On the way, they have many adventures and close shaves, including their ponies drowning in the river and losing all luggage but one helmet. Roberts says he wanted the company fighting through the Piccadilly flea circus and fighting the Daleks from Doctor Who, but he says it was cut for time. They have a nasty run in with some trollops, who plan to eat them, successfully squash four dwarfs but they annoy the wizard Gandef, who temporarily turns them to mounds of sand as opposed to real stone. While at the tree village of Riverdale, Ellesquare and the other "Tree Elves" of the high council ridicule the dwarfs for their loss of their four comrades and call it "carelessness." The company entered the mountains after Gandef struggled to open the door until he coughed, which was apparently the password. In the mountains, they encounter Gobblins, which are evil turkeys, who take them to their town, but the dwarves all fight out, Gandef repeatedly decapitates countless Gobblins while in combat, a fifth dwarf dies in friendly fire from Gandef and Bingo gets lost by falling down the abyss. He falls into a cavern where he meets a morose philosopher named Sollum. He challenges him to a game of riddles; with the cannibalistic philosopher seeing Bingo's presence as the only delightful moment in his life. Bingo wins the riddles, and asks what he wins, but then remembers he found a Thing® that was created by evil dark lord Sharon and is Sollum's. So the philosopher tries to eat him but he escapes due to the Thing®'s super-speed.