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The Kordovian Adventurers Guild
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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 6985148" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 28: WASTEWATER</strong></p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 1 January 2017</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>Norbert Gasperwillock's directions had been spot on: after breaking camp that morning, the group had followed the roads the gnome blacksmith had told them about and several hours before noon the two wagons trundled up a narrow path leading to a small cottage. Directly in front of the cottage was a small pond, crossed along its middle by a slightly curved stone bridge. Cobblestones lined the path up to the cottage's porch, which looked to be some distance away from the pond.</p><p></p><p>That proved to be an optical illusion, as the adventurers climbed off their mounts, leaped down from the mule wagon, or exited in a stately manner from the back of the Vistani wagon as appropriate. Once they approached the stone bridge on foot, they could see the cottage was much nearer than it had appeared, but only because the gnomish structure was only about five feet tall at its highest point.</p><p></p><p>"Well, isn't that cute?" remarked Finoula. "It's like a big old doll house."</p><p></p><p>"Looks rather cozy," commented Binkadink as he strolled across the stone bridge. He was eager to meet this <strong>Urithiah Stibblepock</strong> for several reasons: not only had Norbert assured him his potions were of top quality, he'd also said that Stibblepock didn't overcharge his customers. Having spent many years helping out his Uncle Winkidew in his potion shop, Binkadink was well aware of the many shortcuts his uncle took in the potionmaking process and was eager to see a gnomish potionmaker who followed the various processes by the book. Also, he had to admit, he was curious to see if there might not be a family history here; despite the differing last names, it wasn't outside the realm of possibility that this Stibblepock might be a distant relation. Norbert had also warned the group that Urithiah was a bit on the grumpy side, but that proved nothing: Uncle Winkidew was frequently on the grumpy side as well - especially when directed by King Galrich to supply the Kordovian Adventurers Guild with free potions!</p><p></p><p>"Check out the pond," said Darrien, stopping before stepping foot on the bridge. Binkadink looked over the edge and saw greenish algae covering the entire surface of the water. Castillan, just behind Darrien, heard the croak of a toad and a splash into the water, then nothing. A few bubbles rose to the surface where the toad had leaped in, popping almost instantly.</p><p></p><p>"It's very quiet," commented Finoula. Her ranger's senses alerted, she cast around, looking for danger but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Then she realized she hadn't been alerted by the presence of something but rather by its lack: there were no insects buzzing about, as one might expect to see around a small body of water like this: no dragonflies darting about, no mosquitoes, no butterflies.</p><p></p><p>"This kind of creepy," admitted Gilbert. "I going around the pond this way." He and his earth elemental familiar skirted to the south of the pond, walking in their peculiar way: with Mudpie gliding just underneath the surface, upside-down, only his feet emerging above the ground, and Gilbert stepping on the bottoms of Mudpie's feet. To an observer capable of seeing through the solid earth, it would have looked as if the heavyset wizard were walking on a mirror, only casting the reflection of a small earth elemental other than his own image.</p><p></p><p>"I'm going this way," replied Finoula, skirting the pond in the opposite direction, her hand dropping to the grip of the <em>whip of thorns</em> coiled at her belt. She already missed her longsword, <em>Tahlmalaera</em>, left behind at Pentaclus's shop for an upgrade. Scanning for danger the whole way, she rounded the pool and met back up with the others at the far end of the bridge. As she'd passed the pond she'd noted not all of the algae was green; there were swirling patches of brown, red, and a muddy yellow in there as well. Despite her misgivings, though, nothing had attacked them. She kept her hand on her whip in any case, ready for anything.</p><p></p><p>"I'm heading up," announced Binkadink, walking up the two small steps to the front porch. The roof hung over the porch, leaving a mere four feet of height just before the front door; plenty of room for Binkadink with his <em>gnomish stilt-boots</em> retracted. He gave the wooden door a loud triple-tap with his knuckles.</p><p></p><p>"Who's there? What do you want?" griped a high-pitched voice from the left, as what had at first looked like a simple knot in the wood on the wall revealed itself as a hole in the side porch wall, with an angry eye staring out at the gnome fighter from the cottage's interior. "I'm very busy at the moment!" the voice continued. "The timing is absolutely crucial!"</p><p></p><p>"We were told--" began Binkadink before being cut off by the sound of a sudden whoosh of flame and gnomish cursing from the other side of the peek-hole.</p><p></p><p>The eye had left the peek-hole, leaving the opening in relative darkness. From inside, the voice continued its rant. "I take my eyes off of it for one lousy minute, and this is what happens! Well, it’s ruined!" The eye returned, the voice focused on Binkadink once again. "Well, I hope you’re happy! That was hours of time wasted in an instant! Stay right there, while I deal with this, then I'll come to the door." The peek-hole slammed shut with a bang. Then, while continued mutterings and grumblings could be heard from the other side of the cottage wall, they were joined by the sound of metal gears clanking and a metal tube - which had first looked to be a narrow chimney flue - lowered from the left front side of the cottage, extending itself over the pond. This protrusion proved to be a channel for a rather vile-smelling liquid, which ran down the channel and into the pond with a tinkling sound. Bubbles erupted from the area where the new liquid was added to the algae-covered pond water.