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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Plane Sailing" data-source="post: 377762" data-attributes="member: 114">The door into the wizard Dyson’s tower is magically locked. Unable to force it open by main strength they decide to batter the door down. Trajan stands before the door, composes himself, and then with a sudden cry kicks out, knocking the door off its hinges (quickdraw focus skill applied to an unarmed kick attack). Unfortunately he is engulfed by a gout of flame from the trapped door, which badly singes his clothes, but is far from dangerous to him.Entering carefully, they find a comfortable circular room, with a ladder leading up to a trapdoor in the ceiling at one end. After searching around carefully, they take it in turns to climb the ladder up into a bedchamber. Trajan goes across to open the shuttered windows when giant spiders rush out from hiding places under the bed and attack, two going for Trajan, and two going for Sean.The battle against the spiders appears to be short and sweet - although suddenly one of the spiders fighting Trajan disappears, becoming invisible. “Phase spider!” shouts Anne-Marie in alarm. Sean feels a strange suggestion tickling his mind. He can’t shake the feeling that the wizardess, Arilyn, must be in league with Dyson… he’d better cut her down quickly… He swings at her and just misses; Arilyn ducks away behind Anne-Marie who helps Sean to shake off the spell.The window is opened, and a quick search of the room reveals no sign of the spider. Trajan and Sean proceed up another ladder to the top portion of the tower. This turns out to be a laboratory, with many items scattered about as if someone grabbed a whole series of things hurriedly before leaving. Amongst the few remaining materials are books, several scrolls in a rack and a small selection of potions.Suddenly the spider appears between the two warriors and attacks again, but it is quickly slain with two crushing blows from the doughty fighters. The others come up to investigate the room and check out the contents. A further ladder leads up to another wizard-locked trapdoor to the top of the tower.Everyone is caught be surprise as the dead spider suddenly leaps back to life and scurries down the trapdoor to the bedroom - it must have been regenerating! Anne-Marie leaps straight down the trapdoor, lands lightly and seeing no sign of any creature leaps straight down the next trapdoor and out into the yard. There is a small group of frightened villagers, pointing and worrying - apparently one of them saw a huge black spider crawl out of the window and then change shape into a crow and fly off. Anne-Marie makes several futile attempts to reassure them (diplomacy isn’t her strong point) before explaining that Trajan will come down and explain everything, which seems to settle them.Meanwhile, up in the lab, Arilyn is carefully examining the remaining prizes. Three of the potions are oily and thin with a metallic smell to them. The books left on the shelves are not books of spells, but books on local politics, geography, history and one book with writing in an unrecognisable, crabbed script. Then we turn to the scrolls.The explosive runes knock Arilyn right off her stool, bleeding and shaken as are the others in the room. “Aha” says Arilyn, “That old trick, eh? Something will have to be done to check and disarm these others”Most of the rubbish and other material is then taken out of the tower and burnt for safety, and the tower is declared safe for use by the villagers.“Now” declares Anne-Marie, “I have some unfinished business to attend to”to be continued.</blockquote>

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