STRIBEL WARTSWORTH (STEPPEN WILDROZ / HUMBLE BELLOWS)

Stribel Wartsworth, the father of Mildi and grandfather of Anesi, was always a wild one and a wanderer. He had once joined the Mithicus guild chapter. It had taken him only a short time to rise to a good office. When he realized his grandson, Anesi’s potential, Stribel was able to pull a few strings to get him accepted into Galepath University at a very young age. No one so young had ever been accepted before. The young boy attended for less than half a term before his father jerked him out (his story shall be told more in detail below).

After but half a term, Stribel resigned from his position and went his own way, swearing off guilds forever. Too much politics, he claimed, and too little fun. “You have to keep a sense of humor about this business or it eats you up,” he once said. He ended up becoming a wilder and a wanderer, never able to stay in one place or with one woman too long. He never made excuses for it, it was just the way he was. Mildi and Choboz never saw much of him; he was always off wandering somewhere. Then he left and no one ever saw him again. During those years, he got the name Steppen Wildroz (as well as many others). Wizards and the like changed their names all the time. One of the last women he ended up marrying was Letita Rhonda in New Mareilon, who would end up being the best of his ex-wives.

When he found an entrance to the ancient Great Underground Highway within the city, Stribel disguised it by building a little house for Letita over it with his own hands. It was when he was living with her, that Stribel first sensed that the Great Terror had gotten loose from Largoneth.

By that time the Great Terror’s influence was already spreading through the southern provinces of Miznia and Orexia, and one by one, even the greatest enchanters and wizards succumbed to a creeping fear. They crawled into their guildhalls and shuttered their windows and did nothing.

Because Stribel knew what was really happening, he did not succumb to the power of the Terror—it provided some sort of insulation. But he knew that he had to get out of the south and hide to bide time for himself. Thinking that the GUNCHO spell, the same spell that had been used to defeat the evil wizard Krill, could be used upon the Terror, he was determined to find it.

Since the Terror was sensitive to magicians, and magicians were sensitive to the Terror’s influence, he swore off all magic and disguised himself from all who knew him as a wizard. With the very best chameleon spells in the kingdom, he changed his looks into a small dwarf-like fellow, gave himself the alias of Humble Bellows, forced a new speech habit upon himself, and magically hid his cloak and spell book in the form of a Dimwit Flathead marionette with rubies for eyes and an ancient gold crown upon its head so that he could always have them near him without folks knowing. He fabricated a history about himself, in which he was once a prisoner in the marble mines of Antharia, having been sentenced there after being condemned as a criminal, having stolen a little bit here and there.

Stribel discovered from sources how the powerful wizard Dispoz had the GUNCHO spell in his library at Arbroneth. Stribel attempted several correspondences to Dispoz, offering to buy or trade for the scroll. But when each of these was refused, Stribel tried to break into Arbroneth to steal it. But without magic, he was not much of a burglar and Dispoz captured him in the act. Fortunately, Dispoz never suspected that Stribel was a wizard, or that it was his spells he was after. Every time that Dispoz inquired about magic, Stribel claimed that he knew next to nothing about the subject.

Stribel remained at Arbroneth until about 966 GUE, letting Dispoz think he was keeping him against his own will, attempting to run away twice in the course of about ten years, and letting him catch him. The wizard always brought Stribel back by magic. For Dispoz kept the GUNCHO spell under the magical equivalent of lock and key, and Stribel knew that if he just bided time, he would get a crack at finding it.

Besides, he was also relatively close to Anesi and Mildi who lived far north of Frobozz. He could almost feel Anesi sometimes. And he was close to Thriff, where he had friends like the Great Shuboz Shuboz, Guildmaster of the Thriff Chapter, who had also been keeping an eye on Anesi at his specific request.

Once Dispoz captured the dragon Chet and imprisoned him within the dungeons of Arbroneth, Stribel was enslaved with the task of caretaking the dragon, which included shoveling out its excrements every weekend.


DIFFERENT APPEARANCES
Towards the close of the age of magic, Stribel Wartsworth was a bearded man with iron gray hair and featured wrinkled with age. He was usually dressed in a black coat with many pockets.

