July 19th, 2026 – Here comes ice! 

The Table of Edged Wood

Vocabulary

Hierophant – 1. One who ushers you into the presence of the holy, a gate to the sacred.  2. An elephant that has acted particularly heroically. 

Dickle Picks – Herb’s Wee Dickle Pickle, recorded in microscopic images, often shared with unsuspecting waitresses.  Sometimes anthropomorphized and dressed in a little hat and jacket.

Herbivore – 1. An animal that eats only plants.  2. A person who, after viewing some Dickle Picks, is hungry for some Pickle Dicks.

Herb Rule XLVXII.R.49.2.vxlii.e(1.17.9r):

Actions are no longer taken simultaneously, but are based on dexterity.  Must be greater than or equal to 3 dex.

Party/Marching Order

Raistlin, Owlby

TwoHit, Alastair

Garrett, Gabba

*   *   *

Starday, 22nd Day, Reaping Moon, Year 586

“Awww, you shouldn’t have!”  Adderallian’s eyes sparkle with tears as he tries on his new Gauntlets of Dexterity.  They slide right on to his forearms and magically lock into place.

“Oh, it’s nothing, really,” says Alastair, his hand over his mouth and his own eyes glistening, “Whisper sends her regards…  She just thought you could, er, use a hand.”

TwoHit emits a guffaw that turns into a faked bout of coughing, turning quickly away.  

“Well, got to hand it to you, we are certainly getting into slippery territory here,” grunts Gabba. 

Adderallian doesn’t even notice that all his friends’ are acting weird, he is too busy flexing his fingers and admiring the craftsmanship of his shiny new gift.  “I mean, these are niiice…” he says.

Adderallian drifts into the warm reverie of camaraderie.  

Finally, he thinks. Finally he has found his tribe, his people, his brothers in arms.  These friends, knowing he is absolutely committed to becoming the best thief possible, are actually looking out for him. After all those years of bullying abuse from the other students at the Irongate Charter School of Thievery for the Seriously Dexteriously Challenged, where he was the one who had to work the longest to pick a lock and who always sprang the most obvious traps, the one who was ridiculed even by his most patient teachers, the one who could never figure out how to get his locker open, finally, finally, he has arrived and is being recognized as a real thief with something to add to the party (although taking things away from his party has a certain ring to it, come to think of it).  

Adderallian wipes a tear from his eye and reaches out to shake Alastair’s hand with heartfelt appreciation, but for some reason, his hand slips by Alastair’s hand completely, and instead he finds himself holding Alastair’s package, looking deeply into his eyes.  

“Whoah, there, buddy!  I don’t think we’re quite to that point, yet,” Alastair says as Adderallian embarassedly pulls back his hand, “you need to get a grip on yourself.”

Raistlin snorts nearby. “I hadn’t thought about that… Hey, Addy, you know how we’re always asking you to not describe your masturbatory fantasies about Aarakocra bird people?  Well, never mind. Please, by all means, feel free to describe your next session in full detail… It should be interesting.”

“Darn tootin’!” exclaims TwoHit, “my daddy always said one in the hand was worth two in the bush!”

“ENOUGH!” thunders Wherewyn, having had quite his fill with the inane antics of these adventurers who somehow never seemed to do much adventuring, never stayed away long enough for his undead servants to even change the goshblessed guest bed sheets. 

His voice becomes sickly sweet. “It’s that time, everyone! It is time for you all to head back into the dungeon!  Fun adventures await, I’m sure, monsters to kill and treasure to loot and all that!  Sure hope you don’t die, but I’m not waiting up for you…” Wherewyn shoos the party to their teleportation area.

“Oh, wrist assured, Addy will be able to hand-le it!” calls Alastair as he begins to teleport, grains of his body blowing away like sand in a strong wind. 

A very different scene awaits the adventurers than the comfortable library they just left. Instantly, they all feel it; it’s not just that the physical environs have changed, there is something about the feel of the place, the vibe almost hums in this place.  As they look around the hazy gloom, they remember this triangular room dedicated to the glories of the earth elemental, appointed with padded chairs and benches.  Something about it makes them feel dirty. Perhaps it is the artwork on the walls, disgusting scenes of brutality and depravity. Or perhaps it is the wordless whispering in their heads. It certainly doesn’t help that a giant eye in the ceiling seems to glare down at them, giving them a dirty look.  

