“The old scroll!
“The old scroll! S’no good anyway.”
And so saying, the dwarf hopped across the room, limbs still entwined. He flung himself upon the wizard’s sack, feverishly scrabbling through its contents. At length he emerged, clutching in his hand an old and much-worn scroll entitled On the Transmutation of Base Elements Into Gold.
“Master’ll never miss’t—s’tried it dozens a times, s’never worked.” And not a moment too soon did the apprentice spread the scroll upon the floor and attend to his urgent business.
There did Shelyid squat for a time, staring placidly at the opposite wall. Eventually finished with his work, the dwarf rose and buckled his breeches. Then, turning and stooping over, he prepared to pick up the scroll and its contents and hurl them through the window onto the street below, this method of waste disposal being de riguer throughout Grotum. But he was of a sudden transfixed. For imagine his astonishment when he perceived that, where should have lain certain objects the precise nature of which we will delicately leave to the gentle reader’s understanding, lay instead—mirabile dictu!—several large and oddly shaped ingots of gold.
And it was at this very moment that the wizard returned to the room. It required a full ten minutes for Zulkeh to decipher Shelyid’s ensuing babble, following which
And so saying, the dwarf hopped across the room, limbs still entwined. He flung himself upon the wizard’s sack, feverishly scrabbling through its contents. At length he emerged, clutching in his hand an old and much-worn scroll entitled On the Transmutation of Base Elements Into Gold.
“Master’ll never miss’t—s’tried it dozens a times, s’never worked.” And not a moment too soon did the apprentice spread the scroll upon the floor and attend to his urgent business.
There did Shelyid squat for a time, staring placidly at the opposite wall. Eventually finished with his work, the dwarf rose and buckled his breeches. Then, turning and stooping over, he prepared to pick up the scroll and its contents and hurl them through the window onto the street below, this method of waste disposal being de riguer throughout Grotum. But he was of a sudden transfixed. For imagine his astonishment when he perceived that, where should have lain certain objects the precise nature of which we will delicately leave to the gentle reader’s understanding, lay instead—mirabile dictu!—several large and oddly shaped ingots of gold.
And it was at this very moment that the wizard returned to the room. It required a full ten minutes for Zulkeh to decipher Shelyid’s ensuing babble, following which