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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Plane Sailing" data-source="post: 389688" data-attributes="member: 114">Hampered by the entangling plant growth, all of them are badly burnt by the lightning blast. They redouble their efforts to get free. Zeph flies down to try and help Arilyn, but has to spend most of his effort avoiding the leaves which grasp at him.Trajan takes a few steps towards the woman, sheathing his weapon. “Can’t we just talk..” He doesn’t get to finish his sentence. Balak the shaman points and shouts out “kill him” - and an enormous bear as big as a carriage charges out and attacks him.Trajan draws his scimitar smoothly and slices across the bears shoulders - but it hardly fazes the dire creature, which lunges forward with one paw and pins Trajan to the ground. His struggles are futile against the tremendous strength of the bear.Balak looks over the scene. “Finish them all off. Kill them all” she commands her bear. Then she walks off, into the woods.Anne-Marie and the others continue to struggle to get themselves free, Sean being the first to break away from the branches - although in the meantime the dire bear has used Trajan as a chew-toy, wounding him nigh unto death. Anne-Marie gets out one of the metallic scented potions and starts smearing it over her body, in case it is oil of slipperiness. Sean whips out his longbow and launches an arrow in the bear, distracting it before it finally tears Trajan in two. The bear lumbers towards the ranger, who bravely draws his longsword in an attempt to hold it off.Sean lasts two rounds before falling before the might of the dire bear (he had suffered badly from the called lightning), without causing it much more serious injury. Fortunately Anne-Marie frees herself (at last!) and springs over to the clear ground behind the bear. Making noise, she distracts it from the body of Sean, and starts leading the bear on a frantic chase through the woods - carefully travelling just fast enough that it still chose to follow her. After about 10 minutes she breaks and hides in cover - only to see the bear stop and start sniffing around towards her hiding place!Quickly she makes a break for it again, with the bear in hot pursuit. Next time she gets out of its line of vision she quickly upends another one of the metallic oils over some thick shrubbery, then leaps vertically up to a tree and hides amongst the branches (mentally thanking Keldass for the boots he crafted for her all those long years ago).The dire bear stops near her, sniffs its way up to the bush and then tears it apart - but doesn’t find its quarry. After looking around angrily, the bear starts walking off to the south, presumably to meet up again with its master.After waiting a short while, Anne-Marie runs quickly back to the rest of the party, where Arilyn has been busy stabilising Trajan and Sean. They are all a little non-plussed about what this was all about.Dmnote: This is, of course, Balak whose plans were foiled by the original adventurers way, way back in the Sunless Citadel at the start of my storyhour… The party is like the proverbial murphys shovel - all the components have changed (or in most cases died) but it is still the same shovel. Balak wants revenge for what happened to the Gulthias tree, and is going to cause big trouble in the future unless stoppedAfter the use of some healing potions and a few hours rest, they feel ready to travel again. As it nears nightfall they arrive at the barrow, and Anne-Marie ducks inside, leaving Saithnar’s frost rapier on the small altar, then ducking out again. They build a small campfire outside the entrance, and spend the night.In the morning, a quick check shows that the rapier has gone - but in its place is a long strip of leather… a hilt wrapping for a sword. Intrigued, Anne-Marie takes it and uses it to replace the binding on her old and ageing rapier. To her surprise there is a quick flash of light which spreads out from the hilt and along the blade of the weapon. She examines it carefully, and Trajan casts his craftsmans eye over the blade. Magically it is now much sharper and harder than it used to be.A faint smile of satisfaction plays over Anne-Maries lips. “Let’s get back to the village”.</blockquote>

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