Raistlin, always one to make eye contact, peers through his Readers of Seeing right back up at the giant eye. The feeling of connection to the earth, to dirt itself, intensifies, and although it leaves Raist feeling grounded and more down to earth, it is not in a good, healthy way.  It is as though he wants to be in the dirt himself, and to put others there, too…

Meanwhile, Alastair has set a screen in front of himself and is tossing bits of clothing over the top, humming something bluesy. “Excuse me while I slip into something more comfortable,” he coos from behind. He emerges a moment later, donning a dirt cleric robe and ring, winks, and sashes directly into the triangle adorning the floor. When he points his ring at the eye, he feels an overwhelming sensation of being heard – he can hear the voices murmuring in his head with more intensity, he feels at one with this place, and he feels motivated to do something with dirt.  

“Do you feel it?” Alastair asks.

Lilith puts a hand into the triangular space, feels nothing, and pulls her hand back out.  She puts a foot in and pulls it out. Nothing.  She jumps in bodily, but still nothing. As Lillith inexplicably starts to shake herself about, Gaba and Raistlin throw on their own dirt cleric robes and rings and step into the space, creating a triangle with Alastair.  Adderallian , in the corner, can be seen fumbling with his own clothes, and seems to have his sleeve over his head and his pant leg hung on his sword hilt.

Immediately, those in the triangle are shown a hazy jumble of visions. A giant pile of dirt standing at the entrance to the Chamber of Earth Elemental, a white horse in a mud puddle, and then the music swells and swirls and Baby is again getting swung around and gyrated upon by Patrick Swayze…

Shaking their heads, the three realize that something more is required, dirt, perhaps. And they know just where to get some!

Back into the hall the adventurers tumble. They again give the reach around to the button in the Hall of Freeziness, make their way to the augary room, grab a few handfuls of dirt, and retrace their steps.

Only to find a giant boulder now blocks the entrance to the Triangular Room. 

“Hey, I don’t remember that being there a minute ago…” grumbles Garrett. “I mean, I remember these little rocks, but not this big, huge one.  It seems like it would have stood out.”

“Yeah, buddy, it’s definitely bolder,” TwoHit drawls.

No strangers to what to do when confronted with such stones, the party riddles the giant sedentary sedimentary with darts and arrows, which pierce the stony exterior as though it were flesh. Several attack it with swords, but the blades are stuck fast. The Mimic reacts by shooting out sticky pseudopod appendages that catch and hold the blade wielders tight.  

“This is for Br’er Rabbit!” hollers Adderallian as he leaps forward and manages to sink both his swords into the stationary stone, but they are stuck fast, as well. The monster smashes him full in the chest with a rocky appendage; Addy looks surprised when he loses his grip on the sword hafts, but, like some hero from the Saturday morning ballad recitations, he turns the motion into a smooth reach for the bow strapped to his back

Which goes flying out of his hands.

It strikes Gowron in the shin as Adderallian lands hard on his bottom. He stands back up, shaking his head in confusion, and tries to rub his pained tailbone, only to miss his own bottom and instead rub Owlby’s. 

“Whoo.” Owlby hootgrunts.

“Uh. Not you, sorry, Owlby!” responds Adderallian .

The others fill the malicious Mimic with arrows and magic missiles, killing it and rolling it out of the doorway.

TwoHit examines the rolling stone. “Ah, you see there? No moss.” 

“Si. ¡No mas, por favor!” pleads Raistlin.  

“You guys knock it off!” shouts Adderallian, trying repeatedly to pick up his swords. “Something is wrong with all of my weapons! They’re like, slippery, or something…”

“Sounds like user error to me,” says Gowron.

“Yeah, man, get a grip,” chimes Gabba.  

“I mean, with these awesome new Gauntlets of Dexterity, I should be able to handle just about anythiiiiinnnggg…” Adderallian’s voice dies away, his eyes suddenly wide and staring, understanding coming at last.  

