Arcanix is a small village beneath the Floating Towers of the Arcane Congress, home to one of the most prestigious arcane universities in all of Khorvaire. Students gather from all over the continent to take the Autumn Entrance Exams. Tonight was a night like most others at the Happy Hippogriff where young mages and apprentices, travelers and local merchants, and off-duty town guardsmen gathered, filling the tavern with conversation and laughter. Little did they know what the night had in store for them…

This is the summary for the first Eberron adventure I ran at The Dice Latte way back in February 2017. It was a one shot homebrew adventure for Valentine’s Day inspired by the movie Love Potion Number 9. I’ve been working on this summary on and off for a while, and its turned into a short story. It’s the longest summary I’ve written so far. I’m grateful to the players who joined the game and created a story that is still one of the most memorable for me. Enjoy!

* First posted on the Tabletop Roleplayers in Korea Facebook group on May 18, 2017.

 

The Love Potion

I.

Four friends gathered outside the Happy Hippogriff and walked in together. Almost immediately, they noticed a mysterious hooded figure sitting alone in a shadowy corner of the hall. He sat stiffly and solemnly with fingers locked in long-practiced patience. Though they couldn’t see the face beneath the hood, they knew instinctively that the unseen eyes were quietly watching them. Just as they began to strain their necks to get a closer look, a voice called to them from the bar.

“Hey guys, over here.”

It was their friend Paulus, a nerdy half-elf wizard and apprentice alchemist. He had invited them here for drinks.

The friends sat around a table and enjoyed their beverages courtesy of Paulus. Lily, a half-elf dragonmarked bard who traveled the Nations, sipped on her ginger lemon tea. Dolman, a halfling monk from a nearby monastery, hardly touched his non-alcoholic sparkling wine and seemed deep in thought. Duram and Martin, clerics of Dol Arrah, goddess of sunlight and honor among the Sovereign Host, gulped down their beer and wine respectively. Paulus produced a small vial from his pocket. He proceeded to empty its contents into the alcoholic beverages on the table including his own goblet of wine and raised a toast before taking a big gulp. Whatever it was, it seemed to have no effect on the hardy clerics, but Paulus’s own nose began to glow with a bright blue luminescence. He guffawed loudly, but when his laughter subsided he fell into an uncomfortable silence and at last began to sniffle before sobbing uncontrollably. When his friends asked him what was the matter, he began to tell him of his plight.

Paulus was studying for the autumn entrance exams once again. He was a genius in alchemy but he could never buckle down to study for a test. This was his third year preparing for the exam. But there was something different this year. He had met Diana, a fellow student and half elven mage with latent telepathic abilities who was studying divination. She was also the daughter of General Farrowind, a leader among the Knights Arcane and a hero who defended the nation at the Battle of the Crying Fields. Paulus, a nerdy alchemist who lacked confidence in himself, felt that he was out of his league, but he still believed that he would be a good match for Diana. He just didn’t know how to confess his feelings to her.

Lily politely listened to Paulus until He had finished. He was a genius is many ways, but he had failed to pass the entrance exam repeatedly. If Diana passed the exam this year and Paulus was held back again, she would ascend to the Floating Tower and he might not see her again. Lily resolved to help her friend and began to sing. She sang of Paulus the Unlucky who remained in the shadow of the Floating Tower despite his best efforts. And she sang of a man who despite all of his shortcomings had one thing going for him. He would do anything for the woman he loves.

The patrons of the Happy Hippogriff heard her song. They laughed and chuckled at first, but then they were moved by the love of Paulus for the unnamed lady. Several patrons came up and patted Paulus on the back and others cheered him on. Feeling emboldened, Paulus took a big gulp of his magically spiked wine, dropped a handful of coins on the table, and rushed out the door, proclaiming that he knew what he had to do.

The four remaining friends debated whether they should follow Paulus or not when they heard a commotion coming from a corner table. A group of students were crowded around the window and hooting. Outside, a half-elf maiden in the robes of an apprentice mage stood beneath a street lamp. Her bespectacled eyes were shyly downcast, and her cheeks appeared blushed in the spotlight of the everburning street lamp. Towering above her in the shadow just beyond the lamp light stood an armored knight riding atop an enormous phantom steed, silent and smoking in the darkness. The knight produced something from the folds of his billowing purple cape. His hand extended into the light, holding a bouquet of purple roses.

