In her search for powerful necromancers and means of resurrection, Eameia picks up on some rumors of strange flower circles appearing across Charon. Little is known about the circles as of yet, and civilians have been told to keep their distance while adventurers have been called in to investigate. From what she's picked up through the grapevine, a circle popped up near the Black Spire and people have been hearing weird voices from it.

The Black Spire already is considered haunted by the locals and very likely littered with errant wizard magic and ancient glyphs, so something like this must be pretty unique to make the area even more dangerous to approach. Someplace presumably brimming with the souls of long-dead mages is all too attractive for a necromancer to ignore, and given her personal circumstances, she's all too keen on risking a venture there herself. 

Course when she expressed her plans to her trusted right hand, Eirynor, the older half-elf was less than enthused with the idea. He agreed to accompany her there so long as they had more support, a request he has come to regret quickly as Snow further insisted on bringing Shael along too. While having a lightning drake with them certainly was a boon to their firepower if a fight does break out, Eirynor does not like going on missions with the drake's snarky rider. 

The group arrives at the Black Spire during a particularly foggy day. Indra, the aforementioned storm drake soars through the mist until landing at the base of the dilapidated tower. Eameia, Snow, Eirynor, and Shael all get off its back and take a cursory look around the grounds for any trouble. 

"Road looks clear as far as I can see. Which isn't that far but uh...yeah." Snow, the catfolk archer says after a few moments of scanning their surroundings. 

"Creepy fog, creepy tower, creepy rumors about creepy flowers. This seems like a great place to be," Shael scoffs as she gives Indra a few pats.

Eirynor rolls his eyes and does a lap around the tower's base while Eameia steps up to the front door.

Looking up, she can't make out the top through the thick fog, but she can feel the pull of the arcanum all around them. Even if all the mages were long gone, their magic still lingers. But there's something else too, something dark...something strange. She's felt something similar before, the pull of the primordial energies all around her towards a specific point. It was the same feeling she got just before Vulcadreaus ripped Mount Drakolt apart. Whatever is happening here is otherworldly, but glancing around she doesn't see any of the flowers rumored to be here. 

"Hey, we're not going inside, are we?" Shael asks. "This place is beyond spooky." 

"You can stay outside and keep guard," Eameia replies. 

Shael makes an indignant face. "Hey." 

Eameia glances at her. "What?"

"I don't have to be here at all, you know. I don't owe you jack shit just like I never owed your brother anything." 

Eameia's gaze lingers on the young dark elf for a moment before she looks away. "I know. I appreciate your help." 

The drake rider frowns. "Well now I feel like the ass." 

"I meeeeeean..." Snow gives an awkward half-smile while Eirynor rejoins the group and signs that Shael indeed is an asshole. 

"No one asked you two!" Shael snaps at them. 

Eameia grabs onto one of the handles to the double doors sealing the tower off from intrusion. She pulls back on it but it barely budges. After giving up on trying to force it open, she steps back and traces the shape of a door along the wooden surface. After a few seconds, she pushes open a new door within the door.^[1] Easy enough, she's a bit surprised there weren't any wards to protect against such a spell. 

Shael peers through the opening. "If you could do that from the beginning why did you even bother with the handle?"

"It is a mage's tower," the fellblood caster explains. "I expected magical means of infiltration would not work." 

The young dark elf nods like she understands even though she has no experience with magic herself. 

Proceeding with caution, the group minus the large storm drake enter the base of the darkened tower. It's a massive structure on the inside, in fact, it appears to be larger inside than it is on the outside, but what's more shocking is the sight of a blooming ring of black and purple flowers encircling what looks like a glowing haze in the center. 

Eameia feels the pull of arcane flowing towards the glowing haze, bending around it almost like it's a drain in a sink sucking up all the surrounding magic. 

"Be careful, do not get too close to it," she warns. 

"No duh," Shael huffs. 