After a long pause, Addy asks in a small, far-away voice, “These aren’t Gauntlets of Dexterity, are they?” 

“Oh, did I say they were Gauntlets of Dexterity?” Alastair asks, chuckling. “I meant Gauntlets of Fumbling. My bad.” 

“But they do look right smart on you…” Gowron offers, patting the disheartened thief on the back sympathetically.

“Hey, here’s to being a good sport, buddy,” Alastair says, raising his hand palm torward Addy, “gimme five!”

Adderallian smiles hesitantly and shoots his own palm forward, only to miss and somehow smack himself in the face. As the others laugh heartily, Addy turns away, trying to wipe away his tears, but missing. 

Once back in the triangular room, the adventurers are ready to do the dirty work. Dressed in their dirt cleric robes, three of them again step inside the triangle, and are teleported immediately to the big dirt mound at the entrance.  There, unsure whether or not to penetrate the dirty mound with their offerings, they decide to pour their handfuls of dirt onto the pile.  As soon as the last grains touch the ground, the three are teleported back into the triangle-shaped room. 

From there, the intrepid adventurers take the big hall North.  The way is lit by large bronze cressets, which are burning some oily mass that heaves a heavy smoke in the air and leaves surfaces soiled. They can see, however, that their way is marked with large gold triangles inlaid into the stone floor, pointing around the corner. 

They come to a chamber that is veiled by a huge curtain.  Peeking around, they see a chamber obviously dedicated to an evil Earth Element.  Eerie light cast by phosphorescent lichen growing all over the walls shows that the bulk of the room is covered with dirt, strangely smoothed and level.  On the far wall are three doors, sealed in silver, imprinted with gold runes. In the middle of the space is a hard-packed earthen pyramid with a flat top rising six feet from the smooth dirt, surrounded by stone steps, a bronze box atop. On the flat is a column, dark with old blood, manacles hanging from the top. 

Gabba, full of fond memories of a childhood spent playing on the sacrificial mounds of his village, starts to joyfully charge in, but Raist holds him back with one bony hand, sending in an Unseen Servant cast from the other. The servant inspects the room without incident, and using the bronze key the party had recently found, the servant opens the bronze box, finding within a bronze maul, knife, bowl, and ewer.  

“Oh, man!  Just like what Gramma used to use on the cousins! There’s no cooking like Gramma’s cooking…”

Not even wanting to ask Gabba what the hell he is talking about, the group steps into the room. Adderallian climbs atop Gowron’s shoulders so that he can see the top of the column, and indeed, there is a trap door!  Addy eases it open, but alas, it is empty*, so he climbs back down. 

As the others touch the pyramid, the room begins to shake and rumble violently, and four enormous Earth Elementals rise through the smoothed dirt on all four sides.  As the dirt pours off their stoney, rough-hewn bodies, the adventurers cower together atop the pyramid, whispering furtively.

“Shit, what we gonna do?” hisses Gowron.

“Them Duke boys are in a heap o’ trouble now!” agrees TwoHit.

“Wait, so what counters Earth Elementals?” asks Adderallian. “Is it Air or Water?”

“Scissors? Paper?” offers Gabba.

“No, Air counters Fire, Water counters Earth,” Alastair states, ignoring the half-orc.

“We could just spit at ’em!” says TwoHit excitedly. 

“Orrrrrr… Raistlin and I can use our Rings of Water Elemental to conjure up an elemental counterattack to these monstrosities…” states Alastair, sizing up the heaving beasts.

As the Earth Elementals rock out in the dirt field, the party quickly hatches a desperate escape plan, one that they have no idea if it will work, but will look badass when rendered by AI. 

“One…two…three…GO!” shouts Alastair.

On Alastair’s count, he and Raistlin point their magical rings at the door, but at a sloped slant, so that the walls of ice they conjure create an icy escape ramp that doubles as a protective barrier from the Earth Elementals. 

“Here comes ice!” Gabba calls excitedly. “Hide the immigrants!” TwoHit joins in.

