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<blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 7217743" data-attributes="member: 508"><p><strong>ADVENTURE 38: POTION COMMOTION</strong></p><p></p><p>PC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Binkadink Dundernoggin, gnome fighter 12</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Castillan Ivenheart, elf bounder 12</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Darrien, half-elf ranger 12</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Finoula Cloudshadow, elf ranger 12</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Gilbert Fung, human wizard 12</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Hagan, half-orc sorcerer 12</p><p></p><p>NPC Roster: <p style="margin-left: 20px">Aithanar Ivenheart, elf fighter 3</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Ingebold Battershield, dwarven cleric 11 (Moradin)</p> <p style="margin-left: 20px"> Jinkadoodle Dundernoggin, gnome illusionist 5</p><p></p><p>Game Session Date: 3 September 2017</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>"I don't trust 'em," admitted Piddilink Dundernoggin, his eyes glaring over at the potion shop that opened two weeks ago directly across the street from him. "They're selling their potions for less than the cost to make them, they've gotta be! Trying to drive away all my business, if you ask me. And look at the size of that place!" he continued. "There's hardly enough room to set up a potion lab, and they never get any deliveries coming in – so where do all these potions come from, anyway? I tell you, somebody needs to get to the bottom of this, that's for sure!"</p><p></p><p>The Kordovian heroes had swung by to say hello to Binkadink and Jinkadoodle's uncle while visiting Greyhawk City, and he took the opportunity of finding out his nephews were now adventurers – and had adventurer friends with them, forming an entire adventuring band – to get them to (hopefully) get rid of his new rivals.</p><p></p><p>"We'll go check it out," promised Binkadink. "Anybody else want to come with me?"</p><p></p><p>"I go," replied Gilbert, rising up from his chair.</p><p></p><p>"Anybody else?" asked the gnome fighter, looking among his friends.</p><p></p><p>"It doesn't look like there's a whole lot of room in there," pointed out Finoula. "Maybe you'd best check it out and report back." The elf ranger had a point, but she was also enjoying the hospitality of Binkadink's uncle - maybe it was his expertise as a potion crafter, but he made excellent tea!</p><p></p><p>Binkadink and Gilbert exited Piddilink Dundernoggin's potion shop and walked across the street. There was the target: "Exotic Potions and Tinctures," according to the letters painted on the window. It was a small shop by any standards, a single-story wooden building standing 25 feet wide and about 15 feet deep. A wooden door stood in the middle of the building, with a window to the left.</p><p></p><p>The two entered the shop and saw they were currently the only customers. The public area was a 15-foot square, with the back 5 feet blocked off by a wall; the middle of the wall held a counter window, behind which stood an attractive young woman with dusky skin and shiny, black hair. "Hello," she greeted the two, her voice betraying an unknown accent. "My name is <strong>Yasmine</strong>. May I help you?"</p><p></p><p>"We were, uh, looking to buy some potions," replied Binkadink.</p><p></p><p>Yasmine swung her right hand out, indicating the sign to the right of the counter, which indicated the potions available and the prices. Gilbert and Binkadink looked over and read:</p><p></p><p>"You kidding me?" declared Gilbert Fung. "These prices for real?"</p><p></p><p>"They are indeed," replied Yasmine.</p><p></p><p>"How many <em>potions of cure moderate wounds</em> could I buy?" asked Binkadink.</p><p></p><p>"How many would you like?" returned Yasmine.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink ran numbers through his head. "Ten, if you have them," he said, pulling off his backpack and rummaging through it for his cash.</p><p></p><p>"Certainly, sir," said Yasmine, looking down behind the counter and grabbing up vials. She turned to an associate, another dark-skinned beauty. "<strong>Anabelda</strong>, could you grab me five more <em>potions of cure moderate wounds</em> from the back?"</p><p></p><p>"Of course," smiled Anabelda, walking off to the right to a door behind the counter leading to the small area not accessible by the public. During her absence, Yasmine occupied her customers with small talk. "So, you two are adventurers, I take it?" she asked.</p><p></p><p>"Yes, that's right," admitted Binkadink.</p><p></p><p>"Oh, are you part of the local Guild?"</p><p></p><p>"What? Uh, no, we're just visiting the city."</p><p></p><p>"Hey," interjected Gilbert. "How we know these potions actually work?"</p><p></p><p>"Oh, they work perfectly well," replied Yasmine. "They are crafted with loving care by true professionals, using proven methods that have withstood the test of time."</p><p></p><p>"Oh yeah? Maybe we test it out for ourselves. Can you put your hand on counter?"</p><p></p><p>Yasmine placed her hand on the counter top. "Why do you--?" she began.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert pulled out his dagger and raised it to the counter, and the salesgirl quickly snatched her hand away. "Sir!" she chided. "I must ask you not to draw weapons in the shop!"</p><p></p><p>"Okay, okay," grumbled Gilbert. "We can use <em>magic missile</em> spell instead. Now, this only hurt for a moment..."</p><p></p><p>Yasmine turned to Binkadink. "Sir, I must ask you to have your friend leave, immediately."</p><p></p><p>Binkadink turned to Gilbert with an "are you crazy?" look on his face. "Go on ahead, I'll be right out," said the gnome.</p><p></p><p>"I no go anywhere," replied Gilbert stubbornly. "I make sure potions work!"</p><p></p><p>"You leave building now!" Binkadink replied, mimicking Gilbert's affected speech patterns. "You no come back!"</p><p></p><p>"Fine," grumbled the wizard, turning and leaving the building. Binkadink turned back to Yasmine. "I'm sorry about that - he's not from around here." By then, Anabelda had returned from the back with the extra potions. Yasmine gathered them all together, Binkadink paid over his coins, and he exited the shop with his purchases. He looked around for Gilbert, but the portly mage was nowhere to be seen. Then Gilbert sauntered up from the side of the building. "Front door only way in," he announced, having just strolled around the building. "No other doors, no other windows."</p><p></p><p>The pair returned to Piddilink's shop, where Binkadink passed over one of his new purchases to his uncle for examination. "Does it look legit?" he asked.</p><p></p><p>Piddilink gave the potion a close scrutiny. "The color's different than the ones I make," he noted, but that wasn't unusual - there were many ways to arrive at the same destination during potion creation, and the end results often differed in color and taste. The alchemist unstoppered the potion, waving it under his prodigious nose. "I don't smell anything out of the ordinary," he admitted, then turned to his nephew. "Can I keep this one, run some tests on it?"</p><p></p><p>"Be my guest," replied Binkadink.</p><p></p><p>"I'll assist you," offered Jinkadoodle, himself well-versed in the potion-creation business, having spent many hours assisting his own father, Winkidew, at their own potion lab in Kordovia.</p><p></p><p>"Give us an hour or so," said Piddilink, taking the suspect potion back to his lab. That was a good time for the rest of the band to take off, to explore the sights of Greyhawk City; they still had the better part of a week to kill before their magical weapon and armor upgrades would be finished.</p><p></p><p>"So what's the next plan of action?" asked Darrien.</p><p></p><p>"We need to see inside rest of that building," said Gilbert.</p><p></p><p>"We could send in Wezhley," suggested Hagan. "I could cast <em>greater invisibility</em> on him, and he could jump over the counter and check out the back room, then report back."</p><p></p><p>"How long could he stay invisible?" asked Finoula.</p><p></p><p>Hagan considered. "A little over a minute," he replied.</p><p></p><p>"That dinnae give 'im a whole lot o' time," pointed out Ingebold. "There's a good chance they wouldnae have need t' open th' door during that time."</p><p></p><p>"Well, they would if one of us went in and purchased a whole bunch of the same potion, like I did," suggested Binkadink.</p><p></p><p>"Guys, guys, guys," interrupted Castillan. "Why are we wasting any brain cells on this? We wait until after nightfall, then we break in and check the place out ourselves. Easy enough."