The group spreads out and searches the chamber while keeping an eye on the strange circle of plants and odd mist. Eirynor walks carefully over to the back of the tower where there's a broken staircase leading up to the next level. It's impossible to scale without climbing and it doesn't look like anyone has been in the tower recently. Snow searches around behind some bookshelves and feels something creak underfoot. Glancing down, the catfolk finds a hatch in the floor. 

"I think I found a cellar? Or maybe an escape tunnel." They squat down and start fiddling with a rusted padlock to get the hatch unlocked. 

Eameia takes a closer look at the flowers. They don't resemble anything she's seen before in the books in their manor's library and the scent they give off reeks of dust and mold. The blooms look fairly new, so why they smell like old books seems odd to her. 

Just as she's thinking about if she has a spell that can help identify the plants or if they're magical in nature, something clatters to the ground and spooks her. She jumps to her feet, but the edge of her cloak brushes against one of the flowers. Like a chain reaction, each flower sets off the next and expells a burst of pollen into the air filling the entire chamber. 

The cloud of pollen is thick and clings to their equipment and clothing. Before they know it, the strange glow from the haze spreads through the spore cloud and envelopes them. Eameia coughs and covers her mouth as her point of view grows shorter and her gear hands loose on her body. 

Shael hacks and waves away the cloud only to spot Eameia and the two stare at each other in surprise for a moment. 

“Ah.”

“AAAAAAH!” Snow shouts as they scramble around the bookshelf and into view. The catfolk is much shorter and awkwardly gangly in the limbs with a more kitten-like face. They are alarmed and look at their little paw beans. “WE SHRUNK!”

“No dummy," Shael retorts, her voice pitched higher and her face dotted with freckles. She puts her hands on her hips and stomps indignantly. "We’re kids!”

Eamiea looks at her hands and feels her head, noting that her horns are much shorter. She looks at Shael, still keeping relatively calm compared to Snow. “Were you not already a kid?”

“Shuddup!” Shael stomps again, on the verge of tears. 

“Calm down, it is not likely a permanent effect," Eameia surmises. "If we just leave the area it might wear off. Wait, where is Eirynor?”

The half-elf appears out of the cloud, dragging a wooden sword across the floor. He signs that he's okay, but that his equipment was altered as well. It seems this magic turned them into children and also reduced all their weapons into nothing more than toys. 

Eameia sighs. “Let us hope no monsters show up." 

Shael blinks as if realizing something and she races out of the tower. "INDRA!" That's when she smacks into something through the magical pollen cloud and is knocked back on her ass. "OW!" 

---

SPOILER: Click to show

[1] Create Door

SPOILER: Click to show

Quest Name: Ring of Flowers
Post Requirements: 6 posts per person, 200 words per post
Reward: +2 Renown, 1 Mystical Archive Ticket
Description: Strange things are occurring around these newly formed flower circles and help is needed in understanding why. Unfortunately, as one of the first groups of people to explore these phenomena, we are unaware of any specific strange or weird side effects interacting with these rings may bring, so be careful. Study the flowers, record what you see, hear, or even feel.

A ring of black and purple flowers circle the ruins of the black spire. Howls of pain and anguish can be heard on the wind, with a sense of dread sitting on the air. While investigating the flowers, both members find that they have reverted in age, returning to their teen years. This effect sends an individual back to their adolescent period based on their race. You keep any gear and spells but are now a teenager. Lasts the entire topic.

The day had started off so well for Boris. Really, it had.

Boris and the rest of a handpicked group of Devils had followed boss Granth to Sol City. It was a risky move, to be honest. Even getting safe transport to the island was risky when everyone among your number had their face on a wanted poster somewhere in the Moon Glade. But Granth had been confident that his crew could sneak their way into Sol City without incident, because who would ever dream that a group of bloodthirsty bandits would try to sneak into the capital of the world?

And it had worked! Granth got the band passage aboard a smuggler's vessel which took the group across the sea and to the island of the wealthiest and most prosperous folk in the realm. The crooks joked excitedly with one another about the things they'd do in the city, ranging from the benign (eating at a fancy restaurant) to the violent (burning down a noble's manor and making its owners choke on their own silver spoons). Boris kept quiet, preferring to keep his thoughts to himself. He knew the boss must've had a very specific reason to call everyone to the city. So, he wasn't surprised when Granth called them together for a meeting the morning before they arrived at port.

