Knowing the trip to Myth Drannor will be dangerous, the party hires a guide to lead them there. The guide introduces himself as Steelshorn, Steel for short. He is a male human fighter and the route he will take the party on will follow the Mooonsea Ride into the nearby forest, then onto the Lost Trail, and from there into Myth Drannor from the north. Since the Dragondark Tower (the place where the Arm of Valor is said to rest) is in the northeastern part of the city, this route will bypass much of the ancient ruined elven city.
A day after setting out from Ashabenford, the party enters the woods. Four days later, the left turn onto the Lost Trail is made. "Watch yourselves, now!" Steel warns. "Gets more dangerous from here."
Steel's warning of danger comes to pass that night as three trolls attack during the watch of Fugnus, Raven, and Steel. Fugnus and Steel are hurt before the trolls can be subdued, but Tiron is able to heal them, and the rest of the night passes without incident.
Early afternoon the next day the party turns off of the Lost Trail and onto another trail. This really isn't a trail at all, but just a way through the dense forest marked by symbols on its trees.
Two days later the party arrives at the river which flows into Myth Drannor. The only incident in the last two days was a battle with four gargoyles. Steel tells them he's come as far as he dares, gives the party directions to Dragondark Tower and goes back down the blazed trail towards the Lost Trail.
Not long after Steel leaves them, the party is attacked by trolls again, this time four of them. Then, soon after that, by eight giant spiders. The party is able to subdue these enemies without too much damage being taken, although Brau'ni was bitten by one of the poisonous spiders, and was saved from more serious injury when Tiron cast Neutralize Poison on him.
A short while later, as the party is passing by what appears to be an abandoned building, a female voice yells out, "Intruders! Why do you come here?" The woman turns out to be Llurella Shulstarr, a human thief, there in the building with her sister and five other companions. The party has encountered her before, on their first visit to Myth Drannor.
"Oh, it's you," Llurella says. "Good luck in there... you'll need it!" she adds with a knowing wink as the party continues on their way.
Glancing up, the party notices a copper dragon circling the area. Keeping one eye on the ground and one in the sky, the party walks on until they see four hobgoblins standing guard on the bridge which leads across the river and to the Dragondark Tower.
"Hobgoblins!" Brau'ni and Fugnus snarl as they charge the bridge. Suddenly the four sniveling hobgoblins transform into four mighty ogre magi! The first two unleash cones of cold into the party, felling everyone except Brau'ni.
"Damn! Looks like you left the three-pin!" Brau'ni overhears one creature whisper to the other.
"Surrender, or die!" the lead ogre magi orders. Seeing he has little choice, Brau'ni meekly complies. "You! Put all of your and your friends' possessions into a pile over there! Now!"
"What about my friends?" Brau'ni pleads.
"Ha! Do not worry about them... they are not dead, merely stunned. The heartier ones will actually wake in a few minutes. The weaker ones... Now do as you've been ordered, dwarf!"
Brau'ni finally finishes his sad task. The lead ogre magi walks up to him. "Now isn't this amusing? We've stranded you and your friends in the most dangerous city in the Realms! No armor! No weapons! You have about an iceball's chance in a fireball of getting out of here alive! Ha! And, of course, we never would have known you were coming without a little help from our friends! Oh, Llurella!"
Shocked, Brau'ni watches as Llurella Shulstarr slinks out from behind a building! "Pleasure doing business with you, dwarf! See you around (if you're lucky)!"
"When you said 'friends', I thought you meant that dragon circling above," Brau'ni states.
"The dragon?" the ogre magi sneers. "She's no friend of ours! In fact, every time she gets up the courage to fly down here, we just scare her back up there!" With that, the ogre magi fly away with Llurella and all of the party's possessions, leaving a stunned Brau'ni to rush over to his injured companions.
Everyone except Raven and Rolonda revives in a matter of minutes. Tiron is able to revive them and Brau'ni explains the situation to them.
"After we get our stuff back," Delf snarls, "that bitch is so dead!"
Realizing they are dead without weapons and armor, the party decides it may be time to try and open up a dialog with the dragon. They have nothing to lose at this point, after all!
Raphael transforms himself into a gargoyle and flies up to talk to the dragon. "Why, this is amusing! You're not a gargoyle at all! You people just continue to entertain! Bravo!"
"If you'll just come down to the ground, I'm sure we'll be able to entertain you even more!" purrs Raphael.
"Ha! We'll see about that!" replies the dragon mirthfully and they descend to the ground. "Your friend, the 'gargoyle' here, says you can entertain me! Well, here I am!"
"We would like to entertain you by giving us a chance to get our things back," says Delf.