***(Herb Hint: for the record, you dumbasses, always check empty spaces with the Gem of Seeing!)***

But Alastair is not ready to give up that easily.  As the Earth Elementals sink back down into the smoothed dirt, he burns a Scroll of Aerial Servant, sending a fiery-eyed phoenix flapping across the expanse to retrieve the brown diamond.  

Brilliant! They all agree, slapping each other on the back. Now to secure this all-important gem. They teleport back to Keep Wynwhere, anxious to show Wherewyn that they have completed a huge part of their quest, but when Alastair reaches into his purse to withdraw the diamond, it is not there!  Alastair pats his pockets desperately for a long moment, and then the adventurers realize. Obviously, the magical gem is irremovable from the Temple, and the heroes are back at square one.  Brilliant.

Teleporting back to the Temple, the heroes skid to a stop when they see that the sacrifice room is not empty as they had hoped.  Six Stone Golems are hard at work within. Standing impossibly high, the stone giants grind from task to task, seemingly without their own wills. One Golem reaches and tips the brown diamond back into its spot atop the column.  The other Golems rake the already smooth dirt even smoother, looking like so many 10′ tall stoner monks in their zen garden. 

The brave adventurers bravely turn around and tiptoe back into the hallway. They decide to poke around in the halls for a bit, allow the zen monk Golems to finish their yard work. 

Westward, the roomy tunnels show more wear and tear.  There, upon the dark walls, are carved ghastly scenes of Earth Elementals, Earthly Terrors.  Screaming beings being pulled into earth, earth which seems to eat them, soaking in their blood, and break flesh down into soil, feeding upon the agony, the passion. Flesh as compost.  Viscera in the soil. Trying not to look too closely and worry too much, the friends shake their heads and walk a little faster. But there, in the middle of the gruesome carvings, are deeply reset letters:

S A T O R

A R E P O

T E N E T

O P E R A

R O T A S

While the others scratch their heads, TwoHit chuckles to himself.

“Well, as I live and die, that’s something my Mawmaw used to always say to us! Means something to the effect of, “The sower Arepo holds the work of wheels.”  She said it was something called a Latin palindrome; if I’m lying, I’m dying, and ol’ Mawmaw can come back from the dead and smack me for it.”

“That could be arranged,” Raistlin whispers from nearby.

Alastair, who has been pacing the hallway stops suddenly and says, “Come on, I have a plan.” The friends follow Alastair back to the sacrificial chamber, where a heavy curtain still blocks the entrance. Peeking around its velvet edges, the intrepid adventurers see that all is again empty and quiet within the chamber. It is here that Alastair’s plan is revealed.

A few minutes later, Adderallian is running headlong toward the curtain, Spectacles of Seeing bouncing atop his nose, sliding on his Ring of Invisibility. Raistlin casts Fly on him as he sprints by.  Adderallian hurtles up and forward, almost getting tangled in the curtain that Garrett yanks back at the last second.  On into the room Addy windmills, barely catching hold of the column and clinging there.  Meanwhile, Gowron has readied the Chime of Opening, and a deep brown resonance fills the chamber.  Along with all the contents of Addy’s rectum, the secret chamber flies open and the brown diamond is again revealed.  Addy snatches the diamond and flies out.

Back out in the hall, the adventurers find themselves split as to what the hell to do with this diamond, now that they have it in their possession.  Some say hide it away somewhere in the folds of the Bag of Holding, others say destroy it so Eklavdra will not ever be able to put her twisted hands upon it. Still others whisper a wonder if this is even the real thing and not some decoy.

“Yeah, I don’t even know,” sighs Gabba. “Sometimes it’s just too hard to know what to do, ya know what I mean?” 

“And we haven’t even figured out what to do with those doors across the chamber–the ones sealed in silver?” says Gowron. “I mean, they’re probably pretty important…”

“Well, I guess we could use a Fly spell to get Gowron on the wall and…”

“Would an Unlock spell not just open them from here?”