"We're plundering the Black Spire," the Bandit King said.

"What?!" replied Mazz, the gap toothed woman's expression furious. She pulled her hand away from her short black hair and smacked it against a nearby barrel. "You couldn't have told us that before we agreed to the job, boss?"

The slinger would've snapped a word or two more, but Granth shot her a glare that silenced her immediately. She swallowed and looked away, fiddling nervously with the sling wrapped around her wrist. The bandit king regarded the rest of his crew in turn after that. There was Boris, of course, and there as Brand as well. It wasn't a large group, but Granth didn't need a large group for the job, Boris reasoned, or the boss would've brought more.

"What's the plan?" Boris asked calmly.

Granth nodded approvingly, and then he gave his speech. He kept it brusque and to the point.

"Heard tell the Spire's gotten scarier than usual," the hooded man began, speaking over the creaking of the ship as it rocked above the gray waters of the ocean. "Folks're keeping real clear of it, saying there's all sorts of black magic afoot, more than normal. That means ain't a damned soul going to be there besides us. That means no adventurers and no competition. The whole tower's up for the pickings."

"Are you sure it's wise to enter the Spire, sir?" asked Brand the mage cautiously. The young man had been a student at the Academy before he'd been thrown out for fighting, and he knew a surprising lot about magical phenomena. "There's some truth to the stories of black magic about its grounds. The mages who guarded it, well... They laid a curse on that place with their lives. It's incredibly dangerous to enter that place."

"That's why you're here," replied Granth, jerking his head toward Brand. "You're the magic expert, kid."

"Ah," replied Brand in a small voice, folding his hands over one another.

"But the place is mostly picked clean by now, right?" asked Mazz, frowning deeply as she finally mustered the courage to speak again. "Treasure's all gone."

"That's where you're wrong," replied Granth, grinning beneath his mask. "There's plenty of books left for grabbing if you got the right people to sell 'em to. We're gonna grab their tomes of magic and hawk 'em off for a pretty profit."

---

Getting into the Black Spire hadn't been the hardest job. Granth and the gang had cleaned up properly and looked the part of relatively ordinary citizens walking about the town. One big blond brute, one scrawny little bookworm with a spellbook, one gangly woman with a huge grin plastered on her face, and one hawkish looking outdoorsman with a couple of pet wolfdogs... They looked more like a party of off-duty adventurers or maybe even a group of friends than they did a gang of bandits. Of course, that was the whole point.

The group didn't take weapons with them into the city. Instead, they picked up some weapons from a fence in an alley near the Spire. From there, the bandits snuck onto the darkened grounds surrounding the Spire, and Granth gave them a way to avoid having to take the staircase. He fired a pinpoint accurate shot¹ with a rope and a grappling arrow into one of the upper room of the tower, and then the group climbed on up. Boris actually had to carry the hounds up there, and he worried they'd try and tear into him the whole time, but Granth's use of his enchanted amulet² kept them calm and obedient.

The room they ended up in was a small library, a side room tucked along one of the tower's stairwells. There was a gap in the floor that revealed some strange, glowing flowers down below in shades of black and purple. Mazz expressed curiosity about the pretty things, but Granth shut her down with a harsh whisper.

"Don't touch anything 'cept what we came here for," he hissed at her. "Whatever it is ain't worth messing with."

"I suppose. It's a shame, though," she answered with a gap toothed smile. "Flowers like that'd make any lady feel pretty."

"Too bad you're not a lady, then," jabbed Brand with a smirk.

That was the moment Boris knew everything was going to go to shit. He reached out in a half-hearted attempt to grab Mazz, but she was too quick with her vengeance. The furious woman went just out of his reach and slammed her fist straight into the flunkee wizard's jaw.

Brand skid backward from the strike. His foot connected with an old, long abandoned adventurer's lamp. That lamp fell down the hole in the middle of the floor and crashed somewhere far down below... and then a wave of pollen flew up the tower, blinding everyone all at once.