"Now why would that entertain me? It sounds rather boring, actually," the dragon replies, stifling a yawn. "You want entertainment, what happened here was quite amusing, actually! What a trap they set! Now why should I be interested in you, who will be dead in a day, when I can amuse myself with them, who will obviously be around for... oh, shall we say... more than a day? Amuse me now, while you still can. Turn her," the dragon points to Cel, "into a frog!"
Thinking quickly, Raphael nods to Raven and casts Spectral Forces on Cel, and Raven Invisibility, by all appearances turning her into a frog!
"Ha ha! Very good! Now that is amusing!" the dragon chortles. "You!" The dragon points at Raven. "Do you jump rope?"
"What...?" sputters Raven.
"You two!" The dragon points at Brau'ni and Delf. Get some rope!" Doing as they're told, Brau'ni and Delf retrieve some rope, holding it limply on the ground, Raven between them. "Now jump!" At the strange sight of an Elven magic-user jumping a rope being swung by a Dwarven fighter and a Half-Elf thief, the dragon starts laughing uncontrollably, her bellows of laughter echoing throughout the woods. Suddenly, the dragon breathes on them, slowing their pace down. "Ha ha ha! How this is even more amusing!" the dragon bellows. "Ha! You can stop now!" The dragon then turns her attention to Tiron, who has been looking on dourly on the series of events. "You know, the problem with you preachy types is you're always so clean!" With a gesture, the ground beneath Tiron becomes a muddy pit which Tiron suddenly finds himself immersed in up to his head! "Ha ha! Much better!" the dragon roars. "Now, why should I help you again?" the dragon asks, wiping a tear from one of her eyes.
"Because if we could get our things back, we could provide you with even more entertainment and be around for more than one day," Delf reasons. "Think of the fight we could give the ogre magi... it would be much better than that last one!"
"You call that a fight? More like a massacre!" the dragon replies sarcastically. "Maybe you're right," the dragon grins. "You could kill them for me! After all, before I arrived, there were twelve of those ugly things, now only four!"
"Amazing how history is rewritten," thinks Brau'ni, remembering his earlier conversation with the ogre magi.
"All right, I'll distract them for you!" the dragon agrees. "Look for my signal!" The dragon flies back into the sky.
"What's she mean... 'signal'?" asks Delf. Suddenly, loud noises are heard nearby. Looking up, the party sees the dragon zipping across the sky, followed closely by four ogre magi. "Oh. Let's go!" The party heads out in the direction of the noise.
They come to a building, which Raphael and Raven, invisible, cautiously approach. Inside are Llurella, her sister, a man, and their possessions, scattered about on the floor! "What we need here is a distraction," thinks Raphael as he casts Spectral Forces. Suddenly the building is rocked by an earthquake!
"You!" Llurella gestures to the man. "Get out there and see what's going on!" As the man steps outside, Raven steps inside, setting off a trip-wire. "Someone's in here!" Llurella snarls. Her sister suddenly gestures and a mist forms in the building, revealing the hidden Raven!
Raven's fireball spell erupts between the sisters. Singed, they both flee the building, leaving the party's possessions behind! Unfortunately, the possessions were also in the spell's area of effect. The party grabs the undamaged items, and runs across the bridge to a group of buildings on the other side of the river.
Just across the river, Raphael becomes visible, well ahead of the time the spell should have taken to wear off. "This must be one of the dead magic zones I've heard about," he explains. "There are several pockets of them spread throughout Myth Drannor. We'll probably be much safer from our ogre magi friends here, but we'll have to go outside the zone for Tiron to heal us up."
The next couple of days, the party holes up inside of a building just inside of the dead zone, going out of it briefly in the morning to allow Tiron to cast heals on the party. Everyone was badly injured in the attack, Raven and Rolonda taking the worst of it.
The morning of the second day proceeds as the previous morning did until Tiron heals Brau'ni. Suddenly a mist appears, healing everyone slightly and dissolving everything organic on Brau'ni, including the handles of his battle axe and one of his magical maces! Playing with fire, Tiron attempts to heal Brau'ni again. All metallic objects in a 100-foot radius suddenly take to the air, swirling about the party! The party hits the deck and the objects eventually end their flight, falling back to the ground. Successive heals are uneventful, leaving the party to wonder exactly what happened, and why.
Having healed up slightly, the party is forced to make a big decision. Explore the tower, so tantalizingly close, or flee the city while they still can. Three of the four fighters (Delf, Cel, and Fugnus) have no armor and the party is nowhere near full strength. Realizing the only known way out of the city is back across the bridge (again being guarded by the ogre magi) and since the tower is right here, the party decides to search the tower for the Arm of Valor.
The tower really isn't a tower at all any more. It consists of two dilapidated walls set around a circular pit. The pit appears to be eighty feet deep with a circular stone staircase descending only twenty feet in the darkness: the rest of it has long since fallen into ruin. Cel volunteers to descend the staircase and attach a rope so the party can climb down to the floor. After only a couple of steps, however, the stone underneath her gives way, and she begins the eighty-foot fall to her death...
