Dylan
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Ooookay. Completely dark in here. And cramped, really cramped. Probably a crawlspace. I moved forward until I could find something to touch besides dirt and stone and soon found my fingers around some grooves in the wall.
Working with the familiar feeling, I worked open a secret door into a wizard's laboratory. Oh, cool. Wizards always had expensive books. And some of these potions would be wickedly useful. But something was weird. I felt...tired.
Soon, I was dreaming, and a voice welcomed me from within it. "Hello, friend. You came at a convenient time, I seem to have fumbled a spell." I turned to see a large man half-naked with a long white beard and a pointy hat. I think he had underwear on, at least. "Apologies for my attire, I thought I was gonna be alone."
"Uh, no problem. Sleep spell?" The wizard nodded. "You uh, been in here long?"
"Oh yes, I locked my tower before all this so I have been in here for days! I think my body may be starving." He smiled as he held a hand to his stomach.
"Oh, well I've got some smelling salts. Would that work?" I said as I pulled them out.
"Oh, quite possibly, but I am on the top floor, as you can imagine. I can cast a ward on you from here, but it will only protect you when you have woken yourself, but not from my experiments further up." I raised an eyebrow.
"Alright, lay it on me and I'll find my way up to you then. Oh, can I have a book when I'm done?"
"Haha! You are lucky I haven't killed you for entering without permission and taking things of your own accord. But be my guest! Take only one other thing from my tower on your way up." Ooh, this is a nice wizard. I'll have to learn his name at some point.
Wasting no time, I cracked the smelling salts after he chanted an incantation, and I woke with a start. I banged my head on a table leg and knocked some glass concoction over. It was bubbling and melting through the floor. Whoops, better go up now.
Oh, ew. His experiments were weird floating brains. Different sizes, all of them, probably all animals. But what was this guy doing? The brains all focused on my approach and their nerve endings all flared up and sent psychic rays towards me. I ran into the room, since the door probably wouldn't protect me much from that, and threw a dagger into one that went down quick.
Not that strong, I thought, as a second one attacked. This one sent out a pulse that stunned me for a moment, but I smiled and shifted my body into the space next to me, a small trick I learned after getting pinned down too many times. Not that I could use it often, however.
I pulled out my bow and fired an arrow into the offender's... brain. Was that redundant? Hit the brain in the brain? Shit's weird, I shot the third, and went up.
I went up a few floors, not much noteworthy, just lots of paper strewn about amongst weird little experiments, no more brains though. But then there was a weird sludge oozing around what looked like a plantery model, fitted with moving rings that carried the solar system on each arm.
The sludge was just your standard grey ooze and I threw a potion of liquid ice at it. Smashing it was the next step, easy as pie. And that's when I saw. A star chart behind the model. It looked even more detailed than some of the charts I saw in the arcanium. Was this wizard also a master astrologer? Wondering if I should take this as my bounty after, or to take more anyways, I held onto it. And I proceeded upwards once more.
Oh, yep. Here are all his magic books. There were volumes of them, and currently a little chipmunk was leafing through one's pages. Hold on, a what?
Sure enough, it turned to me and started casting spells. I dodged several ice shards and flying acorns being flung from different directions. This would be plain adorable if it wasn't trying to kill me. Not wanting to hurt the little guy, I fired an arrow with a pouch tied to the front that I aimed at the desk underneath it. A sleeping powder surrounded it and quickly got to work.
No sooner than it fell unconscious, I was pouring through the spellbook's contents. No way. There were random scratches and claw shaped ink marks. Is this the chipmunk's book? Is this the wizard's apprentice? In the last page, I found a copy of a dream spell with I assume the wizard's handwriting, and furiously scribbled notes that were added. By the chipmunk? Yeah.
I took the possible conspirator up the rest of the tower and woke up the wizard, who cheered at my rescue. Looking between his student and the note I found, he simply shook his head.
"Ah, yet another apprentice trying to steal my work. All too common in this life, I'm afraid."
"What should I do with him?" I asked but was unsure I wanted to know.
"Eat him, of course." Oh ok. Wait, no!
"No way, man. I'll take him if you don't wanna keep him anymore. He seems chill, for someone that tried to kill me." The wizard simply stroke his beard and eyed the star chart in my other hand.
"Then take him, and leave my work with me." Shit. Was I really gonna - yeah I'm taking the wizard chipmunk.
"Deal." I handed back the star chart and made my way out of the tower. The wizard called behind me, I think he said his name or something, but I was already gone. Now what's the chipmunk's name?
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Dylan
