The Misadventures of a Frog-faced Wizard

My Friend the Bone Bender

The walk didn't take long. Slither dropped me off later that same morning and bade me farewell, but not without first giving me a tub of growing ointment his sister had prepared for me. At this stage, I was beginning to feel somewhat encumbered by the journal on my back so I was glad to have the ointment so that I might get bigger and stronger, but as I held it in my slimy palms, hunched over on my webbed feet, I realised that I had taken one step forward and one step back. It would still be some time before I was strong enough to carry a satchel in which my inventory could rest, and therefore I knew I would not yet be truly comfortable for some time.

The dwelling place of the Bone Bender was not at all like that of the siblings. To begin with, it was much smaller; just less than half the size of the place I had just come from but moreover, it was horrid to behold. The place seemed to only be a cottage for want of a better word, it was to my eye a mere pile of sticks and stones layered haphazardly over one another to create the rudimentary shape of a tepee or perhaps wigwam. There was a large opening at the front, almost as tall and as wide as the house itself which, shaded by the shadow of a massive oak, was cloaked in a darkness my eyes could not penetrate.

Cautiously I trudged forward and stopped in the opening of the loathsome dwelling, wreathed in the shadow cast by the tree above and called out into the darkness for aid. After a beat, the slow sound of footsteps came towards me and a figure emerged. The bone bender was smaller than my previous hosts by a large margin but he still dwarfed me considerably and was all the more menacing for the grotesque manner in which he held himself. He was goblinoid, and he walked with a limp and a hunched back. He was clad in tattered and unwashed grey rags with a loose hood pulled up. Supporting most of his weight on a large cane he held in his left hand, he hobbled towards me and stopped, looking down. His piercing yellow eyes penetrated my very soul in a way that was anything but kind.

He didn't speak right away, instead examining me with all the curiosity of a child at a science fair; he was curious about me and meant to size me up before making acquaintances. I sensed that it would be wise not to interrupt him while he watched, so I swallowed and bore it.

Eventually, he asked me what my purpose was, and I told him. I said my name, I explained that despite appearances I was not a frog, but a transformed human, and that the siblings Slither and Tóth had recommended him as the person to see about reversing the damage that had been done to me. He gazed at me for a moment longer and then smiled. Turning from me, he gestured for me to follow and, together we descended a steep and immediate spiral staircase.

After a few hops downward, I realised the dwelling was much more vast than its exterior would have had me believe. Beneath the surface of the forest in which the wigwam was built, there was a cellar almost twice the breadth of the cottage where I had previously stayed. It was less than half as nice. Here and there about the room were chairs and desks littered with all manner of arcane implements. There wasn't a surface visible that wasn't overridden with loose papers, transmogrified bones, burning candles and bubbling water pipes. In the centre of the room was a somewhat larger table that clearly doubled as a study as well as a dining space for on it were three large tomes opened at the spine and a half-finished bowl of cold gruel.

It was on this table that the Bone Bender bade me jump up. I did so, landing next to a serpent's skull that had been mutated almost beyond recognition and that now had thee eye sockets and a single tusk in addition to its original fangs. The bone bender took another look at me, placing on his upturned snout a pair of thick double lensed spectacles that he tinkered with as he looked closer at me. From the periphery of his vision, he took a quill and began to scrawl some notes onto a piece of parchment without looking. I elected once again not to question him, concluding on my own that he wanted to be as thorough as possible in the examination of me before making a move to alter my physical state. As uncomfortable as the whole ordeal was, I was grateful for the care with which my new patrol regarded me; thankful that he was at least eager to understand what he was doing before he did it. As impatient as I felt at the time, I'd much rather he take the time he needed and complete the operation correctly than rush in blind and make it up as he went.