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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Plane Sailing" data-source="post: 872907" data-attributes="member: 114">The figure resolves into the form of an elderly, shaven headed dwarven female.“What are you?” it asks. “You are not of the people”Trajan steps forward. “We are humans, we mean no harm”.“Humans?” It says the word as though it is unfamiliar, rolling the sound of it around.“I’ve not heard of humans. Do you serve the masters, or are you free?”“I serve none but Asura my God” Trajan replies.“asura is not a name I know. Can things have changed so much in 10 thousand summers?”Dala, Arilyn and the others share startled glances… can this ghost have been waiting since, since the dawn of time?“Yes, we are a young race” Trajan continues. “Your race yet survives, but they may not climb yon stairwell. A fearful trap holds them back”.“Ah” breathes the ghost “Some might think it no more than memories which horrify – and my memories are horrible enough”“Since you are not dwarfs, the curse which binds me to destroy my kinfolk has not laid hold on me. Would you talk with me a while?”“Ma’am” interjects Anne-Marie, “We go to find the door in the air. Can you tell us of this?”“Why should you want to follow the paths the masters trod all those years ago, strange tall woman?”“That’s for us to know” Arilyn says impatiently. She wants to press on towards her goal of finding Arkons ancient documents about the StormLords.“So, no time to spend in conversation with me? That’s a shame. I do so love conversation, but I mostly have only myself to talk to. But if you will not, you will not. Goodbye, Hoomans”And with that, the ghost fades from view.A quick detect magic cantrip from Arilyn reveals that the glowing gem is magical, and so is a hair comb cast to one side of the chamber. The hair comb is unaccountably forgotten. The gem is determined to be the source of the magical trap, and a small amount of satisfaction for the death of the familiars is gained by smashing it.The party then move to the archway, and find that it leads directly out onto a mountain ledge, with a cliff face falling dizzyingly away below them. About forty feet away they can see a small plateau, no more than a hundred feet across, again with sheer sides.By edging out onto the narrow ledge, they can just make out the town of Moradins Call in a valley below. They also have a clear view of the mountain Tarn which provides the town with its water – perfectly still and calm, it is like a mirror, containing perfect reflections of the mountains, the clouds and… what’s that? A castle floating high up within the clouds?Glancing upwards, there is no sign of the floating castle, but it appears very clearly in the reflection. On a whim Arilyn casts her spell which allows her to see the unseen, and she gasps – from the opposite plateau there is a huge transparent walkway, curving up and into the clouds where she can just make out a castle. Huge, four-winged arrowhawks swoop around the structure, but don’t come near the causeway.Getting across to the plateau doesn’t seem like a problem. Anne-Marie takes a short run up and leaps straight across the 40ft gap. Dala casts his fly spell on Trajan who quickly flies across, then Dala steps out using his new boots of air-walking, to stride easily across the gap. Arilyn hangs back for a moment. Her sensitivity to the wind warns her that something isn’t quite right, there is something in the sound of the air around here that doesn’t quite match up with reality.Dala is almost half way across the gap when two large air elementals swoop down from above, one of them turning into a fierce tornado of air which plucks Dala up and starts spinning him round mercilessly, the other zooms past Anne-Marie, making a flyby attack on her with impunity because of its reach!</blockquote>

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