“Look, it’s Diana!” said one of the students in the tavern. Paulus’s friends perked up their ears and listened intently to the conversations around them.

“Who is that with her?”
“That’s Garius Lagan, captain of the Knights Phantom (eldritch knights that ride phantom speeds, they are special commando units among the Knights Arcane).”
“He did great deeds at the Battle of the Crying Fields while serving under General Farrowind. I heard that he defeated a whole Karrnathi legion singlehandedly!”
“I heard that he served as personal bodyguard to General Farrowind’s daughter after the Last War, but rumor has it that he has been courting her as well.”
“Well, it doesn’t look like a mere rumor anymore!”

Paulus’s friends listened with quiet concern. It seemed that Paulus was out of his league. Dolman and the clerics began to debate whether they should help Paulus win over his beloved or convince him that Diana was not the one for him. They hardly noticed that Lily was no longer present. She had quietly slipped out of the tavern and snuck up to the knight and the lady under the street lamp. Staying within the shadows, Lily stretched her fingers toward the knight and his bouquet of flowers and quietly mouthed an incantation. The dragonmark on her shoulder glowed nearly imperceptibly. The purple roses in Garius’s hand appeared to shimmer and twist until they became a mass of writhing snakes, hissing silently at Diana. When the maiden looked up, she let out a startled gasp and took a step backward. Lily was about to pat herself on the back when Garius, showing no sign of surprise or emotion, drew his longsword from its sheath and swiped the heads off the snakes in one fluid motion. The glamer was broken and the bouquet of empty rose stems fell to the ground.

“Oh, m-my hero!” Diana shrieked with delight.
Wordlessly, the knight sheathed his sword and with a single arm he swept Diana up and onto his mount. The phantom steed, silent as its master, turned and trotted up invisible steps in the air and then flew away into the night sky towards the Floating Towers. Lily followed them with her eyes and saw that they were headed for the Tower of Alchemy.

II.

When Lily told her friends what she had seen, they agreed that it was time to tell Paulus the truth. They went to the dormitory where the apprentice wizards bunked and worked in their laboratories. None of them were looking forward to the conversation ahead of them. Approaching Paulus’s building, they felt a sudden disquiet as they saw a queer blue light coming from the window. They looked through the window and saw that the dorm was empty except for Paulus who sat at his workstation. He was mixing vials together, and the strange light was emanating from those vials. The friends knocked on the door and called out to him, but Paulus seemed not to hear them. His eyes were transfixed on a glowing blue vial that he was examining closely.

The cleric Martin, feeling frustrated, mouthed an incantation of thaumaturgy and a prayer to Dol Arrah that Paulus might hear him. Then he opened the window of the dorm and shouted in a booming reverberating voice.

“PAULUS!”

Paul gasped and jumped in his seat, startled from his reverie. But the vial, held close to his face, jumped in his hand and in an instant its contents spilled into Paulus’s gaping mouth. His friends rushed into the dorm.

“Paulus, are you alright?”
“I… I think so… *hiccup*…”
“Paulus, what did you do??”

Lily examined the materials on Paulus’s work station. There were numerous ingredients used to make magical potions. She possessed some knowledge of the arcane arts from her upbringing in her mother’s dragonmarked house. That was before the revelation that her father had a different dragonmark, and that consequently their daughter carried an aberrant dragonmark, resulted in Lily’s expulsion and exile from her mother’s house. She thought of her mother and the lessons she had learned from her now as she examined the contents of Paulus’s experiment. There were ingredients for potions to make the imbiber more heroic and grant him a bull’s strength and even enlarge his person to the stature of a giant. Something else caught her attention. In a small crucible she found the residue of what appeared to be a reddish crystal or glass particles ground into a fine powder. As she reached for the crucible to examine it more closely, the crystal remnants began to glow, and the aberrant dragonmark on her shoulder gave off a faint luminescence that was barely perceptible under the leather padded armor of her shoulder. Lily knew instinctively what this was – a dragonstone, or what was left of it. Dragonstones were used to enhance the powers of dragonmarked individuals, and also to create powerful magical items. This particular dragonstone must have been potent indeed if even the trace remnants of it responded to her presence. Lily looked up at Paulus, and she noticed for the first time that he seemed rather taller than she remembered.

