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“Fine, fine,” agreed Dreelix, barely understandable as he spoke with his left hand over his nose and mouth. “I hereby appoint Willowquisp, Spontayne, and Buntleby as a sub- committee to study the creature. Zantoullios, maybe you’d better join them. Any questions? Good. Meeting adjourned!” And without another word, he jumped up from the head table and rushed out the door into the fresh night air. Zantoullios wasn’t the most power- ful wizard among the Monster Hunters, but he did have the best-equipped lab, filled with the most modern equipment. He prided himself on being on the cut- ting edge of magical experimentation technology. Perhaps more truthfully, the reason his paraphernalia was so new was it was constantly being replaced after Zantoullios’ experiments blew up in his face. He still hadn’t lived by Johnathan M. Richards down his recent attempt to use a sum- moned fire elemental to test the flame- illustrated by Terry Dykstra resisting properties of a new magical oil. The battered sword he had coated in the oil survived just fine; the lab, con- “WELL THEN, if there is no further table napkins or bits of their own verted from an old wooden barn, didn’t business,” said Dreelix, his gavel cloaks or robes in an attempt to ward fare quite as well. raised in the air to strike the table, “I off the vile odor. Buntleby arrived at Zantoullios’ hereby declare this meeting of the “Oh, that. Sorry. I sort of had a little recently-restored laboratory to find the Monster Hunters Associa—” encounter on the way here...” other three members of the newly-cre- He was cut off in mid-sentence by a Buntleby reached into his bag and ated subcommittee already there. commotion in the doorway. Buntleby pulled out its contents—a whitish, disk- Willowquisp was seated at a table, por- bustled into the meeting hall, out of shaped creature with writhing tenta- ing over a large book he had brought breath and with a large, squirming cles on top. with him, with Spontayne the Studious sack tucked under one arm. Ozzie, his “I don’t want to hear about it! looking over his shoulder and nodding osquip familiar, trotted obediently Get out of here with that thing!” occasionally to himself. Zantoullios was at his feet. “I’m sorry I’m late,” “Wait!” said Spontayne, a pouring brandy into four beakers. he said, “but I was unavoid- taciturn scholar who sel- “Hope you don’t mind the glass- ably detained.” dom spoke up. “Is that what I ware, Buntleby; I brought the bottle “Late?” squeaked think it is?” but left the glasses back at the house.” Dreelix. “I was just “Beats me,” said Buntleby. “I “That’s fine. Why’d you build the about to adjourn! haven’t the foggiest idea what lab so far away from the house, You must learn to the thing is. I was hoping maybe though? Seems a bit inconvenient.” be a bit more punc- Willowquisp could tell us.” “It’s, uh, safer that way,” Zantoullios tual if you wish to Willowquisp the Zoophile, an elderly admitted. “I’ve had to rebuild the lab continue in this prestigious . guh! sage with a fondness for all of three times now after things . kind of By the gods! What is that smell?” nature’s creatures—even the silly got out of hand, but the house has Dreelix wasn’t the only one to ones—squinted over at his friend. managed to avoid any damage so far. notice. All around the room, the col- “Why, bless my soul!” he said. “That Willowquisp? Spontayne? Some lected wizards and sages that made looks like a flumph!” Spontayne nod- brandy? No? Suit yourselves. So, is up the Monster Hunters Association ded his head in agreement. that the beast?” were getting a good whiff of the “It attacked one of my osquips,” Buntleby took the beaker and stench that Buntleby seemed to have Buntleby said. “I managed to capture placed his sack on the worktable. It brought into the meeting hall with it, but not before it squirted some foul- shifted and wiggled around as the him. Throughout the room, nostrils smelling gunk all over me. It seems flumph inside it tried vainly to escape. flared and noses wrinkled in disgust. harmless enough now, but it has “Thanks,” he said to his host. “So, Lady Ablasta raised a perfumed hand- some unusual properties, and I where should we start?” kerchief to her nose and pretended thought maybe the Association might Willowquisp cleared his throat. not to notice as others administered want to study it.” “Spontayne and I have been reading 76 APRIL 1998 DRAGON #246 77 