</p><p></p><p>The group considered Castillan's plan. "Are you sure you can get us into the place?" asked Finoula. Castillan just scoffed. "Not a problem," he replied.</p><p></p><p>"Okay, here what we do," said Gilbert. "I station Mudpie to keep watch on place. He make sure salesgirls leave, we wait for all clear, then we break in, check place out."</p><p></p><p>"We might want to let that Rale guy know what we're planning to do," suggested Castillan. "We don't want him thinking we're planning a heist and infringing on the thieves guild or anything." That seemed reasonable, so they left word at Chunk's, confident that Rale's top stolen-goods fence would pass the word along to the Guildmaster. Then they returned to Piddilink's shop, where they found out the potion Binkadink had purchased was, to all tests the alchemists could devise, perfectly legitimate. "It doesn't make any sense," complained Piddilink. "They should be out of business if they're selling their wares for so much less than they cost to make in the first place!"</p><p></p><p>"Maybe we'll find out what's going when we visit the shop tonight, after they close up," suggested Binkadink.</p><p></p><p>And then there was nothing to do but wait.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>It was a cloudless night, with both of Oerth's moons nothing more than thin crescents in the night sky. The heroes crept along the streets and alleyways, keeping a watchful eye for any members of the City Guard that might be making their rounds. Mudpie had scouted out the shop, burying himself to just below his eyes in the alleyway across from "Exotic Potions and Tinctures," and reported to his master, Gilbert, that the two salesgirls had closed up shop at around 8 bells in the evening. Furthermore, while they lowered the sturdy shutters that covered the window for the night (during the day, they were propped up on metal poles to form a canopy), they didn't depart the shop as expected. Rather, they closed and locked the door from the inside. The dutiful earth elemental reported that nobody had entered or left the shop since it closed for the night.</p><p></p><p>"So they're still in there?" asked Darrien.</p><p></p><p>"That clinch it," remarked Gilbert Fung. "They got to have extradimensional space inside that back room."</p><p></p><p>"Like our 'lower level' in th' dragonfly ship?" asked Ingebold.</p><p></p><p>"Exactly. Or maybe teleport platform or something, but no room in there for potion lab - definitely no room for potion lab <em>and</em> bedroom!"</p><p></p><p>"Well, let's find out," said Castillan, approaching the door and pulling out his masterwork lockpicking tools. It was a tricky lock, requiring three times the normal time the elf could normally get a lock to bend to his dexterous fingers, but eventually it opened. With a look at the others, he pulled the door open and stepped inside into total darkness - the <em>everburning torches</em> which had been present during business hours were apparently stashed away somewhere. Still Castillan was an elf, so his night vision was better than that of a human; from the scant light from the twin moons, he could see the place was empty.</p><p></p><p>Hagan stepped in after the elf bounder, his half-orc eyes perfectly capable of seeing in pitch blackness. Wezhley, his weasel familiar, sat perched upon one shoulder. The two adventurers were the only ones to enter the dark shop; the others realized there wasn't a whole lot of room in there and opted to stay outside on watch duty. The spellcasters took the opportunity to cast some of their normal spells: Gilbert cast a <em>mage armor</em> spell directly on Mudpie and then a <em>spider climb</em> spell on both of them; Finoula and Darrien each cast a <em>barkskin</em> upon themselves; Ingebold cast her standard <em>magic circle against evil</em> spell, centered upon herself.</p><p></p><p>Inside the empty shop, Castillan approached the counter. The whole section beneath the open window hinged outward to allow entry into the area behind the counter. Hagan heard a sibilant whispering, followed by a "vwhoomp!" noise behind him that sounded vaguely electrical. He tried exiting through the door, but ran into an invisible <em>wall of force</em> that obviously hadn't been there a moment before.</p><p></p><p>In the meantime, several of the other adventurers had started climbing up onto the structure's roof. Gilbert and Mudpie had no problems doing so, given the <em>spider climb</em> spell the portly mage had just cast upon them. Likewise, Finoula's recent purchase of <em>boots of spider climbing</em> made clambering up to the roof a matter of ease, and she pulled Binkadink up to the rooftop with her. Darrien and Ingebold remained on the ground, alert for passersby.</p><p></p><p>Inside the shop, Hagan raced to the counter - Castillan had just opened the counter door - and peered over the counter. There, coiled in the back corner, was the hidden spellcaster responsible for the <em>wall of force</em> trapping them all inside. It was a skeletal snake with a human-looking skull: a bone naga, by all the descriptions the half-orc sorcerer had heard of such creatures. The half-orc fired off a <em>lightning bolt</em> spell which blasted into the creature's body. Castillan saw the bone naga just as it started casting a second spell; the bounder snapped his fingers, causing his short sword to materialize in his hand and he stabbed out at it. The blade struck bone and skidded off to the side, while the bone naga's spellcasting continued unabated. Immediately thereafter, billowing greenish-yellow vapors blasted into the bounder's face, obscuring his vision and rapidly filling up the enclosed room.</p><p></p><p>Hagan and Wezhley started choking immediately, as did Castillan. Fortunately, the two adventurers were able to shrug off the worst of the <em>cloudkill</em> spell's effects; not so Wezhley, who shivered with weakness after inhaling the nasty vapors. The weasel dropped down from the sorcerer's shoulder, staggering over to the doorway (the door had been left open to provide at least a little moonlight in the shop, not that it was doing any good right now) and scratched feebly at the <em>wall of force</em>.</p><p></p><p>Hagan realized that to stay inside the shop was to court death - not only could they no longer see their undead foe, or indeed anything in the cloud-filled room, but the poisonous vapors would kill them all given enough time. So he scooped up his familiar, then held his other arm out until he bumped into Castillan. Grabbing the bounder by his sleeve, the half-orc coughed out the words to a <em>teleport</em> spell, and they popped into existence beside a startled Ingebold in the cool, clean air of the city.</p><p></p><p>Meanwhile, up on the rooftop, Gilbert was trying out a new spell he had just mastered: a <em>passwall</em>. He created a hole in the middle of the roof, exposing the room below to the open air. In the moonlight, they could see the room below was filled with murky vapors, but the <em>cloudkill</em> spell created a heavy gas that hugged the ground, and they didn't spill out of the open hole in the roof.</p><p></p><p>"There's a bone naga in the corner!" Hagan called up to the others, pointing to the far corner. Binkadink took his bearings, then inverted his magical glaive and stabbed down at the corner where the bone naga should be. He felt resistance, telling him he had hit the creature, although his gnomish vision couldn't penetrate the thick vapors in the room below.</p><p></p><p>Suddenly, the bone naga's skull popped up out of the hole - the creature was long enough it could raise its head that high while still keeping a safe perch on the floor below. A line of dancing lightning blasted from its mouth, striking the gnome in the chest and then arcing off to strike everybody else up on the roof with him.</p><p></p><p>Mudpie, adjacent to the naga's skull, punched it with a rock-hard fist. Binkadink rapidly pulled his glaive up from the hole in the roof and reversed his grip on the weapon, allowing him to stab the naga with his full strength. That did the job; upon being destroyed, each of the bones making up its undead body disconnected from the others, to go clattering to the area behind the counter below.</p><p></p><p>Satisfied that the bone naga had been destroyed, the heroes climbed back down off the roof and had to wait outside for the <em>wall of force</em> and <em>cloudkill</em> spells to run their course. During that time, Binkadink rummaged through his pack and pulled out a handful of the <em>potions of cure moderate wounds</em> he had purchased from Yasmine earlier that day. Having taken the brunt of the bone naga's <em>chain lightning </em> spell, he felt he was in need of some healing before they proceeded inside the rest of the small building.