“Paulus, what did you do?” she asked once more.
“I… *hiccup*… just… *hiccup*… wanted… *hiccup*… to… *hiccup*… be… *hiccup*… big…”

With each hiccup, Paulus grew taller. At first his head touched the ceiling and Paulus cried out in pain and irritation. Then his head was forced to turn sideways and his neck and shoulder pressed against the ceiling. Paulus’s friends looked on in horror as their meek friend, who had gained the stature of a giant, began to grow through the roof of the building.

“Paulus, stop! You’ll bring the whole place down!” Paulus’s friends implored.
“I… *hiccup*… can’t…”

The wooden beams strained and finally snapped like twigs. The ceiling was falling all around them. Lily shouted a warning and deftly tumbled out of the rear door. Martin, who was closest to the front door, grabbed Dolman by the collar as the halfling was still deep in thought and meditating on the situation. Duram tried to follow Lily out the rear entrance, but he was a beat too slow and was struck by a piece of the falling ceiling. He was pinned beneath the debris.

Paulus, unaware that his friend was trapped under the collapsed building, stepped out of the ruin and began to lumber away. Only a single name dominated his thoughts as he continued to grow, reaching ever closer to the Floating Towers in the sky.

“DIANA…”

In the lengthening shadow of a giant, Paulus’s friends scrambled to help Duram.
He was badly bruised but thankfully the fallen beams had merely pinned him to the ground. Duram, whispering a prayer to his goddess, and freed himself from the rubble. He looked around and saw that the laboratories of the alchemy students were completely destroyed. Duram was not pleased.

“By the Sovereign Host, this is a mess,” he exclaimed. “If the laboratory had been intact, I might have concocted a cure for our poor friend Paulus.”

“Indeed,” Lily agreed. “With the ingredients at Paulus’s work table, I might have been able to brew a potion of reversal. But everything is destroyed.”

“There might be another place we could get ingredients,” Dolman suggested. They all listened intently to him. “At our monastery, we receive potions of healing and alchemical ingredients from the Tower of Alchemy. If we could get up there, we could find the ingredients we need to produce an antidote for Paulus’s condition. The question is how do we get up there?”

“The mayor Raulo ir’Trannick rents hippogriffs that can transport visitors to the Floating Towers,” said Martin. “The problem is they cost 25 gold galifars per mount.”

“We don’t have that kind of money!” Lily exclaimed.

As the friends debated their course of action, the sound of the town bell was heard in the distance. The panicked ringing of the bell quieted them, then Dolman, looking at the night sky, spoke first.

“We had better do something quickly,” he said calmly. He was pointing at something in the distance. The others followed his finger and saw a trio of tiny specks with dark streaks trailing behind them. The specks were quickly growing in shape as they rapidly approached. Soon Paulus’s friends could see the mounted knights phantom riding atop their ghostly steeds. There were three of them and they were heading straight for Paulus whose head was getting closer to the Tower of Alchemy.

III.

As our friends watched the approaching knights phantom and Paulus with mounting concern, they heard voices behind them. The town guard had been mobilized, and they were followed by a crowd of arcane students, local merchants, and bleary eyed townspeople woken from their sleep. They all stood gape mouthed at the spectacle before them. Martin searched through the crowd and found his supervisor, a captain of the town guard. He was a hardy and tough fellow, but even he stared astonished at the giant before him. Martin shook him to attention and began to explain the situation to him. The captain nodded uncertainly and bade Martin to follow him. Martin returned to his friends.

“I convinced him to help us get a ride on one of the Mayor’s hippogriffs,” he reported.

Martin, turning back to Paulus, whispered a prayer and summoning all his thaumaturgical might shouted in a booming voice.

