Apocalypse Junction

[Keeper]

Green Goo

Rowan slowly reaches into his apron and begins pulling out desserts.
"...can I interest you and your green friend in a range of quality moist foodstuffs?" he asks slowly.
Everyone knows that when you need someone to not shoot you with arrows you distract them with food. Especially when half of them is a ravenous slime.

[Rebonack]

[Green Goo]

When Mary holds up her hands and takes a step closer the notched arrow is quickly pointed at her again. "Don't come any closer!" the archer yells at her.

"Hey hey, no one needs to shoot anyone, everything's okay," Lex says from the ceiling, using the most soothing tone he can muster. This one's no bard, but sounding friendly should help, right?

"And you shut up!" the archer yells at Lex.

Huh.

Apparently soothing words from the cute slime dragon aren't going to help.

"All my friends turned into mindless slime zombies and you're just... chatting like everything's fine? Shut your mouth! Hearing you talk makes me sick."

Wow. Whole bunch of grief and bitterness there.

At Rowan's offer he seems to hesitate for a moment. "Don't come any closer. Toss it to me."

[bc56]

Green Goo
"Listen, if you don't let us help you, you're gonna be a mindless slime too," Mary says, taking another cautious step. "We don't want to hurt anyone."
She hopes nobody takes that as a provocation. She just wants to help.

This just makes her even easier to shoot should the mind-controlled guy decide to be angry about her getting nearer, or about the revelation about how the slime is going to eat him as well.

[Keeper]

Green Goo

Not sure what else to do, Rowan tosses the man the muffin he was holding up while explaining it.
As said before, the muffin looks absolutely delicious and tempting. It's also cursed to make whoever eat it find themselves becoming fat and slow in a probably embarrassingly cartoony way. Rowan feels weird possibly poisoning this grieving man, but he is aiming arrows at the lot of them and Rowan can't give him one of the buff pastries.

[Rebonack]

[Green Goo]

As Lex is watching this scene unfold he can't help but wonder what the worst possible outcome of this confrontation could be. As he's having these mercurial thoughts a single red, alien eye opens up on the side of his tail and begins to gently weep.

Then Rowan tosses a muffin.

The archer looses his draw so he can pick up the muffin and take a bite out of it, which of course causes him to start ballooning up cartoonishly. "What did you do!?" he demands in an increasingly nasally voice.

Then Mary takes another step forward.

"I said stay back!" the now quite obese archer yells, drawing his bow with his sausagey fingers.

Lex springs to action when the weapon rises, leaping at the archer from his perch on the ceiling-!
-only for his tail to stick fast, leaving him hanging gracelessly like a big oozy pinata.

The archer fires at Mary, but with how out of shape he is all of a sudden his aim at her vitals is pretty lousy.

Then with a wet pop Lex peels off the ceiling and falls on the archer. The slime dragon wastes no time grabbing the olive slime on the back of the archer's neck with one of his tentacles, the slimy skin of both fusing together on contact.

"Shhhh, it's okay. We're not your enemies. Just calm down and everything will be okay," Lex coos to the archer as he begins carefully retracting the slime roots out of the man's nervous system.

[Keeper]

Green Goo

Rowan should go apply for sainthood, because he manages not to laugh. He does smile a little, though. Is it schadenfreude when you're watching someone go through something you did already?
"Don't worry, you're just experiencing what it's like to be me, kinda. Ratticus, how long does that last?"
Ratticus, thankfully, is capable of whispering into Rowan's ear at mouse-volume so no one else can hear.
"Last? I dunno, probably a while. Your magic is based on making the universe think muffins can do stuff. That curse is the one thing muffins are SUPPOSED to do. It's the strongest thing you have." "...huh." Well, on the plus side it seems like his clothes were stretchy enough that- Oh, a button just flew past Rowan's shoulder. Never mind.

