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Once there was a witch named Hiddlebid Small who lived in an enchanted forest. She was made fun of by the other witches because her spells didn't work right, and lived alone. Worst, she was short! Very very short. She was barely two feet high, because of a shrinking spell that had backfired. She'd never been able to undo it, and the forest was full of monsters and magical creatures and very dangerous for anyone so small.

Hiddlebid wanted more than anything in the world to break the spell. So one morning she set out to do just that.

She knew she could go to the unicorns, but they would make her give up her witch powers for good and join the church.

She could go to the Wizard Dibinin, but he was old and ugly and would want to marry her in exchange for help.

Finally she realized that being small and bad at magic wouldn't be a problem if she could find other people who were smaller, and worse at magic.

Deciding what to do, she then started packing and preparing to leave her cave for the long journey.

(Pick one and I'll write the next part.)

Oh, sure, I guess we can do this.

The wizard seems too risky, and while I like the reasoning behind choice three, being short and casting spells that backfire disastrously still sucks. In fact since this magic seems to only cause problems, I vote for the unicorns.

They can't MAKE us join their church, but we will graciously look at their pamphlets.

I'd rather go with the unicorns. I don't wanna get married. I'm afraid of commitments. But then being on a church means I have to worship some unicorn god. Fuck. I guess I'll just stay small and be bad at magic. Maybe one day I will suddenly have the urge to cast some explosion spell and have it backfire on me and just straight up kill myself. I'd be free of problems then.

So... yeah, I choose option 3.

No one like ugly old people, so that choice doesn't look good. Giving up powers doesn't seem like a good option, as then the other witches would really make fun of her! And finding others and making fun of them doesn't seem like a very good way to go, either.

Since the wizard seems like he's got the powers, I vote we head to him and see if we can talk him into helping without that whole marriage thing...

If we join forces with the unicorns we can probably get them to kill the other witches. They seem very anti-witch, AND have ways of dispelling magic. And they each wield four mace-class weapons have a bayonet attached to their head. Never bet against the unicorn.

That certainly sounds promising, but your plan depends on the unicorns cooperating with others and you KNOW how independent and introverted unicorns can be!

Hmm. I suggest that we go to the wizard, and threaten to rat him out to the anti-magic unicorns if he doesn't help us out for free. Even if they're nonviolent, presumably the unicorns have the power to set up a trade embargo.

I say go the wizard. Marry him, get his help, then push the old shit down the stairs. Problem solved plus she then gets to inherit all his stuff so bonus!

Go with the unicorns. Maybe we can learn clerical magic instead.

Plus we can pose for erotic fantasy paintings with the Unicorns and sell them to the horny old ugly dude.

Unicorns. If we're bad enough at spells to permanently make ourselves two feet tall, we probably shouldn't be trusted with magic anyway.

So it's three for the wizard and three for the unicorns? Somebody give this poor kid a tie breaker.

I bet the unicorn god just wants sacrifices of grass and all the tastiest flowers, really doesn't sound too demanding at all compared to some withered old creep that wants you to touch his magic wand.

And we can't just assume we can easily steal his spell books and push him off his tower, I don't think you make it to old age as a wizard without contingencies for thieves and assassins.

I vote for unicorns. Just imagine the potential for killing that that magical horn has.

Who moved my thread? :( I could barely find it.

But Hiddlebid decides to go to the unicorns, even if it means giving up her powers. She knows that they're Good creatures and that after that they'll be sworn to protect her from the other witches.

She considers whether she could get the unicorns to KILL the other witches, but that's too far ahead to think about.

Hiddlebid can't take very much with her on the journey because all her things were from when she was normal sized. She can barely even lift her broom, and the potions are like big glass jugs.

"Drinking a potion for a full sized person would probably kill me" she muses to herself. "Better leave it alone."

So she ties up some sandwiches and beef jerky in a handkerchief and then goes to her drawer of magic items, climbing on a footstool to get to it. Inside she has a lightning wand, a water wand, and a fire wand. All of her enchanted rings are too big for her fingers, but she has a carved witchwood chain and realizes she can put one of the rings on it and wear it as a necklace. There's a ring that protects from arrows, a ring that causes the plague, a ring that will turn her invisible, a ring that will protect from drowning or falling, and a ring that will turn a pumpkin into a carriage and mice into horses.