“I think we should just leave them be, just think about that time with the monkeys…”

“Hey everybody, we just got to work together and think about it for a…”

“FIREBALL!!!” Raistlin’s shout echoes around the suddenly silent chamber, a moment before the baWOOF of whitehot heat bursts from the center of the room, red and orange and blue flames licking the outer edges. 

In the smoky aftermath, the chains and implements of torture are nothing but melted magma, and the silvery stoppings of the far doors have melted, pooling into the smooth earth below. 

“There you go,” Raistlin says. 

“Thanks, Raistlin! And I know what we need to do now!” says Gowron, “I’ve got a fever, and there’s just one cure…” and before anyone can stop him, Gowron has rung the Chime of Opening again. As the party members clench and hop and squirt hot diarhea into their leggings, a door across the way makes a “chunk” sound, swinging slowly open on heavy hinges. 

Adderallian, hot baggy load notwithstanding, is focused hawk-eyed on the far door and the black recess now revealed. 

“Make me fly again.” Addy growls, readying himself for flight. “I’m going in.”

Up he goes, and over the half-melted column, now with smaller, less frequent arm windmills, to bob in front of the door’s black maw.

Adderallian stops for a moment, hovering, peering into the darkened doorway, and he reminds himself of three things:

1. Nothing lasts forever

2. Energy is neither created nor destroyed

3. What’s gotta be done’s gotta be done

He takes a deep breath and steps into the waiting threshold. 

It takes long moments for Addy’s eyes to adjust to the gloom, but slowly, they make the long sweep up the stairs to the top landing, and there, in the triumphant shadows is…

Nothing.

But his heart races, and his every nerve screams at him: there should be something there…feel something there.

Jolting his head back, Adderallian peers through the Spectacles of Seeing. Through the gem’s greenish light he sees what he somehow knew was there. An ancient, giant warrior standing heavily upon the landing, leaning upon a giant sword. A faint orange aura flickers around the massive being, radiating ancient, slow frequencies of power and forgetfulness.

Adderallian tries to hail the powerful giant atop the stairs, but gets nary a nod. 

An idea strikes him. After hastily changing into his dirt cleric cloak and ring, he strides back into the stairwell and faces the hunched, unresponsive figure. 

“Sator arepo tenet opera rotas,” intones Adderallian, recalling the inscription from the hall.

Slowly, the massive head of the figure rises from its chest, until level with Adderallian, and the eyes then open, slowly, slowly. And such eyes!  Deep dark and somehow blue they are, like an ocean’s unknown depths, knowing well pain, and time, and time again…

“Immortal, I do not recognize you,” the towering figure intones, his voice a quiet whisper that somehow reverberates the entire chamber.

“Well, I don’t reckon I recognize you, either!” shoots back Adderallian. “And just who are you, anyway?”

In answer. the massive figure simply stands, hulking at the top of the stairs. 

“Well, listen, big guy. Me and my friends are trying to help out around here, we are good guys, you know?  And, maybe, you could help us?”

One giant eyebrow slowly raises, the question clear.

“Well, see, this evil witch demon – Eklavdra, I mean – is trying to collect all four of the Elements, and when she does, she’ll bring about some kind of apocalypse, which is no good for any of us, of course…”

The giant warrior’s eyes focus more keenly.

“So, see, we’ve got to keep the Earth Elemental safe from her clutchy little clawww….” Adderallian’s words freeze in his throat at the sight in front of him.

The massive warrior extends a gauntleted fist, a quizzical look upon his face.

“Uh, whoah.  Are you… well, I guess you are. I mean, what have I got to lose, except everything?  I mean, fuck it, yeah, let’s do this.”

The giant warrior extends a gauntleted fist, which Addy pounds.

Adderallian blinks in a sudden new light.  A ring of sheer rock, 30′ around, encloses him. Outside of this rocky ring is blackness, and Addy senses that this nothingness goes on and on.  

His vertigo turns to terror when from out of the far wall a terrible beast emerges from, or perhaps through, the wall.  Great shags of rock and mineral comprise the terrible beast, grotesquely muscled arms reach out for him, and its horrible mouth gapes and snaps atop its head. 

