Adventure of Bob Bobbin 1

The first cups vanish into callused hands. Bob fills two stout kegs, and the miners crowd closer, passing them along while lantern smoke curls overhead.

Bob's reddened left palm throbs beside the steaming still. He adds bitter herbs, mushroom pulp, and restorative roots to the bubbling mixture.

The apparatus answers with an ominous chug. Last time, such a sound preceded a blast and left behind a potion strange enough to find a buyer.

A faint green sheen gathers along the copper coil, brightening with each chug. The waiting miners fall quiet, watching for a miracle, a medicine, or another blast.

Bob feeds the herbs and roots into the green-lit still, then adjusts the sugar cap and draws the bubbling liquor into three waiting kegs. The copper groans under the strain.

The first keg fills clear and sharp. The second turns cloudy jade, while the third spits foam that settles into a thick medicinal sludge beneath the spirit.

A miner tests a drop from the clear keg on a cracked knuckle. The ache fades, but his fingers immediately go numb, and his cup slips onto the stone.

The green sheen gutters out. One keg holds potent healing moonshine with a dangerous numbing effect; the other two are unstable mixtures that cannot safely be served as ordinary drink.

Bob separates the cloudy jade liquor from the medicinal sludge, setting each keg beneath a lantern while the miners give him room. The still ticks softly.

He traces a careful arc through the jade foam with a copper spoon. The liquid rises in a thin spiral, revealing a clear image of a closed stone door.

Bob tests the sludge next, touching its surface with the spoon's tip and feeding it a spark of innate magic. It answers with a low violet glow.

The sludge forms three stable runes: preservation, binding, and passage. The jade liquor carries a reliable revealing charm, able to show hidden doors and concealed seams.

Bob takes up the spare axe and shield from the mine's equipment rack. The axe sits firmly in his strong hand, while the shield bears old scrape marks and a brass rim.

He resets the still with fresh mushrooms, sugar, and four portions of the old yellow melon, checking each seal around the repaired copper pipe.

The still begins its steady work, sending sweet melon vapor through the waiting coils. Four empty kegs stand ready beneath the taps.

Durnan orders two miners, both adult men in soot-darkened canvas work clothes and dented helmets, one lean with a narrow face and the other broad-shouldered with a crooked nose to keep the unstable kegs covered and points toward the darker end of the waiting room, where the revealed door's image still trembles in the jade liquor.

Behind Bob, the still bubbles into its first melon batch. Ahead, the mine passage waits in silence, and the gathered miners give him a clear path.

Bob crosses to the workers chest, keeping the axe in hand and shield hooked over his arm. He lifts the iron lid beneath the lantern glow.

Inside sit three stoppered bottles: a cloudy amber tonic, a blue draught with settled grit, and a squat green vial marked with a crooked moon.

Bob pockets the amber tonic and the blue draught, leaving the green vial wedged safely among bandages and spare corks. The chest closes with a hard wooden knock.

Bob advances into the first mine passage. The waiting room's lantern smoke thins behind him, replaced by cold stone, dripping water, and the faint green memory of the revealed door.

Ahead, the passage bends toward the hidden stone door shown in the jade liquor. Bob's axe and shield catch the lantern light as he reaches the bend.

Bob reaches the bend and finds the hidden door exactly where the jade liquor showed it, fitted into the passage wall beneath damp mineral streaks.

The stone bears no handle, hinges, or keyhole. A shallow seam outlines its face, while three faint marks resemble the preservation, binding, and passage runes.

Bob raises the jade draught and lets a few drops fall across the seam. Green light travels around the door, revealing a narrow hand-shaped hollow.

He presses his broad palm into the hollow. The runes brighten without resistance, and the stone withdraws into the wall with a deep, orderly rumble.

Beyond lies a clean-cut side chamber containing empty shelves, a stone worktable, and copper hooks sized for bottles and small kegs. Dry air carries traces of old herbs.

The passage stands open and safe. Behind Bob, the still continues its steady melon brewing, while the chamber offers a proper place to inspect and store his mixtures.

On the lowest shelf, beneath a veil of dust, a small wooden cat doll waits beside the empty bottle hooks. Bob reaches for it with his broad hand.

His fingers close around the doll, but its loose wooden tail catches on a copper hook. The doll slips, striking the shelf and dropping hard onto the stone.

The impact jolts an old shelf panel open. Behind it lies a narrow crawlspace, its inner stones marked with faded preservation, binding, and passage runes.

The cat doll rests cracked but intact near Bob's boots. Beyond the opened panel, cold air carries a faint herbal scent and the distant scrape of stone.

Durnan Kettleback crouches beside Bob at the opened panel, holding his lantern low. Together they inspect the crawlspace floor, walls, and rune-marked stones without entering.

Bob leans close and follows the herbal scent through the opening. It carries dried mint, bitterroot, and a sweet melon note, useful ingredients for potions or a stronger moonshine.

He probes the first stones with his axe haft while Durnan Kettleback steadies the lantern. One loose block shifts inward, releasing a puff of dust and a sharp click beneath the floor.

Durnan Kettleback wedges the shield under the loose block and exposes a buried copper catch. He disables it, but the effort cracks the shield's brass rim and fills the chamber with falling grit.

