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Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="energy_One" data-source="post: 875377" data-attributes="member: 1130">Chapter 1: The Back Steps, Part 2 (In which the party is faced with puzzzzling chamber, a dead dwarf, and bubbly little frogs… with pointy sticks...)All feel warm and rather safe passing through the darkness. The journey feels like a walk through a grassy field on a warm spring day, passing through a tavern to the backdoor where the customers are jovial and music is playing, climbing over rocky steppes on a shadowed plain, the soft smell of cinnamon in the air… all of these scenes pleasant, endless, and comforting.And yet, they do come to an end. Though all passed into the darkness at different times, all emerge simultaneously, in a straight line, equidistant from one another. Their bodies feel stronger, healed, as if this place is infused with life itself. Refreshing!The walls of the chamber are made from large, smooth bricks, mortared together with barely-visible seams. The floor and ceiling have been carved from natural stone, a green light cast upon the ceiling and all surroundings by a marble pool in the center of the room. It holds cloudy water, moving just enough that the strange light flickers and dances on the walls and ceiling.Cerne and the red-haired man look about the room, the red-haired man seemingly in awe.Large iron doors, each with a large, sliding iron handle, are set in the room’s four walls, in the center of each door resting an inset from puzzled with odd symbols. Next to each door save the one through which the group entered is a small pedastel with tiles stacked upon it. The room is quiet.Behind them, the black, swirling maw from which the party came is swallowed by the marble. There is a sucking noise, and it is gone, a blank wall in its place. “COW!” shouts Cerne.In a rather odd moment of randomness, the red-haired stranger looks back at the others and announces, “My name is Tersoal.”Cerne trudges over to the leftmost pedestal. Shink parades about the room, examining the symbols on the doors. The symbols on the stacked tiles and in tiles already set in the doors include a fish, a lobster, a “whale” (which is to all a creature of myth and legend), and finally, a snake. Each pedastel in the room, they find, has one of each of the four symbols. On the doors the symbols are in four vertical columns, each animal positioned differently, an empty circle in the center with eight dark holes awaiting tiles.Ezekiel stays put, peering at this “Tersoal”. “Now I get a name? …I am Ezekiel Flamebrand.” Tersoal, distracted by the pool, walks away from him, leaving Ezekiel the only one unmoved. He shrugs at the new-found silence.Cerne, presses on one of the snake tiles, looking to the door, looking for some clue. Shink stares at the doors. Tersoal, bending over the pool, speaks up. “There’s something at the bottom, here…” he says quietly.Ezekiel steps up to him. “What is it?” Cerne and Shink also meander over, leaving the puzzle-doors. All look down, seeing at the bottom what look like bones of a dwarf (to Ezekiel, Cerne, and Tersoal, the only ones familiar with dwarves). Cerne grins at the sight of the dead.Shink tests the water, sticking his whole little hand in, eyeing the pool, which looks fairly deep, many times his height. The water is cool and clear, almost magical with the green light it casts.Tersoal watches him, looking disgusted. “What happened here?” he says. Tersoal speaks again. “Perhaps we shouldn’t stick around to find out. Such dallying ways turn people to bones.” He gestures toward the unfortunate dwarf.Ezekiel nods grimly. “Let us find a way out, then.”Shink, inattentive, takes a few breaths, and dives in. Tersoal cries, “Creature, what are you doing?!” Cerne merely looks to the bottom and sighs as Shink begins to swim down, oblivious. When he gets to the bones, he rummages, discovering the the dwarf has left behind not only a fine axe, but a rotting pouch of gleaming gold pieces. The stones beneath him begin to swirl visibly. First those above notice, then Shink, who begins to scoop the gold into his boundless pouch in a panic.He swims up. The floor visibly melts away, leaving a swirling pool of green, opaque liquid that shimmers and shines below the water. Something emerges, then. Shink swims faster. Cerne draws his sword, as does Ezekiel, who backs up as well. Another figure emerges from the bottom, and then, four more! Each looks like