</p><p></p><p>Standing on the porch, Binkadink looked back at the others and shrugged.</p><p></p><p>Suddenly, the door swung out and Urithiah Stibblepock stood before Binkadink. He was even shorter than the fighter, standing barely an inch over three feet tall, although the pointed cap he wore gave the appearance of added height. A soot-stained apron covered his wizard robes. "Well?" he demanded. "What do you want?"</p><p></p><p>"We were told you sell potions--" began Binkadink before getting cut off again.</p><p></p><p>"Oh, you're <em>customers</em>!" beamed Stibblepock, his churlish demeanor changing in an instant. "Why didn’t you say so? Come in, come in – no wait, stay out there a moment, while I set things up for your comfort!" He turned to a wooden box mounted on the wall behind him. Opening it, he revealed a large lever, which he pulled from its "up" position and slammed to the "down" position. With a jolt of grinding gears, the floor of the foyer began to sink. "Just one moment!" assured Stibblepock, as he sunk down with the floor. Once it reached about four feet below its original level it stopped with a noisy thud. "Have your friends come in!" called the potionmaker from below, turning to open a door off to the side.</p><p></p><p>"You stay here, keep look out," commanded Gilbert before ducking his head and stepping onto the cramped porch. Mudpie obediently righted himself, rose up from the ground, and stood watch at the side of the porch. Over on the other side of the pond, he could see Aithanar tending to Castor and Pollux, brushing them down and patting them on their necks.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert poked his head through the open doorway and spotted a ladder mounted just below the door. The foyer was now eight feet high, but required a four-foot climb down the ladder to reach the floor. As Gilbert stepped off the ladder, he could still be seen from the chest up by those still outside. "Weird," commented Castillan, climbing down after the wizard.</p><p></p><p>Once the heroes had entered the cottage, they were ushered into a side room - a study, by the looks of it, which had also been lowered by the lever mechanism to a depth that made for more comfortable inhabitation for those of the taller races. Stibblepock sat in a comfortable-looking, gnome-sized armchair and beckoned the others to sit, pointing at four footstools scattered around the room. These were more comfortable than they looked at first, for they raised themselves up - in the same manner as Binkadink's boots - to a convenient height for whoever sat on them.</p><p></p><p>"Now then," said Stibblepock, "Here is my current inventory." He passed over a sheet of parchment, upon which had been inscribed the 18 types of potions he had on hand; next to each was noted their price and the quantities currently available.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert scanned the contents of the parchment. "You have any...nonstandard wares?" he asked, passing the list over to Castillan.</p><p></p><p>Stibblepock smiled. "As a matter of fact, I do," he confirmed. "Besides the normal stuff, I do upon occasion tinker around with new concoctions. I have three experimental potions upstairs in my lab: <em>potions of horniness</em>, <em>rapid hair growth</em>, and <em>yellow-belliedness</em>."</p><p></p><p>Finoula's eyes narrowed. "What does a <em>potion of horniness</em> do?" she asked warily.</p><p></p><p>"Why, exactly as you'd expect!" beamed Stibblepock. "It grows a horn, right here, in the middle of your forehead. Temporarily, of course," he added.</p><p></p><p>"And the <em>potion of yellow-belliedness</em>" asked Darrien.</p><p></p><p>"Well, it turns the imbiber's belly yellow," admitted Stibblepock. "But it also makes him more susceptible to <em>cause fear</em> spells and the like."</p><p></p><p>"Why would anyone want to drink that?" asked the ranger, puzzled.</p><p></p><p>"You wouldn't buy it to drink yourself," answered Castillan, immediately grasping the potion's intended use. "You slip it into the drink of the person you want to have the effects." The gnome wizard smiled at the bounder, glad to see somebody recognizing his experimental potion's usefulness.</p><p></p><p>"I think we all decided," announced Gilbert, handing the parchment back to the potionmaker. The group had marked their initials in the margins denoting how many of each potion they wanted to purchase. With a practised eye, Stibblepock tallied up the total, gave the figure to the group, and got up from his chair. "You gather up your funds and I'll go fetch your potions," he said, pulling a snuff box from the pocket of his robes. Opening it, he pulled out not a quantity of snuff as expected but a live spider, which he popped into his mouth and chewed absently. All but Gilbert winced at the display; the heavyset wizard recognized it as a material component to the <em>spider climb</em> spell. And sure enough, rather than raise the floor level and squash his customers, Stibblepock climbed up the far wall of the foyer to reach the door to his potion lab, now four feet above the floor. While the heroes gathered their money together, they could hear the gnomish wizard humming happily to himself, pleased with the morning's impending sales.</p><p></p><p>And then the mood broke. "Uh oh," announced Gilbert suddenly.