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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Richards" data-source="post: 8177181" data-attributes="member: 508">ADVENTURE 7: WITH MINIMAL DANGERPC Roster:Alewyth Putterpye, dwarf priestess of Aerik 2             Thurloe Pulver, human fighter 2             Wakuren, half-orc cleric of Cal 1/paladin 1             Xandro Silverstrings, human bard 2             Zander Quilson, elf sorcerer 2Game Session Date: 9 January 2021 - - -The five adventurers stood in a forest clearing, the full moon shining down upon them.  Dark shapes loomed overhead on either side of them, ancient trees pooling shadows on the ground below their branches, leaving the dirt path standing out in the moonlight.Suddenly, a man turned the corner on the path just ahead.  He wore the robes of a wizard and had a look of abject terror on his bearded face.  "Run!" he cried as he veered off on a side path before the fledgling heroes.  "It's coming!"To the five adventurers, this was an almost identical repeat of the dream sequence they'd been in earlier, but the frightened wizard seemed to have no recollection at all of ever having seen them before, nor did he pay any attention to the moogle fluttering beside Thurloe's shoulder.  In a panicked frenzy, the wizard darted off along a path to the group's right, just as the dream fox came popping out of the forest undergrowth ahead at such a speed as if suddenly appearing by magic."It's the same thing, over and over again, kupo," observed Mogo as the dream fox tilted its head curiously - it, too, apparently had no recollection of meeting up with the group of dream explorers before.  "You can try killing him again, but it won't do any good - the dream just always starts over, kupo.  But now that the dreamstones have been carved and are ready to go, if you show up at the side of the sleeping wizard having this dream and enter the dream from there, you'll have a much better chance of waking him, kupo!"  Quick as a wink, the fox darted forward and snapped at Thurloe's unprotected neck; the fighter swung his bastard sword at the beast but it had already dashed off to the forest shadows beneath the overhanging branches to the fighter's left.Mogo waved a paw and the dreamscape vanished, to be replaced by a richly-furnished study.  The moogle indicated a map on the table before them.  "Here's where he's located, kupo," Mogo said, indicating a point on the map in the mountains several days north of Port Duralia.  He then explained how the group should approach the dreamer and enter his dream: by placing a dreamstone upon the sleeping wizard's forehead to help him focus and then surround the dreamer on all sides, in a circle, with each of the adventurers holding a dreamstone in his or her hands to help focus their own power over the dreamscape.  "That ought to give you enough of an edge to slay the dream fox, hopefully for good, kupo!" Mogo informed them.As to what they'd try next if that failed to wake the wizard, Mogo was silent - hopefully the plan would work as envisioned.Upon awakening in the morning, the group saddled up their horses and hitched the two mules to the wagon, then headed off to the north with their provisions and gear.  Thurloe spent a good part of the time sitting in the back of the wagon reading through the beginner's spellbook his arcane instructor had left with him, practicing the hand gestures needed to cast the most basics of cantrips.  It soon became apparent to the young fighter that mastering spellcraft was going to be as difficult, if not more so, than mastering the use of his bastard sword.The three days passed by rather uneventfully - save for a curious dire badger poking about looking for food on the second night's camping out - and in the late afternoon of the third day the group saw a stone structure ahead on the mountain pass they'd taken, the building long and low for most of its length save for a two-story tower off to the right.  Two sets of double doors to the far left hinted at stables and possibly wagon storage or the like, but the front door was right in the middle of the structure.  Glad to be done with traveling for now and eager to put her dreamwalker training to good use, Alewyth strode boldly to the front door and pounded upon it with her fist.  It took nearly a minute before the door was opened, revealing a rather rotund halfling dressed in a butler's finery.  "May I help you?" he asked."It's possible we may be able to help you - or rather, the wizard who dwells here.  Has your master been in a state of sleep for the better part of a month, by any chance?"The butler gasped, surprised at the dwarf's knowledge.  "Why--why, yes," he exclaimed.  "How ever did you know?""It's been happening all across the continent," Alewyth explained as the butler stepped back and bid them to enter.  "We've been sent to try to free the dreamers from their sleep.""Have you had any success?" asked the butler, one Humberto Bugcatcher who went by the nickname "Humbug"."Not yet - but this is our first case," Alewyth informed him.Humbug led the group down a hallway, into a small library, and from there into a bedroom, in which slept a bearded human the adventurers immediately recognized as the wizard being chased by the dream fox they had met up with several times already in the Dreamlands.  "My master, the wizard Grimboldt," Humbug announced."We should pull the bed into the middle of the room," suggested Wakuren, grabbing the foot of the bed.  Thurloe took the head of the bed and they did just that.  Alewyth opened the bag of dreamstones and pulled one out, placing it onto the center of Grimboldt's forehead.  The wizard whined in a low tone, frightened of something he was experiencing in his dream - but being constantly stalked by a vicious fox for four weeks was likely to do that to you.  Fearful that his movements might dislodge the stone from his head, Alewyth wrapped a piece of cloth around his temple like a headband, binding the dreamstone in place.  