</p><p></p><p>The first potion went down just fine, as did the second. The third one went down as well, but it had a funny taste to it - and while it healed up the gnome's wounds just as well as the first two had, he could feel it was also trying to do something else. "Guys," he said. "There's something funny about this potion."</p><p></p><p>"Are ye okay?" asked Ingebold, approaching the gnome after having tended to the other heroes' wounds.</p><p></p><p>"Yeah, I'm fine," replied the gnome. "But that last potion - I think it had some kind of poison added to it or something."</p><p></p><p>"It was one of the ones you bought this morning?" asked Hagan, feeding a healing potion of his own to Wezhley, who lapped it up from the half-orc's cupped hand.</p><p></p><p>"Yeah."</p><p></p><p>"Maybe don't drink any more of those before we can get them tested," suggested Finoula.</p><p></p><p>"That's not a bad idea."</p><p></p><p>The adventurers made their way into the shop once access was once again available, forming a single-file line. Behind the counter everything was empty (with the exception of the pile of naga bones); the vials of potions and the cashbox that had been stored behind the counter during business hours were no longer in place.</p><p></p><p>"Let's check out this back area," suggested Binkadink, opening the side door behind the counter. The room beyond was also empty, save for the large stone statue that took up most of the eastern wall. It was a stylized carving of a serpent, circular in shape except for its head and tail which were turned away, causing it to take on the shape of an upside-down "omega" symbol, with the snake's open-mouthed head pointing one way and the tip of its tail facing the other.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink examined the statue, looking for a command word or something that might activate it. "Yep," confirmed Gilbert as he spotted the carving. "I bet that a <em>teleport gate</em>."</p><p></p><p>"Look here," commanded the gnome, tracing a faint line along the plane where the head and tail suddenly changed direction from the arc of the circle. "There's a crease here. I'll bet anything they swivel." He gave each end an experimental tug, to no effect - they weren't going to budge by a mere application of strength.</p><p></p><p>"I think you're right," said Castillan, squeezing into the small room. "Look: if the head and tail swivel back toward each other, the circle is not only completed, but the tip of the tail fits right into the snake's open mouth, forming an ouroboros."</p><p></p><p>Upon the uttering of the word "ouroboros," a grinding sound emanated from the statue, as the top portions of the carving swiveled around to form a snake-swallowing-its-own-tail configuration. Once it did so, the interior part of the statue - the part encircled by the snake - turned black, like an upright sheet of oil.</p><p></p><p>"<em>Teleportation gate</em>," repeated Gilbert. "Told you."</p><p></p><p>"Let's see where it leads," said Binkadink, stepping forward through the gate, his glaive pointed ahead of him.</p><p></p><p>The gnome felt a moment of disorientation, then found himself walking down a ramp on the other side of a similar-looking ouroboros carving behind him. Ahead of him, at the bottom of the ramp, a large room opened up. This room was about 35 feet square, with three large cauldrons along the back wall and a small stack of firewood piled along the northern wall. Two humanoid figures tended to the contents of the cauldrons. There were wide tunnels to the north and south and a pair of smaller, open rooms up on either side of the ramp. The fires beneath the cauldrons provide the room's only light, and Binkadink realized they couldn't be responsible for the greatly increased heat and humidity he had felt immediately upon passing through the <em>teleport gate</em> - he figured he was now somewhere far away from Greyhawk City, possibly in a jungle environment.</p><p></p><p>Walking as quietly as his armor - and his extended <em>gnomish stilt-boots</em> - allowed him, the gnome approached the two figures tending to the vats. The person on the left he recognized as Yasmine, from the potion shop; the other was a male, dressed in robes. Assuming this was the wizard behind the potions, Binkadink ran the rest of the way down the ramp and into the room, stabbing into the robed figure's body just as he turned to see what the "clicking" sound from the stilt-boots on the stone ramp was. The fighter's glaive pierced through the yuan-ti pureblood's gut, slaying him instantly. Binkadink stood there, a confused expression on his face and a dead male yuan-ti hanging off his extended glaive. Surely a high-powered wizard wasn't usually taken out in one blow like this?</p><p></p><p>Unbeknownst to the gnome, this was no wizard at all but a mere minion; he had expected a tough fight but ended up slaying a guy in charge of keeping the potion brews properly stirred. Castillan stepped through the gate and ended up beside and behind the gnome fighter. His crossbow raised, he sent a bolt flying at Yasmine, the only other visible combatant in the area.</p><p></p><p>Yasmine countered with a hastily-cast <em>charm person</em> effect, which surprisingly caught the gnome off guard. "Protect me from your friends!" Yasmine commanded. "Don't let them kill me!"</p><p></p><p>Ingebold was the next to enter through the <em>teleport gate</em>. She immediately cast a <em>spiritual weapon</em> spell that caused a dwarven warhammer to materialize in the air and go rushing to attack the dusky-skinned yuan-ti pureblood. "No! Stop!" cried Binkadink, stepping forward to try to shield Yasmine from the hammer-shaped spell effect.</p><p></p><p>Finoula was the next to enter, and she raced down the ramp with her magical longsword <em>Tahlmalaera</em> drawn and ready to attack. "Leave her alone!" cried Binkadink, sending his glaive swinging in the ranger's direction. Fortunately, Binkadink was only trying to stop his friends from fighting each other, so he struck Finoula with the flat side of his blade. Still, the ranger didn't expect an attack from this direction, and the glaive's blade slapped her away, stopping her advance toward Yasmine.</p><p></p><p>There was a circular chamber to the north of the potion vat chamber, where venom was extracted from the yuan-ti abominations that ruled this nest. Another yuan-ti pureblood female with dark skin, <strong>Boadakka</strong>, approached from this chamber, a masterwork scimitar raised in her hand. At the same time, a pair of six-foot-long serpents that had been resting in a circular depression to the south of the potion vat chamber transformed back into their human shapes, grabbed up scimitars of their own, and joined the fight from the south. One of these was Anabelda, the sales assistant Binkadink and Gilbert had encountered in the shop; the other was a male unknown to the heroes. But both could easily pass as a human, with their presence in a yuan-ti nest the only hint of their true heritage.</p><p></p><p>Despite Binkadink's defensive position, Castillan felt he could get past the gnome's guard with his bounding skills. He was right; he easily dodged past the fighter and continued on to Yasmine, where a quick thrust with his sword took her life. About the same time Ingebold entered the nest through the ouroboros statue; it was debatable whether it was the presence of Ingebold's <em>magic circle against evil</em> spell still active upon her or Yasmine's death that snapped Binkadink from his <em>charm</em> effect, but he was free of its influence immediately. He looked over to Finoula, gave an uncomfortable grimace that might have been meant as a smile, and offered, "Sorry!"</p><p></p><p>Boadakka stabbed at Gilbert Fung, who had just entered the nest. Her scimitar missed the surprised wizard, who hadn't expected to be attacked immediately upon stepping through the gate. The pureblood male attacked Finoula with his own scimitar while Anabelda swung at Darrien, who had also just arrived. Fortunately, both strikes missed their targets.</p><p></p><p>Hagan cast a <em>chain lightning</em> spell that slew both of the remaining female purebloods, leaving Darrien to finish off the male with a barrage of arrows. After that, Ingebold was kept busy casting healing spells upon those who needed them. A quick exploration of the areas seen thus far resulted in finding the racks of potions stored behind the shop counter during business hours, plus several empty potion vials and a few wooden crates filled with the proceeds from the sales thus far. The coins were dumped into Ingebold's <em>portable hole</em> for divvying up later.