"Oh right, the compass!" while fishign for it, Aria mused, "Yeah, doesn't seem a coincidence - the dragon was guarding or using for bait Rana who was nabbed while trying to help search the statue pedestal for forensic clues...and the giantess who was involved with using that spellblast for ransom leverage said he was her sire, and she looked it too!"<br/><br/>She experimentally tilted the compass. "Huh, it's pointing down into this ruin or tomb," she showed Kass - actually it was pointing at a slightly shallow angle, downward but into the ceiling of the stairwell : if the chamber they could see at the base of the stairs continued horizontally, it would intersect the direction of the compass needle in a hundred feet or so.<br/><br/>Gazing back over the landscaep to the east and the rippling pattern the shockwave had created over miles of sand, Kass and Aria could geometrically discern that the origin of the blast had probably been somewhere along the range of tall windswpet peaks of the Dragonsword range, several leagues to the east.<br/><br/>Aria twisted her lip, "Hmm, I say we keep following the needle...I mean, we've just traveled a dozen sweaty miles following the compass needle, why turn back now. We got from the dragon, and we've just fought what seemed to've been his daughter nearby."<br/><br/><br/>Sounds right on the spell slots. And two 3rd (Blink and Scrying) I think.<br/><br/>Yep, the Weave powers all arcane magic (there's also the Shadow Weave which a small percentage use instead - mostly Sharrans). Its steward/personification is Mystra, goddess of magic.<br/><br/>Hideous Laughter and Blindness/Deafness are pretty good low-level alternate to Hold Monster for tactical purposes. Both make a foe pretty much helpless (and one targets Will, the other Fort, for second-guessing foes' weak saves).<br/>