Boards seem really slow tonight! lots of people on the server?
I'll just add another section of story here then...
They spend a leisurely week on their journey, calling in on old friends along the way. Stopping to see Galladin Longbottle at his inn, they enjoy another of his incomparable dinners. Further west, and they make a side trek up to Ossington, and find that the villagers are settling in well around there. The spring plantings have gone very well, and there are happy rumours of “fairy folk” looking after the villagers and helping children who are lost. Anne-Marie is filled with delight to be reunited with Lord Haw-Haw, her brilliantly coloured macaw, who had turned up several weeks ago and been treated as an honoured pet by the villagers. Lord Haw-Haw seems genuinely excited to see his mistress again, and a much happier Anne-Marie leaves Ossington on the last leg of their journey.
Arriving at Knightsbridge and its familiar stone arch across the gorge, they are surprised to see the shanty town has disappeared. The gate guards are a bit suspicious of Trajan at first, because there has apparently been a lot of problems recently with bands of Jazumai throwing their weight around. As soon as the guards realise that these are friends of Lysander, their entire attitude changes. Everyone thinks well of Lysander since the Baron gave him permission to resettle the refugees from the shanty town in one of the old villages destroyed by Goblin barbarians last year.
Entering the familiar old town, they make their way swiftly to the temple where they are greeted by the acolytes and quickly find themselves before Alkanar, who is able to restore Dala’s wisdom, and will do so in a couple of days on the coming holyday ceremony. Everyone else retires to their rooms at Mithril Manor, while Trajan goes in search of a jewellers, to settle some unfinished business.
At Trapps, a well known jeweller, he brings out a silver set of chimes which they discovered long ago under the moathouse. They have been kept carefully wrapped in cloth, and Trajan promises the man 50mk if he will melt it down and destroy it – but warns him not to let them sound.
That night, Trajan wakes suddenly from a dream of distant chiming, and with the sound still ringing in his ears quickly wakes his companions and they race off through the streets to Trapps.
The front door is closed, but they can hear screams from within the building. Bursting down the front door of the shop they move towards the rear workshop, where there is a foul stench of sulphur and hot blood. Gazing into the room they see a large troll with flaming red eyes glowing from its armoured helmet, and a red-hot salamander torturing Trapp the Jeweller who is held against the wall. Seeing the company arrive, the salamander quickly guts Trapp and turns to face them.
Without any thought or planning, Trajan leaps to attack the troll, smiting evil with all his might – and missing because of its heavy armour. Anne-Marie likewise leaps into combat with the salamander, hurting it slightly and then getting struck once, twice by its greatsword, then grabbed by its coils and squeeeeezed… Anne-Marie cries out and succumbs to the fiery embrace. Trajan is likewise attacked by the troll, who lands blows with both its claws and rends him terribly.
The salamander which is radiating an aura of fear tosses the body of Anne-Marie aside and moves up to slash at Trajan, gashing him with its blade. Dala attempts to cast a spell from the doorway but reckoned without the reach of the troll which lashes out and hurts him so badly that he loses his spell. The troll then finishes another full attack against Trajan, rending him once again and dropping him to the ground.
Arilyn and Dala look at one another horrified as the fiendish creatures turn towards them. Dala unleashes a lightning bolt which dissipates on the creatures spell resistance and Arilyn throws an area Dispel Magic into the room – which astonishingly causes the armoured troll to disappear, overcoming the summoning magic which had brought it here! As the salamander slithers forth to attack them both retreat. Arilyn shouts “use dispel magic!” before using Dimension Door to vanish to safety the other side of the building. Left on his own and with his low wisdom keeping his brain in a rut, Dala retreats, launching sorcerous dispel magic after dispel magic against the oncoming salamander to no avail, and then using his last third level spell slot to launch a massive lightning bolt – which overcomes the salamanders spell resistance and save and the creature dies, wreathed in electrical energy.
Arilyn comes flying over the top of the building, borne by the winds, and joins Dala. They hurry inside and find amidst the burning wreckage of the workshop the bodies of Trajan and Anne-Marie. At deaths door, but with much fumbling and swearing they manage to stabilise their two friends. Arilyn checks the upstairs rooms of the house and finds Mrs Trapp and the children upstairs, horribly murdered by the fiends. Downstairs Dala eyes the chimes on the workbench with hatred in his face. Calling upon the most powerful magics he can, he calls for celestial aid to deal with this foul evil.
Suddenly a soft light fills the room, and a glowing luminescent ball appears before Dala’s face.
“Good day. My name is Boswell. How may I serve you Dala?”
“Can you take that *thing* where it can never sound or harm anyone again?”
“Of course, Dala”.
The lantern archon zooms down, touches the chime and both archon and instrument disappear. Seconds later Boswell reappears.
“I have placed it deep under the ocean, four hundred leagues East of here, Dala. Will that be sufficient?”
“Er, sure” replies Dala, scratching his head. “That will be all, Boswell, thanks.”
Carefully, the wizard and the sorcerer gather up their wounded colleagues, and slowly carry them back home to the manor.
Arilyn thinks “I’m going to have to teach these fools
some elementary tactics. We can’t just charge in against foes like these!
DM's note - I don't know who was more surprised at how quickly Trajan and Anne-Marie went down here. Both were lucky to avoid death, and the bad guys could easily have spent a round killing them with no difficulty.
I think it comes down to a major disconnect from earlier editions of D&D which we've only just started to come across in 3e. Namely, in previous editions once you reached 8th level +, it was almost impossible to get killed in only a couple of rounds! The thing is that now appropriate challenges for high level characters can be as deadly to them as equivalent challenges for them when low level - an issue which I as a DM and they as players are just getting to grips with!
Plus, as Arilyn says - their tactics that night sucked so bad I thought a black hole had drifted into the room 
Next a short interlude for soul-searching, and then onto the next adventure (mostly cribbed from an excellent IronDM adventure from last year
)
Cheers
