when you consider the value. Four bedrooms, single bath, prison cells in the basement. The previous owner was a notorious sorceress. She lived here quietly with her undead lover. Did I mention the secret passageway-'
Olive froze in her tracks, literally, one foot poised over the ground in a step that never came down. She remained motionless and, even stranger for Olive, speechless.
Dragonbait took a step toward the curiously immobile, suspended halfling, but Alias caught him by the arm. She bent down, grabbed a handful of coins, and flung them down the corridor. The air about them seemed to ripple and surge for a moment, then the coins hung in the air, just as did the halflmg's foot.
Realizing now what caused the walls to glisten, Alias raised her sword and sprang forward. 'It's a gelatinous cube!' she shouted. 'It's swallowed Ohve. We've got to cut her out before she suffocates!'
The scavenging monster had been practically invisible in the lantern light, but the adventurers could now see it rippling as the creature, alerted to their movements, slithered toward the secret door in an effort to engulf them. It had no intelligence, so its attack was purely instinctual, and it towered over them and blocked the passage completely.
Alias struck first with a sweeping semicircular cut along one side of the cube, wide enough to miss the imprisoned halfling but close enough to loosen the monster's grip. Dragonbait began slicing at the jellylike creature with his flaming sword, creating great scorching gashes in its side. The smell of burning flesh permeated the air. With her free hand Alias grabbed Olive's shirt collar and pulled hard. There was a soft sucking sound as the cube attempted to draw the halfling deeper into its digestive interior.
Knowing that the gelatinous cube exuded a slime capable of paralyzing even the largest of prey, Alias shifted backward to avoid contact with the creature and nearly lost her grip on the halfling.
The warrior woman stabbed the creature and released the hilt of her sword. With both hands clenched on the halflmg's shirt, she yanked with all her might.
There was a squishing noise, and the slime-encrusted halfling erupted from the side of the cube. Alias slipped on the carpet of coins and fell over backward, Olive landing on top of her. A layer of clear ooze still covered the halfling, but separated from the host body the goo could not survive and began to evaporate in a thin mist.
The creature sent out a protrusion that crested over the heads of the two woman like a wave. Before the wave could overwhelm them, the saurial slashed it from the body of the gelatinous cube.
The wave, cut off from its parent, began to steam into nothingness before it hit the ground. Alias's sword clattered into the coins as the creature, damaged beyond its ability to hold its shape, slumped to the ground in a puddle of steaming goo.
Alias rolled Olive on her back and pushed on her stomach. The halfling'gagged and coughed up a slimy bubble, then took a gasp of air. Alias breathed a sigh of relief
'Is she all right?' the paladin asked as the halfling stirred feebly while ooze steamed off her body.
Alias nodded. 'She walked into it with her mouth open,' she explained. 'Probably paralyzed her vocal chords. Maybe well get some quiet for a while,' she said with a grin. 'That's not funny,' Olive retorted in a hoarse whisper.
They took the time to investigate the rest of the cellar. Dragon bait stood staring thoughtfully into the prison cell where he'd once been chained awaiting death, the cell where he'd sworn to the Nameless Bard that he would protect Alias. Except for the glistening slime left by the gelatinous cube, everything was just as he remembered it.
Alias, who had no clear memory of the place, was busy investigating bits of litter on the floor mixed in with the gold coins and the remains of the jelly creature. Several old rat skeletons, the skull of a very large cat, fruit peelings, moldy cheese, some bloody bandages. The swordswoman studied the ceiling. There was a hole overhead.
'Melman must be using the cellar as a midden,' Alias guessed. 'If it weren't for the gelatinous cube cleaning up down here, we might have had to wade through garbage. Melman probably threw the poor creature down here when it was just a bud.'
'The door between the house upstairs and the cellar is secret, too,' Olive explained. 'Melman may not even realize that there's anything down here. He may think there's just an old well or sewer. I'll bet this treasure is all Cassana's original horde. Prakis said she stored it down here. Probably in there.' The halfling pointed to a side room with a missing door. The hinges remained suspended from the door frame. 'The door must have been wood. After several years the gelatinous cube dissolves it, slips into the treasury, drags the coins around beneath it, leaving them piled in front of the secret passageway.'
Dragonbait extinguished the flame of his sword, and Alias covered the lantern so that only the faintest light showed. Then the trio climbed the spiral staircase leading to the first floor of the house. At the top, they halted and listened for any sounds that might indicate they'd been heard. The house seemed preternaturally still. Alias wondered if perhaps Olive had been spotted tailing One-Eye to the house, causing Melman to bolt. Olive, her ear to the secret panel, looked suspicious, but she finally pushed on the section of wall that released the secret panel. The curved section of wall slid easily enough until it caught on something in the alcove on the other side.
Olive was just able to slip through the crack in the secret entrance. There she discovered the obstruction immediately. In Cassana's time there had been on display in the alcove a stone statue of a particularly voluptuous succubus. The new owner had replaced it with a brass sculpture of a masked warrior driving a spear through the heart of a maggot-ridden mastiff. The end of the spear was blocking the secret panel from sliding all the way open.
Grunting and shoving with all her might, Olive found she could not shift the sculpture. She solved the problem by hanging on the end of the spear until it bent downward, out of the door's path. On the halfling's signal Alias shifted the panel open all the way and she and Dragonbait stepped into the hallway beside Olive.
The three adventurers moved down the hallway until they stood at the base of the staircase to the second floor.
There was a light on in a room upstairs, and voices drifted down the stairs. It sounded like a man and a woman arguing, but Alias could not make out any distinct words. She frowned anxiously. If the shouts came from the master of the house and some female friend, it was likely there were also servants awake and about.
As the shouting grew closer, Alias motioned Dragonbait into the hallway behind the stairs. Olive had already faded into some other'shadowy recess of the house. 'And you call yourself a healer!' the man above bellowed.
'There are limitations to every craft,' the woman snarled back. 'You are lucky I could ease your pain. Perhaps after it scars I can help further, but not now. The wound's magic is still too strong!'
'So you say,' the man shot back. 'What good is a healer who will not heal?4 think you're in league with him!'
Someone now stood on the first landing, casting a shadow down the stairs and into the hallway. 'If I were,' the woman argued, 'why would I come here in the middle of the night? Let it scar, then I'll call again. Until that time, I recommend you keep a very low profile. Good night.'
Someone stomped very deliberately down the stairs and paused at the bottom. Alias peeked around the railing. It was a woman dressed in a tunic and leggings made from satin fabric printed with a harlequin diamond pattern. She wore a mask of black fabric that covered her face from her forehead to her nose. Around her neck was an iron necklace of a stylized mask-the unholy symbol of Mask, the god of thieves. The woman wrapped herself in a voluminous cape of wolf fur, nodded, and waved to someone down the hall, then let herself out the front door.
Alias waited anxiously for several moments, expecting a servant to come down the hall, but only Olive appeared.
'Did you see who she waved to?' the swordswoman asked the halfling.
'The sculpture we were pushing around. Its supposed to be of the god Mask stabbing Kezef, the Chaos Hound,'
Olive explained. Her voice was still a hoarse whisper. 'Wishful thinking on the part of Mask worshipers. She's a priestess of Mask. She was just making an obeisance to the image of her master.'
Alias nodded as she wondered what was wrong with Melman that he required a healer in the middle of the night, and why couldn't the priestess heal him?
Alias checked the door to what had once been Cas-sana's laboratory. The door was securely locked. Olive