Cel's scream of terror turns to one of delight as her fall is arrested and she descends slowly to the floor below. Once safely down, she calls up to the rest of the party, "Looks like a feather fall. Come on down!" The last one down, Delf secures a rope to the top of the pit.
Cel spies a one-foot tall statuette on the floor, picks it up, and examines it. It is dark, smooth, and featureless. Delf tells her it appears to be magical. Cel decides to take the statue with her, and the party begins to explore the tower.
Eventually Raven opens a door into a room which reveals a horned, slimy, toad-like creature perched atop a chest. The beast breathes a cone of fire, engulfing Raven! Hurt, she retaliates with two lightning bolts loosed from her wand. Brau'ni, rushing in to help her, is also caught by the creature's next attack before managing to kill it. The chest is a godsend: its contents include suits of chain mail (which Delf and Cel quickly don) and weapons! Poor Fugnus cannot find a suit of armor which fits his dwarven frame, however.
Further exploration of the tower reveals a wall of crackling blue light set between two stone pillars. A skeletal hand and foot are protruding from the flickering light. On a whim, Tiron scoops a pebble from the floor and tosses it into the light. The pebble creates a hole in the light. The hole expands rapidly, then flashes, revealing a wraith! The wraith advances on the party, its back to the prison which had held it for so long. Tiron attempts to turn it, but cannot! "Uh, guys? That turn should have worked!" Raven crashes a lightning into the Wraith, not quite "killing" it. The Wraith successfully attacks poor Fugnus, draining him! Raven is finally able to subdue the creature with Magic Missiles.
A few minutes later, the party enters a room with a radiant sphere suspended in its center. Around the sphere orbit seven differently colored gems. Delf walks up to sphere and snatches the incandescent blue gem from its orbit. Suddenly a deep voice booms out, "A challenge?" Delf starts to glow the same color as the sphere! Amused, he tosses the blue gem into the air. Now the gem is orbiting him! Raven, fascinated, grabs the rusty rose gem from its orbit. The voice once again booms out, "A challenge?" She glows as well, tosses her gem into the air as Delf did to his, and now sees it orbiting her head! Delf's glow suddenly grows brighter, finally flashing brilliantly before extinguishing altogether. Off in the distance, an explosion is heard. Then Raven's glow brightens, flashes, and goes out as Delf's did. Suddenly several members of the party experience reverse gravity for a second, crashing into the ceiling before falling back to the ground!
The party then opens the double doors set in one wall of this room. A long, lit corridor is revealed, a door at its far end. The corridor is lined with twenty-four statues, twelve next to each wall, set ten feet apart. The statues on the left appear to be sorceresses, while those on the right appear to be wizards. Knowing they've had some bad luck with life-like statues animating in the past, Delf agrees to cautiously walk the length of the corridor alone. He reaches the door at the end of the corridor without incident, and opens it.
"This place is sacred to Mistra, Goddess of Magic. Speak and she will hear you." The voice appears to have come out of thin air!
Delf decides a cursory examination of the room is in order before answering. The room appears to be a temple of some type, with black tapestries draped over the far wall. Delf decides to answer the voice. "Praise Mistra. I seek the Arm of Valor. Do you know where I might find it?"
The voice answers. "Dark places conceal that which you are seeking."
"Dark places?" thinks Delf. "The tapestries?" Rushing over, he brushes them aside, revealing a hidden alcove which contains a rerebrace, part of the Arm of Valor! He puts in on and rushes back out to the rest of the party. "Cel! Look what I found!"
Cel's eyes widen in delight. "Delf! You've found it!" Leaping into his arms, Cel plants a firm kiss on him! After disentangling herself from the surprised, but pleased, Delf, Cel says, "Take that off and let me see it!" Delf hands the rerebrace over to Cel. Taking a pick from her pocket, she pries a panel on the face of the rerebrace open. Out falls a piece of paper. The strange writing on it attests to its age. "Yes! These are the directions to the other four parts of the Arm!"
"What do you mean, 'other four parts'?" asks Brau'ni. "I thought this was it!"
"No, no! There are four more parts, hidden right here in Myth Drannor! Raven! Can you help me out here?" Raven casts Comprehend Languages and reads the directions to the party:
Where wind is worshiped,
Where song lives,
Where six are one,
Where love is worship.
"'Six are one.'" Delf muses. "That must be Six-Point Myth Drannor. It's an intersection of six roads in the western part of the city. One of the portals from the room in Tallow's Post goes there!"
"We still don't know where the other three places are, though," Cel states.
"I think it's time to get out of here while we still can," Raphael says, "and find someone who can help us with these directions."
The party agrees and starts back for the entrance of the tower.