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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jon Potter" data-source="post: 4399545" data-attributes="member: 2323">[PLAIN][Realms #446] There's Just No Talking to Some People[/PLAIN]Above, Ahlear called on The Green, Producing Flame in the palm of his left hand. The flickering light illuminated the stairwell enough for him to navigate it without fear of slipping to his death. He heard shouts and curses in undercommon from below and opted to move, warhammer in hand, further up the stairs.At the bottom of the stairs, Shamalin and the others heard the shouting and cursing and the cleric started forward. Anania cast a glance at Morier and saw that he too was moving forward, abandoning the ambush. She sprinted for the stairs, reaching them a few paces before Shamalin and shot up them in a flash with a fresh torch blazing in her hand.Huzair wasted no time. He drew forth a second scroll from his Handy Haversack and pointed at the fleeing dwarf before it could disappear around the curve of the stairs, shouting, "Homo retine!"The Hold Person spell went off properly, the scroll crumbling to dust in his hand, but it had no effect on the dwarf apart from making it stop climbing the stairs and turn back to peer warily into the darkness. It said something that Huzair couldn't understand and chuckled to itself. Then, grinning, it raised a hand and snapped its fingers filling the stairwell with an explosion of sound.The sonic energy slammed into Huzair like a fist to the temple. He staggered under the assault, stunned by the Sound Burst, and unable to orient himself. It took time for his head to clear, but when it did, he saw that the dwarf was still there, its repeating crossbow ready in its hands. It grinned at him like a lunatic - which was about the point that the mage realized his Improved Invisibility had run its course. Quickly, he activated his Ring of Blinking in time to avoid being shot in the throat with a crossbow bolt."That's it!" he snapped and Blinked downward through the stairs.Anania arrived at the near side of the Web in time to see Huzair cast a handful of fairy dust at the creatures struggling within. Two of them spat at the mage and cursed in an unfamiliar tongue, but seemed otherwise unaffected by whatever he was trying to do. It was unclear whether the third was even exposed to the sprinkled dust; it was too well cocooned to even struggle."What are these things?" the elf maid asked once she got a look at the creatures in the light from her torch. Huzair glanced back at her and she saw that there was a bit of blood trickling from his ear."These, my sweet flower, are the dwarves with which Ahlear wants to make friends," he said. "They appear to be some nasty degenerate form of dwarf. And they are damned resistant to magic.""Shall we see how resistant they are to arrows?" she asked, setting her torch on the stairs and drawing an arrow in a single fluid motion."Better not," Huzair cautioned. "I know that Ahlear wanted a chance to speak to-" He was cut off as one of the entangled dwarves snapped its fingers and another Sound Burst erupted between Anania and him. This one seemed less potent and both of them were able to shrug it off without being stunned.Grimacing, Huzair held a hand to the side of his head. "Damned, little-" he managed to hiss before another sonic went off on top of him.Above, Ahlear found the open door from which he assumed the dwarves - if they were dwarves - had issued. It was also the only door he'd seen and was at the very top of the stairs. The area beyond was dark, but his flame shrouded hands revealed a rectangular room of finely-worked stone. The door through which he'd entered was in one corner and another, similar door was set in the opposite wall. A set of double doors was dimly visible on the far side of the room in the corner to his right. A large lever was set prominently in the wall to his left. That was all he had time to see before the door across the room opened and a female dwarf-thing dressed in ratty black robes stepped into the room."Stop," the druid said, holding up a flaming hand. "We have a mutual enemy: the giants. Let's kill them and then leave each other in peace." The dwarf-creature leered at him in response and lifted the chipped and gnarled horn of a ram as it came.Before Ahlear could do anything he felt an invisible wedge of force slam into his midsection, doubling him over and threatening to drive him back toward the stairs. Grunting, he managed to set his heels against the bull rush, holding his ground. He looked up and spied two more of the female dwarfish things crowding the doorway behind the first.</blockquote>

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