</p><p></p><p>"What?" demanded Finoula, her sense of impending danger perhaps having not been so unfounded after. Outside, Mudpie stood just off the front porch, looking out at the pond. Over on the other side, Aithanar was watching in increasing amazement as well. The algae-covered waters of the pond rose up on one side of the stone bridge, the brackish waters congealed into a sticky mass. It rose up like a column, then started splitting off appendages: two arms, their ends sprouting open to form misshapen fingers; two legs; a blobby head with an approximation of eyes made up of oddly-colored swirls and streaks. Wordlessly, Aithanar leaped back up onto the seat of the Vistani wagon and steered Castor and Pollux into a U-turn, sending them back down the path for a few score feat. Then he halted them, leaped out of the seat, and raced over to the mule wagon where he began doing the same with Franco and Tantrum. Daisy and Wrath had the good sense (and maneuverability) to back down the path on their own.</p><p></p><p>In the meantime, the Stibblepock cottage burst forth with sounds of pain. In the potion lab, the gnomish potionmaker cried out aloud at the sudden agony inside his head, as the magical energy of one of his most powerful spells was released prematurely. Back in the study, Gilbert yelled in pain as the same process repeated itself inside his own head, before he'd been able to pass on the warning his familiar had passed on to him through the telepathic link they shared. Darrien and Finoula gasped in pain as two of their own spells were ripped from their heads; Ingebold merely grunted as she felt the mental assault but was able to turn it away - this time, at least. For all of the spellcasting heroes recognized this particular attack, having been through it before in the Magekiller dungeon. This was undoubtedly the work of an arcane ooze - and Gilbert quickly filled the others in on what Mudpie was seeing, while mentally instructing his familiar to join him inside the gnome's cottage so he'd be in range of Gilbert's spells.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink sighed; his last encounter with an arcane ooze had been particularly unpleasant and he dreaded what was no doubt to follow. "Can somebody give me some protection from acid?" he called out. Ingebold complied with a <em>protection from energy</em> spell geared to ward off acidic attacks; Finoula took the opportunity to shield herself in a like fashion with a <em>resist energy</em> spell. "Use up powerful spells now, while we have them!" called out Gilbert, herding everyone together to cast an extended <em>haste</em> spell that would cover all of the heroes. Darrien had a <em>magic fang</em> readied that he had planned on casting on Obvious or Fang if the opportunity presented itself; with both animals out of range he hurriedly cast it upon Mudpie instead.</p><p></p><p>Urithiah Stibblepock, alone up in his potion lab, did not share the heroes' experience with arcane oozes, nor did he believe the old wives' tales about arcane mixtures merging together into unpleasant monsters. Surely such talk was the work of fantasy, if not outright lies discouraging enterprising young wizards - he was, after all, only 92 years old - from exploring the fringes of known magic. More than likely, this conjured beast was the work of these strangers, putting him off guard with talk of a large purchase and them summoning some blob-monster to take him out so they could raid his workshop for free potions. The gnome squinted suspiciously at the creature, moving back and forth between the knothole window aimed at the front door and the opening where he had drained his recently failed potion admixture down into the pond, as he had been doing for years without any prior complications.</p><p></p><p>The humanoid arcane ooze took a tentative step towards the cottage, where it sensed a concentration of spell energy. Binkadink was just now scrambling up the ladder and stepping onto the porch, a gnomish glaive held defensively before him. Behind the massive ooze, Obvious sat motionless on the front lawn, playing the "if-I-don't-move-you-can't-see-me" game and hoping fervently that it would work.</p><p></p><p>Another roar of shared pain from the spellcasters told of the ooze's second mental assault. Binkadink rushed forward, his blade ripping a tear through the humanoid ooze's torso, although the amorphous fluid composing its body quickly filled in the gap thus formed. In retaliation, the ooze lashed out with a pseudopod that erupted from its body, headed straight for the little gnome. Binkadink ducked, and the thick tentacle went through the open doorway behind the gnome and crashing against the foyer wall, splashing the heroes assembled there with its acidic contents. Castillan took the opportunity of having a portion of the arcane ooze nearby to stab at it repeatedly with his new <em>stonepiercer</em> dagger.</p><p></p><p>Darrien responded to the ooze's attack with a barrage of arrows fired off from his composite longbow, mentally wishing he still had his <em>Arachnibow</em> at hand. Gilbert cast a <em>fire shield</em> spell on Mudpie, not necessarily because it would be useful but to get it out of his head - no use giving the arcane ooze spell energy that prior experience had taught the wizard the ooze would use to cure itself of damage.</p><p></p><p>Out on the porch, Binkadink was doing his level best to do as much damage to the ooze as he could, in the shortest amount of time. He swung his glaive with as much power as his muscles could bear, giving up potential accuracy for a greater blow if he hit. He figured this was the best time to employ such a strategy, as it was pretty difficult to miss an opponent this size - the ooze must stand at least 30 feet tall!</p><p></p><p>Finoula made her way to the foyer, directly before the door. Looking up through the open doorway she could see the dripping body of the humanoid figure. She didn't have her longsword <em>Tahlmalaera</em> with her, but she still had her <em>lightning amulet</em>. Holding it in one hand and calling out the command word, she visualized herself standing in the middle of the stone bridge over the pond. Her body disappeared, in an instant transforming into a bolt of lightning that crackled through the arcane ooze's body and then reforming her own elven body on the bridge. The elven ranger spun around to face the ooze, hoping to see she had damaged it severely with her attack.