[Child of the 7th Age]

"See! I wasn't mad," snapped Bingo. "I told you I saw something, and Sassy saw it too." To emphasize his point, Bingo hastily stood up from where he'd been sitting but then let out a miserable howl. A grimace of pain splashed over his face. It was all he could do to keep standing upright and hope that the moment would quickly pass.

His face wan and ashen, Bingo stumbled over to where the bottle had been set down on top of Sondo's open pack. Eagerly, he snatched it in his hand, "Give me that. I want to have a look."

First inspecting the outside of the vial, Bingo gingerly unscrewed the top and then bent his head for a closer look. The stuff was brown and icky, and smelled a bit like rotting turnips. All of the hobbits standing near Bingo wrinkled their noses in utter distaste as they caught a whiff of what was inside. "This isn't poison," Bingo reasoned "It's got to be medicine, maybe a potion to help me. Only medicine can look and smell this bad. Who would be foolish enough to try and tempt anyone to their doom with such horrible nasty bait?"

Bingo gingerly reached forward and stuck his pinky inside the bottle, emerging with a single drop of the precious stuff. Impulsively, he stuffed his finger into his mouth. Everyone around him held their breath, thinking that he might keel over in agony, but Bingo only made a wry face, "Just as I suspected. This tastes even worse than it smells. When Aunt Hilde broke her leg, the clan brought in a healer from Bree, and he gave her a bad-tasting remedy like this. The pain went away almost at once. In no time, she was up and about practically dancing in the market. Anything has to be better than this. My side hurts so badly I can't go on. You'd just have to leave me here, and I'd die anyway." With that final verdict, Bingo raised the bottle to his mouth and impulsively gulped down its entire contents.