A Xorn! Adderallian pedals backward until his back is against hard stone wall, knowing he cannot defeat this powerful beast by strength of arms alone.  

Now, this, this is what I do, thinks Addy. He inhales deeply, calm clarity flooding in, and does what must be done. 

Adderallian squares his shoulders against the fearsome beast and reaches for his swords, but his hands fumble as though they are slippery.  His eyes and mouth widen in shock, and Addy turns his attention to his sword hilts and away from the beast, and the Xorn, seeing Addy’s guard down, rushes him, rotating its long arms and goat eyes in an onrushing, centrifugal whirlwind. 

But Addy springs into action; his fumbling a ploy to lure the monster right where he wants him. His trap sprung, Adderallian ducks under one sweeping arm and rolls under another, dashing out of reach of the third arm while digging something out of his pack.  The Xorn crashes into the stone wall, and by the time its side-slitted eyes again focus on Adderallian, he has readied what he was reaching for.  With a sly smile playing on his lips, Addy says, “Gauntlets of Fumbling, indeed. Well, guess this shows my net worth!”  He tosses the Net of Entrapment over the Xorn, the ropes contract and constrict the rocky beast into immobility; its huge, heavy body crashes to the ground. 

The stillness lasts only a moment, however, for the Xorn disappears, replaced by two Anhkhegs, huge and insectile; their eyes, glistening black and emotionless, are fixed on him. They stalk toward him on far too many legs, chittering. 

“Fuck this!” yells Adderallian.  Racing toward the horrible giant bugs, he pulls his swords free from his back scabbards and slides between their chitinous legs, slicing upward into their tender underbellies.

The Anhkhegs respond by swiveling their heads and spitting several gallons of digestive juice on him. 

The stench sends him reeling, but he keeps just enough of his senses to pull free his sizzling armor and fling it far from his body before he, too, melts. 

Blinking through the vomited stomach acid still streaming from his hair, Addy stumbles, places his feet wide, grips his two swords, and heaves them overhand at the necks of the watching Anhkhegs, wanting to end their empty stares forever.

His sight blurred by gore, he misses his mark.  The Anhkhegs do not miss theirs, however.  The first one’s long leg shoots out at Adderallian, its claws ripping a hunk of meat from his thigh. As he stumbles away from this blow, he catches the most terrifying sight of his life: an insectile head close up, lunging in for a bite.  Its mandibles tear into his shoulder, ripping, flinging him across the room. 

Adderallian lands with a wet thump against the wall, and the huge insects watch, their eyes empty voids, as Adderallian pulls his torn and broken body up onto his knees with his last shred of strength.  Jutting his jaw, Addy slowly pulls his head back up to look into those empty eyes with white-hot defiance. 

“Addy, no!” Alastair falls to his knees, arms thrown wide.

“Did you see that? He just disappeared!” exclaimed Gabba, “just reached out one of his fists, and then, poof!”

The party of friends, suddenly minus one, stare into the darkened doorway where they have just witnessed Adderallian disappear instantly. They blink their eyes and look to one another, but then they hear the quickly approaching thunder of heavy feet upon heavy floor.  They haven’t even time to draw their weapons before six Stone Golems come around the corner, moving heavily but frightfully fast. 

As one, the party dashes out across the level dirt of the sacrificial chamber, rounding the pyramid and column in the middle of the room without pausing to look behind, and dashes up onto the stone floor where Adderallian had stood just moments before. 

Cautiously, the companions spread out and check the area for traps or clues. The slow pace is torture as they grow more and more concerned for their friend. 

“It’s like he was reaching somewhere up here with his fist,” says Gowron as he steps onto the wide fourth stair.

PFWUMP! Something massive makes contact with Gowron’s chest, and he is flung straight backward, arms forward, into the wall behind him, sliding down into a heap at the bottom.  

“Damn! Something big just hit Gow-Gow!” Garrett yells.

But Gowron is already up, shaking his big grey-green head, and pulling something from a pouch on his belt. He slides on his Ring of Shooting Stars, grumbles the words “Faerie Fire”, and then he can see it standing there atop the stair.  They can all see it. Huge and hulking and almost right above them, the giant warrior is now visible, outlined with a pale glowing light.  His bulk fills most of the upper stairway, but his gaze is down, his chin to his chest, his forehead to the pommel of a great sword he holds point-down before him.  It is as though his body is very much there, but the mind is mostly somewhere else.  