</p><p></p><p>No such luck. In fact, even worse, as the electrical attack seemed to have <em>hasted</em> the ooze just as surely as Gilbert's <em>haste</em> spell had earlier given a slight advantage to the heroes. Now, they and their arcane ooze foe were once again on an equal footing. Finoula's delicate, elven facial features formed into a scowl and she spat out a few choice elven phrases that even Castillan and Darrien had never heard before. Ingebold, climbing up out of the cottage to apply a healing spell to Binkadink, wished she spoke the Elven language because some of her Battle-Sister's curses sounded rather interesting!</p><p></p><p>By then, Mudpie had climbed back out of the cottage as well and was punching at the ooze with his stony fists. Binkadink continued slicing into the creature with the blade of his glaive, dealing enormous amounts of damage that might have been critical against a foe with a more standard, living body; the gnome fighter was dispirited as the damage he dealt to the arcane ooze was almost immediately healed up by the stolen spell energy it was taking directly from the minds of the spellcasters.</p><p></p><p>However, as the spellcasters' most powerful spells were used up - either through actual spellcasting or through the siphoning off of their power by the arcane ooze - there was less spell energy at a time to be applied to healing the ooze's wounds. Binkadink started seeing a lag time between him slicing into the thing's body and the wounds healing up. Encouraged, he redoubled his efforts. The arcane ooze, in the meantime, had retracted its pseudopod from the cottage interior and struck out at Mudpie with another, newly-formed from its amorphous body. The blow hit the earth elemental and the <em>fire shield</em> spell flared, but it didn't seem as if the defensive magic had affected the ooze at all.</p><p></p><p>Stibblepock, meanwhile, had been peeking through his two spy-holes and seen the new customers battling the ooze for all they were worth. Satisfied that they weren't behind the attack after all, he gathered up the potions they had ordered and then cast a <em>gaseous form</em> spell upon himself. Drifting through the opening by the extended rainspout, he floated across the lawn a safe distance before reforming his normal body next to a large jackalope. Obvious called out to this stranger who reminded him of his rider Binkadink, using the language of burrowing mammals that the two shared in common, but this new gnome didn't respond. In fact, it didn't even look as if this new gnome even realized he was being spoken to! A pity, thought Obvious, hoping to have had somebody new to talk to.</p><p></p><p>It looked like if the arcane ooze was going to be brought down anytime soon, the assembled group was going to have to deal as much damage to it as they could, all at once. Gilbert chugged down the contents of a <em>potion of resist acid</em> and then climbed up the ladder to go take the battle to the ooze. Darrien, who had been keeping a steady string of arrows thunking into the ooze's body (where they seemed to be dissolved by the acidic contents of the ooze's form), pressed on his assault as Castillan and Finoula climbed out as well. Only when everyone else was out did the half-elf ranger let up with his assault to climb out of the cottage himself.</p><p></p><p>Desperately siphoning off spell energy to repair its wounds, the arcane ooze never gave a moment's thought of retreat: it was a creature of pure instinct, incapable of actual cognition. It continued striking out at those around it with pseudopods extruded from its basic form, even as Finoula dug gashes from the back of its body with her thorned whip and Binkadink did likewise at the creature's front with his glaive. The ooze struck true several times, slamming into Binkadink, Mudpie, and even Ingebold with its acidic tentacle-protrusions, but in most cases its target was magically protected against the worst of its acidic attacks. It took many strikes, many slams, numerous arrows, but eventually the congealed mass of magical fluids and pond water lost its cohesion, splashing back to the ground and draining slowly back into the natural depression in the lawn where the pond had been. Which was all for the best, thought Urithiah Stibblepock, for the stone bridge looked rather silly without a pond to span.</p><p></p><p>The potionmaker walked across the bridge, crossing to his own front porch where stood six sweaty heroes and a small earth elemental that still towered over Stibblepock. "Here are your potions," he said nonchalantly, as if nothing particularly out of the ordinary had occurred. "Did you wish to pay with coins or gems?"</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>This was the first game we hosted in our new house. We moved last summer (nothing major, just across town), and while we normally play at Dan and Vicki's house, we've traditionally had a New Year's Day game session at our place, followed by a two-family dinner and a Christmas gift exchange. I got to "field test" my new man-cave, which is big enough to hold a kitchen table and six chairs in the middle of the room, surrounded by my normal bookcases, computer table, stereo, and such. It worked out well, although there were some learning curves: the table isn't as big as Dan and Vicki's (it's probably about as long, but not as wide), so we had some reshuffling of where we put things. (Note to self for the future: it might help to have some TV trays at hand to place our snacks and folders on if the battle-map we're using is particularly big.)