“Paulus, don’t worry! We’ll help you!”

Paulus, seeming to notice his friends for the first time, turned slowly. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but his head bumped against the base of the floating island in the sky. Several clumps of rocks broke loose and fell to the earth, drawing shrieks from the crowd as the people scattered away from the falling debris.

“Oooops… sooo sooorry…” said Paulus sheepishly in a lumbering voice, touching the lump on his head.

“Let’s hurry!” Paulus’s friends agreed.

……………………………..

Outside the mayor’s small mansion, Paulus’s friends waited while the captain of the guard knocked on the door. Mayor ir’Trannick came to the door, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“What’s the meaning of this,” he began in a groggy voice. But his words trailed off and his eyes widened when he saw the giant in the distance whose shoulders could now touched the base of the Floating Towers. The captain brought him back to the present, and the two began to argue about something. After several moments of wrangling, they seemed to come to an agreement. The mayor called for his servants and then shut the door. The captain returned with both good news and bad news.

“The mayor has agreed to lend you a hippogriff for your mission, but he is only willing to lend a single mount.”

“I wonder if the four of us can fit on one mount,” Martin wondered.

“We are less than four in weight,” said Dolman. “For a sturdy mount, a halfling is as light as a feather.”

“Right. We should give it a chance. After all, what choice do we have?” said Duram.

“We have no time to waste,” said Lily. “Lead on captain!”

The captain of the guard led Paulus’s friends to the hippogriff stable. He bid them good luck and took his leave to return to the scene. Inside the stable, the party saw hippogriffs of different sizes, from small scrawny ponies to tall majestic steeds. But none seemed big enough for all four of them to ride together. Then in a dark corner, they spotted an enormous shadow. Dolman approached to take a closer look. It was the biggest mount, horse or hippogriff, that he had seen in his life. Its tall legs rippled with muscles, and it’s folded wings rose and fell with the beast’s powerful breaths. Its eyes were feral and wild, and its ferocious beak looked like it could easily snap off a halfling’s head in one swift bite. Dolman swallowed nervously and inched forward. He reached in his pocket and produced a rare herb that he had found in the woods near his monastery. His master had told him that it was a calming herb that could soothe the hearts of wild creatures. Dolman hoped that he was right as he took a handful of the hippogriff’s feed from a nearby container and mixed the herb into it. Then summoning his courage, he held out his hand and stepped forward, offering the clump of feed to the hippogriff.

The hippogriff saw Dolman and reared up as if to trample him. He spread his wings and they nearly touched the walls of the stable on either side. But Dolman was undaunted. He stood his ground with his hand still outstretched. He closed his eyes and thought perhaps the beast might bite off his hand or even his whole arm. But he felt the feed being snatched out of his hand and a moment later the rough plummage of the hippogriff’s feathers could be felt on his cheek. Dolman groomed the feathers on the hippogriff’s neck before nimbly leaping up onto the beast’s back. He bade the others to join him.

Sizable though he was, the party of four barely fit onto the hippogriff’s back. The beast grunted in displeasure but bore the weight of his riders for now. Yet Paulus’s friends realized they had forgotten one small detail. None of them knew how to command a hippogriff. Dolman, try as he might, could not urge the beast forward. And if any of the others so much as tapped their heels on his sides, the hippogriff shook with such wrath that they barely managed to keep their seats. At last, Dolman came up with a desperate plan and leapt down from the mount. The others watched as he disappeared into the shadows and appeared to give chase to something on the floor. When he returned, he had brought a long wooden pole and a small rat that he had caught in the corner of the stable. Attaching the rat to one end of the pole by means of a bit of twine, he returned to his seat on the hippogriff and held his makeshift lure before the great beast’s eyes.

‘This is never going to work,’ Paulus’s friends thought in unison, Dolman himself included. Then they stared in disbelief as the hippogriff began to snap at the rat squeaking in terror at the end of the pole. Dolman found that he could somewhat goad the hippogriff in the desired direction by means of his lure. Having thus obtained their means of transport, Paulus’s friends began their ascent to the Floating Tower.