"You absolute jackasses!" Granth shouted just before his face was washed away in a flood of enchanted pollen.

Boris didn't have a clear memory of what happened next. He remembered trying to walk through a haze of magic, and he remembered stumbling down the stairs in an attempt to escape. Then someone rammed into his back, and he started falling down the stairs until he reached the bottom, still coughing from all the pollen that was clinging to his lungs. And just as he stopped falling, just as he finally started to get an idea of where he was, something bumped into him again.

The pollen cloud slowly faded, and Boris found himself staring down at... a dark elf girl? A literal child? Or a teen; it was hard to tell. He decided to give her a warning before the rest of the gang showed up, the better to get her out of there before the boss decided there couldn't be witnesses or something.

"Hey, uh, kid- uh...  huh?"

Boris stopped mid warning. His voice... sounded different? He felt- well, he felt smaller. Actually, he realized very suddenly that the kid was taller than he'd expected. Unless - wait, was he...?

"Uh, sorry? Uh," Boris managed to say, trying to be polite but mostly just sounding awkward. By Lunala's teats, he hadn't been so awkward since he was... a... teenager.

"Oh, shit," the big, pimply faced young brute managed, looking like he was absolutely withering inside. He was, in fact, reduced back to his childhood years: an absolutely huge young lad, to be sure, easily standing seven inches over most boys his age, but on the chunkier side and with a pimply face and curly blond hair. He stared down at the dark elf girl that had bumped into him and tried to figure out what he should do. Was he supposed to... scare her off? He suddenly didn't feel very scary anymore-

"HEY!" a shrill, high pitched voice shouted from behind him. Boris glanced over his shoulder to see an even scrawnier than usual looking Mazz standing there wearing what appeared to be a torn up peasant's dress and holding a slingshot. "What are you doing, Boris?! Pound her skull in like a pancake already!"

"Oh," replied Boris slowly. He looked at the elf. "Sorry." And then he took a swing at her with the hammiest fist Sol City had ever seen.

Meanwhile, a very confused young Brand was throwing fire at the walls, trying to see if maybe he could just blast a new hole to get the group out of whatever weird situation he was in. Granth, for his part, stepped out from the darkness with his bow in hand. He saw the other "kids" in front of him and decided one of them was probably at fault for the spell he was under. The former bandit chief had been reduced to a young poacher's son once again, but he'd been a keen shot back then, and Granth knew he'd be just as keen still. He drew an arrow, nocked it, and loosed at one of his foes!

It wasn't until after the arrow was already flying that Granth realized it was wobbly and had a plunger at the end.

"Uuugh!" Granth groaned. Irritated, the very edgy youth in dark huntsman's clothes brought his fingers to his lips, whistled, and grabbed his enchanted necklace once again. He gave his wolves a command.

"Ripper! Killer! Attack!"

Teeny tiny barks rose into the air as two wolfdog puppies ran toward the Bandit King's foes, tails wagging playfully as they "attacked" their prey, bouncing from place to place with the biggest grins.

Granth sighed dramatically, swishing his dark hair out of his face.

---

_{1. Far Sight; 2. Necklace of Animal Speech}

"Hey, move it pimple face!" Being reduced to a child sure didn't temper Shael's bad attitude any. If anything, it made it worse. Even with frustrated tears in her eyes, she is quick to pull out her whip, which is just a rope. "What the?" She spots Boris' incoming fist just in time to get smacked in the face. It's still hard enough to knock her down and she starts wailing and crying as she sits on her ass. 

There's a scrabbling noise behind Boris and an uncoordinated little drake with shrimpy wings scurries in with little electrical currents sparking between its tiny baby teeth. It tackles him and makes weird chirp-like noises as it starts tugging at the back of his shirt with its teeth. 

A second suction cup arrow flies through the air and plinks into Granth's, knocking it off course which wasn't entirely necessary. The fluffy catfolk responsible for the second toy arrow climbs up onto the top of the shelves to get a better vantage point on those coming down the stairs.^[1] They aim another arrow at them just as the puppers come flopping down the stairs. All the hair on Snow's body stands on end and their tail fluffs up to twice its size as their back arches and they let out a feral hiss. 