</p><p></p><p>This having been a short adventure, we ran through it in less than three hours, then the players leveled up to 10th level, and we got a good start into the adventure that followed. When we had a good, natural stopping point at about ten to five we took it, as my wife Mary had said we'd be eating dinner about 5:30. Dinner went well, and we'll finish off the next adventure next session for sure.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>T-Shirt Worn: I wore a "Duck Dynasty" T-shirt with Phil, Si, Willie, and Jase Robertson's faces and beards, as Uncle Si was the closest I had to a crazy, bearded gnome in my T-shirt collection.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 6985148, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 28: WASTEWATER[/b] Game Session Date: 1 January 2017 - - - Norbert Gasperwillock's directions had been spot on: after breaking camp that morning, the group had followed the roads the gnome blacksmith had told them about and several hours before noon the two wagons trundled up a narrow path leading to a small cottage. Directly in front of the cottage was a small pond, crossed along its middle by a slightly curved stone bridge. Cobblestones lined the path up to the cottage's porch, which looked to be some distance away from the pond. That proved to be an optical illusion, as the adventurers climbed off their mounts, leaped down from the mule wagon, or exited in a stately manner from the back of the Vistani wagon as appropriate. Once they approached the stone bridge on foot, they could see the cottage was much nearer than it had appeared, but only because the gnomish structure was only about five feet tall at its highest point. "Well, isn't that cute?" remarked Finoula. "It's like a big old doll house." "Looks rather cozy," commented Binkadink as he strolled across the stone bridge. He was eager to meet this [b]Urithiah Stibblepock[/b] for several reasons: not only had Norbert assured him his potions were of top quality, he'd also said that Stibblepock didn't overcharge his customers. Having spent many years helping out his Uncle Winkidew in his potion shop, Binkadink was well aware of the many shortcuts his uncle took in the potionmaking process and was eager to see a gnomish potionmaker who followed the various processes by the book. Also, he had to admit, he was curious to see if there might not be a family history here; despite the differing last names, it wasn't outside the realm of possibility that this Stibblepock might be a distant relation. Norbert had also warned the group that Urithiah was a bit on the grumpy side, but that proved nothing: Uncle Winkidew was frequently on the grumpy side as well - especially when directed by King Galrich to supply the Kordovian Adventurers Guild with free potions! "Check out the pond," said Darrien, stopping before stepping foot on the bridge. Binkadink looked over the edge and saw greenish algae covering the entire surface of the water. Castillan, just behind Darrien, heard the croak of a toad and a splash into the water, then nothing. A few bubbles rose to the surface where the toad had leaped in, popping almost instantly. "It's very quiet," commented Finoula. Her ranger's senses alerted, she cast around, looking for danger but saw nothing out of the ordinary. Then she realized she hadn't been alerted by the presence of something but rather by its lack: there were no insects buzzing about, as one might expect to see around a small body of water like this: no dragonflies darting about, no mosquitoes, no butterflies. "This kind of creepy," admitted Gilbert. "I going around the pond this way." He and his earth elemental familiar skirted to the south of the pond, walking in their peculiar way: with Mudpie gliding just underneath the surface, upside-down, only his feet emerging above the ground, and Gilbert stepping on the bottoms of Mudpie's feet. To an observer capable of seeing through the solid earth, it would have looked as if the heavyset wizard were walking on a mirror, only casting the reflection of a small earth elemental other than his own image. "I'm going this way," replied Finoula, skirting the pond in the opposite direction, her hand dropping to the grip of the [i]whip of thorns[/i] coiled at her belt. She already missed her longsword, [i]Tahlmalaera[/i], left behind at Pentaclus's shop for an upgrade. Scanning for danger the whole way, she rounded the pool and met back up with the others at the far end of the bridge. As she'd passed the pond she'd noted not all of the algae was green; there were swirling patches of brown, red, and a muddy yellow in there as well. Despite her misgivings, though, nothing had attacked them. She kept her hand on her whip in any case, ready for anything. "I'm heading up," announced Binkadink, walking up the two small steps to the front porch. The roof hung over the porch, leaving a mere four feet of height just before the front door; plenty of room for Binkadink with his [i]gnomish stilt-boots[/i] retracted. He gave the wooden door a loud triple-tap with his knuckles. "Who's there? What do you want?" griped a high-pitched voice from the left, as what had at first looked like a simple knot in the wood on the wall revealed itself as a hole in the side porch wall, with an angry eye staring out at the gnome fighter from the cottage's interior. "I'm very busy at the moment!" the voice continued. "The timing is absolutely crucial!" "We were told--" began Binkadink before being cut off by the sound of a sudden whoosh of flame and gnomish cursing from the other side of the peek-hole. The eye had left the peek-hole, leaving the opening in relative darkness. From inside, the voice continued its rant. "I take my eyes off of it for one lousy minute, and this is what happens! Well, it’s ruined!" The eye returned, the voice focused on Binkadink once again. "Well, I hope you’re happy! That was hours of time wasted in an instant! Stay right there, while I deal with this, then I'll come to the door." The peek-hole slammed shut with a bang. Then, while continued mutterings and grumblings could be