Pick one wand and one ring.

I moved it. 

If she's so small she can't take much and can't even ride the broom, I'm taking the water wand so she can create water on her long journey, and a ring that will turn her invisible so she can avoid the baddies while small.

Water wand does sound useful. Since there is no ring of protection from normal carrots, I say go with ye old invisibility.

Lightning wand and plague ring. The forest should fear us, not the other way around. This is the last chance we have to go hog wild abusing our powers!

Fire wand and invisibility ring.

Water wand is the least dangerous and then the ring to protect us from drowning because we suck enough to drown ourselves with our own water I bet.

Lightning and invisibility seems like the winner's combo. Lightning will kill the people you want like a plague will, and it basically does the job of two wands by being its own element in addition to being great at causing fires. The Invisibility ring likewise has its own many, many uses, but it also somewhat negates the need for an arrow protection necklace because you become impossible to shoot at directly.

I agree with Killa. Water wand and Drowning/falling ring seems to be the most natural combo.

I say lightning wand and invisibility ring. This way, we can pretend to be god and get free stuff.

I'd say the ring that protects from drowning or falling might be her best choice. Due to her tiny size the risk of falling from what we would consider a not so great height could mean a serious injury. Plus as Killa points out it would offer her protection from the water wand considering she sucks at magic.

Wand wise I'd go with water. While it does seem the least helpful it's the only one a ring offers some protection against, and we know her spells don't work as planned she's likely to kill herself with the others.

I'd pick the water wand, simply because I could pair it with a necklace that could protect me from drowning. My magic never works as intended most of the time, so I wouldn't choose the lightning and fire ones because I don't want to end up toasting myself.

Hiddlebid takes the water wand and the invisibility ring, thinking ahead to how they could booth be useful.

Tying her handkerchief to the end of a stick, she picks up another one she's carved down to be a walking stick and bids her cat Emily a sad goodbye, leaving her some of the extra beef jerky she didn't pack. (It's a cave so Emily can go outside and hunt if she's gone too long, and there's a pool of water in the back.)

Hiddlebid begins walking. She has to walk for a very long time to get anywhere because she's so short, and soon her legs get tired. But she's made progress and is in a part of the woods she hasn't visited at all since she became small. Sitting down to eat, she eats a sandwich and takes out a teacup to drink some water from a stream.

While she's there she notices a few big fat bees also drinking water and carefully avoids them, though she notices to her dismay they fly away along the path she'll be traveling.

Sure enough, when she continues she soon hears a loud buzzing overhead, and sees that in the last two years the bees have moved into the trees here, hanging several hives from the branches. Mouth watering amber honey drips down.

She watches them from a distance and sees something odd: there flashes of sunlight like against something metal. That's when she realizes these are a magically enhanced species of bees created by the Wizard Dibinin. They must have escaped and built this colony in this area of the forest. The wizard is infamous for his sweet tooth and made the bees to make more honey and do a better job protecting it....instead of regular stingers they have longer stingers made of steel.

Hiddlebid wrings her hands and mutters to herself in worry, trying to decide whether to sneak past the bees and how she will do it, or if she would walk a longer way to the unicorn valley, through hills that are prowled by wolves.

Well, bees can smell, but so can wolves. So either way we go, being invisible won't completely hide us from the predators. However, wolves are more likely to eat us just because they can, while bees, even if they do detect us, are more likely to be too busy (as a bee) to bother with us. It's also slightly more likely that we can use the wand to douse any curious bees before they get too close, ensuring we can get past. So let's just try and sneak past the bees with the water wand at the ready!

Would protection from arrows have worked against metal stingers?

And this seems like a perfect set up for using the fire wand for pilfering some of that sweet, sweet honey. Oh well.

Invisibility might be all we need, with water defense if they become aggressive. But we're small and traveling on the ground, they shouldn't feel that threatened as long as we don't make any loud noises or disturb the hives.

