In great laughter, wonder, loss, and grief it is there—water at the corner of eye.

—Archdruid Naqua of Tellwood

Dungeon delvers discover that an abandoned alchemist’s lab has one remaining assistant in today’s elementally imbued scene.

The Forgotten Assistant

Your footsteps echo off the crude stone walls as you proceed down the corridor. Here and there strange fungus grows, and everywhere you hear the persistent drip of water striking stone. Rounding a corner, you find the floor littered with broken bits of clay and glass. Ahead, at the edge of your vision, a wooden door stands slightly ajar along the right-hand wall. A faint bubbling noise can be heard emanating from the room beyond.

The door leads to the abandoned lab of Reevus Gormlock, a less than ethical alchemist and potion maker who fled when the denizens of the dungeons grew too dangerous. Read the following when the party looks into the lab for the first time:

Beyond the door is a 40-ft. square room that looks to have once hosted a laboratory. A long wooden work table runs the length of the far wall; the legs have been knocked out on one end and the table’s contents have slid to the floor. The walls are pasted with hasty notes and recipes for concoctions and elixirs of suspect efficacy. The most interesting feature of the room is a series of connected glass tubes and containers that connect with one another in a chaotic fashion. The tubing is still full of liquid, and you are surprised to discover that it appears to propel itself through the glassy maze.

The tubing contains a trapped water elemental. Reevus used the elemental to mix and sort his alchemy, but failed to release the creature when he fled the lab. The following information is freely available to anyone investigating the glass tubing:

• The remaining liquid is a water elemental (splashing from one vessel to another excitedly, an aqueous face presses against the glass).
• It is trapped inside the glass tubing (the watery form moves about the room via the tubes, but cannot pass through a complicated looking series of valves and spouts).
• The tubing resists attacks (your blows have little effect on the tubing and your attacks are upsetting the creature inside).

Use the following information as the party determines how to react to the elemental’s situation:

• The glass tubing is magically hardened and requires two consecutive successful DC 25 Strength checks to break (with herculean effort, the tubing shatters and the elemental is released).
• The valves and spouts are extremely complicated. Opening them to allow the elemental to escape requires a DC 14 Intelligence/Knowledge check followed by a DC 13 Dexterity/Thievery check.
• Once freed. the elemental will attempt to seep away to its home plane. The adventurers may attack it before it does so. Its weakened condition gives it a disadvantage to all attacks (its attacks fall short and swing wide as it becomes apparent the creature has been injured by its time trapped in the lab).

If the party successfully frees the elemental and does not attack, read the following:

Seeping away through the stone floor, the elemental soon vanishes leaving only a small teardrop-shaped pearl.

The pearl is a minor magical treasure. Its possessor receives a +1 on any rolls to succeed at swimming.

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