heard from the other side of the cottage wall, they were joined by the sound of metal gears clanking and a metal tube - which had first looked to be a narrow chimney flue - lowered from the left front side of the cottage, extending itself over the pond. This protrusion proved to be a channel for a rather vile-smelling liquid, which ran down the channel and into the pond with a tinkling sound. Bubbles erupted from the area where the new liquid was added to the algae-covered pond water. Standing on the porch, Binkadink looked back at the others and shrugged. Suddenly, the door swung out and Urithiah Stibblepock stood before Binkadink. He was even shorter than the fighter, standing barely an inch over three feet tall, although the pointed cap he wore gave the appearance of added height. A soot-stained apron covered his wizard robes. "Well?" he demanded. "What do you want?" "We were told you sell potions--" began Binkadink before getting cut off again. "Oh, you're [i]customers[/i]!" beamed Stibblepock, his churlish demeanor changing in an instant. "Why didn’t you say so? Come in, come in – no wait, stay out there a moment, while I set things up for your comfort!" He turned to a wooden box mounted on the wall behind him. Opening it, he revealed a large lever, which he pulled from its "up" position and slammed to the "down" position. With a jolt of grinding gears, the floor of the foyer began to sink. "Just one moment!" assured Stibblepock, as he sunk down with the floor. Once it reached about four feet below its original level it stopped with a noisy thud. "Have your friends come in!" called the potionmaker from below, turning to open a door off to the side. "You stay here, keep look out," commanded Gilbert before ducking his head and stepping onto the cramped porch. Mudpie obediently righted himself, rose up from the ground, and stood watch at the side of the porch. Over on the other side of the pond, he could see Aithanar tending to Castor and Pollux, brushing them down and patting them on their necks. Gilbert poked his head through the open doorway and spotted a ladder mounted just below the door. The foyer was now eight feet high, but required a four-foot climb down the ladder to reach the floor. As Gilbert stepped off the ladder, he could still be seen from the chest up by those still outside. "Weird," commented Castillan, climbing down after the wizard. Once the heroes had entered the cottage, they were ushered into a side room - a study, by the looks of it, which had also been lowered by the lever mechanism to a depth that made for more comfortable inhabitation for those of the taller races. Stibblepock sat in a comfortable-looking, gnome-sized armchair and beckoned the others to sit, pointing at four footstools scattered around the room. These were more comfortable than they looked at first, for they raised themselves up - in the same manner as Binkadink's boots - to a convenient height for whoever sat on them. "Now then," said Stibblepock, "Here is my current inventory." He passed over a sheet of parchment, upon which had been inscribed the 18 types of potions he had on hand; next to each was noted their price and the quantities currently available. Gilbert scanned the contents of the parchment. "You have any...nonstandard wares?" he asked, passing the list over to Castillan. Stibblepock smiled. "As a matter of fact, I do," he confirmed. "Besides the normal stuff, I do upon occasion tinker around with new concoctions. I have three experimental potions upstairs in my lab: [i]potions of horniness[/i], [i]rapid hair growth[/i], and [i]yellow-belliedness[/i]." Finoula's eyes narrowed. "What does a [i]potion of horniness[/i] do?" she asked warily. "Why, exactly as you'd expect!" beamed Stibblepock. "It grows a horn, right here, in the middle of your forehead. Temporarily, of course," he added. "And the [i]potion of yellow-belliedness[/i]" asked Darrien. "Well, it turns the imbiber's belly yellow," admitted Stibblepock. "But it also makes him more susceptible to [i]cause fear[/i] spells and the like." "Why would anyone want to drink that?" asked the ranger, puzzled. "You wouldn't buy it to drink yourself," answered Castillan, immediately grasping the potion's intended use. "You slip it into the drink of the person you want to have the effects." The gnome wizard smiled at the bounder, glad to see somebody recognizing his experimental potion's usefulness. "I think we all decided," announced Gilbert, handing the parchment back to the potionmaker. The group had marked their initials in the margins denoting how many of each potion they wanted to purchase. With a practised eye, Stibblepock tallied up the total, gave the figure to the group, and got up from his chair. "You gather up your funds and I'll go fetch your potions," he said, pulling a snuff box from the pocket of his robes. Opening it, he pulled out not a quantity of snuff as expected but a live spider, which he popped into his mouth and chewed absently. All but Gilbert winced at the display; the heavyset wizard recognized it as a material component to the [i]spider climb[/i] spell. And sure enough, rather than raise the floor level and squash his customers, Stibblepock climbed up the far wall of the foyer to reach the door to his potion lab, now four feet above the floor. While the heroes gathered their money together, they could hear the gnomish wizard humming happily to himself, pleased with the morning's impending sales. And then the mood broke. "Uh oh," announced Gilbert suddenly. "What?" demanded Finoula, her sense of impending danger perhaps having not been so unfounded after. Outside, Mudpie stood just off the front porch, looking out at the pond. Over on the other side, Aithanar was watching in increasing amazement as well. The algae-covered waters of the pond rose up on one side of the stone bridge, the brackish waters congealed into a sticky mass. It rose up like a column, then started splitting off appendages: two arms, their