"What's in there?" the striped aisha asked, pointing to the tower which hunched, lopsided and forbidding, at the far side of the clearing. Her voice startled two meep-its, hidden in a drift of dead leaves nearby. They raced across the clearing, towards the tower.

Her companion watched them vanish into the Spooky Woods before he spoke. "Trust me, Zii, you don't want to know."

But his warning fell on deaf ears. "Come on," the aisha called, dancing ahead. "Where's your sense of adventure?"

With a sigh, the blue lupe lifted himself off the ground and followed her reluctantly into the black building.

***

Zii cautiously put a paw around the door. Her confidence was quickly evaporating into the smell which seeped from the gloomy room. A mixture of slorg syrup and rotting cheese which seemed to come mainly from a large black pot hanging over the fireplace.

As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she made out a shelf, crammed with small glass bottles. Below the shelf was a heavy chest, fastened with a large silver padlock.

"Are you just gonna stand there all day?" The lupe's voice startled Zii from her observation.

"Wh-what? No!" she replied with a confidence she only wished she felt. She took a few small steps into the room and turned to face the lupe. "Why'd you ask, Scim?"

Because I was hoping we'd be able to go now, Scimita thought. "You were taking an awfully long time, that's all."

He moved towards the cauldron, took a look inside and shuddered. Zii, meanwhile, was examining the bottles on the shelf. Each one was labelled in delicate spidery handwriting. Avaricum... mintroot... bitter tansy...

Scimita padded across the dusty floor to join her. Soon, the two of them were so involved in a search for the most interestingly named mixture (so far, the winner was sporkle spot syrup) that they didn't notice someone else was in the room with them.

***

The someone had pale, clammy green skin, dull orange eyes and what could be considered an absolute lack of fashion sense. Dressed head-to-toe in black clothes that were much too large for her, Edna the witch stared at the intruders and fumed silently.

How dare they? How dare they enter her home and-and-and play with her precious potions?

But she would get even. She would.

Still fuming, Edna pulled her wand from her pocket and began to whisper...

***

"Do your hear something?" Scimita asked with a pang of uneasiness.

Zii flicked an earstalk towards the room. "No..." she said uncertainly. She turned her attention back to the mess of bottles. Reluctantly, Scimita did too.

At that moment, the world pitched forwards, sending the two animals flying across the room and into the wall. A few seconds later, the room began to blur.

***

Zii's eyes opened just in time to see something large, porous and yellow rolling straight at her.