[bc56]

Green Goo
"Nowaitdon't...!" Mary protests, but "Eowwwch!" The arrow digs deep into her chest. She grimaces and pulls it out, and her wound seals closed immediately.
"It's okay, I'm okay," Mary says, holding up the arrow streaked witb her black blood.
Wait...

"Dammit!" She looks worried now. Pulling that thing out wiped the slime off it... Inside her wound... Which is inside her body. With the wound sealed shut. She's pretty sure she's immune, but getting that gross slime inside her?

She pauses for a moment and takes a deep breath.
"Okay, I think I'm fine. I..."

Drip.

"What was that?"

Drip.
Drip.
Drip drip drip drip... Splat!
"Dammit! Dammit dammit dammit!" Mary felt that. And anyone can see it. Green slime is running in rivulets down her body and pooling at her feet. It's dripping off her hands and wings and tail. In fact all her features are rapidly becoming more indistinct, more runny.
Apparently the way her magic absorbs the slime works entirely differently with it inside her body. The result is that the demon princess is swiftly melting, and in a few moments, will be nothing but a puddle of slime.

Obviously this is probably Very Bad.
"Guys? Helllpp!"

[Rebonack]

[Green Goo]

Okay so the good first.

Rowan's muffin worked.

Lex' intuition that he could assimilate the olive slime invading the archer's brain was right on and he's currently working on freeing him from the slime roots burrowed into his nervous system! So the guy should be okay (if cursed) for a while. But... that's alright! Lex is preeeeetty sure he has a curative potion that should fix that?

Also!

No one commented on his tail getting stuck to the ceiling and fouling what was going to be a really cool heroic dive preventing the archer from shooting Mary! Thankfully Mary regenerates and the wound seals up right away!

Yep!

Everything is fine nothing to worry about!

Oh.

Mary is getting gooped. "Okay don't panic, it usually takes-" Lex begins, only to notice that what should normally take four minutes has apparently decided to take more like twenty four seconds.

The slime is inside a wound. That would have to be carved out and it's already spread all over her. Lex is... he doesn't have anything to fix this. But none the less he speaks both authoritatively and reassuringly. "Don't panic, okay? Don't flail around. You want to be careful not to splash Rowan. It's going to take me a few minutes to get our buddy here fixed up; if I try to just pull the slime out of him it'll hurt him. Maybe kill him. I've got to help the person I know I can help for sure first. So just hang on as long as you can, alright? Think about things that are important to you as hard as you can."

As Lex is speaking that red, weeping eye is watching Mary.

Unblinking.

Then it closes, vanishing as if it were never there.

A sudden flash of insight occurs to Lex, like a thought falling fully crystalized into his mind.

"I can still help you out, Mary, but it might take a Wish to get you back to normal depending on how strong your shape-shifting magic is. Just hang in there, okay? The most important thing is that you don't let your mind get hazy."

[Keeper]

Green Goo

Wow she actually just stood there and took it. She didn't even duck. Rowan is increasingly worried about this girl's sense of self-preservation. He was already pretty sure she was nuts for her just walking in here but he thought the demon thing would probably work itself out.
Rowan tosses her a cookie.
"Magic-suppressant. Best I got." He doesn't really have magic dispelling stuff and he's not sure that would work anyway.

[bc56]

Green Goo
"Can you hurry up, I'm literally melting here!" Mary is not having fun. Her hair has glooped into a single mass, and she's lost several inches of height. "I don't think I can keep standing!" Hidden from view, her bones are also softening. "Hurry up!"
She tries and fails to catch the cookie. With her body falling apart, she doesn't really have the necessary coordination anymore.

[Rebonack]

[Green Goo]

"I can't really hurry up; if I'm not carefully this guy will die. But if I take my time and work slowly I can definitely save him," Lex says, his tone as calm and soothing as he can muster. "I went through the same thing you're going through right now. I couldn't do anything to stop it, either. And I can't do anything to stop what's happening to you now, either. The slime source is inside you and there's no way to burn it out. Just sit down on the floor. Focus on picking Rowan's cookie up. Try to calm yourself down. It'll be way worse if you're panicking and fear is the last thing on your mind."