Yeah, if Hiddlebid's spells don't work right, she should probably hold off on using the wand. Turn invisible and continue down the path. She should be ready to create a torrent of water to wash herself away down the path in case the bees attack. I don't think she should fight them under any circumstances lest she face Dibinin's wrath.

Use the ring and just walk through. We don't need the honey yet...

We should probably just walk through invisibly, maybe after taking some steps to disguise our scent.

Turn invisible and carry on forward.

Can we walk back to our house and get the fire wand? Now that these bees are in the wild they'll out compete any natural bees and wipe them out, they could destroy the forest's entire ecosystem.

"Oh no, the ecosystem!"

Cried the short little witch, scurrying back towards her hut.

Hiddlebid uses the invisibility ring and sneaks past the bees, easy peasy.

There is one tense moment as a bee lands on her water wand and a stream of water SHOOTS out and smashes the bee to smithereens against a tree trunk. The bees all gather around the trees and buzz angrily, but they don't come to the conclusion it was an invisible witch.

Hiddlebid climbs a couple of hills to get as far away as possible. From the top of one she sees a campfire in the distance. It's starting to get dark so she decides to go towards it to see if they're friendly.

She finds a man in chainmail armor and a woman in flowing green robes and a wreath of leaves. Taking off her ring, she calls, "Hello!" and walks up to the fire.

"It's a goblin girl!" The man exclaims. Hiddlebid realizes he must have seen her green skin and small size and jumped to conclusions.

"Um, actually I'm a w...."

"What a relief it's a friendly goblin from the nearby tribe, when I saw the pointy hat I thought it was one of those horribley evil witches and I almost grabbed my staff to prepare an attack spell!" the woman says with a sigh of relief.

Hiddlebid coughed and nodded to them. "That is correct, I am a goblin."

She soon learns their names are Sir Rodger and Serena, and that they're traveling in the direction she just came from. She warns them about the bees.

"Ugh, that Wizard was so irresponsible, those bees will out compete the natural ones and destroy the evosystem." Serena says angrily. "I HATE wizards almost as much as I hate witches!"

"It's alright Serena, I packed extra torches and you know your calming songs, we'll take care of those bees and get some honey to trade besides." Rodger reassures her.

They both thank Hiddlebid for the information and offer to let her eat their stew and stay with them for the night, an offer she gladly accepts. She finds out they've traveled all around the area she's heading towards and know all kinds of useful things.

Before they go to sleep, she has a chance to talk to them about three topics. What will those be?

1) Find out more about this goblin tribe.
2) See if they can give exact directions to the unicorns and tell us of any dangers on the way.
3) Give them the names and addresses of every witch we know.

I second finding out more about this goblin tribe.

 

However, I also propose attempting to convince them to devote resources to finding out how to find and subjugate the giant bee queen. Like most herd animals, once the leader is docile, the rest should follow. This will allow the goblins to see if they can eat these bees and/or ride them into battle, because when they are agricultural beasts, much more will eventually be known about them and it will be easier to control their population at levels sustainable for the ecosystem in the long term.

 

Find out as much as we can about the witches and wizards that have wronged the goblins before.

1. Ask Sir Rodger how much money he makes.

2. Ask Serena how old she is.

3. Accuse Serena of being a witch since she claims to be able to cast spells. If she objects and says she's a mage or some such thing, just keep screaming "Witch!" at her.

1. Ask them more about the goblins, strategies, locations, she can claim she's lost her tribe and is trying to find them.
2. Ask them if they've seen any unicorn poop, tracks, or Skittles. Or anything else that might indicate where unicorns might be found these days.
3. Explain that you have a scale, and a duck, and that you're well aware of the significance of weighing the same as a duck, so she better watch herself carefully what she says next.

1> Find out more about that goblin tribe.
2> See if they can give precise directions to the unicorns and tell us of any dangers on the way.
3> Give them the names and locations of every witch we know.

(No plagiarism here. Move along, move along...).

YES, death to bees!.l

...Serena? *thinking*

1. Ask about the magic Serena uses.
2. Ask if she can teach it to you.
3. Ask if you can travel with them.

This is why you never trust a dwarf in drag.