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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Plane Sailing" data-source="post: 218240" data-attributes="member: 114">While waiting for the webs to dissipate they check out the treasure horde of the goblin bosses, in an anteroom off the main sanctuary, discovering some coinage and a wide range of trade goods – the fruit of hobgoblin banditry.Time passes. As the webs dissipate, they prepare themselves by the entranceway into the temple – and are surprised to hear a voice call out from around the corner in hobgoblin accents.“You bastards! Give us our children back!”The party look at one another. “Children?”“Oh yes” says Anne Marie – “The children are locked and cowering in the room which the elite soldiers came out of”.Negotiation ensues, the hobgoblins want to escape from this vile place before the priest or the sorceress returns. “This is no place to bring up a family” they complain. Eventually Lysander and Trajan agree to the terms, and allow a couple of the hobgoblins into the temple to bring their children out, before escorting the remains of the hobgoblin band through the horrible woods and into the scrubland beyond.Instructing the hobgoblins to go and seek honest mercenary service up in the Borderlands, they are sent on their way, and the company continues southwards towards the wizards tower.After a few days travel, they are surprised to see a small tent beside the road, with a lithe young Mendonnan woman standing, regarding them. Although the air is still and crisp today, her cape and hair blow as if in a gentle breeze.“Greetings, travellers” she calls out. “The wind told me that you would be along this way. My path to adventure lies with you”.Anne-Maries sharp eyes pick out the smoky outlines of a small creature circling around her, but neither Lysander nor Trajan have that familiar feeling of supernatural evil. They join, and introduce themselves.Her name is Arilyn, a hawk-nosed Mendonnan who grew up in that city famous for its assassins – but she had always been a disappointment to her family. They worried that she would never be able to enter the service of one of the powerful families like her siblings planned to. Her life changed one day when she rescued a stranger in the city, and helped to nurse him back to health – a stranger who used books to prepare magic spells. She became his apprentice, and for several years travelled around with him, learning from his magic and his wisdom. She even started to scribe her own spell book, and found herself naturally drawn towards magic which reflected the air and the wind. One day, their path took them to a fork in the road, and while her mentor travelled left, she knew that the time had come for her to travel a different path. It was a difficult parting, as a great affection had drawn up between them. Shortly after that, she decided to call a familiar for company,  and casting the ritual during a thundery snowstorm she was astonished when a small portion of the clouds came down and introduced itself to her. It was at that time that she started the long journey to the East, through Caran pass and to this meeting place. Her familiar had heard stories of the company as she passed by Knightsbridge and the winds that had been with her since her youth directed her down this way.After a very short discussion, the company decide to allow her to join them. Dala is somewhat scathing of someone who “has to get magic out of books”, and the pair needle one another continuously as they continue Southwards.Drawing near to Holy Day, the second week of Floodwater, they spy the confluence of rivers where the wizards tower lies. With the waters surging in the first of the spring thaws there is clearly no safe way to get the horses across, but after a short discussion a plan is hatched. Trajan stays behind to look after the horses, Arilyn casts a spell and then flies up into the air, and one by one K’tan manifests “Featherfall” on each of the party, allowing Arilyn to shuttle them across.Waving to Trajan, they make their way towards the valley which leads to the wizards tower. The harsh winter has left the area looking much bleaker than Anne Marie remembers, and the small stands of trees seem to have been chopped down – pity, they were so pretty.Then they see the village past the head of the valley – with gates battered down – and rounding the corner a disciplined group of hobgoblin soldiers armed with large shields and two handed spears.Arilyn is a Wizard 6, with an air-elemental familiar, the replacement character for Syl</blockquote>

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