“Have you had enough?” 

Adderallian looks up to see the source of the booming voice, but only sees the two Anhkhegs chittering softly and cocking their triangular heads, their blank eyes staring. 

The great voice seems to be everywhere, even in him.

“I said, have you had enough?”

“Yes,” Addy answers.

“OK, so the plan is, I’ll create a distraction with my armpit farts on the fourth step while you guys sneak around behind…” Alastair whispers to his companions huddled at the bottom of the stairs.

And suddenly, Adderallian is with them again, flying overhead, arms forward, as he sails back into the same spot Gowron has but recently vacated. His armor and Net of Entrapment are tossed onto the floor with just as much ceremony. Addy, however, is in nowhere near the shape that Gowron was in; he is bloody and torn and seems to be missing hunks of his flesh. His body slumps onto the floor and does not move. 

No one remembers later whose healing potions did the trick, just that glorious moment when, as they all held their breath, crowded around, Adderallian opens his eyes and smiles his slow, wry smile. 

“Aw, I knew you guys actually cared,” drawls Addy. “I mean, I really did. Thanks for looking out.  Oh, and guess who no longer has on Gauntlets of Slipperiness?”

“Give it back,” grunts Gowron, holding out his clawed hand. 

With a twinkle in his eye, Addy flips the Ring of Shooting Stars into Gowron’s hand. 

Even after Addy’s full story is shared – of his pact with the Giant Dirt Warrior, his fight with both a Xorn and two Anhkhegs – the party is not ready to give up on the brown gem that they now know is in this room with them, albeit in the fist of one they don’t really much want to fuck with. 

“Hey, you up there. Arepo!  You copy?” calls Alastair. “Why you gotta mess with my homie, huh?”

The party watches the great head – framed in the eerie glow of fairie fire – again raise to look at them.

“You do know we ain’t gonna leave until we secure that big brown stone you got in your mitt, right?” calls Alastair.

Unhurried, the booming voice answers, “You really think it’s safer in your hands than in mine?”

There is a long pause. They hadn’t thought about it quite that way. He did have a point, a mighty fine point. 

“Actually, you know what? You’re probably right, “says Alastair. “I guess we will actually be going now.” Alastair reaches out a hand for a goodbye fist bump, but quickly thinks better of it. 

Although exhausted, the party pushes on to the Northwest, there finding halls lined with cell doors with tiny windows. Upon the walls, patches of mushroom can be seen, no stranger to these wet dungeons. Unfortunately, these like to shriek when anyone comes near them, alerting any and all monsters in the area of the adventurers’ presence. 

After they silence the fungal alarms – and Raistlin, who tends to sing along – the party peers into the little windows.  Out of one of the cells comes a gnome gnamed Kother, who offers to buy his freedom with the big, brown diamond he has. From another cell comes a gnome called Grok Brablik (at least that’s the way he says it’s written in their gnomenclature), who also possesses a big, brown diamond. 

“I’m about sick of these stupid Gems of Elementariness,” groans Garrett. “Seems like everyone’s got one.  Next one I see I’m feeding to Owlby.”

“Whoo?” hoots Owlby.

So when they free a depressed dwarf named Jadewin who proffers yet another big, brown diamond, Gowron quickly steps up and takes charge of the stone before Garrett can react. 

Onward, the intrepid adventurers explore, finding a torture chamber containing various torture implements, charcoal, and a black iron box.  Upon the wall hangs a dead gnome, a garden hoe sunk into the side of his skull, and on a wooden sign, in looping script, are the words there’s hoe place like gnome!

Down some stairs they find a 20×20 room, full of bones.  Back upstairs they find another 20×20 room, and as Gowron steps in, the floor trap slides him down to the room beneath. Sighing, the party treads back down the stairs to retrieve their friend, content to call it a day and head back to the Wynwhere hot tub for the night.