Of Breaking and Entering, Obstinate Dwarves, Fighting Outside Our Element, and Pillow Fights with Critters that Don't Die.

We began our journey with an argument over the case of the missing chest. (Which may be magical, because despite leaving it locked up in the secret room, and taking care to lock up the keep, it apparently followed us here.) So be it, we stashed it carefully among the Berowl nest remains and will come back for it there, then haul it back to Axeholm on our return.
 
We carefully scouted the shelf, and found that the ice door under the cornice was beyond my ability to pick. We chose as our second option to break in through the lower of the two windows. Oz climbed up and scouted a female dwarf and some birds. We decided the best course of action was direct -- Oz and Dash climbed in tandem, Oz jumping through the window first. Dash was going to let down some rope for the rest of us, but I got impatient and just made the climb directly. I could hear Oz talking with the dwarf, but by the time I got in the window, the two of them seemed to be entwined in some dwarven mating ritual. Dash tied her hands, which may or may not have been part of the ritual.
 
Despite her protestations (which, you know, I get: we did just break into her home and tackled her to the ground), we did our best to reason with her, and let her know we just wanted to find our friends who had been kidnapped. Turns out, obstinance is a dwarven trait that extends to the women of the race as well. We did get a couple pieces of information from her, including the name of the keep (Emberfall) and the name of the erstwhile owner, Embric. Neither name meant a damn thing to any of us. The bird lady was otherwise eminently unhelpful, and started making some vague threats. I knocked her unconscious, and we tied/gagged her.
 
Upstairs, we found an observatory in some disrepair, and Baric found some magical trigger that both sent tentacles up through the floor to hold him in place, and summoned an Air Elemental. Fun! We each did our thing (noting that Baric's thing still seems to be to wander in front of the party and take a bunch of damage) and eventually brought down the elemental. I watched the stairs as Murland rummaged through the desk, finding some pretty interesting paperwork on tracking shooting stars -- including locations in which some of those stars hit the earth. Given the disuse of the area, we decided to haul the bird lady upstairs to keep her both out of danger and to keep anyone else in the keep from finding her.
 
We started a quick search of the place, first finding a kitchen with a pot hanging over a fire. Not wanting the food to scorch, I swung the pot out of the fire... summoning a fire elemental in the process. (I guess the dwarves were tired of summoning all the bad guys.) We eventually bested the Soup Elemental, including a pretty cool move from Murland, squirting the thing with water from his water skin. Oh, also, I stuck an arrow in the back of Oz, but fortunately, the arrow was unharmed and I was able to rescue it.
 
We did quick scans through several other rooms -- figuring our first priority was to rescue the rescue party, and we can come back after to conduct a more thorough search later -- finding rooms filled with various oddities, including a stuffed owl, a chamber pot, a bunch of feathers, a feather bed, and a holy symbol.
 
As we turned into the open room, we found some odd creature with tentacles coming off its face and things stapled to its skin. Turns out, it was related to the stone trolls we met yesterday (was it only yesterday!) that nearly killed the party. I will confess to some PTSD. As before, we were able to damage it into unconsciousness, but it just kept popping back up and whacking at Oz, Dash, and Baric, who found himself at the front of the battle again. And, as before, fire seemed to be the key to making it stay dead. Torches came out, and Murland was firing off his fire spells. I sprinted out to grab some fire from the kitchen, and to grab something inflammable to engulf the monster in flames.
 
When I returned, things were in some degree of chaos: Murland apparently lost a spell, Baric was up front taking damage, and Oz and Dash were taking turns kocking/getting knocked with the monster. I cast the feather blanket over the prone monster, and cast the coals and burning bits I could find to get the thing smoldering, crying,
"Time to say goodnight, troll!" and then,
"No, wait: I mean, 'You're going Down!'" and then,
"No, wait: I mean, 'I got you covered, guys!'"
 
Listen, it was the heat of the moment and I really felt it needed a catchy phrase and I got excited.
 
I took my usual position near Murland and was firing off arrows to drop the monster and give the folks up front the chance to light the feather bed on fire. But if you want something done right, sometimes you've got to do it yourself, and I ended up striding up, grabbing a couple of torches to light the thing, and stepped back to my usual position. In the end, the thing finally died. And, as is the usual case of the party, we are short on spells, short on health, and in need of a rest. Also, we should talk about our plans on lighting things on fire, and figure out what we need to carry with us to make that happen more efficeintly.