In the form of Humble Bellows, he was a tiny little man in dark clothes and a blue cloak, standing no taller than four-feet, though he was plainly human. His head and trunk seemed the proper size, but his legs and feet and hands were much too small, and he waddled from side to side as he walked. Bellows moved more like a brogmoid than like a human, lurching from side to side on his short legs, constantly correcting and recorrecting his balance as the bag he carried over his shoulder shifted and rolled on his broad back. He walked with his head down, kind of bent over, and looked at no one, but watched instead the place where his next step would go, as if he feared stepping on something. A short black beard covered most of his craggy face, and black hair hung down to his shoulders. Even in the faint lamplight, his bulbous nose burned with an irritated redness, and his dark eyes glimmered suspiciously. He smiled with a mouthful of chipped yellow teeth.


DIMWIT FLATHEAD PUPPET
In the form of Humble Bellows, Stribel's coat was morphed into a shoulder bag, and the Dimwit Flathead puppet, which he carried everywhere, was his spellbook. This life-sized similacrum was horribly and ugly. The skin was shrunken around its face, and its hair hung in dark wisps like the smoke that exuded from the emerald lamp. It shook its head slowly as it regarded him, its eyes glowing red with penetrating, hypnotic gaze. Thick robes clothes its form and a crown balanced on its brow. They were real gold and real rubies.


STRIBEL'S ROLE IN THE CHRONICLES OF ANESI
About 966 GUE, Anesi and his companions, Fidget, Cubby the brogmoid, and Tyrillee the Dryad arrived at Arbroneth. Inside the entry hall, Stribel (still in the diguise of Humble Bellows) greeted them with his Dimwit Flathead marionette. Anesi cut the strings while Fidget beheaded it. Anesi did not recognize that this was his grandfather, nor did Stribel know it was him until the boy introduced himself. Stribel warned them to leave, as his master Dispoz was returning shortly.

Dispoz returned, but in fear, Anesi VAXUMed him. The master of the keep knew of the enchantment that he had been placed under, and was determined to get even when it wore off. Tyrillee slipped away to explore the keep where she found Chuck the dragon. This beast shook the entire foundations of the keep trying to break free from his chains.

As dusk began to fall, Stribel served the companions provisions, while Anesi and Dispoz chatted as friends. Another roaring shook the castle to its foundations, destroying even the bridge that connected its two towers. Dispoz took the opportunity to leave, with Anesi following after.

Stribel knew that it took magic to fight magic. Since Dispoz looked like he was about to have his hands full with the dragon, Stribel believed now was a prime opportunity to combat the sorcerer. He only needed a spell, and Anesi was the only one who had any on hand; plus he did not have much faith in the boy. He did not figure that Anesi was prepared to fight either Dispoz or the dragon. He figured if he grabbed Anesi’s book and took off running, that Anesi would come after him trying to get it back instead of putting himself in danger. Thus Stribel assaulted Anesi and tried to rob him of his spellbook. The young enchanter wrestled with the little man until he tripped over his own Dimwit puppet. When Anesi conked him on the noggin, it knocked some sense into him. Stribel led Anesi to the south tower, then down to an underground place between both towers. After the two tumbled down the steps, Anesi landed and Stribel was not in sight.

While the companions fought against Dispoz to free Chuck, Stribel knew that his master's spells were weakened or completely dissipated, including the ward on his library door. This gave him the opportunity to steal the GUNCHO spell, along with RADNOG and YONK, before escaping Arbroneth. Even though Anesi was his grandson, Stribel knew that he could not yet reveal his identity or magical power, lest if Anesi were to slide over to the Terror’s side, he would be uncovered and his scheme of using GUNCHO foiled.

After Anesi and his friends had escaped Arbroneth, and Chuck had defeated Dispoz, Stribel met with them again and gifted Anesi with the RADNOG and YONK scrolls. Chuck landed before them. It was only because of Anesi’s NITFOL that they were able to converse with the friendly creature. The dragon flew everyone south to old Mareilon, then departed.

After scouting the ruins of Mareilon, the companions find a building to rest in for the night. During the night, Tyrille, having been overly queasy at being in a structure made of dead wood, fled from the building to sleep inside a living tree beyond the walls of the city. The others awoke to a scratching sound from outside as a grue broke down the door to the room. Cubby wrestled with the intruder, but was easily tossed back. A second grue joined the array. With a FROTZed stone, Stribel warded off the grues. Though the rest of the pack of devilish beasts howled from outside for the rest of the night, none of them dared attempt to enter. Anesi could feel the Great Terror’s fear from Mareilon.

