the blue lights close by is actually a blue fire. There are many of them lighting up the huge room, but it's still a pretty soft dim light. There are many ants going to and fro. After a moment Adelinde notices an unpleasant, though not overpowering, smell and realizes that the room is rather humid (which is a pretty noticeable change from the cool dry tunnels the group has been traveling in so far).

The ant that was leading the group is waiting a bit up ahead for the group to catch up. Upon seeing Adelinde it continues forward.

Steam & Parveth
The genasi and the wood elf follow after Adelinde, Steam giving the ant-men a friendly wave and Parveth just sort of cautiously watching them.

On seeing the blue flame, the genasi lets out a little 'ooh!' and begins prepping the Detect Magic ritual. Things are probably going to happen before she finishes prepping, but that's fine.

The two nearby ant-men seeing Steam start doing something turn towards her and point their spears at her.

Steam
The genasi quickly leans back away from the spears, before taking a step back. She leans her quarterstaff onto her shoulder before raising empty hands. "Whoa-kay, got it, you guys you don't like anything except ants, food, and tunnels. Note taken, jeez."

The smaller ant that had gone ahead comes back and begins to tug on the leg of nearest member of the group.... which happens to be Parveth.

"We should get moving," comments Ketha as she gets moving...