a tiny, bipedal frog, mouths agape. Each would tower above Shink, and tower… somewhat below the others.Nonetheless, they carry wicked spears.Cerne grins to Ezekiel. “Maybe you’ll get to kill something besides me.”Ezekiel merely smiles back. “So it seems…”Soon, ten of them swarm out of the small pool just after Shink, who scrambles out, soaking wet, and rushes off behind a pedestal. He pulls out a hollow piece of wood, needle-like teeth gleaming. Cerne raises his sword. Ezekiel does the same, and arms himself with shield in hand.The froglings wear mean snears with flattish, herbiverous teeth. Shink sinks into shadows. Just as quickly as he is gone from sight, a tiny needles flashes from the shadows and strikes a frogling near Cerne. It “pops”, almost like a bubble, releasing filmy gas into the air nearby. None of the others seem concerned at this.Cerne chants a spell, and his muscles ripple from his armor. He looks altogether far more intimidating. He backs up a bit, sword in hand, near the pedestal behind which Shink hides. Ezekiel begins to hack at several as a small group advances on Cerne. The froglings make no sound as they stab at Ezekiel, doing little more than annoying him, spears glancing off of his armor harmlessly.Several more go POP!, more gas erupting. Ezekiel coughs as he inhales some of it. Cerne cuts on down, and does the same. Both cough and hack. Cerne puts his own shield between himself and the froggies, striking at another. Ezekiel continues to cleave through the retinue. More froglings emerge from the pool as he cuts down the last of them…Cerne looks around, seeing no sign of Tersoal. “The coward’s run off!”“So it seems,” says Ezekiel as Cerne angrily swings and downs another of the froglings. Ezekiel advances toward the pool to catch a few of the new arrivals. He cleaves several before they even fully exit the pool. The concentration of gas gets heavier, and Ezekiel begins to cough, hacking again.Then, like a flying fish, Tersoal splashes out of the pool, his red hair and robes soaking. A spear flies out after him as he pulls himself—and the dwarf’s axe!—from the pool, getting his footing. Seven more of the froglings begin to emerge as Ezekiel places himself near Tersoal. The battle continues, Ezekiel slicing through three more of the emerging froglings. Shink slinks out from his hiding place and begins to fiddle with the door.The attackers continue to emerge from the pool, Tersoal and Ezekiel cutting at most, Cerne attempting to guard Shink as he walks up the vertical door, and begins work with a tiny set of tools on the door. More froglings continue to emerge, now swarming about Ezekiel. All move to attack him, serrated spears ready.They prove to be more than a little pitiful, barely striking anything other than his ornate armor, off which their spears harmlessly clank. The gas is getting so thick now that Ezekiel and Cerne can barely see, Tersoal merely frowning in the backround, trying to take aim with his small crossbow. Once he finds a target, he pulls at the trigger… to no avail! The mechanism is broken.Stamping his foot, his opens his mouth, spitting out a diamond with well-trained force. Cerne dodges, thinking it is about to hit him. Instead, it falls low, and pops another of the dreadful little frogs. All are getting tired as Shink hears a *CLICK* from the door. He continues his work with renewed vigor. Ezekiel grimaces and cleaves through every one of the froglings at the edge of the pool. He hacks and coughs as the gas grows stronger, nearly toppling over into the pool.But he steels himself, and looks around. The chamber is empty now save for the party! And another *CLICK* comes. The danger seems to be gone now, the gas beginning to thin.Tersoal cries out, asking about wounds. None seem to have come to much harm, save Ezekiel, who seems quite a bit weakened by the gas and the exertion. The diamond Tersoal spit lies nearby Cerne, sparkling with spit and refracting green light.Seconds later, another shout from Tersoal, shattering the silence… “MORE OF THEM!” Six more of the bipedal frogs crawl, sneers at the ready, and emerge from the pool.Ezekiel grits his teeth. “&^mn it! Is there no end?!” The battle goes on, Shink getting through to the last of the slots, finding it quite a bit of trouble… meanwhile, the party slowly weakens as the battle trudges on and the few-and-far-between wounds from the froglings start to become quite noteworthy…</blockquote>

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