Lex offers a goopy grin over at Rowan. "Thanks for helping. Every little bit counts."

Eesha, meanwhile, is looking at Mary. Then she looks at Rowan. "Will Rowan magic Mary like Rowan magiced Eesha?"

"No, I don't think he's going to do that. We're going to help Mary before she turns into a lime-slime. That metamorphosis takes about four hours and it corrodes the soul. We don't want that to happen," Lex clarifies.

It'll probably take Lex about a minute to get the slime roots out of the archer's brain. Unfortunately, at the rate Mary is melting she'll probably be a heap of slime well before then. Unless the magic cookie manages to slow things down.

[bc56]

Green Goo
Mary collapses to her knees. Not that she really has knees anymore, her lower body is quickly becoming a single mass. "I don't want to be a slime!" she reaches for the dropped cookie. Her hand blorps around it rather than grabbing it, and it begins to dissolve. She winces in pain, and what's left of her arm muscles clench - she's very magical herself, so suppressing that isn't good for her.
"If you can't stop this then what good are you!?" Mary's not really thinking about how insulting that might be; she has other things on her mind.

[Rebonack]

[Green Goo]

"Wow, I didn't want to be a slime either!" Lex replies brightly. "But we don't always get what we want. It sucks, but that's how we learn lessons, right? My plan was to finish up this little adventure, take some time to regroup and resupply, then for my next delve go on a quest to get a Wish! That should be enough to change me back to normal. We can just make fixing you part of the Wish too, right?"

He gives his head a firm nod.

"Right."

Lex definitely understands Mary's distress, but calling him good for nothing still stings a little. The vindictive side of him wants to snap back at her with something witty and cutting but now probably isn't the time. Instead, he replies with a matter of fact.

"What am I good for? Well, I was planning on saving your soul from slimey dissolution but if you really don't want me to that's fine, too."

Okay that was way snippier than he was planning.

"Sorry, snark is force of habit sometimes. Being nasty isn't going to help either of us. I'm serious about you trying to keep your thoughts focused on good things that are important to who you are while you get gooped. That'll help you hang onto your you-ness longer," Lex says as he begins dragging the mostly sedated archer over to Rowan. "Hey there's a potion in my pack that's kind of a lavender color? It should be marked 'Restoration'. If you could help our buddy here drink it while I'm finishing up the slime removal that would be great."

[Keeper]

Green Goo

"Yeah and I didn't want to be a pudgy dragon. Take a deep breath, we've all been there." Rowan can't say he wouldn't have snapped at someone if he'd been awake for his transformation instead of having a big mental Don't Think About It plastered on his brain the whole time.
Rowan goes over to Lex and rifles through his bag. His hands are big but shouldn't have trouble finding the potion. Then he can attempt to give it to the archer.
It may or may not work. Restoration doesn't generally function as Remove Curse.

[bc56]

Green Goo
That doesn't get the reaction Lex might expect at all.
"No! No Wishes!" Mary looks distraught at the mere suggestion of a Wish. "I'm not paying that price again and you shouldn't either! We'll have to find another way!" At this point, Mary's body below the waist is nothing but a slowly spreading mound of ooze. Her arms and wings have collapsed and are merging with her body. Her face is losing its definition.

[Rebonack]

[Green Goo]

Thankfully Lex wasn't expecting the restoration potion to be removing curses. The restoration potion should just help with the lost flesh and the damage to the archer's sense of self that was inflicted by the slime. As the archer drinks the potion Lex pulls the slime roots out of the poor guy the rest of the way. He'll have some scarring on his back and neck, but that definitely beats getting turned into a mindless slime zombies.

"Ugh... why do I feel so fat," the archer wheezes as he begins coming to.

