"That's much better, thanks. The spot where that mushroom-thing's sharp wooden teeth bit me feels a bit better, too, but it still kind of hurts."
"Perhaps that is meant to be a reminder that one does not need to literally stand at the front of danger to act as a leader," Bote suggested.
"It's not like I wanted to be standing next to angry violent mushrooms when they popped up. What did you expect me to do, hide behind the rest of you and throw things at them?"
"In a manner of speaking, perhaps. When there is danger, every one of us can swing a stick or blade at it but only one of us has the experience and education to throw magic at it. None of us can replace you should you become incapacitated."
"What about you? You throw magic around."
"I do not. I am simply a conduit for the maintenance of the ineffable divine plans. I am certain you understand the difference. Even so, you will have noticed that my place is also not nearest to danger when it is not divinely ordained."
"Sure, but I can't just hide behind everyone else while they do all the..."
Wikwocket's startled cry from down the stairs interrupted him.
"Wah!? Sir Fluffington! Once more we must ask...," Wikwocket began, but was unable to continue due to a sudden fit of coughing. A gnollish yelp and the truly terrible sounds of Gruntle coughing joined in. A door thudded shut and stumbling footsteps came quickly back up. Dense puffs of smoke the color of dried blood followed Gruntle and then Wikwocket as they staggered back into the room. Al found himself also coughing a bit as the traces of caustic fumes irritated his throat.
"More cough fire! cough, cough Got to hurry but cough," Wikwocket tried to explain.
"Bad... smoke," Gruntle added through coughs that sounded like he might vomit up one of his own lungs.
Bote took a deep breath and sneezed.
"That does not smell good at all. Is something poisonous burning?"
"Worse! cough, cough Angry potions! cough Door says volatile chemicals on it! cough" Wikwocket answered.
"Wait, there's volatile chemicals down there? On fire?" an alarmed Al asked.
"That's cough what the door that's on fire says anyway! Nothing Sir Fluffington can't cough can't handle, but someone has to carry him into battle!"
"You want to fight poisonous burning chemicals that might explode at any moment?"
"cough When you say it like cough that, yes! Hurry!"
"There may be a blessing for this," Bote offered, setting a hand on Wikwocket's shoulder. Bote called for divine protection from impurities, and Wikwocket gasped.
"It's a miracle!" Wikwocket said, taking a deep breath. "Thank whoever did that and let's go beat a fire to death!"
She ran back down the stairs without waiting for an answer with her fireproof pillow held high. The sounds of the door opening again and the crackle of flames came moments later. A few more wisps of red-brown smoke arrived to make the air unpleasant.
"I will go and assist," Bote said, setting down their pack and hastily digging out a cloth bandage strip. The dwarf wetted it down with earthshine from the silver flask and tied it over mouth and nose. "The two of you who are less resilient to poisons at the moment should wait here for now I think."
"But..."
"A leader should know when to delegate."
"I didn't even want to be the leader!" Al objected, but Bote proceeded down the stairs out of sight. Gnomish battle-cries and soft thudding noises came back up the stairs.
The distressing sounds of a sick gnoll banished Al's annoyance. Gruntle crouched on the floor, bent forward and coughing wetly.
"Are you going to be all right?" he asked worriedly.
With a horrible SPLAT, Gruntle coughed a fist-sized wad of brown phlegm onto the floor, then inhaled deeply and grunted.
"What's down there?" Al asked.
"Fire. Smoke. Wikwocket. Bote. Broken things." Gruntle answered, unhelpfully. He looked towards the downward steps, ears twitching as he listened to the battle against combustion. Al could hear some coughing and sneezing, but not so much as Wikwocket's initial reaction would have predicted.
"Oof! I do not require Sir Fluffington's services unless I am on fire," came Bote's voice from downstairs amid the pillow-impact sounds.
"This is very persistent fire, cough I won't let it get you!"
Al sighed with annoyance.
"Do you ever feel useless?" he asked rhetorically.
Gruntle huffed in response.
"Yeah, I suppose not. You wouldn't rather be fighting the fire instead of waiting up here?"
"Doesn't smash, can't bite it, doesn't taste good."
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"You really aren't complicated at all, are you?"
"Nah."
The sounds of crackling flames slowly but inevitably disappeared under the relentless soft thumps of the pillow.
"Brave Sir Fluffington, cough your sacrifice shall never be forgotten!" Wikwocket cried out.
"Alas, I fear no miracle can save him now," Bote agreed, failing to keep from sounding amused.
