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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Plane Sailing" data-source="post: 679536" data-attributes="member: 114">Thanks for being faithful, Darklone!Here we go..Jordan is talking with his friends, laughing. Then they all start passing him money. Anne-Marie edges closer.“Did I lay her? You bet! She was so easy, it hardly seems fair to take your money” Jordan Guffaws. “She squealed like a stuck pig too!”While the others laugh, a reddening Anne-Marie taps him on the shoulder, and as he turns round punches him straight in the face. His hand moves quicker than the eye and a dagger produced from his sleeve slices at Anne-Maries kidneys, but she dances back from the blow which slices her tunic and draws a thin line of blood.“Stupid bitch, don’t try to drag *me* into your wrestling fantasies” Jordan hisses.Suddenly a figure leaps across the table from their left, plucking up a kebab stick in the process, and lands lightly between Anne-Marie and her tormenter. “That’s no way to speak to a Sword Coast lady” the grizzled old man says – and the kebab stick flicks out like an epee and disarms Jordan of his knife.Startled by this turn of events, Jordan and his cronies make a run for it, narrowly avoiding Anne-Maries attempts to trip him as he flees.The whiskery old fellow is none other than Barenath, the Sword Coaster lush she had been fending off earlier in the evening! With a flourish he produces a glass of wine and steers her away from the eyes of everyone who had stopped to see what was going on. “My dear”, he whispers, “I feel you are not cut out for diplomacy, are you? I can see in you the training of a warrior, coupled to the fierce temper which many from our lands feel! You fight with speed and by your instincts, which serve you well – but he would not have laid that dagger upon you if you had been fighting with your mind too!”“But, but, I’m always thinking about how I fight” Anne-Marie protests.“Nonetheless, there are canny tricks of defence which I could teach you. I have not had a student for many, many years, but you… I could train you in the ways of the sword coast duellist. If you are willing, of course”Anne-Marie turns aside so he doesn’t see the shine of hope in her eyes – the possibility of training as a duellist has long been one of her greatest desires, even though she is not confident that she is ready for such training yet. She agrees though, and then is surprised when Barenath offers a courtly bow, and inquires whether she would be willing to have the closing dance with him. They whirl off into the ballroom floor, lost in the music.Eventually the final chord is played, the ball ends and the party meet up to return home. They share their news and their stories, and make plans for the following days.There have been no further incidents at their hotel, and in the morning they travel to find Jorish the craftsman whose goods they are returning. They have no difficulty in finding his shop, which is filled with exquisite sculptures of all kinds. Jorish is astonished to see the dwarven figurines returned which he had crafted last summer. He is astonished as well that they feel into the hands of people noble enough to return them to him.Jorish is keen that the statuettes are delivered to their owners, especially since he has now been passed the payment for them. The company are equally pleased to be able to get a connection, an opening to meet dwarves, since none have been seen in the Southlands for many, many years.As payment for their services, Jorish offers them a small ebony figurine of a panther, which he names Padfoot. “Place her down and speak her name and she will serve you, once a week for an hour”. Anne-Marie takes care of the valuable item.In order to deliver the dwarven statuettes, they will have to travel west again, back past Knightsbridge and up into the Barrier Range, the tall spine of mountains that runs down the middle of the world. Their contact works in the Aeolian College, a centre of music in a small town named Moradins Call, where a small community of men live by the entrance to a dwarven kingdom. They will have to ascend a steep trail known as Stooks Climb, near Bellhold, in order to reach it.Before they set off, they want to spend some time training and preparing. They have agreed to pool their Marks in order to arrange for a powerful enchantment to be laid upon Trajans’ bastard scimitar, Anne-Marie wants to spend time studying with Barenath the duellist and Arilyn has research she wants to continue in the library at the Guild of Four, discovering more information about the Storm Lords.Trajan has to participate in the enchanting of his sword, since as part of the process he is required to donate a small portion of his soul into the magic, and activity more tiring than he thought it would be as he spends days and nights praying Asura’s blessing into the blade.Anne-Maries training proves successful, although she hasn’t been able to fully integrate it into her fighting style yet. A little more experience, a little more practice though, and she is sure that she will be able to step out fully onto the established path of the duellist.Arilyn is excited by the results of her research. Firstly, she has determined that portals to the elemental plane of air sometimes open spontaneously in the highest parts of the barrier range. Secondly, she has unearthed information about Arkon, the greatest of the Storm Lords, who was lost in battle with Storm Giants in the Barrier Range peaks. It was Arkon who wrote the code of the Storm Lords and who used to educate his chosen apprentices in the secret ways. Although he fell many decades ago, his citadel was supposedly on the elemental plane of air… it could be that the their current path will lead them closer to her ultimate goal!The time spent in training and research has brought them to the end of the month of Greening, and after attending with Trajan the first holy day ceremony of May (amid his grumblings about the poor state of the temple of Asura in Bridlerest) they set out Westward along the great road back to Knightsbridge. Alkanar is there, the old priest that they’ve worked with many times before, and he might be able to restore Dala’s lost wisdom and personality.</blockquote>

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