ends sprouting open to form misshapen fingers; two legs; a blobby head with an approximation of eyes made up of oddly-colored swirls and streaks. Wordlessly, Aithanar leaped back up onto the seat of the Vistani wagon and steered Castor and Pollux into a U-turn, sending them back down the path for a few score feat. Then he halted them, leaped out of the seat, and raced over to the mule wagon where he began doing the same with Franco and Tantrum. Daisy and Wrath had the good sense (and maneuverability) to back down the path on their own. In the meantime, the Stibblepock cottage burst forth with sounds of pain. In the potion lab, the gnomish potionmaker cried out aloud at the sudden agony inside his head, as the magical energy of one of his most powerful spells was released prematurely. Back in the study, Gilbert yelled in pain as the same process repeated itself inside his own head, before he'd been able to pass on the warning his familiar had passed on to him through the telepathic link they shared. Darrien and Finoula gasped in pain as two of their own spells were ripped from their heads; Ingebold merely grunted as she felt the mental assault but was able to turn it away - this time, at least. For all of the spellcasting heroes recognized this particular attack, having been through it before in the Magekiller dungeon. This was undoubtedly the work of an arcane ooze - and Gilbert quickly filled the others in on what Mudpie was seeing, while mentally instructing his familiar to join him inside the gnome's cottage so he'd be in range of Gilbert's spells. Binkadink sighed; his last encounter with an arcane ooze had been particularly unpleasant and he dreaded what was no doubt to follow. "Can somebody give me some protection from acid?" he called out. Ingebold complied with a [i]protection from energy[/i] spell geared to ward off acidic attacks; Finoula took the opportunity to shield herself in a like fashion with a [i]resist energy[/i] spell. "Use up powerful spells now, while we have them!" called out Gilbert, herding everyone together to cast an extended [i]haste[/i] spell that would cover all of the heroes. Darrien had a [i]magic fang[/i] readied that he had planned on casting on Obvious or Fang if the opportunity presented itself; with both animals out of range he hurriedly cast it upon Mudpie instead. Urithiah Stibblepock, alone up in his potion lab, did not share the heroes' experience with arcane oozes, nor did he believe the old wives' tales about arcane mixtures merging together into unpleasant monsters. Surely such talk was the work of fantasy, if not outright lies discouraging enterprising young wizards - he was, after all, only 92 years old - from exploring the fringes of known magic. More than likely, this conjured beast was the work of these strangers, putting him off guard with talk of a large purchase and them summoning some blob-monster to take him out so they could raid his workshop for free potions. The gnome squinted suspiciously at the creature, moving back and forth between the knothole window aimed at the front door and the opening where he had drained his recently failed potion admixture down into the pond, as he had been doing for years without any prior complications. The humanoid arcane ooze took a tentative step towards the cottage, where it sensed a concentration of spell energy. Binkadink was just now scrambling up the ladder and stepping onto the porch, a gnomish glaive held defensively before him. Behind the massive ooze, Obvious sat motionless on the front lawn, playing the "if-I-don't-move-you-can't-see-me" game and hoping fervently that it would work. Another roar of shared pain from the spellcasters told of the ooze's second mental assault. Binkadink rushed forward, his blade ripping a tear through the humanoid ooze's torso, although the amorphous fluid composing its body quickly filled in the gap thus formed. In retaliation, the ooze lashed out with a pseudopod that erupted from its body, headed straight for the little gnome. Binkadink ducked, and the thick tentacle went through the open doorway behind the gnome and crashing against the foyer wall, splashing the heroes assembled there with its acidic contents. Castillan took the opportunity of having a portion of the arcane ooze nearby to stab at it repeatedly with his new [i]stonepiercer[/i] dagger. Darrien responded to the ooze's attack with a barrage of arrows fired off from his composite longbow, mentally wishing he still had his [i]Arachnibow[/i] at hand. Gilbert cast a [i]fire shield[/i] spell on Mudpie, not necessarily because it would be useful but to get it out of his head - no use giving the arcane ooze spell energy that prior experience had taught the wizard the ooze would use to cure itself of damage. Out on the porch, Binkadink was doing his level best to do as much damage to the ooze as he could, in the shortest amount of time. He swung his glaive with as much power as his muscles could bear, giving up potential accuracy for a greater blow if he hit. He figured this was the best time to employ such a strategy, as it was pretty difficult to miss an opponent this size - the ooze must stand at least 30 feet tall! Finoula made her way to the foyer, directly before the door. Looking up through the open doorway she could see the dripping body of the humanoid figure. She didn't have her longsword [i]Tahlmalaera[/i] with her, but she still had her [i]lightning amulet[/i]. Holding it in one hand and calling out the command word, she visualized herself standing in the middle of the stone bridge over the pond. Her body disappeared, in an instant transforming into a bolt of lightning that crackled through the arcane ooze's body and then reforming her own elven body on the bridge. The elven ranger spun around to face the ooze, hoping to see she had damaged it severely with her attack. No such luck. In fact, even worse, as the electrical attack seemed to have [i]hasted[/i] the ooze just as surely as