</p><p></p><p>After everyone had had a chance to catch their breath, Binkadink led the group through the wide tunnel to the south, the only way not yet explored. The tunnel arced to the east, splitting off three narrower tunnels along its length as it did so. Binkadink and Castillan checked each of these narrower tunnels; each ended in a 10-foot-deep pit, in which a dark-skinned human lay curled up in the fetal position, moaning softly in pain. Some of them had started growing patches of scales on their skin, leading the heroes to believe they were in the middle of a painful transformation into yuan-ti of some sort themselves.</p><p></p><p>There being nothing they could do for these unfortunates at the moment, the group moved on. As the wide tunnel veered east, they could see ahead to a large statue of a snake-god of some sort, carved from a burnished metal and looming over the chamber set before it. There was a large, circular depression in the floor before this idol, in which sat a pair of yuan-ti abominations. The group had met up with a trio of sonic yuan-ti before; these were of the same basic configuration, with a pair of muscular arms and a humanoid torso stuck in the middle of what was otherwise an enormous snake. Each of the abominations wore an elaborate harness, upon which was attached a scabbard containing an overly-large scimitar, as befitted creatures of this size.</p><p></p><p>Spotting the heroes, the abominations slithered in opposite directions, into sloping tunnels to the north and south of the worship chamber. One of the snake-men called out a sibilant prayer, and the idol responded by lurching to life, its motions becoming smoother and more lifelike with each passing second. The bronze serpent slithered forward to meet the advancing heroes at the western end of the worship chamber.</p><p></p><p>With an amazing speed worthy of a striking cobra, the bronze statue darted forth and bit at Finoula. The ranger cried out in sudden pain, not only from the carved fangs piercing her flesh but also the electrical current charging through the serpent's head. She struggled to escape the snake's mouth, wriggling free before it could wrap a coil of its powerful body around her and start squeezing the life from her.</p><p></p><p>Behind the bronze serpent, one of the yuan-ti abominations used the moving idol of its god as cover, plucking a bead from a necklace it wore around its neck and tossing it past the bronze serpent. The bead hit about halfway down the passageway in which the heroes were currently confined, exploding into a powerful <em>fireball</em> that struck each and every one of the heroes.</p><p></p><p>Ignoring his singed back, Binkadink stepped forward with his glaive and struck out at the bronze serpent. It hit with a spark of residual electricity, scratching the bronze creature's finish and leaving a deep groove. Behind the gnome, Hagan cast a <em>chain lightning</em> spell - he was really liking this new spell! - at the yuan-ti abomination that had cast the <em>fireball bead</em>, having it arc off to strike the other abomination and the bronze serpent. Based on their reactions, they all had some level of spell resistance which occasionally prevented spells from having their full effect. The half-orc growled involuntarily; enemy spell resistance was becoming his least favorite protective feature.</p><p></p><p>Finoula spoke the command word that caused her body to transform into a bolt of lightning, courtesy of her <em>lightning amulet</em>. She blasted through the bronze serpent and the yuan-ti abomination behind it, manifesting back as an elf directly behind the snake-man. Almost at the same time, Castillan bounded past the bronze serpent and ended up stabbing his sword at the yuan-ti abomination, catching him in a pincer maneuver with Finoula.</p><p></p><p>On a ramping slope to the south, the second abomination cast a healing spell upon himself that cured the electrical damage he'd just suffered from Hagan's <em>chain lightning</em> spell. Then he slithered forward, biting Finoula and wrapping his arms around her, the acid he'd formed on his skin burning the elf. Finoula could feel venom coursing through her body from the serpent-man's bite, but while she was able to shrug off its effects the overwhelming damage caused her to pass out. She fell limp in the abomination's grasp; rather than mess about with her undersized weapons, he pulled the <em>lightning amulet</em> from around her neck, intending to use it himself.</p><p></p><p>Binkadink cried out in pain, having been bitten and zapped by the bronze serpent's electrical bite. Then, still caught up in its mouth, the gnome was bodily lifted into the air and transferred to the statue's sinuous coils, where he was constricted. Hagan cursed at this turn of events, as he was just about to cast his last <em>chain lightning</em> spell at the bronze serpent, but was hesitant to do so with Binkadink being crushed in its coils - and wearing his metal armor, at that. Seeing the half-orc's hesitation, Binkadink called out to him, "Make the statue a secondary target! I can take a secondary blast!" Having experienced what it was like to take a primary blast courtesy of the bone naga earlier that evening, Binkadink wasn't sure he could survive another electrical zap like that.</p><p></p><p>The spell went off as planned - and the secondary arc that found its way to the bronze serpent not only zapped Binkadink something fierce through his metal armor, but actually healed the construct of some of the damage it had taken! But at least the yuan-ti with the <em>necklace of fireballs</em>, who had been the primary target of the spell, seemed to be severely hurt.</p><p></p><p>Darrien send a barrage of arrows flying at the bronze serpent, but they went clattering off the construct's metal exterior without seeming to do much harm.</p><p></p><p>Seeing her Battle-Sister lying unconscious on the floor, but with a bronze serpent and a yuan-ti abomination between them, Ingebold used her <em>light mace of healing</em> to send a <em>cure serious wounds</em> to Finoula from a distance. The spell not only healed the ranger's wounds, it revived her to consciousness. Finoula sat up just in time to scramble out of the way as the yuan-ti who had snatched her <em>lightning amulet</em> went crashing to the floor, several of Darrien's arrows buried in its throat. Without a word, she grabbed her amulet out of the reptile's hand and placed it back around her neck where it belonged.</p><p></p><p>Gilbert Fung directed a trio of <em>scorching rays</em> at the bronze serpent, overcoming the construct's spell resistance and causing it to crash to the ground, immobile. He and Mudpie then climbed up the wall to the ceiling, where they would be out of the way of the physical combatants heading over to fight the sole remaining yuan-ti abomination.</p><p></p><p>Castillan stabbed at the reptile with his short sword, causing it to hiss in pain. But it was Finoula, wielding <em>Tahlmalaera</em>, who brought the killing blow. Bending down to remove the creature's ornate scabbard from its harness, the ranger pulled out the reptile's oversized scimitar, tossed it aside, and experimentally placed her longsword inside it. As she suspected, the scabbard was magical - it resized to accommodate this new weapon, and future experimentation would reveal it provided the effect of a <em>keen edge</em> spell three times per day - a feature that would no doubt come in handy.</p><p></p><p>The <em>necklace of fireballs</em> was given to Binkadink, for two reasons: he was sorely lacking a ranged weapon, and once he got his red dragonhide armor back from the armorsmith, he'd be the one most likely to survive an accidental explosion while wearing the necklace, should he be attacked by an enemy <em>fireball</em> or similar flame-based attack.</p><p></p><p>Checking out the rest of the yuan-ti nest revealed not much more of importance; the passageway to the south led to a nesting chamber for the abominations, whereas the passageway to the north led to the jungle outside. It was guarded by a pair of yuan-ti broodguards and a trio of rattlesnakes, but they were nothing the heroes couldn't easily dispatch - and they did exactly that. Satisfied that they had cleared out the threat - and surmising that this whole exercise was an attempt to create a new nest of yuan-ti in Greyhawk City - the heroes grabbed up the finished potions from the racks (the three cauldrons contained only the first step in the preparation of three different potion types, but neither was anywhere near to ready for consumption) and returned through the ouroboros. Gilbert and Binkadink were the last ones through; after the wizard had determined the victims in the transformation pits were too far gone to be prevented from becoming yuan-ti, Binkadink put them out of their misery with his gnomish glaive.