Blue City Blues Part 1

 Bo Jing sent his Baghatur Batu, along with a small retinue of footmen, to the Imperial Blue City to investigate rumors of growing disquiet and even insurrectionist intent.

The new Governor and his ministers were beyond reproach. Following the scandal the had led to execution of the last Governor, there was no tolerance for corruption at any level of the government.

But there was still the problem of the local temples. Among the dozens of shrines that had been established over the centuries, The Bright Path enjoyed official favor, but the foreign merchants had brought their own beliefs, and their own rivalries, with the longtime local prominence of the Fire Temple being challenged by the followers of One Law. Unlike the Bright Path, which catered mainly to government ministers and the Fire Temple, which fully closed itself to outsiders, the followers of One Law eagerly sought and claimed new converts among Tuigen nomads, caravan guards, and imperial soldiers. So when the name of the Prophet of One Law was insulted by the High Priest of the Fire Temple, men from all quarters reacted with outrage.

The High Priest was arrested. But the Governor refused to execute him, or to turn him over to the One Law to stand trial. The High Priest was a holy man and it when it comes to blasphemy and the edicts of the Emperor, two wrongs did not make a right. There would be no trial, no punishment. Instead, the High Priest was ensconced in the Governor’s palace.

In retaliation, some men of One Law attacked an imperial caravan, taking two dozen prisoners, most of them government bureaucrats. Three of the prisoners were devotees of the Fire Temple. Their heads were found in Blue City markets over the next three days. The followers of One Law announced they would allow a week and then begin killing the other prisoners.

The Governor officially ignored these threats.

Batu was approached by a group of low-level bureaucrats who asked for his help. They had collected some money and offered to pay him to rescue their friend who was among the hostages. Batu declined the offer of payment, but agreed that he and his men would help as a matter of his honor and that of his lord, Bo-Jing. He also assisted the desperate clerks in securing the assistance of Wujin Fen, Zaire, and Tayo. These were not Baghaturs, but they had talents that would be helpful. And they would gladly accept payment.

Given that the decapitated heads had been placed in the market, the party reasoned that the prisoners were being held somewhere in the city.  Following a chain of rumors, they a dilapidated mansion in the merchants’ quarter that allowed access to the maze of wells and caverns on which the temples of Blue City had first been established as small shrines, long before the city itself was organized.

Here they met a pair of men, outfitted in armor made from giant crabs, and Tayo’s skills proved most useful. Relying on her arcane abilities, she understood their strange language and communicated that she had come to assist them. For their part, the crab men were keen to destroy some interlopers from the “blinding world” above.  The crab men led the way to the hideout of small-time teenage gangsters.

Greatly outnumbered, the teenagers were eager to surrender. The crabmen, on the other hand were eager for blood. Batu intervened, drawing his sword on the crabmen and forcing them to stand down. He ordered his men to keep the crabmen at bay while he and the rest of the party followed the teenagers to their boss.

Arriving in a large cavern filled with giant mushrooms, the party began to doubt their decision. When their guides began singing, and were answered by other songs throughout the cavern, they knew they’d been led into an ambush. But then the boss made the mistake of showing himself, sitting on top of an especially large mushroom. A small man with a long beard, he asked what Batu had brought him.  Zaire responded by shooting a bolt of blue energy, knocking him off his mushroom and killing him. Except it wasn’t a giant mushroom, they were simply in a large dank cellar. The dozen or so teenage thugs, deprived of their illusory camouflage looked like the lost boys they were.

The two sides struck a deal. The boys admitted that they were holding a number of prisoners on behalf of “the big sword men.” And, they agreed to free them in exchange for the small bag of coins collected by the bureaucrats.

The crabmen were allowed to return to their own part of the caves, the thugs, returned to their miserable den, and the party, together with 12 rescued hostages returned to the surface.