"Sorry I didn't make any curse-cure potions. I wasn't expecting to deal with much of that from slimes," Lex says apologetically.

"That *wheeze* that muffin... you did this to me," the archer says to Rowan. He doesn't sound very happy about it. But hey! At least he isn't deathly thin now, right? That's an improvement?

And so Lex can finally get to Mary.

The little dragon lays down on the floor next to her, slime oozing against his feet. "There are different sorts of Wishes, you know? There's Wishes you're offered and Wishes you earn. The first ones have always got strings and curses and unseen consequences attached. But Wishes you earn? Those are a prize you deserve. That's the difference, see? You always pay for Wishes. But are you going to pay through the tragedy that follows the Wish or the heroism that comes before it? You learn all about this stuff in the Cursed Hero program. Mostly how not to get MORE cursed, haha!"

Then?

He wraps his forelegs around Mary in a hug.

Doesn't really mind the goop. He had to get use to it fast.

"But yeah! One way or the other, we'll figure it out! You're a protagonist and don't you forget it! Your story isn't ending here."

[Keeper]

Green Goo

On the plus side, the potion of restoration should help with the feeling of slowness. But he's still fat. Maybe he could aim his bow again! But if it's a particularly large longbow with a heavy draw-weight, the strength requirement might be out of the question, as well as the issue of his gut being in the way of the string.
"Buddy, I'm gonna be honest, you were pointing an arrow at my friend over there and you did that to her. So no, I don't really feel bad about it. Was I supposed to give you one of the muffins that would have made your aim better while you were threatening us?"
Rowan doesn't really have a lot of sympathy for people complaining about being fat. Empathy, perhaps. But not sympathy.

[Hraithre]

[Somewhere in the Desert]

The 'contact' is the driver of the bandvagn, sitting in the cab with larger windows and keeping an eye out for threats and dangers.

"Said they're callin' for it. But it could be a trap. What's your thinkin'?" Harry's grabbed his rifle and is staring down the barrel at the figure, which continues to wave.

The figure is not currently being threatened, and nor is it threatening the travellers directly. It is a threat, but a passive one; if they ignore it and continue on their way, it isn't going to chase them. If Hoshiki's predictions take himself into account, in that situation he's a bigger threat to the figure than any of the others sharing this ride.

The swordsman's foresight could account for his own actions - but that would require him to plan an attack against this mysterious figure, which he isn't inclined to do just yet. "If it's a trap, it's a subtle one", he answers, "maybe they're counting to lure the whole crew close. There is no need to do that, though. I can go and check them alone, if you want me to. If things turn sour, you can go on your merry way. I'll find some other way back to civilization."

[bc56]

Green Goo
Mary is hugged!
Goosh!
That sounds comes as much from her as from Lex; her body squishes in his grip and flows over his limbs. She's lost basically all definition, being a vaguely humanoid torso and an indistinct head and face.
"No... Wishes..." she weakly protests.
"If you're gonna do something... do it now..."

[Rebonack]

[Green Goo]

Unfortunately yeah.

The archer is one of those longbow guys. But he was still managing to draw the bow even when he was dangerously skinny so maybe it's just that fancy magical belt he's wearing? After all, having TWO really high ability scores is kind of a pain to maintain.

"The slime was making me do it," the archer says, finally sitting up and rubbing the back of his neck. Much to his relief his neck is now slime free. "How is it that he can still talk? There shouldn't be anything left after the slime took him."

Then, under his breath he mutters, "It isn't fair."

Meanwhile!

The hug continues, though it grows more tenuous by the moment.

"Haha, fine, no Wishes. And don't worry! I'm already doing something!" Lex says brightly, wrapping his tail around the whole diameter of the sludgy puddle Mary is forming. The metallic black wire-frame is rapidly coming apart and his normally leathery 'hide' is growing slicker and more fluid. "It's just taking me a sec to pull my cytoskeleton apart! I'm glad you were able to hang on this long! That means there probably won't be any soul corrosion at all."

