The Slow Pot
"One hour down here is a week in the pot. So no, you can't have the forty-day. You couldn't afford the forty-day if you sold your boots and your feet." — Auntie Grel, proprietor
The Slow Pot is a low cellar under a bakery in Quillnib's Handle. It has no sign, twelve stools, one long table, and the best stew in the Dense. There is a queue up the stairs every evening.
The Pots
At the back of the cellar a wall of iron pots hangs over a single low fire. The air around them is thick and slightly heavy, and anyone who reaches too close feels their arm drag as if through honey. The pots sit in a thin pocket of folded time: for every hour that passes in the cellar, a week passes in the pots.
Auntie Grel keeps it steady with a battered Density Calibrator she bought secondhand from a traveller from Or and has repaired so many times that almost none of the original parts are left. It clanks. When it clanks twice in a row, everyone ducks.
Prices
Stew is sold by age, not by the bowl. The older the pot, the richer the stew, and the smaller the ladle.
| Stew | Price | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| Day-old | 2 cp | Hot and filling. Mostly turnip. |
| Seven-day | 1 sp | Proper stew. The meat falls apart. |
| Thirty-day | 5 gp a cup | Gain temporary hit points equal to your level. You don't feel hungry for two days. |
| Hundred-day | 50 gp a thimble | As above, and advantage on your next saving throw against exhaustion. Tastes like your grandmother's kitchen, even if you never had one. |
| The Grandmother Pot | Not for sale | Nobody knows how old it is. Grel stirs it once a year. |
Auntie Grel of Page 31
Grel runs the Slow Pot alone and has done for fifty years. She is huge for a goblin, with forearms like hams and a voice that carries up four flights of stairs. She is kind to anyone who's hungry and merciless to anyone who complains about the price.
She has two rules, painted on the wall above the pots:
- No magic near the pots.
- No Rift-Sniffers on duty. You'll lose your nose in the steam.