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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Softwind" data-source="post: 1240436" data-attributes="member: 13893">Toynapper confrontedFourteenth Session (part 2) Brynn and Grimnyr freeze, eyes immediately focusing on the doorway, hands held ready over weapons.  A moment passes, then another.  The guard groans, but his outcry is cut short as Grimnyr jams his hand into the guard’s mouth, silencing him.  Brynn looks at the other dwarf in surprise, having seen Grimnyr move across the room quickly but silently.  Grimnyr just smirks.When the door to the back room in the house doesn’t burst open, the dwarves relax, and Grimnyr lets up the lieutenant.  The human mimes spitting motions after the dwarf’s hand is removed, but keeps the silence, not wishing to push his luck.  As he stands, Brynn and Grimnyr move quietly, to bracket the door.   Silently and slowly, they unsheathe their weapons, holding them at the ready.Outside, Athena’s patience is wearing thin, and she begins to fidget.  The fact that Genoa seems to have the patience of an oak does nothing to allay her boredom.  When the thump from the tripping lieutenant is heard, she pulls her weapon, body tense as she looks through the partially-covered window into the building’s front room where the dwarves and human are making the noise.  She quickly moves up to one of the windows, then notices Tombit moving around the corner of the house.  She follows, practicing her Ranger skills to remain quiet, until she arrives at the Halfling’s side by the back door.Tombit holds up a hand indicating Athena is to wait, and presses his ear to the door.  From within, he hears a voice, raising and falling in a chant.  Hoping to interrupt whatever is going on, he takes a moment to jimmy the lock, and opens the door, quietly entering the room beyond.  Athena, her patience gone, and ready for action, is immediately on his heels.  She draws her weapons; mace in one hand, and scimitar in the other, and grins.  Tombit looks at the gnome, and shakes his head, “Oddest cleric I’ve ever met…” he thinks.Their presence within the room, revealed to be a kitchen, is unnoticed by the cloaked figure standing near a smoldering brazier in the far corner.  The man’s voice continues to rise and fall in no discernable manner, and his arms make passes over the smoke issuing from the heater.  Tombit moves to the door across the room, but before he can reach the handle, it opens on its own accord, burst from its hinges by the dwarves behind it.  A wordless battlecry issues from both the dwarves lips as they rush through the doorway and into the kitchen.  Tired of waiting, they ripped the latch and hinges off the door by brute force, and rushed the room beyond.  With weapons drawn, they survey the area, noting their surprised colleagues, and the figure in the corner, who takes note of their presence now.  While he turns, he continues the sing-song chant, more frenetic now.“Oy, none o’ that now,” Grimnyr shouts, fighting to get clear the ruin of the door at his feet.  Brynn, Tombit, and Athena move towards the man, weapons raised and threatening.  “Stop now and you won’t get hurt,” Brynn advises the man, but is ignored.  Tombit takes the matter into his own hands, and tackles the human, but not before the final syllables are uttered.  Athena watches as the brazier, previously smoldering, bursts into full flame.  Amidst the typical orange and yellow flames dance green and blue; not a very good sign, she notes.Tombit finds his hands full as the man seems to possess greater strength than his frame would account for.  The Halfling finds himself being tossed aside as the cloaked thief stands upright and pulls a weapon from beneath the folds of his clothing.  With the other hand, he tosses a powder upon the flames, causing them to leap towards the ceiling.  He brandishes his weapon as he keeps half an eye on the brazier, waiting for something.Brynn steps forth, and whips the flat of his blade towards his opponent’s head.  The man barely gets his club up to block the blow, and, snarling, mumbles a few words.  A wave of cold hits Brynn, but passes quickly, the frost melting in the heat of the brazier.  Athena moves forward, trying to flank the mage and put her mace to good use.  Tombit gets to his feet, readying himself for another rush.Outside, on the neighboring rooftop, Skylar too grows impatient.  Seeing no one emerging from the house, she scales down the wall and moves towards the back door.  Genoa, upon spying that last person outside going in, decides that it would be best for her to enter as well, which she does.She makes her way past the lieutenant in the front room, who is apparently trying to straighten out his nose, and get some bad taste from his mouth at the same time.  