"No! There is cough yet one through whose powers Sir Fluffington may survive! Come, we must beseech him for mercy!"
Swift gnomish footsteps came most of the way back up the stairs, paused for a moment, then marched the last few steps up at a solemn pace. Wikwocket carried the badly torn pillow in her arms like a small stricken hero that bled singed feathers instead of blood. She knelt in front of Al and gently set the pillow on the floor. Her exaggerated expression of melodramatic grief almost got an audible laugh from Al, who kept his expression neutral through force of will. A smirk did creep onto his face upon seeing Bote's own mirth at the drama as the dwarf caught up, though.
"Please, magical sword hero! Sir Fluffington was mortally stricken defending us! Use your magical sword hero powers to save him, we beg of you!" she pleaded, looking up at Al.
The moment stretched longer than she expected as Al tried to decide how to respond.
There's no good way to just get her to stop being herself, is there?
Al found himself feeling actual guilt as a hint of genuine worry began to invade Wikwocket's expression.
"Very well," he said, examining the half-destroyed pillow, "my vast magical powers may be able to spare his life, but he may never walk again."
He knelt and stuffed a few of the singed feathers back into the largest tear, then magicked the sides of the hole back together.
Wikwocket laughed, then coughed.
"You're a good one, Al," she said and stood back up.
"Yes, well, I think Sir Fluffington should rest here while we keep looking for the apprentice, who, I should remind you, is probably endangered right now himself. We still have to deal with whoever or whatever is trying so hard to destroy this place, preferably before they finish destroying everything."
"I expect the culprit is more intent on property damage than harm to people. The destruction so far has been consistent and must have taken some time, though the process has not been methodical. The room below appears to have contained some of the more dangerous supplies, and just as in the room above, it appears someone has knocked much of it onto the floor. Sir Fluffington was able to subdue the resulting fires after some vigorous battle. If you do not inhale too deeply or remain in the room for long, the fumes should be reduced to a tolerable level within a few minutes."
"What do you mean by consistent but not methodical?"
"The intent seems to be to cause damage everywhere, but the amount of the damage doesn't seem to be of importance."
"Maybe the apprentice is possessed by evil spirits and he's the one doing this as part of some dark ritual to summon a terrible demon of molten cheese to destroy the city!" Wikwocket suggested.
"...cheese?" Al asked.
"Hopefully, I'm getting a bit hungry from all of this heroing!"
"It sounded like there's probably food waiting for us where we were headed before this little emergency, so once we're finished here..."
Gruntle perked up and headed for the stairs. He paused to carefully sniff the air, sneezed wetly, then proceeded down.
"See, that's why you're the leader! You've got a knack for motivating people!" said Wikwocket.
"Now I just need to motivate myself."
"Think about what Gruntle might do unsupervised in a room with dangerous chemicals!" Wikwocket suggested.
Al coughed at the lingering fumes as he hurried down the stairs. He found Gruntle with a hand clamped over his nose in a room blackened with extensive burn-marks and littered in several places with broken clay and glass. The gnoll was listening at a door across the room. In the nearer wall, Al spotted the scorched, heavy wooden door with a metal sign nailed to it. Despite the fire damage, the phrase "Highly Volatile Chemicals" was still readable.
"The doors are closed," Al said, as much to himself as to Wikwocket and Bote, who had followed him down the steps. "Why would someone who's trying to destroy the place bother to close the doors behind them?"
"Maybe it's a very polite vandal. Or maybe it's for privacy, to protect their secret room-destroying techniques!"
Gruntle ignored the conversation and continued listening intently to the door.
"Do you hear something?" Al asked him, and got a grunt of affirmation.
"Things breaking. Sweeping. Food. Music?"
"Right there behind the door?" Al asked, lowering his voice.
"Nah. Further away."
"Wait. Food?"
"Squeaks like food."
"Rats?"
Grunt.
Al shook his head. "Sounds like we've almost caught up to whoever's causing all of this. If we're quiet, we might be able to sneak up on them."
"I'll check the door!" Wikwocket volunteered. She gave the door and the latch a quick inspection for obvious traps, then quietly reached up and lifted the latch. She pushed the door open slowly. She peeked through the opening and gasped.
"Ooo! Pretty!"
She pushed the door open further to sounds of small objects bouncing off of the other side. Shelves of partly-broken alchemical apparatus lined the walls, and a long workbench with more alchemical equipment ran down the middle of the room and around a corner.
The entire room sparkled brightly as the alchemical lighting embedded in the ceiling glittered through the shards of glass that spun and floated lazily in the air.