She then passed a gem to each of the four men beside her."What should I do?" asked Humbug, looking nervously around at the five strangers who had showed up out of the blue and were apparently about to work some magic on his employer.  He belatedly began worrying that he only had their word they were trying to aid Grimboldt - perhaps he shouldn't have let them into the manor so quickly, as that half-orc looked particularly fearsome."You can make sure nobody bothers us," Thurloe replied, as the five strangers each took a seat around the bed, sitting around it at the five points of a star.  They had their eyes closed and looked as if they were meditating."Very well," answered Humbug, closing the bedroom door behind him as he stepped back into the library.  He supposed this ritual - or whatever it was - would take a bit of time to complete; perhaps he should use that time cleaning up the mess in the master's arcane laboratory.  After all, four weeks with a comatose master had given him plenty of time to root around in the wizard's lab, experimenting with his various arcane items of power....One by one, the adventurers succumbed to sleep, their training coming into play.  As each entered the Dreamlands, he or she was met by their assigned moogle guide, who led them to Mogo.  "Is everybody ready, kupo?" he asked, standing in a hallway of doors and opening one door in particular ushering them in.  "Good luck, kupo!"The five adventurers stepped through the doorway and into a forest clearing, the full moon shining down upon them.  Not surprisingly, dark shapes loomed overhead on either side of them, ancient trees pooling shadows on the ground below their branches, leaving the dirt path standing out in the moonlight.On cue, Grimboldt turned the corner on the path just ahead.  He wore the robes of a wizard and had a look of abject terror on his bearded face.  "Run!" he cried as he veered off on a side path before the fledgling heroes.  "It's coming!"The heroes already had their weapons out and spells at the ready, but even here in Grimboldt's recurring dream they each also wielded the dreamstone they held back on the Material Plane in their hands.  They held these stones up as protective wards when the dream fox made its sudden appearance on the path before them.Once again, it cocked its head in puzzlement at the sudden arrival of these strangers, but this time it was more than just their unexpected intrusion into the dream; it was also the strange sluggishness that was passing over its body.  Without any discernable source, the strength seemed to drain from its limbs, its unnatural quickness depleted somehow, leaving it hardly any faster or stronger than a normal fox of its size.  Soundlessly, it shook its head as if trying to dissipate the weakness by waking up from a dream of its own, but the attempt was fruitless.While it was puzzling out its new state of being, Thurloe dashed forward - he was now about as quick as the fox - and sent his bastard sword crashing down upon its fur-covered body, the blade drawing a line of red pain across its back and side.  It yelped and dashed off into the undergrowth, giving Alewyth the time to cast a bless spell upon the group.  "We got first blood this time," she pointed out.  "Surely that's a good sign!"The fox dashed out at the heroes again, noticeably much slower than in previous visits to this particular dream, and Zander was ready with a magic missile spell that struck it in its vulpine muzzle.  Xandro stabbed forward with his rapier, piercing its shoulder as Wakuren cast a doom spell upon their foe.  He wasn't sure exactly how the fox had kept Grimboldt imprisoned here in his own nightmare for a month, but so far things were looking like they'd be able to defeat the fox in combat without any difficulties.  This belief of the half-orc cleric's was only reinforced when the fox snapped its jaws at Thurloe and the fighter managed to successfully dodge out of the way.  That certainly beat having your throat ripped out! the fighter thought to himself as he brought his bastard sword crashing down upon the fox for a second time.Alewyth attacked the creature with her warhammer, but the bedraggled beast managed to avoid her blow.  There was no dodging another magic missile spell from Zander, however, although the fox just barely avoided subsequent attacks from Wakuren's shield and Xandro's rapier.  In a sudden panic, the fox looked all about him for a way out of this fight, dashing at its best current speed past its attackers in an attempt to hunt down Grimboldt, its original target.  It snapped at Zander when he cast a third magic missile spell at him, the time it took for the fox to do so allowing Alewyth's hammer and Thurloe's sword to deal additional harm to the beast.  Seemingly on its last legs, it leaped up at Zander as if determined to bring at least one of these heroes down with it before it fell, but the elf was still on his feet - if wobbling somewhat - when Alewyth's warhammer crushed the fox's skull, slaying it at long last.Everyone immediately assumed a defensive position, looking about to see if the dream would reset again as it had in the past.  Thurloe looked ahead at the path, half expecting Grimboldt to run towards him warning that "it" was coming.  But instead, the moonlight intensified as one by one the trees of the forest started fading away to nothingness.  Then the stars started going out as the rest of the dreamscape surrounding them vanished, leaving the heroes standing once again in a hallway filled with doors as far as the eye could see.  "Great job, kupo!" Mogo said in uncommon praise.The heroes each put one of their latest lessons to good use and concentrated on waking themselves up.  One by one, they snapped awake, finding themselves back in Grimboldt's bedroom, where a rather puzzled-looking wizard sat up in bed, looking at them.  "You were there," he said.  "I saw you, in my dream!""That was quite a dream, too," Wakuren agreed, standing up and making the introductions as the others joined them in wakefulness.  The bedroom door opened and there was Humbug, alerted by the unmistakable sound of his master's voice.  "You're awake!" he gasped in surprise.  