A Tower in Gelatin Floats By

art by Jeff Call

Our 5e Land of Azurth game continued last night with our heroes planning on taking Gwendolin Goode back to her parents and relieving the pirate queen Black Iris (both of whom they rescued from the Candy Isle) of some of her treasure, but in disagreement about how forcefully they wished to pursue either goal. Before they could come to consensus, Cog sighted something strange off the bow: a large, floating, blue gelatinous bubble with a broken up tower inside, and a few fallen or tottering trees along the outer edge.

The PCs couldn't quite comprehend how this came to be, but it seemed to be drifting, so they surmised it must have slid off land somewhere. Black Iris wants to investigate (which makes Shade the Ranger suspicious of a trap) but talk of a wizard's magic treasure soon has Waylon the thief and Erekose also favoring exploration.

The player's entered the open balcony. I won't describe what they found in detail (you should read Jeff Call's one page dungeon!) but I'll summarize the high points: they defeated a lisping, anthrophagous black pudding with an odd since of propriety, rescuing two scrawny cooks in the process; they saved the same cooks again from a confused, jade bear who turned back into a statuette after being "talked down" by the ranger; they used a table to form a tunnel to protect themselves from falling gelatin to took the weapons from the armory and rescue a servant from the privy, being reward with a gaudy ring of protection with a jewel as large (and as fake) as a ring-pop's.

That was as far as they dared explore with some of the rooms beginning to crumble. The servant told them the sad tale of his former master, the Wizard, Clabber, who had summoned the great former king of the Ooze Folk, Goo the Great, and in doing so brought about his own end. The servant also mentioned "vampire dignitaries," which made them surer in their desire not to push on. They circumnavigated the blob, hoping to find more easy picking near the surface but were unsuccessful.

So they sailed back to the Motley Isles and then for the coast of Yanth. They got 3 magic items from tower, 10% of Black Iris's treasure, and one of her magic items: a page from The Book of Doors, which is a portal to...somewhere. She also introduced them to conspiracies about the hidden malevolence of the Wizard of Azurth, but they considered that to be nonsense. Miss Goode got returned to her parents (though she's likely to run away again) and received a stern lecture from the bard Kully about life choices.