"What the...," Al wondered as he stared.
Wikwocket reached out to a nearby piece of glass that didn't appear to be spinning too rapidly. She carefully chose a moment to put a finger on a less-sharp surface and push. The floating bit of glass seemed to be resisting, but Wikwocket was able to push it away. It kept no momentum and simply continued to spin in place where it was when Wikwocket pulled her hand back.
"There's no way Sir Fluffington would survive this one, so it's a good thing we're letting him rest upstairs!" Wikwocket said.
"I'm not sure we can survive this," Al said, "We'll be cut to shreds if we try to just stroll through here."
"This is some kind of magic, right? Can you un-magic them so they stop floating around?"
"No. I know that sort of thing is possible but it's not something I can do."
"Well, that makes sense, you're a magical sword hero, not an un-magical sword hero!"
"That's not... no, never mind, you're exactly right. That still means we don't have any good way to protect ourselves if we want to go through here."
"Maybe if we had a giant umbrella we could hold out in front of us!"
"I have no idea where you think we can find an umbrella made of something that wouldn't be as shredded by this as we would be."
"What about a big shield? Something made of metal or thick wood that we could stay behind as we push through?"
"Where are we going to find something that big in here?"
The sound of a door latch being lifted in the room behind them made Al turn to look, and then to feel panic to see Gruntle opening the Highly Volatile Chemicals door. Al relaxed a little when Gruntle took no interest in the bottles and jars that were carefully arranged on shelves inside the door. Instead, the gnoll seemed more interested in the door itself. Gruntle stuck his stubby fingers behind the door near the hinges and jerked violently back. Wood cracked, and after several tries the door pulled loose from its hinges.
When no explosion happened, Al looked up from the floor where he had dropped prone and covered his head. Gruntle turned and proudly held up the door. Al got back to his feet.
"Yes, I suppose that should work," he admitted.
With some tricky maneuvering, they managed to get the loose door through the doorway to the next room without dropping it or getting anyone's hands slashed by flying glass. They crowded together behind the door as Gruntle held it up and pushed it slowly across the floor. Floating glass pressed back against the door as they went, but gave way to their combined strength as they pushed.
Al examined what remained of whatever process had been in progress before someone came in and violently interrupted it. Halfway through the room, Al spotted an open notebook next to some freshly-broken glass and metal tubing. He leaned as far in the direction of the writing as he dared without exposing his head to danger.
"Elixir of Flight," he read aloud from the heading. "Huh. I guess whatever flight-magic Ebeneezer was working on affects inanimate materials as well as living people who drink it."
"You can make a potion that would let me fly?" Wikwocket asked eagerly.
"Well, I can't, but I've heard of such things before."
"I want some!"
"That... doesn't surprise me."
It took several minutes of cautious travel to make their way through the apparent alchemical laboratory. At the far end, they found another door, once again leading further downwards. Once opened, Al could also hear some of the sounds from below - a broom swept incessantly. After a few seconds, a sound like a breaking glass bottle.
"Whoever it is, we've got them now!"
Basement 3 / Hazardous Chemical Storage and Laboratory: There is a door at the bottom of the stair. Upon opening the door,
the players see that the next room is filled with burning potion, and corrosive fumes are coming from the fire. From the doorway,
the players can see two doors; one across the room is currently unharmed, but the one to the right of the doorway is on fire. The
door on fire has a sign that says “Highly Volatile Chemicals” and it contains 5 vials of something labeled “Ebeneezer's Explosive
Extract”. The players cannot move through the burning room as-is without taking damage, and if they do not put the fire out soon
there will be an explosion. The door on the far side of the room opens into the Laboratory. This room is full of broken glass that is
lazily spinning through the air like a thousand razor blades floating gently on a breeze. An investigation will show that the
alchemist was in the process of brewing a flying potion and when the potion was in a critical stage something bad must have
happened. This caused the glass to be infused with some of the flying potion's magic. If the players try to move through this room
as-is they will take damage. On the far side of the laboratory is a doorway leading to another staircase that leads further down.
Smart characters will try to come up with some way to avoid getting slashed and stabbed with flying glass shards in the first place. I'd rule that Dispel Magic is an option that would probably work reasonably well, even though officially it only works against spells. The effect here that has resulted from catastrophic failure of an alchemical process that has imparted "flying magic" to a bunch of inanimate objects seems "spell-like" enough to potentially be affected. I'd probably treat the effect as equivalent to 4th level for this purpose.
Who did this?