IV.

As Paulus’s friends flew on the back of the hippogriff, they saw that Paulus was now at eye level with the base of the Tower of Alchemy. He was besieged by a trio of eldritch knights on their magical phantom steeds. The knights had drawn their enchanted blades which crackled with magical energy. They sent great blasts of lightning, flame, and ice at Paulus, but their attacks seemed to do little more than irritate the giant who swiped at them absently as if to keep tiny flies at bay.

Paulus’s friends spotted a hole at the base of the Tower of Alchemy where Paulus’s head had crashed into it. They steered the hippogriff towards it, but to their horror they saw that Paulus was now flailing his arms to defend against the arcane knights, and one great arm was swinging towards them. Martin cried out to the knights with his booming voice which was made loud by his thaumaturgical magic, bading them to halt their assault upon their friend who knew not what he did. The knights heard him and hesitated in uncertainty, causing Paulus to become calm as well. His arm stopped in its path, and the Paulus’s friends safely arrived at the Tower of Alchemy.

The hippogriff deftly passed through the hole and landed inside. Paulus’s friends saw that they had fortuitously arrived in a large storage hall. The walls were lined with shelves filled with alchemical ingredients.

“We’re in luck!” Lily exclaimed. “Now I may be able to concoct a potion to reverse Paulus’s condition.”

“Do you know the precise ingredients needed for the antidote?” Duram asked her.

“Not exactly…” Lily admitted.

“I have a different idea,” Duram began. “Perhaps what we need is not a precise reversal agent which may be difficult to create. Maybe what we need is a purge that can cleanse Paulus’s system of the foreign magical substance.”

“Will that work for certain?” Martin asked.

“I’m not sure,” Duran confessed.

“We’ve no time to waste,” Dolman said calmly yet firmly. “Lily, Duram, tell us what you need.”

Paulus’s friends began to procure the ingredients for Lily’s antidote and Duram’s purge. Soon they had all the materials they needed. The found the exit to the storage hall. Lily pressed her ear against the door but heard nothing. She quietly opened the wooden door just a crack and peeked through the sliver of an opening. To her dismay she found that the other side of the door was guarded by a warforged sentinel.

Lily had seen warforged warriors before and heard many tales about them. Many of them had fought in the Last War in defense of Aundair against the undead hordes of Karrnath. It was said that General Farrowind had led a battalion of warforged knights whom he treated like brothers at arms rather than machines, and they did great deeds of song at the Battle of the Crying Fields. But after the war few of the warforged were ever treated so well following their emancipation. The people of Aundair and the other nations saw the warforged as unwanted competition for jobs at the best, and unholy abominations of sorcery at the worst. Whatever one’s views on the warforged, their tirelessness and ferocity in battle were well known to all. And here was one guarding the exit that Lily and her friends had to get through.

Lily quietly reported what she had seen, then she came up with an idea. Recalling a famous professor from the Tower of Alchemy, she used her magic of illusion to cast a glamer upon herself. She seemed to grow taller and more wrinkled, a long white beard sprouted from her chin, and her clothes transformed into a mage’s robe. Lily had taken on the visage of a venerable old wizard. Mustering her courage, she took a deep breath and passed through the portal.

The warforged guards on the other side were older models. They came to attention, their eyes glowing red and their weapons at the ready.

“At ease, soldiers,” Lily said with an air of respectability and mild annoyance. “My associates and I merely came to collect a few items from storage. You needn’t concern yourselves with us. Carry on… umm, as you were.”

Lily’s friends were full of doubt. They were ready to spring forth and battle the iron men. But as they held their breath, the eyes of the warforged turned blue. They lowered their weapons and returned to their sentinel stance, thumping once on their iron plated chest with a clenched fist in a curt salute. Lily motioned the others to follow and the group passed unhindered through the doorway and the corridor.