</p><p></p><p>The next morning, the group sent word to Guildmaster Rale Bodkin about the operation, so he could have his men safely dismantle the ouroboros to prevent any further yuan-ti incursions into the city. Rale had his kenku Collectors scour the city for signs of previous victims of the yuan-ti potion shop, for it seemed the salesgirls added a yuan-ti poison, extracted from the venom of the abominations, to some of the potions they sold in the hope that some of the people imbibing them would turn into yuan-ti. "Exotic Potions and Tinctures" had been open for two weeks, and there was no telling how many yuan-ti transformation potions had been sold in that time. To ensure none of the potions they had taken from the racks would have a similar effect on any of the adventurers, Ingebold cast a <em>neutralize poison</em> spell on the lot of them.</p><p></p><p>Fortunately for the adventurers, the rest of the week was relatively uneventful. It was only after they had picked up their upgraded weapons and armor that they got embroiled in yet another adventure starting out in this bustling city.</p><p></p><p> - - - </p><p></p><p>T-Shirt Worn: While I don't have any T-shirts devoted to potions (or yuan-ti, for that matter), I do have several dedicated to "things that you drink" - so I chose to wear one of my two Mello Yello T-shirts.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Richards, post: 7217743, member: 508"] [b]ADVENTURE 38: POTION COMMOTION[/b] PC Roster: [INDENT]Binkadink Dundernoggin, gnome fighter 12 Castillan Ivenheart, elf bounder 12 Darrien, half-elf ranger 12 Finoula Cloudshadow, elf ranger 12 Gilbert Fung, human wizard 12 Hagan, half-orc sorcerer 12[/INDENT] NPC Roster: [INDENT]Aithanar Ivenheart, elf fighter 3 Ingebold Battershield, dwarven cleric 11 (Moradin) Jinkadoodle Dundernoggin, gnome illusionist 5[/INDENT] Game Session Date: 3 September 2017 - - - "I don't trust 'em," admitted Piddilink Dundernoggin, his eyes glaring over at the potion shop that opened two weeks ago directly across the street from him. "They're selling their potions for less than the cost to make them, they've gotta be! Trying to drive away all my business, if you ask me. And look at the size of that place!" he continued. "There's hardly enough room to set up a potion lab, and they never get any deliveries coming in – so where do all these potions come from, anyway? I tell you, somebody needs to get to the bottom of this, that's for sure!" The Kordovian heroes had swung by to say hello to Binkadink and Jinkadoodle's uncle while visiting Greyhawk City, and he took the opportunity of finding out his nephews were now adventurers – and had adventurer friends with them, forming an entire adventuring band – to get them to (hopefully) get rid of his new rivals. "We'll go check it out," promised Binkadink. "Anybody else want to come with me?" "I go," replied Gilbert, rising up from his chair. "Anybody else?" asked the gnome fighter, looking among his friends. "It doesn't look like there's a whole lot of room in there," pointed out Finoula. "Maybe you'd best check it out and report back." The elf ranger had a point, but she was also enjoying the hospitality of Binkadink's uncle - maybe it was his expertise as a potion crafter, but he made excellent tea! Binkadink and Gilbert exited Piddilink Dundernoggin's potion shop and walked across the street. There was the target: "Exotic Potions and Tinctures," according to the letters painted on the window. It was a small shop by any standards, a single-story wooden building standing 25 feet wide and about 15 feet deep. A wooden door stood in the middle of the building, with a window to the left. The two entered the shop and saw they were currently the only customers. The public area was a 15-foot square, with the back 5 feet blocked off by a wall; the middle of the wall held a counter window, behind which stood an attractive young woman with dusky skin and shiny, black hair. "Hello," she greeted the two, her voice betraying an unknown accent. "My name is [b]Yasmine[/b]. May I help you?" "We were, uh, looking to buy some potions," replied Binkadink. Yasmine swung her right hand out, indicating the sign to the right of the counter, which indicated the potions available and the prices. Gilbert and Binkadink looked over and read: "You kidding me?" declared Gilbert Fung. "These prices for real?" "They are indeed," replied Yasmine. "How many [i]potions of cure moderate wounds[/i] could I buy?" asked Binkadink. "How many would you like?" returned Yasmine. Binkadink ran numbers through his head. "Ten, if you have them," he said, pulling off his backpack and rummaging through it for his cash. "Certainly, sir," said Yasmine, looking down behind the counter and grabbing up vials. She turned to an associate, another dark-skinned beauty. "[b]Anabelda[/b], could you grab me five more [i]potions of cure moderate wounds[/i] from the back?" "Of course," smiled Anabelda, walking off to the right to a door behind the counter leading to the small area not accessible by the public. During her absence, Yasmine occupied her customers with small talk. "So, you two are adventurers, I take it?" she asked. "Yes, that's right," admitted Binkadink. "Oh, are you part of the local Guild?" "What? Uh, no, we're just visiting the city." "Hey," interjected Gilbert. "How we know these potions actually work?" "Oh, they work perfectly well," replied Yasmine. "They are crafted with loving care by true professionals, using proven methods that have withstood the test of time." "Oh yeah? Maybe we test it out for ourselves. Can you put your hand on counter?" Yasmine placed her hand on the counter top. "Why do you--?" she began. Gilbert pulled out his dagger and raised it to the counter, and the salesgirl quickly snatched her hand away. "Sir!" she chided. "I must ask you not to draw weapons in the shop!" "Okay, okay," grumbled Gilbert. "We can use [i]magic missile[/i] spell instead. Now, this only hurt for a moment..." Yasmine turned to Binkadink. "Sir, I must ask you to have your friend leave, immediately." Binkadink turned to Gilbert with an "are you crazy?" look on his face. "Go on ahead, I'll be right out," said the gnome. "I no go anywhere," replied Gilbert stubbornly. "I make sure potions work!" "You leave building now!" Binkadink replied, mimicking Gilbert's affected speech patterns. "You no come back!" "Fine," grumbled the wizard, turning and leaving the building. Binkadink turned back to Yasmine. "I'm sorry about that - he's not from around here." By then, Anabelda had returned from the back with the extra potions. Yasmine gathered them all together, Binkadink paid over his coins, and he exited the shop with his purchases. He looked around for Gilbert, but the portly mage was nowhere to be seen. Then Gilbert sauntered up from the side of the building. "Front door only way in," he announced, having just strolled around the building. "No other doors, no other windows." The pair returned to Piddilink's shop, where Binkadink passed over one of his new purchases to his uncle for examination. "Does it look legit?" he asked. Piddilink gave the potion a close scrutiny. "The color's different than the ones I make," he noted, but that wasn't unusual - there were many ways to arrive at the same destination during potion creation, and the end results often differed in color and taste. The alchemist unstoppered the potion, waving it under his prodigious nose. "I don't smell anything out of the ordinary," he admitted, then turned to his nephew. "Can I keep this one, run some tests on it?" "Be my guest," replied Binkadink. "I'll assist you," offered Jinkadoodle, himself well-versed in the potion-creation business, having spent many hours assisting his own father, Winkidew, at their own potion lab in Kordovia. "Give us an hour or so," said Piddilink, taking the suspect potion back to his lab. That was a good time for the rest of the band to take off, to explore the sights of Greyhawk City; they still had the better part of a week to kill before their magical weapon and armor upgrades would be finished. "So what's the next plan of action?" asked Darrien. "We need to see inside rest of that building," said Gilbert. "We could send in Wezhley," suggested Hagan. "I could cast [i]greater invisibility[/i] on him, and he could jump over the counter and check out the back room, then report back." "How long could he stay invisible?" asked Finoula. Hagan considered. "A little over a minute," he replied. "That dinnae give 'im a whole lot o' time," pointed out Ingebold. "There's a good chance they wouldnae have need t' open th' door during that time." "Well, they would if one of us went in and purchased a whole bunch of the same potion, like I did," suggested Binkadink. "Guys, guys, guys," interrupted Castillan. "Why are we wasting any brain cells on this? We wait until after nightfall, then we break in and check the place out ourselves. Easy enough." The group considered Castillan's plan. "Are you sure you can get us into the place?" asked Finoula. Castillan just scoffed. "Not a problem," he replied. "Okay, here what