up on it, and you’re right: there are “Anyway,” continued Buntleby, “Yes, that’s mentioned in my book,” some rather interesting features about “there was a butterfly net at the side noted Willowquisp. “So then what?” the creature. Why don’t you start by of the house, so I grabbed it up think- “Well, I fixed Squinty up as best as I telling us how you came across it?” ing to capture the creature for study. could—poured a potion of healing down Buntleby sipped his brandy and Meanwhile, Squinty was running his throat, you know, the cherry- began his tale. “Well, I had just walked around in a panic at my feet, and in all flavored kind he likes. His back was out the door and was on my way to of the confusion, I sort of...” He scarred from the flumph’s attack,5 but the meeting hall when I heard a winced in memory of the event, and the potion healed him up okay. So I squeal from the direction of the stopped talking. threw the flumph into an old potato osquip pen around back. I dashed to “Tripped over him?” guessed sack and raced to make it to the meet- the back and found the flumph Willowquisp. ing in time. I guess that’s about it.” perched atop one of my osquips- “Stepped on him, actually,” admit- “So what prompted you to bring Squinty—with its tentacles wrapped ted Buntleby. “On his head.” the creature to the Association for around his body to hold it in place. I “Oof!” said Willowquisp. “Is he study?” asked Willowquisp. ran forward to pull the thing off, when okay?” “Well, I figured there’s got to be it spotted me with its eyestalks.¹ It Buntleby grimaced. “He bit his something we can make out of it. immediately let go of Squinty and tongue.” Zantoullios?” rose up into the air. I saw its base “That’s not so bad,” pointed out “Well, you’ve got our procedures swivel slightly,² and before I knew it, I Spontayne. backward: usually, we come across a was being sprayed with this liquid “Off,” added Buntleby. “You know formula for a new spell or a magical that—well, you all got a whiff of it, and what their teeth are like?” Item, find out what strange body that was after it had worn off a bit.³” “Poor thing.” parts we need, and then plan a Hunt “It stunk even worse than Grindle’s “Getting back to the flumph...” accordingly. patented garlic and onion stew!” sug- suggested Willowquisp. But still, we’ll see what we can gested Zantoullios. “Oh, right. Well, stepping on Squinty come up with. Hmm, hovering: potions put my swing a little off. I twisted my of levitation, perhaps, or spell ankle and went plummeting to the components for levitate, or possibly ground, but on the way down I gave reverse gravity spells...” he muttered to the net a wild swing at the flumph. I hit himself, his mind already examining him on one side, but as it turned out the possibilities. “Acid secretions: ten- this was a lucky break, because tacles might be useful in oil of acid instead of catching him in the net I resistance, possibly tie it in somehow flipped the creature over in mid-air, with a MeIf's acid arrow spell? Maybe. and it crashed to the ground on its Smelly squirting liquid: stinking cloud back. It seems to be helpless when its spell components, perhaps . I’ll have upside-down.”4 to check my formulae.”6 He 1. A flumph’s eyestalks can move indepen- 3. A flumph’s defensive spray squirts out in a into the wounds by means of its tentacles. Each dently of one another, giving it a wide field of 60° arc from its “front,” with a range of 20 feet. tentacle is hollow, much like an elephants trunk, vision. As the creatures are nocturnal, flumphs The liquid is extremely foul-smelling, something and is highly flexible. While some tentacles have infravision to a range of 60 feet. They have of a unappealing melange of skunk musk, rotting entwine around the prey in an effort to hold it no eyelids and so cannot close their eyes, even cabbages, and the unwashed armpits of a still, others secrete acid, causing an additional during sleep. For this reason, they are seldom sweaty, overweight orc. The stench causes those 1d4 hp damage for the next 2d4 rounds. The surprised in visually-oriented situations. (For struck to save vs. poison or be unable to attack acid is produced in the flumph’s lower body cav- example, it would be difficult to walk up to one for 2-5 rounds due to extreme nausea and dizzi- ity; anyone piercing a flumph’s underside (AC 8) without it being aware of the approach.) On the ness.

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