These strangers had done exactly as they had said they would."Humbug: make preparations!" Grimboldt exclaimed.  "We're having guests over for dinner!"Over dinner, Wakuren described the sleeping sickness beginning to spread across the land and how they had been recruited to try to put a stop to it.  Grimboldt exclaimed once again, "I cannot thank you enough!"  But over the course of the meal - which was quite excellent, considering Humbug had had little advance notice that not only would his master be awakened but they'd have five additional guests - it became quite evident the wizard was exhausted by his ordeals.  "I know it doesn't make a whole lot of sense," he admitted, "but despite having been asleep for the better part of a month, I'm wiped out!""It makes perfect sense," Alewyth replied.  "Being hunted by a dream fox does not make for restful sleep at all.""I will have Humbug put you up in the guest rooms in the tower," Grimboldt declared.  "In the morning, I insist upon rewarding you for what you have done for me this day!  In my earlier days I, too, was an adventurer and I have some items I think would suit you all well.  I'll have Humbug help me find them - they're packed away.  But if you will please excuse me...?"  The halfling butler helped his master out of his chair and back to his bedroom.  "I'm actually a little afraid of falling back asleep," Grimboldt added as he was led back into his room."We'll be here in the morning to help you if you have any troubles waking from your dreams," Alewyth promised the wizard.There were only four guest bedrooms, each with a single bed, so Humbug insisted upon giving up his own room upon the second floor.  "I will be fine on the sofa in the library for one night," he insisted.  "It's the least I can do to express my thanks.  I've made the beds with fresh linen.  If you need anything, please just call me - you all know where the library is located."  And with a smile, he bid them a good night and headed back down the stairs.Humbug's bed was fitted for a human or a dwarf, in any case - the only halfling-sized furniture in his room was a desk and a chair - and the dwarven priestess volunteered to take his bedroom for the night.  "I'll see you all in the morning," she said, closing Humbug's bedroom door while the others all picked their own rooms and got ready for sleep themselves.As expected, they were in for another night of training during their own dreams.  After reporting their first success to the Queen of Dreams and having her congratulate and thank them for their initial efforts, she released them to Mogo for the night's instruction.  "Tonight we're going to learn how to enter the space between dreams, kupo!" the moogle exclaimed.  He then showed them the different ways the individual dream-bubbles could be visualized: either as open space, as they saw when the Queen of Dreams flew her butterfly throne through the cloud of dream-bubbles, or as the series of hallways filled with doors Alewyth herself had accidentally discovered before first encountering a moogle.  "Eventually you'll learn how to differentiate which dream is which before entering it, but that's for later, kupo!" Mogo told them.  The rest of the night's dream-time was spent going from a random dream back to the space between dreams - sometimes in the endless hallways of doors, sometimes in what seemed like in a cloud of bubbles.  But eventually the night's training session came to an end and Mogo released them to continue their own individual dreams until they woke up on their own - naturally, or in the manner in which they had learned they could force themselves awake.  None of them chose to force themselves awake; it had been a hard three days of travel and they luxuriated in the opportunity to sleep as late as they wanted in Grimboldt's guest bedrooms.However, when they did awaken on their own, things were not as they had expected them to be.Zander awoke with a strange feeling in his head, almost as if he had been drinking heavily the night before.  But that made no sense - they'd each had but a single glass of wine with the evening's dinner, nothing more.  Sitting up groggily, the elf was surprised to find himself on the hard floor, in a room he didn't recognize at all.  That wasn't all that was unrecognizable, either, for the sorcerer was clad in a poncho-like garment, a white square with a hole in the center where his head stuck out, the rest of it folded around him and tied at the waist like a toga.  "What...?" he croaked to himself, thoroughly confused.He wasn't the only one to awaken in such a state, however; in separate rooms in this strange building with no furniture, each of the other adventurers woke up in a similar state, all dressed in the same manner.  Alewyth's hand went to her throat at the realization she was in a strange garment; her holy symbol of Aerik, God of Protection, which she habitually wore around her neck since the day she had been confirmed as a priestess, was missing!  Looking around at the otherwise empty room, she saw no sign of her other items: her armor, her warhammer, her pack - all were missing as well.None of the rooms had doors, merely doorways.  As one, the group stumbled out into a larger, central room and took stock of the situation.  "Anybody know what happened?" Thurloe asked the room at large."I don't think we're on the Material Plane anymore," Wakuren theorized, lifting his arms and letting them fall.  "The gravity seems different.""What plane are we on, then?" asked Xandro - as a bard, he focused his area of expertise upon the cities and towns he visited, not on any of the myriad other planes of existence that were said to abound outside the Mortal Realm.Thurloe had his eyes closed and was concentrating hard.  He opened them back up and looked around.  "I don't think we're dreaming," he said.  "At least, if we are I can't seem to wake myself back up.""You don't think we're all stuck inside a dream, like Grimboldt was, do you?" gasped Alewyth.  She too tried using the training she'd received from Mogo to try to wake up, to no avail.But then a voice boomed from outside the building.  "ARISE, MORTALS!" it demanded.  "EXIT YOUR DWELLING AND STAND BEFORE THE TITAN KORDIAN!"  "The who now?" asked Thurloe, but he led the group outside the front doorway and got a good look at the local area outside the building they'd all been in when they awakened.  Seated before them, across a wide plane of stone, was the titan who had called out to them.  This Kordian was an imposing figure, seated upon an elaborately carved wooden throne, wearing a toga of much more intricate design than the simple tied-off ponchos the adventurers wore.  His muscular legs were wrapped in leather straps leading down to his sandals; upon his brow he wore a wreath of leaves.  His every feature was of utmost perfection as he looked down upon his audience of five.  Behind him, a massive stone wall encircled the floor in all directions, leaving an open sky of vivid blue with white clouds drifting lazily by.  Thurloe took his best guess at the distance between the titan and them, then used that to try to gauge Kordian's size.  He had to be at least 25, maybe even 30 feet tall!  He looked over at his companions, a "What's going on?" expression plastered on his face."I HAVE LIFTED YOU FROM THE DRUDGERY OF THE MORTAL REALM TO LIVE HERE WITH ME IN THE OVERWORLD," Kordian announced.  "HERE YOU WILL NOT AGE OR GROW INFIRM; YOU NEED ONLY BASK IN MY RADIANT GLORY AND SING ME SONGS OF WORSHIP."Everyone looked expectantly at Xandro.  "I don't have my lute," he choked out."Can't you summon one?" hissed Zander.  "Let's not get the giant guy mad at us!"Xandro cleared his mind and activated a summon instrument spell, which would in theory cause a lute to appear magically in his hands.  He'd never had cause to cast the spell before since becoming an adventurer, but it was one of the first bard spells he had learned and had used it several times before initially meeting the others.  However, to his surprise, nothing happened.  Embarrassed at his failure, he turned to Kordian and admitted, "I don't have my lute with me, nor can I seem to summon one.""NO MATTER!" boomed Kordian, a smile on his face.  "YOUR VOICES WILL SUFFICE!  SING ME A TALE OF THE EARLY DAYS OF MANKIND, WHEN I HELPED RAISE YOU TO YOUR CURRENT POSITION OF PROMINENCE IN THE WORLD!""I, uh, I'm afraid I don't know any songs...about you," Xandro replied."WHAT?" boomed Kordian, a stern look crossing the perfect features of his face.  "DO YOU NOT KNOW HOW I SLEW THE MONSTER-GIANTS, PAVING WAY FOR THE GODS WHO CAME AFTER ME?  OR HOW I CRAFTED THE SHIELDWALL MOUNTAINS, RISING THEM UP TO KEEP THE MORTAL RACES SAFE FROM THE INVADERS ACROSS THE SEA?  OR HOW I--AAAH!  KILL IT!  KILLITKILLIKILLIT!"  These last instructions were given as Kordian leaped up from his seat and jumped up to stand upon the throne, pointing in panic at the ground between him and his five new worshipers.  There, wandering absently was a fat-bodied spider, maybe three feet around, counting its leg-span.  It seemed to notice neither the five assembled heroes nor the panicked titan, who was still pointing down at it and demanding the spider be killed at once.None of the heroes had their weapons or armor at hand; none of the spellcasters had any of their component pouches or holy symbols.  Still, Thurloe decided he'd rather fight a three-foot spider barehanded than a titan who could easily stomp him underfoot.  He sprinted forward, catching up to the plump arachnid from behind and slamming his fist into its bloated abdomen with every ounce of strength he could muster.  He found Alewyth had come to the same conclusion and sprinted forward beside him, adding her own dwarven fist to the mix.  Zander, however, did a quick mental inventory and realized most of the spells he was able to cast required only the correct verbal and somatic components, and thus cast a detect magic spell on his eyes, examining the spider intensely.  Was there something special about this arachnid, to put so much fear into a titan?  But despite his scrutiny, there was nothing inherently magical about the eight-legged creature.  The elf shrugged to himself - this day was turning out to be all kinds of weird.Xandro, worried about not getting the titan any angrier at him than he had already seemed to be, ran up beside Thurloe and Alewyth and likewise punched the spider, wishing he had some kind of a weapon - any kind, really.  But Wakuren was there beside the bard punching at the arachnid's bloated abdomen as well, and the spider's legs faltered as the beast fell over to its side.  Not ever having been this close to a giant spider before, Xandro wasn't sure if it was dead or merely stunned, but he was willing to bet it was just the latter, for the four heroes had only been able to punch it a couple times with their fists - surely that wouldn't have slain it, would it have?Still, dead or only knocked out, the motionlessness of the spider was enough to get Kordian to step down from on top of his throne.  "DRAG IT AWAY!" he demanded, pointing off to the side of the dwelling from which the heroes had emerged.  The four each grabbed a spindly leg and lugged the arachnid away as indicated.But that was apparently it for the day's titan adoration session, for Kordian immediately ordered everyone back into the house.  They obeyed at once, barely making it into the central chamber before the whole structure dipped to the side, spilling several of them to the floor.  There was a weird sensation in everyone's stomach as the house was lifted into the air and carried away.The house trembled and shook as Kordian walked away with the structure in his hands; inside, it felt very much like the heroes were experiencing an earthquake.  But finally there was a soft thud as the house hit ground - again spilling everyone to the floor - and all movement stopped.  They could hear the sounds of footsteps echoing away; after several minutes of relative silence, Wakuren dared to peek his head out the front doorway to the exterior of the building.They were no longer in the stone receiving area with the open skies above; now they were in a field of dirt, with several leafy plants towering above them.  