Eirynor moves to put himself between the incoming floofs and Eameia with his wooden sword brandished in their direction. Of course, a wooden sword is just a fancy stick, so he quickly ends up in a tug of war with the puppies as they try to disarm him of a perfectly good thing to fetch. 

Eameia just watches all this nonsense unfold before looking up and locking eyes with Granth. Judging by his expression, he wasn't playing around. They got lucky that whatever magic was affecting them basically made this nothing more than a scrap on the playground, otherwise things would have gotten bloody very quickly. 

"And here we were expecting ghosts." 

She pulls out a vial of what looks to be ash from her pocket and then casts a spell on it.^[2] It hovers in her hand before she uses her mind to fling it up at Granth, counting on him or his allies to smash the incoming projectile. If it does shatter, a few dozen little sentient soot balls would land on them and start being a harmless nuisance, crawling around them and undoing any belt buckles so they have to drop anything useful down the stairs.^[3]

---

[1] Surface Scaling
[2] Telekinesis
[3] Bottle of Sootlings (harmless)

Big pimple faced Boris felt a little tug on the back of his shirt. He peered behind him to see some little dragon-thing biting his clothes and yanking them with its teeth. The big, friendly lad couldn't help but smile.

"Awwww. Y'not so bad, are ya?" he cooed, holding his finger out to try and stroke the little baby drake.

And then the little zappy thing bit him. Electric currents raced through the blond boy's body, and he jerked his hand back, shrieking at a higher pitch than someone would've expected of such a large fellow.

"OWW! Why?!" the big bean shouted. He wildly swung his rolling pin - that used to be his mace - in front of him in wide, wild arcs. It wasn't enough to hit the little drake (he had ZERO intentions of hurting the critter), but he unwittingly was swinging it dangerously close to literally anyone else that happened to get near him.

Meanwhile, the doggies were having so much fun playing fetch! They started yanking poor Eirynor's wooden sword around. The half-elf was going to have their hands full with the friendly canines, as they'd quickly decided this person, this one was their favorite. Because he had a stick. They liked sticks. And unfortunately for everyone involved, they were starting to tug Eirynor precariously close to an ancient brazier sitting on the floor...

But that wasn't the only accident just begging to happen, though Granth was too preoccupied with his staredown against Eameia to notice.

"The only ghost anyone will find here is you," replied the once bandit king in a murderous tone. Of course, it didn't sound quite so intimidating coming from a kid's mouth... but the killer intent was definitely still there. And Granth had every intention to make good on his promise.

A vial of ash was thrown Granth's way. With expert precision, he shot it out of the air with one of those ridiculous plunger arrows. But no sooner had he done so than it exploded into a shower of giggling little balls of soot that starting trying to put their grubby fingers on Granth's things. They even ran off with a couple of his arrows and half-undid his belt!

Granth scowled. The dark clad youth shouted in furious defiance, and a tangible wave of anger flew out from him, knocking the little sootlings scattering away.¹ The dread archer might have been reduced to a mere child, but he wasn't about to let that stop him.

"Enough!" Granth snapped. Then he grabbed one of his arrows - one of his trick arrows, the ones that had the power of terror itself imbued in them - and took aim. And... it didn't have a plunger at the end, but it did have a... balloon?

Whatever! Granth let his arrow loose at Eameia, not knowing that he wasn't shooting off a fear arrow anymore, but a stink bomb on a stick.² Close enough, though! His attack was supported by Mazz, who quickly held up her slingshot - not a sling anymore, a slingshot - and loosed a flurry of little water balloons up at the kitten clinging to the wall, cackling like a madwoman all the while.

Unfortunately for literally everyone, Brand the mage had been completely forgotten, and was in the background of the scene fumbling with his spellbook. Already probably the youngest person in the group, he was standing a good deal shorter than most of the other combatants, and when a few of the little sootlings decided to start messing with him, well... there were disastrous consequences. The fire mage loosed a ball of fire at one,¹ but the shot went askew and struck a bookshelf. That bookshelf ignited, and so did all the tomes full of very dark and spooky magic sitting atop it.

