Grasping Alchemy 101

Greetings, I am Norman Clark, aspiring archmage. You have come to my lecture on a recent event I participated in. Initially this seemed to be a very simple mission. Accompany the local herbalist as he replenished his supplies. Generally a pair or trio is enough to handle this but due to limited board listings at the moment, 8 adventurers answered the call. While it watered down the reward money, it was very nice to have the extra bodies. Trouble began when it appeared that the local bridge the herbalist used to cross a small river was washed away. It visibly disturbed our employer and he was unaware of another route that would lead to his preferred grounds. Some innovative use of the local Flora had us creating a new rudimentary bridge to cross with.
 
After this we reached the first goal, retrieving giant wolf spider hair. The trees were covered in thick webbing, and I hoped to smoke out some spiders by starting a small fire. Unfortunately I underestimated the flammability of the webbing and cooked one of the spiders alive on the nearby web. This burned off the hair we sought. A small more careful fight and we achieved our goal with little trouble. This impressed the Tortle, who asked us if we were willing to take a more difficult job as we had some overwhelming force. We agreed for additional pay, and were asked to gather a special mushroom and several imps, preferably alive. The cave that contained both had several entrances, and I flew my familiar, Mr Squeakers in to scout. Unfortunately the imps had taken other forms or become invisible using their innate magics. Upon physical entry we stumbled across one imp and our Bard convinced him to come with us. A discussion occurred with the others requiring us to disable one and apparently awakening a creature that had been asleep in the back of the cavern. It appeared as a living stalagmite, with a single eye and thin whipping tentacles that would wrap around my allies and attempt to drag them to a toothy maw. I identified the attack method of the creature and feed an ally with a timely use of magic missile. Despite the tough exterior we were able to fell the beast and return with all the requested supplies.
 
Thank you for listening to my lecture. It will be available on magic mouth per request with a one month order period.