Then?

He spreads his sagging wings around both of them and soon there's just one big heap of green jello in the middle of the floor.

With, rather notably, a shimmering crystalline core floating in the middle of it. A core that's rapidly doubling in size and flashing with new streaks of color. Previously the facets shined in blues, purples, and shades of magenta. But now streaks of fiery red flash through it. The slime dragon's cytoskeleton begins to rapidly reassemble itself, drawing the whole mound of slime into a familiar draconic shape. Where before the dragon's horns and fins and fronds where highlighted with black and white and yellow, those on the right side are now the purple of Mary's feathers.

It takes a few minutes for the slime dragon to fully take form, but that's understandable. Building something often takes longer than breaking it down. A cavity inside the dragon's chest expands, filling first with a roiling mixture of acid and hellfire before piping its way up to the dragon's mouth and expelling a blast of corrosive flames all over the slime pods still on the ceiling. With the breath weapon momentarily exhausted the dragon's 'lungs' fill with fresh air instead. They stretch their left wing first, that one being a little more responsive to the slime dragon's partly divided will.

"Haha! I think it worked. Did that work?" Mariblex asks aloud, expecting their other half to answer in kind. There's definitely more than one set of thoughts swirling around inside the core so they're pretty sure it worked!

[Keeper]

Green Goo

"Lex? Magic, apparently." What a very helpful answer.
"Well, the good news is unlike me, you don't weigh an actual ton. And also unlike me, you're capable of losing it even if it's not that kind of curse though I'm fairly sure it is.
Also if your friends' are still in one piece I might be able to help them like I helped- Eesha? Eesha? Where'd you go?"
Where did that salamander get to?

[bc56]

Green Goo
"What the Hell?" Mariblex takes control of their mouth from Mariblex. "Is this how you see? Everything just looks like light and dark blotches, but I can smell where things are." Their eyespots contract as if squinting. "This is sooo weird. I've never possessed anyone before." They take an experimental step, not certain of how their own body works. "I feel like a walking water balloon."

[Rebonack]

[Green Goo]

Magic, apparently, is only partly right.

The main reason is the weird ritual he was put through as a baby. Getting your brain replaced with a slime core when you're just a bab provides some notable perks if you get gooped by a slime.

Also?

"I'm going to have to work this all off? This is going to take a two months at least," the archer laments, huffing and puffing as he pushes himself up to stand. "My friends are mostly in the east wing. Once the slime consumed them totally they just wandered off one by one. I don't know if they're still around or if those growths on the walls ate them."

The archer is eyeing the (now bigger) slime dragon with distrust. He has this horrible mental picture of the creature blasting them all with its slime breath and gobbling them up like it did that teifling.

When Eesha is called she suddenly pokes her head out of the room the archer had vacated earlier! "Eesha find shinies!"

She sounds very proud of herself.

Mariblex, meanwhile, looks to be trying to coordinate walking around with two people at the helm. Thankfully both parts of the dragon's bifurcated mind can feel the intent of the other so it isn't completely hopeless. "Oh! Okay you're using the eyespots. We can see through those little black speckles all over us but only sort of," Mariblex explains to Mariblex. "Our whole 'core' can focus light. It's like one big eye. Well, several big eyes anyway. You've got your half 'shut' right now, though."

Should Mariblex follow Mariblex' advice the world will suddenly light up in a canvas of smeared colors that looks like an impressionist painting come to life. It's still blotches, but blotches forming recognizable shapes painted in vibrant hues. They can see Rowan right over there. And the archer. And the fire they started on the ceiling is throwing off pearlecent waves from 'seeing' the heat of the flames. And of course they're picking up plenty of scents from their six 'horns'. Not to mention the whole of their skin functioning as one big ear, feeling vibrations through the air and ground alike.

"Yeah, we're going to feel kind of wobbly for a bit. Our cytoskeleton is still reinforcing and we're still a bit goopy. Give it another minute and we'll be good to go!" Mariblex reassures themselves.