"Uh-oh," remarked Brand with a squeak just before unholy screams began to echo through the dark tower. Strange, ghostly lights flashed as the burning books vibrated, and black smoke began to roil and bubble out.

"CHEESE IT!" shouted Mazz as she saw this, and she started rushing through enemy lines to reach an exit!

---

_{1. Undying Fervor; 2. Fear Stink Tip (x1); 3. Fire Bolt (Bandit Mage)}

"YAH!" Shael shouts as she jumps on Boris' back while he swings at Indra wildly. She wraps her arms around his head to blind him. "Don't you dare hit my drake!"

Indra keeps low to the ground to avoid getting clobbered by the rolling pin. Crawling along her belly, she snorts and nips at Boris' ankles as he stumbles around blindly. 

Meanwhile, Eirynor struggles to get his wooden sword back from the puppies and ends up being dragged around the room by them. The brazier gets knocked over, scattering old oil across the floor, but thankfully there's no source of heat to set it off. Yet. 

The charcoal-skinned fellblood makes the most unimpressed face at Granth's threat. Was this guy for real? Now she can't take him seriously at all. Which is unfortunate for him cause it means he's about to be treated like a mouse being toyed with by a fickle feline.

"Tough talk for someone who fell for the oldest trick in the book. Though you hardly seem like the reading type," she mocks as the sootlings make off with a few toy arrows. 

Seeing him take aim at her, she mutters an incantation under her breath and prepares to react. As the balloon arrow flies towards her, she raises her hand and the space between them distorts as an energy field manifests out of thin air.^[1] The arrow acts like it just hit a wall, but the balloon still gets pinched and pops to release the absolutely wretched and appalling gas contained within it. 

She covers her mouth and nose with her hand while stepping back away from the noxious cloud. Snow, however, runs into some trouble as Mazz pelts them with water balloons. To avoid getting soaked, the catfolk jumps down from the bookcase and passes through the stink cloud which makes them immediately gag only to then get nailed with a water balloon to the back of their head.^[2] 

"ACK!" 

Eameia glowers at Granth accusingly as the burst of fire flies into the shelf of highly flammable books. "You idiots! Watch it with the fire!"

Bending the fabric of reality between her hands, she manipulates the formulae arcanum until she taps into the sea's primordial domain.^[3] As a sphere of water forms in mid-air, she throws it up at the ceiling to scatter droplets over the whole area in an attempt to douse the flames before they get out of control. It's not the greatest solution, but stopping the burning is a priority. She can spend days drying out the pages so long as there are pages left to dry out. 

Seeing the smoke filling the tower's base level, Eirynor finally throws his sword out the door to get the puppies to chase it and get clear of the growing flames. As he heads to the door, he spots Mazz trying to make a break for it. He turns invisible and then kicks out her leg as she runs to try and trip her up.^[4]

Snow looks around as the visibility in the tower gets worse even with the spray of water dampening the fires. "If we keep fighting in here there'll be nothing left!" 

"Noted. Time to take this outside!"

Eameia looks up at Granth again and it doesn't take long for her to come up with a plan to lure him after them. A devious smirk spreads across her face.

"Nice belt, mind if I borrow it?" She twists her hand in his direction and the belt comes loose the rest of the way before zooming to her hand.^[5] "If you want this back, come get it! Careful you do not trip over your pants on your way down!" 

Waving the belt in the air, she heads for the door with Snow following close at her heels. Eirynor steps around Mazz and pushes on Shael's back to make Boris stumble through the door while Indra yanks on his pant leg. 

---

[1] Force Wall
[2] Cats Grace
[3] Chromatic Blast - water
[4] Invisibility
[5] Telekinesis

"I'm not- I'm not tryna hit no drake!" Boris stammered, vainly trying to pull the dark elf off himself. He was holding his rolling pin off to the side so as not to hurt anyone, and was just using one beefy hand to try and pry the dark elf away. "It's a nice drake! Just tryna spook it so it don't bite me no more! Sorry!"