Paulus’s friends climbed a long spiral stairway until they came to a landing with two closed doors. Moonlight poured in through a tall narrow window through which the sounds of the battle raging outside could be heard. The landing was briefly plunged into darkness as a giant shadow passed over it, and the tower shook as if from a great impact. When the shadow had passed, Paulus’s friends could see that it had been Paulus’s hand slowly flailing to defend himself against the magical bolts of the knights arcane. Only now they hardly seemed to affect him at all. The tall knights on their phantom stress looked like houseflies compared to Paulus who was now flicking at them with the tip of his fingers. The knights swerved desperately to avoid the ignoble blows, for despite his great size Paulus’s flicks were becoming more accurate. When one of the knights arcane were struck and went plummeting to the ground, his comrade flew down to catch him.

“We have to hurry,” Martin exclaimed.
“But which door do we take?” Duram asked. “Lily, do you know the way?”
“No,” Lily replied. “I have heard tales of the Tower of Alchemy, but I have never been here before.”
“In that case, Dolman began. “Let’s find out what is behind these doors.”

The halfling pressed his ear against the first door. He listened carefully, but the sound of the battle raging outside made it impossible to hear anything behind it. On pressing his ear against the second door, he heard the quiet noise of a woman sobbing softly. Dolman reported what he had heard. The group decided to investigate the room behind the door, but upon trying the door they discovered that it was locked.

“Hello,” Lily cried out. “Can you hear me?”
The sobbing abruptly stopped and a quiet voice called back through the closed door.
“Who… Who’s there?”
“Are you Diana?”
“Yes, but who are you?”
“We are friends of Paulus. Don’t worry, we’re going to rescue you…”
“Paulus? What is Paulus doing here?”

“Stand back,” said Dolman. “I will break down the door.”
“I don’t recommend that. The door is enchanted.”
Dolman took a few steps back and launched himself against the door with a flying kick. As his full force landed against the door, it burst open but not before the abjuration upon it reflected the full force of his impact back upon him. Dolman was sent flying back and nearly fell through the spiral stairwell, but he barely managed to grab onto the edge of the stone steps. As he hung dangling in the stairwell, his friends looked through the doorway. They saw Diana, a shy young woman wearing an apprentice wizard’s robe. Beside her was an enormous figure with wooden muscles bulging beneath stone plates and metal armor, wielding a gigantic hammer and shield. It was the largest and most fearsome looking warforged soldier that any of them had seen. And its eyes were glowing red.

V.

As Dolman climbed up from the stairwell, Lily, Martin, and Duram faced the fearsome looking warforged who appeared to be Diana’s guardian. It approached them menacingly with its hammer raised.

Duram stepped forward and held aloft his shield which bore the image of the rising sun, the symbol of his goddess, as he spoke in a booming voice.
“In the name of Dol Arrah and the Sovereign Host,” Duram began, weaving his faith and magic into his words. “I command you to HALT!”
Duram’s shield glowed as if sunlight was reflecting upon it. But the warforged continued forward unhindered by his magical command.
“You there,” Lily began sternly, but her voice was tinged with uncertainty.” As master of alchemy and the warden of this tower, I order you to stand aside.”
The warforged took no notice of her words, but its gaze was fixed upon her. It advanced upon her with surprising grace and swung its hammer with dizzying speed. Lily deftly dodged the blow which came crashing down upon the floor. The tower shook from the impact, and Lily was startled to see the large crater made by the hammer of the warforged in the stone floor. Martin came up from behind and grappled the warforged. He wrapped his arms around the cold iron limbs and whispered a prayer to Dol Arrah to lend him strength. The warforged strained against him, and for a moment Martin thought his arms would be torn apart. Perhaps Dol Arrah had heard him because the wooden fibers inside the warforged buckled, and amazingly Martin’s grasp held against the iron creature struggling against him.

Lily took the opportunity to step behind them and used the last of her illusory magic to transform into the shape of Garius. She called out in a deep voice, what she imagined Garius might sound like.

“At ease, soldier. These are my associates. Stand down.”

The warforged turned and saw the commanding figure of the knight standing before him. A moment later, its eyes dimmed until they glowed with a pale blue light. Martin felt the metallic limbs relax in his arms. He held on uncertainly for a moment before letting go. The warforged lowered its shield and raised its hammer and fist to its chest in a salute.