The crawlspace is confirmed as a safe passage once the catch is disabled, and the herbal scent leads deeper into the mine. Its source remains beyond the narrow opening.

Bob steps through the narrow opening, carrying his axe and shield into the rune-marked crawlspace. The floor clicks again beneath his boots, but the mechanism cannot trouble his legendary strength and health.

A row of blunt stone teeth drops from the ceiling, striking his shield with heavy thuds before settling harmlessly into grooves along the floor.

The crawlspace widens into a low storage alcove. Clay jars line its shelves, many sealed with wax, while fresh mint and bitterroot hang in bundles from copper hooks.

At the far wall, a small stone basin collects clear water dripping through a carved melon-shaped channel. Beside it rests a brass distilling cup, clean and ready for use.

The passage remains quiet behind them. Bob has found useful herbs, clean water, and a proper distilling cup, while the mine's hidden route continues deeper beyond the alcove.

Bob gathers sealed jars of mint and bitterroot, fills a stoppered flask from the clear basin, and lifts the clean brass distilling cup. Durnan bundles several herb sprigs beneath his coat.

Bob extends his innate magic through the alcove, tracing faint currents around the jars, hooks, basin, and stonework. The spell-patterns answer in pale green threads.

His arcane search finds no intact book of necromancy, nor any ordinary spellbook. Instead, the magic gathers beneath a wax-sealed clay jar and reveals a rectangular absence in the dust.

When Bob touches the jar, its seal crumbles into black flakes and the searching magic collapses, imprinting a single rune of removal across the stone. The missing book cannot be recovered here.

The supplies remain sound, but the alcove's residual magic now marks the empty space as deliberately cleared, warning that any further search here would find only absence.

Bob carries the sealed jars, stoppered flask, and brass distilling cup back through the rune-marked crawlspace, with Durnan following under the low stone ceiling.

The disabled trap remains quiet behind them. Cold mine air gives way to lantern smoke, warm copper, and the sweet melon vapor rising from the working still.

Bob places the mint and bitterroot among his brewing stockpile, sets the clear flask beside the measured ingredients, and lays the brass cup within easy reach.

The new supplies join mushrooms, sugar, and the remaining melon portions. The workbench now holds enough ingredients for several careful batches.

Behind them, the four kegs continue filling with clear melon brew while miners keep watch over the unstable mixtures. Bob's brewing station is fully supplied and operational.

The two finished kegs vanish into the miners' cups, followed by one newly filled keg. The dwarf miners grow warm, loose-limbed, and comfortably sated.

A broad-shouldered adult dwarf woman, with a round, weathered face, warm brown skin, and a copper nose ring with flour-dusted braids and a red apron brings out a great iron pot. Her savory stew feeds the entire shift.

Bowls scrape clean. Durnan leads the miners away toward the sleeping quarters, leaving the waiting room quiet except for dripping stone and the still's patient bubbling.

Bob clears the empty kegs, keeps the remaining brew covered, and resets the copper apparatus with melon, mushrooms, bitterroot, mint, sugar, and a measured portion of medicinal sludge.

The still exhales violet-scented vapor into the brass cup. Bob watches the color deepen from lavender to midnight blue, while faint lights drift inside the liquid like distant stars.

The batch settles into a potent hallucinogenic draught, stable and unmistakably magical. It does not explode, and the sealed cup joins Bob's growing stock of strange usable products.

Bob seals the midnight-blue draught in a padded flask and sets it apart beneath a cloth, marked for a rival mine shaft and its dangerous price.

Beside the workbench, a broad healing-herb book lies open beneath a stone weight. Its yellowed pages show bitterroot, mint, mushroom, and melon diagrams.

Bob follows the book's measured recipe, reducing the mushroom pulp, steeping bitterroot and mint, and adding the melon only after the first boil.

The still brews without bursting. Yet when Bob draws the batch, the liquor separates into a clear amber layer and a cloudy green sediment.

The amber portion closes small cuts but leaves a spreading heaviness in the limbs. The sediment carries the stronger remedy, though it clumps too thickly to drink safely.

The book's margin reveals the answer: the sediment needs a binding agent, not more herbs. A star beside the note points toward rendered honey resin as the missing ingredient.

Bob carries the padded flask through the upper tunnels to a rival mine, trading the midnight-blue draught for a heavy purse of gold and a sealed crock of rendered honey resin.

The rival mine's entrance glows with braziers. A stocky adult dwarf woman in a soot-black coat and yellow scarf examines the flask, her gray braid threaded with brass beads.

Mara counts out the payment and seals the honey resin in waxed leather. Her sharp glance lingers on Bob's flask pouch, and two nearby miners, both adult men in soot-streaked work clothes and dented helmets, one lean with a square jaw and the other broad with a scarred cheek, begin watching him.

Bob secures the honey and gold, but the transaction leaves a concrete mark: Mara records his name in the rival mine's visitor ledger beside the drug's unusual blue color.

With the sale complete and the binding ingredient obtained, Bob stands beneath the rival mine's braziers, ready to return and stabilize the amber remedy.

Produce a recognizable healing draught