He is oblivious to the scuffle in the back room.  Giving the man an odd look, Genoa continues on to the kitchen.With a roar and flash of light, a fiery figure appears in the brazier, its form wreathed in multicolor flames.  With its arrival, the mage laughingly mocks the party.  “You are too late!  My companion has arrived, and soon I shall have even more power than before!  All that I have to do is rid myself of you!”  Reaching into his cloak again, the mage shoves a handful of what appears to be toys into the waiting claws of the imp.  “Now, I say!  Do it!”“Fool,” the imp cries.  “We do not have time for that.  Dispose of these interlopers first.” The toys drop into the bowl of the brazier, where they sizzle, pop and crackle in the heat.  The imp raises its hands in evocation, beginning a spell.  With each mystic pass, the flames grow higher and hotter, causing the room to become stifling in a short time. Grimnyr’s attempt to disrupt the casting fails, as his axe blade goes wide.Skylar, on the other hand, takes one step into the room, assesses the situation, and drops a shaft right into the chest of the imp.  *thwap*  And she watches as the shaft is charred away, and the imp pulls the head from his chest.  “Hunh” the red creature grunts.  “That’ll cost you, and dearly.”The flames roar, and launch from the brazier to those in an arc before the imp.  All but the mage and Grimnyr are engulfed in the flames, but are nimble enough to suffer but little from the heat.  The walls of the kitchen are not so lucky, as they begin to char and smolder.Genoa, having stepped right into the blaze, swings wildly at the mage, and connects with her scimitar.  Hissing, clutching his wounded arm, he retaliates with a club to her head.  She is staggered by the blow, and sits down heavily at the mage’s feet.  The mage does not have an opportunity to follow up on his blow, as both Grimnyr and Brynn take offense at the mage’s handling of the lady.  Brynn serves, and Grimnyr returns the volley as the mage ricochets between their weapons.  Athena adds insult to injury as her mace lands squarely between the mage’s eyes.  He slumps, barely holding onto consciousness.  The hold is loosed, as Skylar hits him with several blunt arrows in a row.Unfettered by the mage’s incompetence, the imp again begins casting.  The brazier grows orange-hot, and the wooden stand it rests on begins smoking heavily as the imp calls upon the very nature of fire itself to strike down its opponents.  Dancing flames separate from the body of the fire, but return again as Tombit strikes, breaking the concentration of the imp, and the spell is wasted.  Tombit is rewarded for his quick thinking by burns upon his hands and arms from the heat given off by the imp.  Gritting his teeth, he continues to batter at the demonic creature.Genoa, regaining her senses, summons forth water from the very air itself to dampen the enemy’s spirits, and its platform.  Choking steam and ash flair up as the fire dies beneath the onslaught of water.  Screaming in frustration, the imp tries again to cast, but Brynn’s blade is quicker.  Stopped mid-sentence, another spell fizzles.  That strike is followed by Grimnyr’s axe, and Athena’s scimitar.  Blow after blow rains down upon the creature so that soon, it too is like the fire.  Very much dead.About this time, the town guard officer emerges from the front room.  Coughing, he demands an accounting.  As soon as the party mentions imp-summoning, the question stops.  “We’ll *cough, cough* continue this at *hack* the Sheriff’s office.  Now, let’s get out of this mess.”  The party can’t agree more, and grabbing the stunned mage, and some of the drained toys for evidence, they follow the lieutenant out of the house and into fresher air.Once they arrive at the jails, the mage is taken off their hands.  The Companions are told that the mage will be interrogated.  Normally, a thief would see only a beating and jailing, but summoning infernal creatures is very different indeed.  They will be summoned if they are needed to testify before the Sheriff (who acts as judge as well).The party decides to return to the Dancing Pony to clean up and repair what injuries they sustained.  Genoa only suffered injury to pride, but is satisfied she managed to drown the imp’s spirits at least, if not the imp itself.  A few rounds of ale, and some bathing, later, the party is feeling much better, although the smell of burning toys still lingers on their clothing.  Brynn heads back to the house, and returns with the defunct toys, thinking Tam can re-enchant them for the children.  “Don’t want them to go to waste,” he growls at the smiles of his party members.  “That’s all.”</blockquote>

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