Exploring the area, they found they were imprisoned in a rectangular box of invisible walls on three sides, with a solid wooden wall behind them.  Looking up, they could see no sky overhead but rather the faraway ceiling, a slanted structure made of metal struts and enormous panes of glass.  Xandro made a go of trying to climb up one of the plants and it supported his weight just fine, but it wasn't anywhere near tall enough for him to reach the top of the walls, which the bard could see were topped with a walkway of sorts or what might be wood - it was too far away to tell for sure."You know where we are?" Thurloe asked the others.  "We're in a terrarium!""But how'd we get here?" Alewyth demanded.  "That titan couldn't have taken us like he said he did, could he have?""I really don't think that was a titan," Wakuren pointed out.  "Scared of what would have been a little spider to him?  I doubt it.""So if that wasn't a titan, who was it?" asked Zander.  "What else is that big?  A cloud giant?  A giant wouldn't be afraid of a little spider, either, would it?""I don't think he's that big at all," Wakuren said.  "I think we're small!"  He turned around, indicating the terrarium all around them.  "And I don't think this is a giant terrarium, either - it's probably no bigger than any other terrarium you've ever seen before.  I'd bet we're all probably just a couple inches tall."  He held his arms out to the side and let them drop.  "That would explain the funky gravity, too," he surmised.  "It would feel different at this size."Some time later, after Xandro had pulled a couple of leaves off one of the plants and tossed them down to the others, deciding they looked safe enough to eat, there was a thunk as something hard hit the rooftop of their building.  Looking up, they could see there was now some sort of giant wooden pole - rather like an uncarved totem pole, Xandro decided - lodged diagonally from the rooftop to the upper edge of the front wall.  "Hey!" he called to the others.  "If we can get to the rooftop, we can climb up that pole and get to the top of the terrarium!"  Wakuren and Thurloe helped the lithe bard climb up onto their shoulders and he grabbed hold of the top of the roof.  Then he struggled to pull himself up - until he saw the face of a giant, white-furred rat looking down at him from the top of the pole.  Then he scrambled back down to the ground as quickly as he could go."Giant rat!" Xandro said, pointing up at the top of the pole.  The others backed away so they could see, but there was no rat visible.  "It was right there!" the bard insisted.Zander, being rather slender himself, was the next to try to climb to the rooftop once Xandro declared he wasn't going up there with a giant rat somewhere about.  The elf cautiously grabbed the top of the roof and pulled himself up.  He stood up, looking up along the edge of the terrarium wall - no rat.  "It's clear!" he called down to the others, just seconds before the giant rat reappeared.  This time it had several slender bits of metal in its mouth.  Scurrying along the top of the terrarium wall, it peered down at the heroes and scampered along the pole onto the roof - causing Zander to leap back down to the safety of the ground just as Xandro had done.  The rat poked his head over the side of the roof, opened his mouth wide, and allowed the metal rods to fall over the roof's edge, landing in a loose pile in the dirt.  It then waited patiently as the group cautiously approached the metal rods.  Each was the size of a shortspear, with an oblong hole in the side opposite the pointy end."These...are needles," Alewyth said, lifting one and feeling its heft.  "Yep, we've been shrunk, all right."  She passed the weapons out to each of the other heroes, not at all surprised to see there were exactly five needles in all.  She looked back up to the rooftop and said, "And that's not a giant white rat.  I'll bet that's a little white mouse - probably Grimboldt's familiar."  She waved up at the white-furred rodent; after a moment, Squeaky Cheeser waved back.  Then he busied himself tugging the pole down from the edge of the terrarium wall until it angled down from the rooftop to the ground below.  Everyone backed away and gave the mouse plenty of room as he scampered down the pole's length and plopped down on the ground."Can you understand us?" Alewyth asked, her needle-spear held at her side in a nonthreatening way.  Squeaky Cheeser nodded in reply.  Then, hesitantly, he approached the group and began drawing figures in the dirt.  The first was a simple stick figure of a man, then an arrow leading from him to a much smaller stick figure.  "We were shrunk," Alewyth guessed.  The mouse nodded again and resumed drawing.His second drawing was of a stick figure reclining in bed.  "That's us, sleeping," Xandro guessed.  The mouse then added a blanket over the sleeping figure, then pointed back to the shrunken stick figure from the first drawing.  "The blanket shrunk us," Wakuren guessed.  "But who did this?"Squeaky Cheeser began another stick figure drawing; this one had a beard.  "Grimboldt shrunk us?" snarled Thurloe in disbelief.  Of all the ungrateful...!But the mouse was shaking his head vigorously from side to side.  Next to the stick figure of his master he drew another one, this one about half the size.  This one he circled."Humbug!" the heroes cried out as one."I'll bet that was him disguised as the titan!" Zander added.  "All it would take was an alter person spell - not even a spell, he could have just drank down a potion.  Why, that little weasel!"  He silently kicked himself for not focusing his attention on the "titan" when he'd cast his detect magic spell activated to check out the spider."Where's Grimboldt?" Alewyth asked.  "Is he okay?"  That led to another drawing, this time of just a stick figure head - complete with a beard, indicating it was the familiar's master - sticking his tongue out.  Then Squeaky Cheeser drew a slash across the tongue before erasing it by rubbing his front paw over the part of the dirt in which it had been drawn.  