Gilbert's [i]haste[/i] spell had earlier given a slight advantage to the heroes. Now, they and their arcane ooze foe were once again on an equal footing. Finoula's delicate, elven facial features formed into a scowl and she spat out a few choice elven phrases that even Castillan and Darrien had never heard before. Ingebold, climbing up out of the cottage to apply a healing spell to Binkadink, wished she spoke the Elven language because some of her Battle-Sister's curses sounded rather interesting! By then, Mudpie had climbed back out of the cottage as well and was punching at the ooze with his stony fists. Binkadink continued slicing into the creature with the blade of his glaive, dealing enormous amounts of damage that might have been critical against a foe with a more standard, living body; the gnome fighter was dispirited as the damage he dealt to the arcane ooze was almost immediately healed up by the stolen spell energy it was taking directly from the minds of the spellcasters. However, as the spellcasters' most powerful spells were used up - either through actual spellcasting or through the siphoning off of their power by the arcane ooze - there was less spell energy at a time to be applied to healing the ooze's wounds. Binkadink started seeing a lag time between him slicing into the thing's body and the wounds healing up. Encouraged, he redoubled his efforts. The arcane ooze, in the meantime, had retracted its pseudopod from the cottage interior and struck out at Mudpie with another, newly-formed from its amorphous body. The blow hit the earth elemental and the [i]fire shield[/i] spell flared, but it didn't seem as if the defensive magic had affected the ooze at all. Stibblepock, meanwhile, had been peeking through his two spy-holes and seen the new customers battling the ooze for all they were worth. Satisfied that they weren't behind the attack after all, he gathered up the potions they had ordered and then cast a [i]gaseous form[/i] spell upon himself. Drifting through the opening by the extended rainspout, he floated across the lawn a safe distance before reforming his normal body next to a large jackalope. Obvious called out to this stranger who reminded him of his rider Binkadink, using the language of burrowing mammals that the two shared in common, but this new gnome didn't respond. In fact, it didn't even look as if this new gnome even realized he was being spoken to! A pity, thought Obvious, hoping to have had somebody new to talk to. It looked like if the arcane ooze was going to be brought down anytime soon, the assembled group was going to have to deal as much damage to it as they could, all at once. Gilbert chugged down the contents of a [i]potion of resist acid[/i] and then climbed up the ladder to go take the battle to the ooze. Darrien, who had been keeping a steady string of arrows thunking into the ooze's body (where they seemed to be dissolved by the acidic contents of the ooze's form), pressed on his assault as Castillan and Finoula climbed out as well. Only when everyone else was out did the half-elf ranger let up with his assault to climb out of the cottage himself. Desperately siphoning off spell energy to repair its wounds, the arcane ooze never gave a moment's thought of retreat: it was a creature of pure instinct, incapable of actual cognition. It continued striking out at those around it with pseudopods extruded from its basic form, even as Finoula dug gashes from the back of its body with her thorned whip and Binkadink did likewise at the creature's front with his glaive. The ooze struck true several times, slamming into Binkadink, Mudpie, and even Ingebold with its acidic tentacle-protrusions, but in most cases its target was magically protected against the worst of its acidic attacks. It took many strikes, many slams, numerous arrows, but eventually the congealed mass of magical fluids and pond water lost its cohesion, splashing back to the ground and draining slowly back into the natural depression in the lawn where the pond had been. Which was all for the best, thought Urithiah Stibblepock, for the stone bridge looked rather silly without a pond to span. The potionmaker walked across the bridge, crossing to his own front porch where stood six sweaty heroes and a small earth elemental that still towered over Stibblepock. "Here are your potions," he said nonchalantly, as if nothing particularly out of the ordinary had occurred. "Did you wish to pay with coins or gems?" - - - This was the first game we hosted in our new house. We moved last summer (nothing major, just across town), and while we normally play at Dan and Vicki's house, we've traditionally had a New Year's Day game session at our place, followed by a two-family dinner and a Christmas gift exchange. I got to "field test" my new man-cave, which is big enough to hold a kitchen table and six chairs in the middle of the room, surrounded by my normal bookcases, computer table, stereo, and such. It worked out well, although there were some learning curves: the table isn't as big as Dan and Vicki's (it's probably about as long, but not as wide), so we had some reshuffling of where we put things. (Note to self for the future: it might help to have some TV trays at hand to place our snacks and folders on if the battle-map we're using is particularly big.) This having been a short adventure, we ran through it in less than three hours, then the players leveled up to 10th level, and we got a good start into the adventure that followed. When we had a good, natural stopping point at about ten to five we took it, as my wife Mary had said we'd be eating dinner about 5:30. Dinner went well, and we'll finish off the next adventure next session for sure. - - - T-Shirt Worn: I wore a "Duck Dynasty" T-shirt with Phil, Si, Willie, and Jase Robertson's faces and beards, as Uncle Si was the closest I had to a crazy, bearded gnome in my T-shirt collection. [/QUOTE]
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