As Lily, Martin, and Duram breathed a sigh of relief, Dolman climbed up from the stairwell. He was about to join them when the remaining door upon the landing and the wall around it exploded in a great ball of flame. The wall around the landing blew apart and crumbled, revealing the stars, the giant and the night sky. The flying debris struck Dolman and knock him back into the stairwell. His friends watched in horror as he missed the edge and flew down the long dark shaft. Dolman struggled to calm his racing thoughts and he saw the hard stone floor racing towards him. He closed his eyes.

Instead of the crushing impact of stone, Dolman felt himself crashing against what felt like a mass of feathers covering a leathery hide. He gripped tightly onto the feathers and felt himself being lifted up. He opened his eyes and saw that he was on the back of the hippogriff flying up towards his friends who looked upon him with relief. The great winged beast set Dolman down upon what remained of the landing. The halfling turned to offer his thanks, but the hippogriff simply grunted and then lifted off, passing through the great hole in the side of the tower and flying into the night sky away from the Floating Towers and the giant.

Lily nearly forgot about Diana in all the confusion. She found Diana staring through the hole. Her eyes were wide and fixed on the giant standing before her.
“Is that… Paulus?” Diana said quietly.
Paulus’s friends let out a collective sigh and nodded. How would their friend win over the love of his life now? Was it even in his best interests to try? Perhaps it was their duty as his friends to talk him out of his infatuation before he caused any more damage.

The thoughts raced through their minds, but before they could discuss anything, something streaked across the sky towards Paulus from the part of the tower that had just exploded. It was Garius riding upon his phantom steed. His tall helm shimmered with moonlight and his purple cape was spread majestically in the wind. His magical steed gave off great plumes of smoke from its shadow mane and left a trail that traced a straight line through the sky. A cold and metallic voice called out from his helm.

“DIANA… IS… MINE…”

Garius drew forth his longsword which glowed with a bright light. He pointed his weapon at Paulus, and a ray of magical flame sliced through the air, striking Paulus in the hand and exploding in a scorching blast. Paulus’s fingers were wreathed in fire and he cried out in pain.

“Garius, my love!” Diana cried out. “Paulus is a kind soul. Please don’t hurt him!”

“Why on earth do you love Garius?” Lily asked her. “Look at him. He is cold and beastly.”

“He is not!” Diana protested. “I… I just love him.” Her voice wavered with uncertainty as she watch the fearsome knight battle the shy giant upon the plain. Paulus may have been a giant but he was clearly no match for the skilled warrior who was also a formidable warmage. Garius was not like the other arcane knights who were pulling their punches, trying to disable Paulus rather than kill him. He must have heard Paulus calling out Diana’s name. He attacked with the ferocity of a seasoned soldier and a jealous lover.

“SHE… IS… MINE…” Garius growled once more.

“We have to stop this,” said Martin.
“Look,” said Dolman, pointing at the section of the tower that had exploded. The unopened door on the landing of the stairway had vanished and behind it lay the ruins of the room which must have been an alchemist’s laboratory.

Paulus’s friends frantically searched the room for the materials needed to create an antidote or a purge for their afflicted friend. They discovered that there were only a few agents that had survived the blast, just enough for a single potion. They opted to entrust Duram with the task of making a purgative. Duram did his best to create the strongest purge with the available supplies, mixing together a noxious paste. Then he handed the sticky noxious wad to Dolman. As the halfling stepped toward the opening in the side of the tower, Martin used his thaumaturgical power once more to project his voice to Paulus.

“Paulus! Diana needs you!”

Both Paulus and Garius briefly froze in place. Garius turned around to look at the Tower. When he turned back to his foe, the giant was moving towards him. Garius conjured a wall of fire to keep the giant at bay, but Paulus had grown too big, and he pressed forward nose first into the flames which were scattered by the great hot puffs of breath from his nostrils.

Garius tried to evade the approaching giant, but it was too late. He was knocked aside by Paulus’s nose, and the helmet fell off his head. Paulus’s friends gasped when they saw the face of wood, stone and metal – the face of a warforged.