we do," said Gilbert. "I station Mudpie to keep watch on place. He make sure salesgirls leave, we wait for all clear, then we break in, check place out." "We might want to let that Rale guy know what we're planning to do," suggested Castillan. "We don't want him thinking we're planning a heist and infringing on the thieves guild or anything." That seemed reasonable, so they left word at Chunk's, confident that Rale's top stolen-goods fence would pass the word along to the Guildmaster. Then they returned to Piddilink's shop, where they found out the potion Binkadink had purchased was, to all tests the alchemists could devise, perfectly legitimate. "It doesn't make any sense," complained Piddilink. "They should be out of business if they're selling their wares for so much less than they cost to make in the first place!" "Maybe we'll find out what's going when we visit the shop tonight, after they close up," suggested Binkadink. And then there was nothing to do but wait. - - - It was a cloudless night, with both of Oerth's moons nothing more than thin crescents in the night sky. The heroes crept along the streets and alleyways, keeping a watchful eye for any members of the City Guard that might be making their rounds. Mudpie had scouted out the shop, burying himself to just below his eyes in the alleyway across from "Exotic Potions and Tinctures," and reported to his master, Gilbert, that the two salesgirls had closed up shop at around 8 bells in the evening. Furthermore, while they lowered the sturdy shutters that covered the window for the night (during the day, they were propped up on metal poles to form a canopy), they didn't depart the shop as expected. Rather, they closed and locked the door from the inside. The dutiful earth elemental reported that nobody had entered or left the shop since it closed for the night. "So they're still in there?" asked Darrien. "That clinch it," remarked Gilbert Fung. "They got to have extradimensional space inside that back room." "Like our 'lower level' in th' dragonfly ship?" asked Ingebold. "Exactly. Or maybe teleport platform or something, but no room in there for potion lab - definitely no room for potion lab [i]and[/i] bedroom!" "Well, let's find out," said Castillan, approaching the door and pulling out his masterwork lockpicking tools. It was a tricky lock, requiring three times the normal time the elf could normally get a lock to bend to his dexterous fingers, but eventually it opened. With a look at the others, he pulled the door open and stepped inside into total darkness - the [i]everburning torches[/i] which had been present during business hours were apparently stashed away somewhere. Still Castillan was an elf, so his night vision was better than that of a human; from the scant light from the twin moons, he could see the place was empty. Hagan stepped in after the elf bounder, his half-orc eyes perfectly capable of seeing in pitch blackness. Wezhley, his weasel familiar, sat perched upon one shoulder. The two adventurers were the only ones to enter the dark shop; the others realized there wasn't a whole lot of room in there and opted to stay outside on watch duty. The spellcasters took the opportunity to cast some of their normal spells: Gilbert cast a [i]mage armor[/i] spell directly on Mudpie and then a [i]spider climb[/i] spell on both of them; Finoula and Darrien each cast a [i]barkskin[/i] upon themselves; Ingebold cast her standard [i]magic circle against evil[/i] spell, centered upon herself. Inside the empty shop, Castillan approached the counter. The whole section beneath the open window hinged outward to allow entry into the area behind the counter. Hagan heard a sibilant whispering, followed by a "vwhoomp!" noise behind him that sounded vaguely electrical. He tried exiting through the door, but ran into an invisible [i]wall of force[/i] that obviously hadn't been there a moment before. In the meantime, several of the other adventurers had started climbing up onto the structure's roof. Gilbert and Mudpie had no problems doing so, given the [i]spider climb[/i] spell the portly mage had just cast upon them. Likewise, Finoula's recent purchase of [i]boots of spider climbing[/i] made clambering up to the roof a matter of ease, and she pulled Binkadink up to the rooftop with her. Darrien and Ingebold remained on the ground, alert for passersby. Inside the shop, Hagan raced to the counter - Castillan had just opened the counter door - and peered over the counter. There, coiled in the back corner, was the hidden spellcaster responsible for the [i]wall of force[/i] trapping them all inside. It was a skeletal snake with a human-looking skull: a bone naga, by all the descriptions the half-orc sorcerer had heard of such creatures. The half-orc fired off a [i]lightning bolt[/i] spell which blasted into the creature's body. Castillan saw the bone naga just as it started casting a second spell; the bounder snapped his fingers, causing his short sword to materialize in his hand and he stabbed out at it. The blade struck bone and skidded off to the side, while the bone naga's spellcasting continued unabated. Immediately thereafter, billowing greenish-yellow vapors blasted into the bounder's face, obscuring his vision and rapidly filling up the enclosed room. Hagan and Wezhley started choking immediately, as did Castillan. Fortunately, the two adventurers were able to shrug off the worst of the [i]cloudkill[/i] spell's effects; not so Wezhley, who shivered with weakness after inhaling the nasty vapors. The weasel dropped down from the sorcerer's shoulder, staggering over to the doorway (the door had been left open to provide at least a little moonlight in the shop, not that it was doing any good right now) and scratched feebly at the [i]wall of force[/i]. Hagan realized that to stay inside the shop was to court death - not only could they no longer see their undead foe, or indeed anything in the cloud-filled room, but the poisonous vapors would kill them all given enough time. So he scooped up his familiar, then held his other arm out until he bumped into Castillan. Grabbing the bounder by his sleeve, the half-orc coughed out the words to a [i]teleport[/i] spell, and they popped into existence beside a startled Ingebold in the cool, clean air of the city. Meanwhile, up on the rooftop, Gilbert was trying out a new spell he had just mastered: a [i]passwall[/i]. He created a hole in the middle of the roof, exposing the room below to the open air. In the moonlight, they could see the room below was filled with murky vapors, but the [i]cloudkill[/i] spell created a heavy gas that hugged the ground, and they didn't spill out of the open hole in the roof. "There's a bone naga in the corner!" Hagan called up to the others, pointing to the far corner. Binkadink took his bearings, then inverted his magical glaive and stabbed down at the corner where the bone naga should be. He felt resistance, telling him he had hit the creature, although his gnomish vision couldn't penetrate the thick vapors in the room below. Suddenly, the bone naga's skull popped up out of the hole - the creature was long enough it could raise its head that high while still keeping a safe perch on the floor below. A line of dancing lightning blasted from its mouth, striking the gnome in the chest and then arcing off to strike everybody else up on the roof with him. Mudpie, adjacent to the naga's skull, punched it with a rock-hard fist. Binkadink rapidly pulled his glaive up from the hole in the roof and reversed his grip on the weapon, allowing him to stab the naga with his full strength. That did the job; upon being destroyed, each of the bones making up its undead body disconnected from the others, to go clattering to the area behind the counter below. Satisfied that the bone naga had been destroyed, the heroes climbed back down off the roof and had to wait outside for the [i]wall of force[/i] and [i]cloudkill[/i] spells to run their course. During that time, Binkadink rummaged through his pack and pulled out a handful of the [i]potions of cure moderate wounds[/i] he had purchased from Yasmine earlier that day. Having taken the brunt of the bone naga's [i]chain lightning [/i] spell, he felt he was in need of some healing before they proceeded inside the rest of the small building. The first potion went down just fine, as did the second. The third one went down as well, but it had a funny taste to it - and while it healed up the gnome's wounds just as well as the first two had, he could feel it was also trying to do something else. "Guys," he said. "There's something funny about this potion." "Are ye okay?" asked Ingebold, approaching the gnome after having tended to the other heroes' wounds. "Yeah, I'm fine," replied the gnome. "But that last potion - I think it had some kind of poison added to it or something." "It was one of the