[Keeper]

Green Goo

"Maybe not! You might just need a proper curse-purge spell. I was supposed to test it on a mindless slime but then you kind of threatened my friend."
Once again Rowan can't really feel bad for someone complaining about how hard it is to lose weight when he's literally incapable of doing so.
"Good job, Eesha. We should get you a bag." Rowan leans over to try to tie one of the loot sacks around Eesha's neck so she can properly put things into it instead of holding shiny things in her mouth and her tiny claws.

[bc56]

Green Goo
Mariblex opens their half of the core. "Woah. It's like it's all smeared together. I could paint this." Actually, they couldn't, because their painting would be rendered in the same blurry vision.
They stumble forward, not used to the way their new body works. "What kinda shinies did you find, Eesha?" They could use some good news after being melted to mush and then absorbed into one of their friends.

[Rebonack]

[Green Goo]

Well of course Mariblex could paint this! And of course it would be rendered in the same blurry vision. But they have OTHER senses at their disposal! Rather notably their sense of smell. Oddly their 'horns' are their far and away most precise sense. It's easy for them to pick up specific smells, but also subtle nuances, distance, concentration, direction. It's like being able to sense not only the present but the past. They could paint precisely with their sense of smell even if they can't see it exactly.

It's definitely a completely different world from a visual one.

"I could whip up a remove curse potion but my supplies are outside in my backup pack," Mariblex helpfully points out from over there, gathering off the cast-off outfit Mary was wearing. This is definitely one of those times Mariblex is glad that they treated this stuff with an oil to repel liquids and resist acid.

"If it's all the same I would prefer a... I would prefer a potion that isn't made by the talking slime," the archer says, which provides a good opportunity for the talking slime to stick their tongue out at him. "I'm Thaddius. Me and my fellows, the Bobbing Corks, came here when we heard this whole city was still full of loot. We thought we could handle a bunch of oozes but there are some terrifying things lurking around this city."

"Eesha is Eesha! Eesha is Rowan's minion," Eesha says as the bag is hung over her neck since it is now, apparently, introduction time.

"We're Mariblex! We came here for mostly the same reason and had the same problem! Oh, and to paint the ruins, too. Forlorn, abandoned places have a real haunting beauty to them," Mariblex says, joining in on the introduction fun times.

Now, when our heroes join Eesha in the shinies room they will discover that HOLY CRAP this place is full of shinies! "Eesha finds shiny shinies!"

It's mostly the sorts of things you would expect to find in a palace. Gold and silver dishes and cutlery. Candle sticks. Golden threat that used to be woven into fabric before the fabric melted thanks to slime. Things like that! Definitely quite the little haul.

"Even with those slimes on us we were still stockpiling the loot we found," Thaddius explains, giving the slime dragon plenty of personal space.

Among the odds and ins is a large wooden chest overlaid with gold. The gold exterior protected it from the slimes and when opened up our heroes will discover that it's full of clothing! A glistening golden yellow dress made of spider silk and woven with pearls. A definitely totally normal chef hat. Some anklets with golden bells on them. A mantle that looks to be made of iridescent blue crow feathers. A circlet of living ivy with an emerald wrapped up in it. A powder blue winter coat with thick white fur around the neck, bottom, and sleeves. A pair of leather bracers with rubies set into the palms.

All very fancy!

"This was all the magical gear we found where we were able to search. Loran didn't... she didn't really have the state of mind to identify anything. The slime took her intelligence pretty quickly," Thaddius says.

[bc56]

Green Goo
"Remember we claimed the clothes!" Mariblex points out. The shape of the garments isn't clear, but they can smell the cloth, leather, and metal. They would love the dress, and the coat, and the anklets and the circlet and the mantle, but they can't clearly see what they are. "They are clothes right? We can smell them. And we want them." Mariblex considers something. "Hey, if we wanted to try to help restore Thaddius' friends... Well, as restored as Eesha is, we bet we could track down which slimes they are by smell."