“DIANA,” Paulus and Garius bellowed nearly in unison.

Dolman drew back and then hurled the wad of purgative with all his might, hoping that his halfing luck would hold. The wad found home and stuck to Paulus’s face above the upper lip and just under his nose. Paulus’s gigantic face turned pale, then green, then a sickly purple. His cheeks swelled up, and his mouth burst open with an explosion of sickening vomit. Garius could not evade the tide of vomit which swept him away. The torrent burst into the side of the tower, and Paulus’s friends fled, narrowly avoiding the tidal wave of hideous slimey stomach acid that burned the floors, walls and ceilings.

VI.

As the four friends and Diana descended from the Floating Towers on a magic carpet used by students and visitors, they found the field below the towers burned by patches of stomach acid and Paulus lying unconscious in tattered clothes. He was snoring loudly. A short distance away, Garius was lying in a pool of vomit. His armor and the plates of his stone and metallic skin had been melted away, as had most of his limbs. Only his upper torso and right arm remained, the wooden muscles exposed but for a few remaining stone plates that were still steaming.

Diana ran to Garius and held what remained of him in her arms. She looked at him with sorrow and pity. Finally, Lily asked her what had been on everyone’s mind.

“Diana, why did Garius do this to you? And why do you still love him?”

Diana explained:
“Garius was not always this way. Once he was a soldier in my father’s army. He fought bravely in the Battle of the Crying Fields. My father recognized him and other brave warforged soldiers, treating them not as slaves or weapons but as men. Garius pledged an oath of allegiance to my father, promising to guard that which was most dear to him – his daughter. He became my guardian knight, but in time he grew to love me, and his feelings turned into an infatuation. Eventually, he must have thought that the only way to truly keep me safe was to keep me by his side as his wife. I realize now that he must have mixed a love potion with my medicine when I wasn’t looking.”

“Why would he do such a thing?” Lily asked.

“Garius wanted to be treated like a person. So he tried to hide his metallic face and pretended to be a human knight. Perhaps taking me as his wife was another step in his search for humanity, or acceptance. He only wanted to be loved, as we all do.”

Garius’s eyes grew brighter as his shaking hand reached up and lightly brushed away the hair from Diana’s cheek. Then his eyes turned dark as the light faded from them. His hand fell to the ground and his body grew still.

“Sleep now, my knight,” Diana said sadly, kissing Garius’s cold wooden brow. The first rays of the sun came over the horizon and cast their light upon Garius’s face of wood and melted stone and eyes which had darkened.

On the following morning, the mayor convened a town meeting where he recognized the four friends for their heroic deeds. He asked what they would wish as a reward, and promised to grant it if it was within his power. Lily asked that no great punishment befall Paulus who did not mean to cause such a mess and had surely learned his lesson. The mayor reluctantly agreed but added that Paulus would not be allowed to take the wizard’s entrance exam again until the following year. Duram and Martin asked for permission to erect a small shrine to Dol Arrah in memory of Garius and his past heroic deeds, to which the mayor also agreed. Lastly, Dolman asked to be given the foul tempered hippogriff as his reward. The mayor agreed on the condition that the halfling be able to tame the unruly steed. Much to everyone’s surprise, the hippogriff took a liking to Dolman and continued to suffer the halfling to ride him.

Paulus’s friends left Arcanix and promised to return in one year’s time. On the appointed day, they met once more in the Happy Hippogriff with their friend Paulus. Much to their surprise, Diana sat beside him. They looked like a shy but happy couple. The two young wizards had had a bumpy start, but they seemed to have much in common after all.

They spent the eve of the anniversary of the “Incident” recounting stories from their journeys until their thoughts turned to that evening a year ago and the knight who had fallen. Early the next morning as the sun came up, they visited the newly completed shrine of Dol Arrah. Six visitors, including Paulus and Diana, stood before a lone pedestal upon which Garius’s helmet had been laid at rest. Diana held a bouquet of purple flowers. Together with Paulus, they approached the pedestal and laid the flowers beside the knight’s helmet as the first rays of the morning sun illuminated the shrine.

The End