At dawn, Tyrillee returned to them once the grues had departed. The influence of the Great Terror had been so intense here, that the grues were no longer feared normal daylight, though they still keep to the shadows from where they tossed rocks in hope that their victims would flee into a dark building. Anesi’s right thigh was injured from the barrage. To counter the grue attacks, one grue found himself FROTZed, while another VAXUMed grue became of assistance, pummeling the other grues with rocks. Even the huge grue that dared to come out into the sunlight found itself IZYUKed. Outside the city, Stribel bandaged Anesi’s leg.

The civilians of the new Mareilon did not greet them in a friendly manner. Everyone was paranoid of them. The party entered the Elvenhome Bar and Grill where the owner Letitia Rhonda waited on them. She recognized Stribel, but was initially silent about them as he did his best to ignore her as though they had never met before. While being waited on, a brawl broke out between the party and a group of miners at the inn when they wanted to teach Cubby a lesson. When one of the miner’s swords struck into her new counter, she joined in, flinging dishes in her anger at anything that moved. Against better discretion, Anesi VAXUMed everyone in the room in an attempt to cease the brawl. But this spell was one too many—the Servants of the Terror sensed his use of magic and came for him.

The Servants, in the forms of giant nabiz, were too large to enter the inn, but instead shook its foundations with tremendous blows as one of the creatures widened its jaw to the height of the structure and to consume the entire thing. Everyone within escaped through the back kitchen door into the alley. Two of the Servants demolished the tavern, smashing down the walls on three sides, while great swaths of wreckage marked the passage of the other four through the city. To destroy the nabiz within the city, Anesi casted RADNOG on the inn, defeating two of the Servants with the massive five. But the hungry flames spread to the next building and the next, until the entire city was aflame.

Letitia Rhonda led the group to her home, where she led them to a trapdoor in her bedroom closet. Anesi, Fidget, Cubby, Tyrillee, and Stribel descended the ladder into the Great Underground Highway. Letitia Rhonda stayed behind to quickly gather her belongs; she intended to leave the city by another route. At the highway exit, they emerged at the ruins of Dolo Finis, the old capital of Miznia, encroached by massive amounts of vegetation.

Their arrival was greeted by a swarm of the carnivorous spiderflowers that drifted down on the wind. Anesi REZROVed the door of a ruined estate in an attempt to escape them, but found that its roof was open and the spiderflowers descended within, and formed a web. This was the first attempt of the Terror to force Anesi into wasting his stored spells. The young enchanter destroyed them with RADNOG, then they fled into a courtyard. The portcullis fell down behind them, trapping them in as snakes poured out from the well. Anesi IZYUKed to the wheelhouse high above to reopen the portcullis. To return to lower grounds, it was necessary for him to memorize additional spells. When he took out his spellbook, a savage downdraft knocked him down.

The four surviving Servants of the Terror, now in bird form, surrounded Anesi. In order to tempt Anesi, the Great Terror tried to frighten Anesi into serving him. At that moment, Chuck and nearly twenty other of his dragon friends arrived to fight against the Servants of the Terror. The dragons were able to defeat the four, but the Terror continued to fight on, seizing Anesi by the throat. Still assuming the form of Choboz, though a charred and blackened image, the Terror tried to instill fear into Anesi. The young man stabbed the being in the wrist with a small dagger. The Terror let Anesi go while the others assaulted the demon.

It was then that Stribel Wartsworth revealed his true appearance, transforming from the dwarf-like Humble Bellows into an aged wizard. His Dimwit puppet became his spellbook. The powerful wizard unleashed the spell he had been preparing, GUNCHO. While the spell hurled the evil Krill into another world, the Terror shrugged it off like an oversized suit.

Anesi quickly memorized the YONK spell and released it upon Tyrillee. While the dryad drew near to a morgia tree, Cubby took hold of the Terror and threw it to Tyrillee. The dryad encoiled her arms around the demon and then vanished inside the tree. She reappeared alone, leaving the Terror behind inside the world within the tree. It now had an entire world all to itself.

After the terror had been defeated, the companions parted ways. Anesi and Stribel returned to the home of Choboz and Mildi. There, Stribel and Anesi were finalyl able to converse together, and the famous wizard explained to the young enchanter everything that he had done in the past several years. Shortly after Anesi was enrolled again at Galepath.