Yeah, Boris really was the odd thug out in the group. The poor lad barely even moved from his position, just taking the whole situation like a champ. Too bad for him because literally everyone else involved in the fight was out for blood, or at least some petty vengeance.

After Mazz was left inside on the floor in the half-elf's wake, Boris found himself being bull rushed by a whole team of other children. The big lad was, well, big. He was wide and frankly quite chunky as well, and he had a fair bit of muscle mass to boot. But there's something to be said for the sheer power of momentum, and the poor blinded lad had the wind knocked out of him. He stumbled out the door... and then fell backward with Shael still on his back covering his eyes.

"I'm sorry!" Boris mumbled as he hit the ground. "Is the baby dragon OK?"

"Stop bloody cozying up with the enemy, TRAITOR!" shrieked Mazz from inside the tower.

"Sorry!" the giant boy called back meekly.

But as horribly as things were going for the group, Granth had not given up. He hadn't lost his cool. He was furious, but he'd ascended mere rage and had entered a hate zen. The dread archer - really, he was more of a "slightly scary" archer as a youth with his pants dropped down to his feet - nocked an arrow, took careful aim at Eameia and loosed.

Now, most people, even the most well trained of archers, would have made such a shot badly. There was fire crackling around him; there was smoke obscuring his view; there was steam and little droplets of water; there were people dogpiling one of his lackeys whose shouts and shoving could have thrown even elite archers off their game. But Granth wasn't most people. Granth was a sharpshooter.¹

An arrow with a big, nasty balloon full of sticky, disgusting goop inside was flying straight for Eameia's pretty hair through thick steam and smoke that concealed its passage.²

"Uh... Mr. Granth?" came Brand's nervous voice. "Y-your p-p-p-pant-"

"Stop talking and start MAGICKING!" snapped Granth with an imperious gaze at his subordinate. "Distract them and get Boris free while Mazz and I reposition!"

"YESSIRRIGHTAWAYSIR!" squeaked the young mage, his voice cracking no less than three times. Then he thrust his hand out and started just... making a whole mess of the space outside of the tower.

See, the ground outside was, well, dirt. It so happened that Brand could manipulate dirt. He couldn't really see what he was doing, so instead of trying to do anything specific, he just started transmuting all the ground outside from dirt into mud.³ He didn't really care who was standing where or doing what. He just wanted to be able to claim he'd done his job.

Unfortunately, that meant poor Boris was sinking ever-so-slowly into the ground. He just sighed and accepted his fate.

Meanwhile, Granth had grabbed a protesting Mazz and whistled for his dogs, then ran back up the stairs of the tower. Together, the two of them managed to get back to the window with the hole in it, and thankfully as bandits they had some basic cloth masks to keep smoke from filling their lungs. When they got to window they'd used to get in, Granth gave Mazz one simple order.

"Shoot them."

Mazz grinned like she'd gone utterly insane and started shooting off water balloons from her slingshot down at the small crowd below with annoying little POING! BYOING! sounds.

As for Granth, the tactician in him told him that staying up on the high ground with Mazz would be safer. However, the teenager in him wanted to be cool. So, pantsless though he was, the Bandit King- err... Prince? The Bandit Prince gripped the rope and started sliding down it toward the ground.

To be fair, Granth looked incredibly ridiculous. He had no pants. He was wearing underwear with hearts on it. His tunic had been tied about his chest, revealing his belly as something small wriggled about inside the fabric. But none of that mattered. Well before he even hit the ground, Granth took aim at his bunched up enemies with one more stink bomb arrow, loosing that particularly foul device toward the group for everyone's enjoyment.⁴

But that wasn't the first of it. As the stink bomb arrow crashed somewhere in the general vicinity of his foes, Granth unleashed his greatest weapon of all. For that wriggling mass in his shirt was none other than... the wolfdog pups. He released them upon the ground and said the fiercest word:

"FETCH."

