Stop him with a spell

Dropping your bags, you place your pale, slender hand on his throat. You feel the roughness of the stubble on his skin, the pounding of the blood in his veins. "Pootaka," you say in a loud, clear voice. Suddenly his body becomes rigid, his muscles as solid and unyeilding as stone. A look of pure terror fills his eyes, but he has been rendered incapable of speech.

Using your free hand, you pry apart his fingers and free your arm. Already you can see bruises forming from where he grabbed you. You stoop and pick up your bags and then turn to give the other men a dangerous look. All of them have taken several steps back and are wide-eyed with fear. Several other patrons are staring now as well, having turned when they heard your voice, but unsure what has happened. A couple of elves point at the petrified man and laugh up their sleeves, giving you a knowing, respectful look.

You try not to rush yourself, wanting to draw out the scene for effect, but you know that your spell will hold for only a minute. Casually, you turn and walk up the stairs, resisting the urge to look back. There are few in the inn who will trouble you now, you think reassuringly.

Once at the top of the stairs, you take a look around. There is a long, narrow hall leading from the front of the inn to the back, where you are standing now. There are several plain wooden doors on either side, and a couple of narrow corridors leading off to the sides. Candles in holders placed at regular intervals illuminate the hall somewhat, but it is still dark and stiffling. Suddenly, the sounds of talking and laughter from below, even coming as they do from the disgusting humans, have a warmth and a charm to them that you prefer over this empty, quiet upstairs hall. Your mind goes back over what the knights said about the dangerous outlaw, about how he had been seen lurking in and about the inn, and you start to wonder whether your charms will work quite so effectively on him as they did down below. Placing a hand nervously on the pommel of your dagger, you set your jaw and head down the hall toward the door at the end.

Your footsteps echo loudly on the wooden floor, in sharp contrast to the silence all around you. You begin to regret not having spent more time learning how to move quietly in the woods like all of the other elves. You come to an intersection with a second hall that leads off to the sides of the building. Timidly, you peer around the corners but see nothing. Stepping quickly across, you come eventually to the end of the hallway, which ends at a door at the top of a second set of stairs. This set of stairs is wider than the one you took and appears to be the main staircase.

Looking over your shoulder to make sure you haven't been followed, you take the key from the small pocket on the inside of your dress where you had hidden it and try it in the keyhole. It turns with a small squeak and you hear the lock click open. Pushing on the handle, the door swings open....