Gang fighting

Belgium Day II, a photo by Brayo on Flickr.

Once Beatriss and Tetsukichi had Su-Laing safely home, and started seeing fires springing up around the city, they went out to investigate, honing in on a fire among a sting of shops in the outer city. Good people watched from indoors. As B&T predicted, the Black Flowers seemed to be responsible—although they were also taking charge of efforts to extinguish the blaze. One member quizzed Beatriss about what she was doing and where she lived, and in taking his leave, butted Nardon in the stomach with his spear. Beatriss and Tetsukichi decided to get out before they met more, and to save their energy for more important things.
Back to the Monastery. They entered by the now very un-secret door—it had been ripped off its hinges and burned. There was more evidence of fresh destruction throughout the halls they explored several weeks ago, before coming upon the dozing sentry. He offered them a deal—the party leaves quietly and no one’s the wiser. But the party wanted to go the other side. They pushed into the room and found the sentry’s several sleeping cousins. And the door onwards had been half covered with rubble. As the party started digging their way out, the sleepers started to awaken. They were rough men, fresh off the steppes, and they were making good money, some half a tael a day to sit there and not let anyone pass. Not such good money that they’d interfere, but good money. Who was paying them, was it the Black Flowers? Yes, funny you should mention it, here they are now.
As mean and nasty as they were, they gave up the advantage of striking first. The party killed them swiftly and forced the Tuigens’ surrender. Not just surrender, but accompany the party as they pushed further into the monastery under the agreement that they’d fight together and offer mutual protection against any other Black Flowers they met once it was time to leave.
On the other side of the wall they met - - another group of Tuigens! But these were members of a different, rival clan, and what’s more, they were commanded by a Monk of the Two-fold Path. But before they could come to blows, the party suggested that they were customers. And what’s more, showed coin. “I’ll be right back.”
And he was. The party members were good customers and the monk was a good salesman. Explaining that he was about to go on a long pilgrimage the next day and wouldn’t be back for four years, and that the other monks might be too busy to help customers, he accepted a little over 200 tael for the 10 “temple servants” that were available for re-assignment. The monk decided he would start his pilgrimage immediately and they all left together.