He drew another tongue off to the side of Grimboldt's head.Thurloe caught on at once.  "Humbug cut his tongue out, so he couldn't cast spells," he told the others.  "Was he shrunk as well?"  The mouse nodded in the affirmative."Where is he now?" Alewyth repeated.  In response, Squeaky Cheeser drew a rectangle in the dirt, then another beside it, and another.  He pointed to each of the group in turn, then stuck his paw on the first rectangle.  Then he pointed to the Grimboldt stick-figure head and over to the farthest rectangle.  "...He's in a terrarium two over from the one we're in," she translated."We need to go get him," Wakuren said.  "But then what?"Squeaky Cheeser answered with more drawings in the dirt.  He drew a hand, then put a ring on one finger, and then drew a bookshelf filled with books.  Pointing to the ring and then a book on the top shelf, the group figured out there was a magic ring hidden in one of the books in Grimboldt's library.  When the mouse pointed to the ring and then drew Grimboldt's tongue back in his mouth, the group figured the ring would allow the wizard to be restored, after which time he'd certainly be able to undo the size reduction to which the heroes had all been involuntarily subjected.Done with his stick-figure drawings, Squeaky Cheeser pushed Alewyth's needle-spear in the dirt touching the tip of the wooden pole leading up to the roof.  Then, motioning for Zander to follow him, he scampered up the pole.  Once the elf had followed, the mouse pointed out a series of letters carved into the side of the wooden pole.  When Zander spoke the word thus formed aloud, there was a zap of energy and Alewyth called up to him that her needle was glowing slightly.  It didn't take Zander long to work out that the "pole" was a wooden wand of magic weapon and that Squeaky Cheeser had not only found a way to arm the miniscule heroes, but to provide them magic weapons as well - even if the magic had a time limit.  Zander tossed his own needle-spear back down to the others and then used four more charges from the wand to enhance all five of the makeshift weapons.  Then, one by one, the heroes climbed up onto the roof and helped maneuver the wand back up to the edge of the terrarium wall.The view from the very top edge of the terrarium helped the group see exactly where they were.  It was a long greenhouse of sorts, filled with a row of terraria on either side of the long, central aisle and a large fish tank at the far end.  They could even see some of the creatures in the glass cages on the other side of the aisle from them: a trio of cows and a bull directly across from them and what looked to be a black bear in the one beside that.  The animals looked to be "normal" sized to the shrunken heroes, meaning they too had likely been reduced in size by whatever magic Humbug had employed during the night while the heroes slept.Crossing from one terrarium to another wasn't that difficult due to their close proximity; Squeaky Cheeser had managed it without any makeshift bridges.  The edge of the glass wall was as wide as a balance beam - easily crossed if you didn't look down or think about what might be down in the terrarium below you.  (Thurloe peeked: it was a boar, not something he'd want to fight with only a needle-as-shortspear, magic weapon spell notwithstanding.)  One by one they made their way across the boar's glass prison and over to the next one after that.  This one had a lot of plants in it, but close scrutiny allowed the group to spot not only Grimboldt, perched in what looked to be a small tree (but which had to be some kind of smaller plant, likely a fern or something), but also the crocodile waiting for him at the bottom of the plant should he - or any of them - happen to fall.  Grimboldt looked to be unconscious, with a smattering of blood smeared around his mouth."He's too far down for us to reach him from here," Thurloe pointed out.  "Suggestions?""We need rope or something," Wakuren suggested.  He looked down at the belt holding his poncho-toga closed.  "Do you think if we tied these together...?" he hazarded."What is this anyway - thread?" asked Alewyth, examining her own "belt."  "Do you think it would be strong enough?"  But Squeaky Cheeser, hearing their requests, scampered off the way he had come, along the edges of the terraria.  Several minutes later, he returned - this time with a length of yarn in his mouth; apparently he'd partially unraveled a scarf or something.  But Zander, being the lightest of the group, was lowered down with his foot in a loop at one end of the yarn until he was level with Grimboldt; then, stepping off onto the plant's branches beside the wizard, he carefully woke him up and tied the yarn around the wizard's waist.  The others heaved him up to their level, then lowered the yarn loop back down to Zander and helped pull him back up as well."Now we need to get down off of here and over to the library," Xandro said.  "Any ideas?"  Squeaky Cheeser had the answer to that as well: skirting over to the front of the terrarium, he pitched himself over the ledge, landing on the floor below.  While from this height it looked like several stories down, Thurloe figured he was only at about shoulder height at his normal size - maybe four feet?  Less than five, in any case.  Shrugging, he tossed his needle-spear down before him and then followed the little white mouse over the edge and rolled when he landed."It's okay!" he called back up to the others.  "At this size, it's not as bad as it looks!"The others leaped over the edge as well and everyone made it in one piece, Grimboldt included.  Then Squeaky Cheeser led the group back toward the rest of the manor - for the greenhouse area had been tacked on to the dwelling years after its initial construction - and through a hole in the wainscoting, into the wizard's arcane lab.  From there they were able to squeeze beneath the door and make it into a hallway leading to Grimboldt's bedroom.  Then it was a simple matter to crawl under the door into the library."We're here," Xandro announced.  "Now, where's that book with the ring?"There were several bookshelves in the room; Grimboldt pointed to the leftmost one of a set of three set side by side.  The shelves were each a bit taller than twice the size of any of the heroes in their current size.  "How are we going to get up there?" Zander asked.Thurloe gave it some thought.  Climbing up onto the bottom shelf, he examined the sides of the bookcase.  They were in luck: the shelves were adjustable, each wooden shelf balanced on four metal pegs placed in holes along the inner sides; the unused holes would make it easy to climb, using them as hand- and footholds - at least until they hit the shelf above.  But Thurloe figured out the best way to approach that hazard as well: if two people climbed up one side, one behind the other, the bottommost could help steady the topmost while he released the holes with his hands and got a good grip on the edge of the shelf to pull himself up.  Then, once firmly on the ledge, he could reach down and help pull up his climbing partner.  Thurloe was the group's best climber so he was definitely going to make the ascent; Wakuren volunteered to go with him.  Alewyth and Xandro opted to give it a go on the other side of the bookshelf, with Zander staying with Grimboldt and Squeaky Cheeser to keep watch.The bookcase they were climbing had six shelves; the ring was hidden in a hollow book on the top shelf.  (Grimboldt had never imagined he'd only be several inches tall when he'd need to fetch it.)  Thurloe and Xandro had made it to the third shelf from the bottom and were leaning over to help Wakuren and Alewyth up when Zander gave a startled cry from below.  He, Grimboldt, and Squeaky Cheeser had climbed up onto a footstool across the room so they could see better and they had spotted an intruder enter the library on a multitude of legs: a centipede, probably a normal one but much longer than the heroes in their current state.The centipede didn't seem to notice the trio on the footstool, but made a beeline for the bookshelves and started climbing up the front of the bookcase the other four heroes were ascending.  Warned by Zander's frantic cries, Alewyth and Wakuren were pulled up onto the shelf and the four grabbed up their needle-spears.  Looking over the edge, Thurloe saw the shiny, black head of the centipede as the otherwise red-bodied creature scampered up the side of the bookcase.  He stabbed at its head with his needle as soon as it got within range and it stiffened and dropped to the library floor.  The fighter was surprised at how easily he'd slain it, unaware that Zander had brought it down with a magic missile spell from his footstool perch.  Despite his current size, he channeled as much energy in a magic missile spell as he did at his normal height and the centipede hadn't been able to survive the arcane assault.Seeing no other threats at the moment, the four heroes continued their bookcase ascent.Once all four of them had made it to the top shelf, Grimboldt pantomimed whether they needed to go left or right until they hit the correct book.  Thurloe boosted Xandro up to the top of the books, where he helped wrest it free from its place on the shelf.  Alewyth, Thurloe, and Wakuren managed to turn it in place and set it down flat; then, opening the top cover, they saw the pages were blank but a hole had been cut into the pages, creating a space for a ring to be hidden.  The ring was the size of a dinner plate, but knowing it had to be magical in nature and most magic rings resized to fit the wearer, Wakuren stuck his finger into the middle of the ring's interior and smiled in satisfaction as the ring shrunk down to fit his tiny finger.  Once in place, the magic of the ring revealed to the half-orc its true power: it wasn't a ring of regeneration as he had at first thought, but a ring of three wishes with but a single wish remaining.Immediately, thoughts of other potential wishes crossed the cleric's mind - but then he brushed them off.  Better to stick to the original plan, he decided.  "I wish Grimboldt's tongue was restored," he said.  The four on the top shelf looked down over the edge at the trio on the footstool."Thank you once again," Grimboldt called up to them.  "Climb on back down, and we'll see about getting ourselves restored to our original size."Climbing down carefully - for none of the heroes was willing to risk what looked like an eight-story drop - the four made their way back down the bookcase and gathered together with the others once back on the library floor.  "We'll likely have a difficult time with the stairs," Grimboldt advised, saying the words to a teleport spell.  Immediately, the group found themselves in one of the guest bedrooms."Humbug used the sheets of shrinking I used to create my minimals - minimized animals, the creatures I keep in the terraria in the greenhouse - to reduce us to one-twelfth of our normal size," Grimboldt said.  "One at a time, I can restore us all to our normal sizes.  Climb up underneath the sheet and remove this...toga-garment thing, for the size change only affects living tissue."  Alewyth volunteered to go first and was restored to normal size.  She wrapped herself in a blanket and lifted the next person onto the bed to be restored, then went off to get dressed in her normal clothes and armor.  Fortunately, all of her gear was still in place in Humbug's room; the halfling butler apparently hadn't gotten around to going through their stuff yet.Once restored to normal and geared back up, the group made their way back down the stairs, where they could hear whistling coming from the kitchen.  Humbug was in the midst of kneading a ball of dough, no doubt the beginnings of a halfling bread loaf, when his wizardly master and the five visitors stepped into view.  Humbug's eyes grew wide with shock as he realized the jig was up.Xandro couldn't help saying, "Hello, Kordian - how are things in the Overworld?""I--" Humbug began, but couldn't think of anything to follow; there was really no excuse he could give for the things he had done to his master and the five guests who had come to aid him.  