ones you bought this morning?" asked Hagan, feeding a healing potion of his own to Wezhley, who lapped it up from the half-orc's cupped hand. "Yeah." "Maybe don't drink any more of those before we can get them tested," suggested Finoula. "That's not a bad idea." The adventurers made their way into the shop once access was once again available, forming a single-file line. Behind the counter everything was empty (with the exception of the pile of naga bones); the vials of potions and the cashbox that had been stored behind the counter during business hours were no longer in place. "Let's check out this back area," suggested Binkadink, opening the side door behind the counter. The room beyond was also empty, save for the large stone statue that took up most of the eastern wall. It was a stylized carving of a serpent, circular in shape except for its head and tail which were turned away, causing it to take on the shape of an upside-down "omega" symbol, with the snake's open-mouthed head pointing one way and the tip of its tail facing the other. Binkadink examined the statue, looking for a command word or something that might activate it. "Yep," confirmed Gilbert as he spotted the carving. "I bet that a [i]teleport gate[/i]." "Look here," commanded the gnome, tracing a faint line along the plane where the head and tail suddenly changed direction from the arc of the circle. "There's a crease here. I'll bet anything they swivel." He gave each end an experimental tug, to no effect - they weren't going to budge by a mere application of strength. "I think you're right," said Castillan, squeezing into the small room. "Look: if the head and tail swivel back toward each other, the circle is not only completed, but the tip of the tail fits right into the snake's open mouth, forming an ouroboros." Upon the uttering of the word "ouroboros," a grinding sound emanated from the statue, as the top portions of the carving swiveled around to form a snake-swallowing-its-own-tail configuration. Once it did so, the interior part of the statue - the part encircled by the snake - turned black, like an upright sheet of oil. "[i]Teleportation gate[/i]," repeated Gilbert. "Told you." "Let's see where it leads," said Binkadink, stepping forward through the gate, his glaive pointed ahead of him. The gnome felt a moment of disorientation, then found himself walking down a ramp on the other side of a similar-looking ouroboros carving behind him. Ahead of him, at the bottom of the ramp, a large room opened up. This room was about 35 feet square, with three large cauldrons along the back wall and a small stack of firewood piled along the northern wall. Two humanoid figures tended to the contents of the cauldrons. There were wide tunnels to the north and south and a pair of smaller, open rooms up on either side of the ramp. The fires beneath the cauldrons provide the room's only light, and Binkadink realized they couldn't be responsible for the greatly increased heat and humidity he had felt immediately upon passing through the [i]teleport gate[/i] - he figured he was now somewhere far away from Greyhawk City, possibly in a jungle environment. Walking as quietly as his armor - and his extended [i]gnomish stilt-boots[/i] - allowed him, the gnome approached the two figures tending to the vats. The person on the left he recognized as Yasmine, from the potion shop; the other was a male, dressed in robes. Assuming this was the wizard behind the potions, Binkadink ran the rest of the way down the ramp and into the room, stabbing into the robed figure's body just as he turned to see what the "clicking" sound from the stilt-boots on the stone ramp was. The fighter's glaive pierced through the yuan-ti pureblood's gut, slaying him instantly. Binkadink stood there, a confused expression on his face and a dead male yuan-ti hanging off his extended glaive. Surely a high-powered wizard wasn't usually taken out in one blow like this? Unbeknownst to the gnome, this was no wizard at all but a mere minion; he had expected a tough fight but ended up slaying a guy in charge of keeping the potion brews properly stirred. Castillan stepped through the gate and ended up beside and behind the gnome fighter. His crossbow raised, he sent a bolt flying at Yasmine, the only other visible combatant in the area. Yasmine countered with a hastily-cast [i]charm person[/i] effect, which surprisingly caught the gnome off guard. "Protect me from your friends!" Yasmine commanded. "Don't let them kill me!" Ingebold was the next to enter through the [i]teleport gate[/i]. She immediately cast a [i]spiritual weapon[/i] spell that caused a dwarven warhammer to materialize in the air and go rushing to attack the dusky-skinned yuan-ti pureblood. "No! Stop!" cried Binkadink, stepping forward to try to shield Yasmine from the hammer-shaped spell effect. Finoula was the next to enter, and she raced down the ramp with her magical longsword [i]Tahlmalaera[/i] drawn and ready to attack. "Leave her alone!" cried Binkadink, sending his glaive swinging in the ranger's direction. Fortunately, Binkadink was only trying to stop his friends from fighting each other, so he struck Finoula with the flat side of his blade. Still, the ranger didn't expect an attack from this direction, and the glaive's blade slapped her away, stopping her advance toward Yasmine. There was a circular chamber to the north of the potion vat chamber, where venom was extracted from the yuan-ti abominations that ruled this nest. Another yuan-ti pureblood female with dark skin, [b]Boadakka[/b], approached from this chamber, a masterwork scimitar raised in her hand. At the same time, a pair of six-foot-long serpents that had been resting in a circular depression to the south of the potion vat chamber transformed back into their human shapes, grabbed up scimitars of their own, and joined the fight from the south. One of these was Anabelda, the sales assistant Binkadink and Gilbert had encountered in the shop; the other was a male unknown to the heroes. But both could easily pass as a human, with their presence in a yuan-ti nest the only hint of their true heritage. Despite Binkadink's defensive position, Castillan felt he could get past the gnome's guard with his bounding skills. He was right; he easily dodged past the fighter and continued on to Yasmine, where a quick thrust with his sword took her life. About the same time Ingebold entered the nest through the ouroboros statue; it was debatable whether it was the presence of Ingebold's [i]magic circle against evil[/i] spell still active upon her or Yasmine's death that snapped Binkadink from his [i]charm[/i] effect, but he was free of its influence immediately. He looked over to Finoula, gave an uncomfortable grimace that might have been meant as a smile, and offered, "Sorry!" Boadakka stabbed at Gilbert Fung, who had just entered the nest. Her scimitar missed the surprised wizard, who hadn't expected to be attacked immediately upon stepping through the gate. The pureblood male attacked Finoula with his own scimitar while Anabelda swung at Darrien, who had also just arrived. Fortunately, both strikes missed their targets. Hagan cast a [i]chain lightning[/i] spell that slew both of the remaining female purebloods, leaving Darrien to finish off the male with a barrage of arrows. After that, Ingebold was kept busy casting healing spells upon those who needed them. A quick exploration of the areas seen thus far resulted in finding the racks of potions stored behind the shop counter during business hours, plus several empty potion vials and a few wooden crates filled with the proceeds from the sales thus far. The coins were dumped into Ingebold's [i]portable hole[/i] for divvying up later. After everyone had had a chance to catch their breath, Binkadink led the group through the wide tunnel to the south, the only way not yet explored. The tunnel arced to the east, splitting off three narrower tunnels along its length as it did so. Binkadink and Castillan checked each of these narrower tunnels; each ended in a 10-foot-deep pit, in which a dark-skinned human lay curled up in the fetal position, moaning softly in pain. Some of them had started growing patches of scales on their skin, leading the heroes to believe they were in the middle of a painful transformation into yuan-ti of some sort themselves. There being nothing they could do for these unfortunates at the moment, the group moved on. As the wide tunnel veered east, they could see ahead to a large statue of a snake-god of some sort, carved from a burnished metal and looming over the chamber set before it. There was a large, circular depression in the floor before this idol, in which sat a pair of yuan-ti abominations. The group had met up with a trio of sonic yuan-ti before; these were of the same basic configuration, with a pair of muscular arms and a