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Blog Post 66: The Adventure Shop: Part 33

2/13/25

“Where are you going?” Ronny asked his silent companion. “We have been walking for hours, and I am not seeing anyone!” Greeny, as he now was known by and quite liked to be called, jiggled his response to his impatient companion.

“I know you want to follow them, but how do you know where to go?” Ronny looked around as they passed a blue person. Then a pink person. A few yellow, red, green, and purple. Some with more sparkles than others. And a few gelatinous cubes wandered about, seeming to be assisting in cleaning, moving objects and various things, and just ambling around the town. 

Ronny thought at that moment that maybe Greeny had a point. This looked like the work of the shopkeeper. He should know since he set off enough of her traps on others and his fellow adventurers. 

Greeny wiggled, telling him to go to the shop he was indicating. Ronny wasn’t sure what hour he started to understand his companion, but they soon seemed to be conversing. In their own, very odd, way.

“Hey! You! Are you an adventurer?” A multicolored guard asked. The closer she got, the shinier she became. Very much covered in sparkles. 

“And if I am, what do you care? I could be a merchant,” he responded as Greeny wiggled a warning to behave.

“Not if you are traveling with that thing. Are you an accomplice of the notorious criminal known as the Shopkeeper?”

“Who? A criminal? I don’t know who that is. I am looking for some friends. That’s why I am here.”

“Alright. Well, I’ve heard enough. Take him.” The guard motioned to her companions.

Ronny felt the guards’ hands on him before he saw them and looked up at two very hairless men. 

“What happened to you two?” he asked, realizing asking at this timeframe was probably not the smartest thing he had done today. Greeny shook in a way to reprimand him for speaking without thinking. You would think that the cube would be the less intelligent of the two, but apparently not. 

“A cube–like your friend there–ate off all our hair and clothes. Spit us out like we were newborn babies.” The guard holding him shivered as he recalled the memory, and his expression was one of horror. “I have never felt so sticky and yet smooth in all my life. It was an experience I would never want anyone to go through.”

“You don’t leave your town much, do ya?” Ronny asked looking up at them as the other scowled. 

“Enough. Take him to the dungeon. We will find out what he knows there,” the woman said as she began to walk ahead of them. As Ronny was being taken away, he looked back at Greeny, who wiggled his goodbye before trying to fit himself into the shop he was originally trying to enter. 

“So you are just going to leave me then?” Ronny yelled as Greeny slowly squished himself through while covering the things around him in goop. “Well, thanks for the great friendship, pal!” Greeny wiggled, jiggled, and shook with something that Ronny wasn’t quite sure what, since parts of Greeny lay over various products the shopkeeper had out.

Ronny sighed. Every adventurer got arrested at least once, right? It was normal to experience it in towns, and he should be alright. If the others got arrested, it shouldn’t be a problem, right?

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Wrong! He had been so wrong! 

Once he got there, the guards had taken everything and inspected it. They were very cautious of the undeveloped cubes and other useful tools Dahlia had supplied him with when they first met. They searched him and locked him in a cell, but he wasn’t just in a cell. No! His hands were cuffed on the other side of the bars so he had no choice but to stand. 

He would not be able to find a way out, and after seeing the disarray the local prison was in, it was no wonder they did not take kindly to someone trying to break free. Ronny sighed as he looked up at the very high window that would be too high for anyone to climb out of, let alone reach. The sun was starting to set, and it was becoming nightfall. He was alone. A new adventurer and his only companion ditched him. Aster would think of him as a disappointment. Shaking his head, he tried to sit to rest his feet, but that did not work with the height of where his wrists were cuffed. 

He stood and tried to rest his head against the bar when he slipped and hit his head with a bang. “Why? Why did I ever stop being a merchant? They make money, they know people, and for the most part, they are not arrested. Not if they are smart. And I told my dad I wanted to be someone different. I didn’t want to be a merchant because I didn’t want to be stuck behind a desk.” He began to shout, “Well, look at me now Dad! I am stuck behind bars! I am the worst adventurer and have no one who wants to travel with me! Not even a cube made of a gelatinous mass wants to travel with me! Maybe he is smarter! He was smart enough to leave me.” He sighed as he leaned on the bars. “I swear to whoever is listening that I will not pull another prank, cause mischief or mayhem on any of my companions if someone will rescue me!” 

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“What are you doing to my shop?” the woman shouted at Greeny as herbs and all sorts of things stuck inside him. Greeny moved the best he could to get his point across. 

“Are you trying to talk to me?” she asked as she looked at all the green goop that left a trail to the green, former cube in front of her. Greeny wiggled again, and the woman looked at him. “One moment, big guy. Let me see if I can make something to help us talk.”