The excitable doggos charged toward the band of misfits opposite of them, ready to trample ANYONE that get between them and their stick.

As for Boris, he just decided life wasn't worth living anymore, closed his eyes, and took a nap.

---

_{1. Shooters Sense; 2. Blighter's Goop Arrow (x1); 3. Mold Earth; 4. Fear Stink Tip (x1)}

“AGH! GET OFF!” Shael shouts as she’s pinned underneath Boris’ back. Though it's futile, she tries her best to push him off her. Indra continues to attempt to help her rider by tugging at the bandit's pant-leg, nearly tearing the bottom hem off at this point.

At the threshold of the tower entrance, Snow spots the arrow first since they’re a little further back, but they don’t have enough time to react to block it from making its mark.

“Watch out!” is all they manage to say to give the mage even the slightest chance to react. Luckily time was always on Eameia’s side as she glances back at the incoming goo balloon and throws up her hand. A wave of arcane slows the arrow down to a snail’s crawl which lets her avoid getting gooed.^[1]

She breathes a sigh of relief before feeling the ground turn to mush beneath her feet. Eirynor scrambles to reclaim his wooden sword since the dogs doubled back to their owner in the chaos.

Glancing back through the doorway, Eameia can't make out the rest of the bandits through the smoke and steam. But then she notices the rope line above them leading to a window. It had previously been obscured by the thick fog which has started to burn off a bit in the daylight.

“Eirynor, stand here.” Eameia’s hand shoots forward as she yanks on the back of Eirynor’s shirt to move him clear of the slowed arrow’s trajectory.

She eyeballs where the end of the rope tether is and lightly taps the end of the arrow to adjust its angle ever so slightly. Satisfied, she signs to Eirynor to get ready for an attack from above. The half-elf nods and works his way to the side, out of the mud, and back onto solid ground before he turns invisible again.^[2]

Snow trudges through the mud to try and help yank Boris off of Shael as the prone pair sinks into the mud. Just as the catfolk reaches down to pull Boris up, a rain of water balloons pelts the group from above.

“AH! Stop it!” the catfolk protests as they cover their head with their arms.

Eameia ignores the bursts of water and focuses on Granth as he reappears before them.

She rolls her eyes. What a show-off. And what's with those boxers? Are those really what he wears or is that just another side effect of the magic flower spores?

Despite how tempting it is, there's no time to fire more jeering or ridicule his way as he looses another stink arrow at the group at the base of the tower. Eameia ducks down as the balloon explodes and unleashes the reek into the air. It's not an ideal situation, but hopefully taking this hit would distract Granth from noticing that his goo arrow was still airborne and the half-elf with the wooden sword is nowhere to be seen.

Eirynor circles around while the others hack and cough from the rancid gas to try and sneak up on the man-child. Eameia covers her mouth and nose with her hand as she glares with tearing eyes at Granth standing there proudly in his underwear.

“I am keeping the belt, but you can have this back!” Ending the spell early unleashes the arrow’s momentum and it flies past the pile of kids on the ground right back at Granth.

Eirynor moves silently and does his best not to draw any attention to his invisible form as he approaches Granth.^[3] So long as the man keeps his focus on the others, he shouldn't notice any muddy footprints magically appearing closer and closer to him.

After Granth unleashes the pups on the group, the invisible half-elf makes his move. Quickly getting into striking distance, he slams into Granth in an attempt to tackle him to the ground. Given Granth has only used ranged attacks so far, the half-elf is counting on him not being too good in close combat.

Snow tries to brace against the incoming doggos but they easily knock the catfolk over and into the mud which puts the poor archer at their fuzzy mercy. Eameia turns her attention back up to the window and tries to get a clear look at anything on Mazz's person she can yank with telekinesis.^[4] If the spell lands on an item of Mazz's, the fellblood would attempt to yank her out of the window.

Shael remains pinned under Boris and struggles not to drown in the mud while under the much heavier lad. Indra, the young drake, takes a few warning nips at the puppies to try and make them behave. 

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[1] Slow
[2] Invisibility
[3] Silent Step
[4] Telekinesis