[Keeper]

Green Goo

"Rowan would be me. And this is Ratticus."
Ratticus has been hiding in Rowan's pocket.
"Charmed. And it's nice for poor Chonkasaur to not be the only house-sized person in the room."
"Ratticus, don't be an asshole." "What? Both of you are LITERALLY the size of my house."

Rowan shakes his head, going over the gear.
"Well, I think 'Lex is better suited for identifying magic items. And we can save some of it for your friends if I can help them like I helped Eesha. I can't promise they'll be themselves entirely. Eesha can't remember much but she's doing better than she was.

And Eesha! You're your own person. Not just my minion."
"She's absolutely your minion, though. Don't get me wrong, I agree. I'd rather be a baker's minion than a slime."

[Rebonack]

[Green Goo]

"Haha, right, we won't forget! Yeah, they're clothes. Try focusing your side of the core a little more. The narrower our view the clearer things are," Mariblex suggests. It's good advice! Should the advice be followed the world of colorful smears will tunnel down to a more focused image, the blots of hue likewise shrinking as more subtle colors and shapes resolve. It definitely isn't as sharp as human vision, but it's an improvement. Of course, that means Mariblex can't see in all directions simultaneously anymore! But right now they don't need to see in all directions, they need to see what sorts of of clothing is in the chest!

The process is DEFINITELY something to get use to. It's like having thousands of eyes roving over the surface of the core and directing them all to look in the same direction. But the effort is worth it. Mariblex should be able to identify the various articles of clothing even if they can't make out the fine details.

"Ooh, that's a good idea. Usually getting turned into a slime zombie leaves someone unrecognizable. Just look at us!" Mariblex says. "If you still have anything from your friends we SHOULD be able to recognize the smell."

Mariblex knows Thaddius feels pretty bad about the fact that his friends lost their minds but Mariblex still has an intact soul. Souls? Sure. But maybe if they help him find his friends? It might depend a bit on how much of that magic pie Rowan has left.

Thaddius shifts uncomfortably. Mariblex will be able to smell the distrust and discomfort wafting off him. But also a tinge of hope. "...I have all their old clothes before they oozed out of them. I washed them off as best I could."

He gestures at three other outfits laying across a VERY fancy looking marble bench on one side of the room. Mariblex pads over to the bench, leaning their nose down and quirking their horns forward for a better smell. A female elf with a deeply set scent of forest and woodsmoke. A halfling with the sweet, musky tang of pipe-weed. A tiefling with the unmistakable bite of brimstone and frigged pine sap. A set of wizardly robes, a cleric's habit and armor, and a harness of leather and furs offering minimal protection and maximal bronze rings for clipping gear to.

Yeah... That's all something they can work with for sure!

When identifying the magical items is brought up Mariblex pipes up, "We can figure out what sort of magic they use and the general application, but we can't tell exactly what the effect is. We'll need to mix up an arcane litmus solution. We have the reagents for it, but they're in our portable alchemy lab."

Which is, as mentioned before, outside.

And just as Rowan says Eesha is doing better she gets her snoot stuck inside a gold bracelet. Of course, she tries backing up to escape from the bracelet and runs butt-first into the wall.

Thaddius looks a bit skeptical. "...so would they be your minions, too?" he asks.

[bc56]

Green Goo
Mariblex focuses. "Ooh, that dress is pretty, that's ours! What's that, is that... A chef hat? You can have that." They apparently forgot they are entirely the wrong shape to look good in a dress."We should take a look at this stuff once we have our equipment." They remember how to use their alchemy gear, just as clearly as they remember how to wield fiendish magic.

But now is the time for smelling the earthly remains of slimed people. Mariblex takes the scents in, getting a picture of each of them. "They smell pretty distinct, we can find them! We'd bet our core on it!"