Greeny waited as he watched the woman pull different things off her shelves and then she pulled a little bit of his goop into the mixture. 

“Alright. This won’t taste good, but it will help! Here,” she said, holding it out as Greeny tried to wiggle forward. “Oh, right,” she said lightly tossing the concoction instead as Greeny caught it. He shook violently with the awful taste and the very odd way it made him feel. 

Slowly, he felt his slime form appendages like his friends. He stood before her like a green humanoid-being of gelatin.

“How?” he tried to wiggle, but felt and heard a voice that sounded like how he thought he should sound. “I have a voice?” 

“Yes, Dahlia is good at coming up with tricks. I like to experiment too, just a little differently. What I have given you is a mimic potion. Your gelatin form will now be able to reconstruct itself into a few different shapes and forms. Much like Dahlia chose squares for the original form, I added a few to mine, and a voice modification spell. Essentially, altering what Dahlia originally designed you to be!” Miran explained as she looked over her work. 

Greeny looked over his body and thought of how he wanted to change, but the gel only began to drip down.

“It will take time to learn how to control your ability to shift the gelatin in your, let’s say, body. Until then you can stay here,” Miran said as she began to scoop up the gelatin around her shop into a bucket and clean all the items that had the goop attached. 

Greeny turned around and moved his new arm up and down, down and up. Testing the motion when Miran asked, “So what are you doing here, cube? Do you have a name?”

“Dahlia called me Greeny. Everyone called me that afterward. And I am here looking for her. I felt her presence here.” 

“Her presence?”

“Yes,” Greeny walked closer to a shelf and picked up a bottle. Shaking the contents he looked at Miran before popping off the top and dropping a couple of leaves of the bottle’s contents into his hands. It dissolved and he shook. “Yuck. What was that?”

“Tea leaves. And I suggest you ask before adding anything to your system. You cubes are not completely invulnerable. You must be careful.”

“I like Dahlia’s brew. That is my favorite,” he noted as he looked over other bottles.

“What did you mean when you can feel her presence?” Miran asked again, and she walked back through her shop to the counter before plopping the bucket on the counter.

“I think it is how she made me. That and the wizard and Ronny. He is my friend. He is in jail. For now. Dahlia made me and a few others like me different. We are protectors. The few of us who are green. Our purpose was for evasion. I was set out as a prank. I took in some of the wizard’s magic. And Dahlia gave me her brew. I liked her so I stayed and helped. I stayed to protect her. Over time I started to know where she was in the shop so I could wait for more brew. I like her brew. She knew where I was too. I think she put something in the brew to keep track of me so I wouldn’t bother her neighbors, but eventually, I felt where she was too. That is how I saved her from the fire. And now I am trying to find her. She was here, and you are her friend.”

Miran smiled. “I was wondering what the different colors meant.”

“I am not sure about all of them, but I know what I am made for.” He held up another bottle. “Can I have this?” 

“Bring it here.” He brought her the container of dark powder and Miran took it in her hands. Greeny watched as she took some hot water and placed it in a container, or cup, as he heard Dahlia call it. She placed a couple of spoonfuls of the dark powder, some white liquid, and a little scoop of sparkly white dust. 

After stirring it, she removed the spoon and handed it over. “Try this!” He sniffed the brew. It was hot, but he had tried hot food and drinks before. But this smelled different. 

Carefully he took a sip and he began to wiggle. “Oh! I like this! What is it called?”

“Hot chocolate.”

“Dahlia likes chocolate. She used to eat it while I ate the barrel and brew!” he recalled. “I like this. Can I have more?”

“Maybe after you finish what is in the cup, and before you do, please do not dissolve the mug. I got it as a gift and would like to keep it.” Greeny looked at the mug and was careful not to dissolve it as he tried to drink.

“So your friend is in prison?”

“Yes, Ronny is the one who helped me be awakened! I like Ronny, but he talks a lot and does not know how to stop. I think he says all his thoughts, but I don’t mind listening.” He took another drink and jiggled about as he looked around her shop in thought. “They didn’t like us. Well him. They thought they were with a criminal.”

“Ah, yes. Dahlia has quite the reputation here. After her prison break with her friends, the town is a little wary of anyone who might be a little different. I am working on that, but they have never been great with outsiders. I can see what I can do to help.”

“That is good! Because I want to show Ronny hot chocolate too! And then we need to go find Dahlia.”

“Alright, Greeny. Let’s find a way to convince them to let your friend out of prison!”

Greeny looked between Miran and his empty mug. “Can I have some more hot chocolate now?”