humanoid torso stuck in the middle of what was otherwise an enormous snake. Each of the abominations wore an elaborate harness, upon which was attached a scabbard containing an overly-large scimitar, as befitted creatures of this size. Spotting the heroes, the abominations slithered in opposite directions, into sloping tunnels to the north and south of the worship chamber. One of the snake-men called out a sibilant prayer, and the idol responded by lurching to life, its motions becoming smoother and more lifelike with each passing second. The bronze serpent slithered forward to meet the advancing heroes at the western end of the worship chamber. With an amazing speed worthy of a striking cobra, the bronze statue darted forth and bit at Finoula. The ranger cried out in sudden pain, not only from the carved fangs piercing her flesh but also the electrical current charging through the serpent's head. She struggled to escape the snake's mouth, wriggling free before it could wrap a coil of its powerful body around her and start squeezing the life from her. Behind the bronze serpent, one of the yuan-ti abominations used the moving idol of its god as cover, plucking a bead from a necklace it wore around its neck and tossing it past the bronze serpent. The bead hit about halfway down the passageway in which the heroes were currently confined, exploding into a powerful [i]fireball[/i] that struck each and every one of the heroes. Ignoring his singed back, Binkadink stepped forward with his glaive and struck out at the bronze serpent. It hit with a spark of residual electricity, scratching the bronze creature's finish and leaving a deep groove. Behind the gnome, Hagan cast a [i]chain lightning[/i] spell - he was really liking this new spell! - at the yuan-ti abomination that had cast the [i]fireball bead[/i], having it arc off to strike the other abomination and the bronze serpent. Based on their reactions, they all had some level of spell resistance which occasionally prevented spells from having their full effect. The half-orc growled involuntarily; enemy spell resistance was becoming his least favorite protective feature. Finoula spoke the command word that caused her body to transform into a bolt of lightning, courtesy of her [i]lightning amulet[/i]. She blasted through the bronze serpent and the yuan-ti abomination behind it, manifesting back as an elf directly behind the snake-man. Almost at the same time, Castillan bounded past the bronze serpent and ended up stabbing his sword at the yuan-ti abomination, catching him in a pincer maneuver with Finoula. On a ramping slope to the south, the second abomination cast a healing spell upon himself that cured the electrical damage he'd just suffered from Hagan's [i]chain lightning[/i] spell. Then he slithered forward, biting Finoula and wrapping his arms around her, the acid he'd formed on his skin burning the elf. Finoula could feel venom coursing through her body from the serpent-man's bite, but while she was able to shrug off its effects the overwhelming damage caused her to pass out. She fell limp in the abomination's grasp; rather than mess about with her undersized weapons, he pulled the [i]lightning amulet[/i] from around her neck, intending to use it himself. Binkadink cried out in pain, having been bitten and zapped by the bronze serpent's electrical bite. Then, still caught up in its mouth, the gnome was bodily lifted into the air and transferred to the statue's sinuous coils, where he was constricted. Hagan cursed at this turn of events, as he was just about to cast his last [i]chain lightning[/i] spell at the bronze serpent, but was hesitant to do so with Binkadink being crushed in its coils - and wearing his metal armor, at that. Seeing the half-orc's hesitation, Binkadink called out to him, "Make the statue a secondary target! I can take a secondary blast!" Having experienced what it was like to take a primary blast courtesy of the bone naga earlier that evening, Binkadink wasn't sure he could survive another electrical zap like that. The spell went off as planned - and the secondary arc that found its way to the bronze serpent not only zapped Binkadink something fierce through his metal armor, but actually healed the construct of some of the damage it had taken! But at least the yuan-ti with the [i]necklace of fireballs[/i], who had been the primary target of the spell, seemed to be severely hurt. Darrien send a barrage of arrows flying at the bronze serpent, but they went clattering off the construct's metal exterior without seeming to do much harm. Seeing her Battle-Sister lying unconscious on the floor, but with a bronze serpent and a yuan-ti abomination between them, Ingebold used her [i]light mace of healing[/i] to send a [i]cure serious wounds[/i] to Finoula from a distance. The spell not only healed the ranger's wounds, it revived her to consciousness. Finoula sat up just in time to scramble out of the way as the yuan-ti who had snatched her [i]lightning amulet[/i] went crashing to the floor, several of Darrien's arrows buried in its throat. Without a word, she grabbed her amulet out of the reptile's hand and placed it back around her neck where it belonged. Gilbert Fung directed a trio of [i]scorching rays[/i] at the bronze serpent, overcoming the construct's spell resistance and causing it to crash to the ground, immobile. He and Mudpie then climbed up the wall to the ceiling, where they would be out of the way of the physical combatants heading over to fight the sole remaining yuan-ti abomination. Castillan stabbed at the reptile with his short sword, causing it to hiss in pain. But it was Finoula, wielding [i]Tahlmalaera[/i], who brought the killing blow. Bending down to remove the creature's ornate scabbard from its harness, the ranger pulled out the reptile's oversized scimitar, tossed it aside, and experimentally placed her longsword inside it. As she suspected, the scabbard was magical - it resized to accommodate this new weapon, and future experimentation would reveal it provided the effect of a [i]keen edge[/i] spell three times per day - a feature that would no doubt come in handy. The [i]necklace of fireballs[/i] was given to Binkadink, for two reasons: he was sorely lacking a ranged weapon, and once he got his red dragonhide armor back from the armorsmith, he'd be the one most likely to survive an accidental explosion while wearing the necklace, should he be attacked by an enemy [i]fireball[/i] or similar flame-based attack. Checking out the rest of the yuan-ti nest revealed not much more of importance; the passageway to the south led to a nesting chamber for the abominations, whereas the passageway to the north led to the jungle outside. It was guarded by a pair of yuan-ti broodguards and a trio of rattlesnakes, but they were nothing the heroes couldn't easily dispatch - and they did exactly that. Satisfied that they had cleared out the threat - and surmising that this whole exercise was an attempt to create a new nest of yuan-ti in Greyhawk City - the heroes grabbed up the finished potions from the racks (the three cauldrons contained only the first step in the preparation of three different potion types, but neither was anywhere near to ready for consumption) and returned through the ouroboros. Gilbert and Binkadink were the last ones through; after the wizard had determined the victims in the transformation pits were too far gone to be prevented from becoming yuan-ti, Binkadink put them out of their misery with his gnomish glaive. The next morning, the group sent word to Guildmaster Rale Bodkin about the operation, so he could have his men safely dismantle the ouroboros to prevent any further yuan-ti incursions into the city. Rale had his kenku Collectors scour the city for signs of previous victims of the yuan-ti potion shop, for it seemed the salesgirls added a yuan-ti poison, extracted from the venom of the abominations, to some of the potions they sold in the hope that some of the people imbibing them would turn into yuan-ti. "Exotic Potions and Tinctures" had been open for two weeks, and there was no telling how many yuan-ti transformation potions had been sold in that time. To ensure none of the potions they had taken from the racks would have a similar effect on any of the adventurers, Ingebold cast a [i]neutralize poison[/i] spell on the lot of them. Fortunately for the adventurers, the rest of the week was relatively uneventful. It was only after they had picked up their upgraded weapons and armor that they got embroiled in yet another adventure starting out in this bustling city. - - - T-Shirt Worn: While I don't have any T-shirts devoted to potions (or yuan-ti, for that matter), I do have several dedicated to "things that you drink" - so I chose to wear one of my two Mello Yello T-shirts. [/QUOTE]
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