But then Grimboldt touched the halfling butler on the shoulder, invoking a few choice arcane syllables.  The halfling found himself suddenly being reduced in size - not only that, but changing his physical shape as well during the process.  By the time Humbug had reached his new size, he'd attained his new shape as well: that of a bullfrog, which Grimboldt scooped up before he could hop away.  "I think you'll go into one of the plant terraria for now," he told his erstwhile employee.  Then he smiled.  "It would seem 'Bugcatcher' was a somewhat prophetic surname," he said.Returning from the greenhouse, Grimboldt led the heroes back into his arcane laboratory.  "It would seem Humbug was playing about in here while I was trapped in my dreams," he said, looking around the lab and seeing how things had been moved around during his recent absence.  "Nonetheless, I have a few items I would like to pass on to you."  He gave Alewyth a lesser metamagic rod of silent spells, explaining its use to the priestess.  To Thurloe he gave a torc of the titans, a thick metal band worn about the neck that would allow him to channel extra power through his sword-strikes several times a day (and, the fighter considered, protect him from having his throat ripped out by dream foxes...).  Wakuren received an item once used by one of Grimboldt's adventuring cleric friends, a ring of mystic healing that allowed a cleric to channel more healing energy through his cure spells.  Xandro was given a pair of true strike gauntlets that would guide the point of his rapier when he absolutely needed it.  Zander was given a scout's headband, which enhanced the wearer's eyesight in a variety of possible different ways.  He also gave them each a small pile of gemstones valued at 2,000 pieces of gold."I can never thank you enough for what you've done for me, literally saving me twice in less than 24 hours!" he said.  "If you ever pass this way again, by all means stop by - you'll always be welcome here."  He turned to Thurloe.  "And if you ever decide to spend some time delving into arcane spellcasting and would like a mentor, I will make myself available.""I'll keep that in mind," Thurloe promised the wizard.  "For now, though, I think my sword is of better use to the group at large - we've got the elf for arcane spells.""And the bard!" piped up Xandro."Yeah, and the bard," agreed Thurloe. - - -Knowing this was going to be our last gaming session for several months, after we finished up running through "Fox Hunt" we decided to plow through the next adventure as well.  However, with time as an issue, I kind of fast-forwarded through some of this adventure.  There was a travel encounter with a dire badger I just hand-waved away; it had been intended as a combat with something they hadn't fought before but had no real bearing on the adventure as a whole.The sheets of shrinking were a standard magic item in earlier versions of the game; for whatever reason they seem to not have made it to 3rd Edition.  (Neither, incidentally, were minimals, which originally appeared in the AD&D 1E Monster Manual II.)  But I liked them enough to build a whole adventure around them.  In fact, "With Minimal Danger" was originally an AD&D 2E adventure I wrote up for submission to Dungeon magazine, but it didn't make it past the query stage, especially when it became apparent to the editors that the spellcasters would be seriously nerfed once they'd been shrunk and would lose the ability to cast any spells requiring material components.  (By the way, the reason Xandro's summon instrument failed was the spell would have summoned a full-size lute into existence, which at Xandro's current six-inch height was more than he could manage.)  But I no longer had any of the work I had done on the original version, so I rewrote the adventure (and redesigned the maps) from scratch.There would have been Balance checks to avoid falling into a terrarium, but I hand-waved those away in the interests of saving time.  I also made Grimboldt's location in the crocodile terrarium closer to the PCs' terrarium than originally intended, again just to speed things up.  So nobody had the opportunity to fall into a terrarium and have to fight the "minimals" kept there, which could have been the crocodile, timber wolves, boars, a black bear, cows and a bull, or light horses.  (Some of the other tanks just had plants in them.)For the bookcase climbing section, I passed out some of Harry's Marvel superhero action figures to represent the PCs (Black Widow for Alewyth; Punisher for Thurloe; Iron Man for Wakuren; Hawkeye for Xandro; Doctor Strange for Zander) and had them stage their exact locations on the bookcases in the man-cave where we play.  The action figures were all more or less the "actual size" of the PCs at that point in time.  (The ring of wishes was stashed inside Scott Adams's Dilbert book, "The Joy of Work.")By the way, Humbug's cooking expertise allowed him to add a slow-acting poison to the meal he served, causing a deep slumber several hours after having been imbibed.  That allowed him to shrink each of the heroes (and his master), dress them in his modified handkerchiefs, and place them in the "travel house" where they woke up the next morning without any worries they might wake up earlier than he had anticipated.  The "Overworld" was just the roof of the tower of Grimboldt's dwelling.  And had Alewyth investigated Humbug's desk (she didn't), she'd have found a book on the titans, whom Humbug revered for their power and size.And now we're back on COVID hold until May or June.  But at least the heroes have one dream-success under their belts; for the next big chunk of the campaign, I envision them roaming the continent helping dream victims escape from their dreams, while they slowly try to figure out what's causing this unusual plague. - - -T-shirt worn: My blue shirt that reads, "Dad: cleverly disguised as a responsible adult," mostly because we played this adventure immediately after the previous one, but it was also thematically appropriate in that Humbug was "cleverly disguised" as the titan Kordian.</blockquote>

Verification