Helping Black Dog search for his Empress Part 4 (Feline agenda)

 We slept through the rest of the night, with me sleeping beside the Blackbirds. The attack had made it clear that the Dragon Claw would not willingly allow anyone to leave them.

The next morning, Ju-Mei successfully exorcised Lord Timur’s son. I wanted to begin with him: apart from helping the young man, freeing him would give his father good reason to support us. He was exhausted afterward, and Ju-Mei needed time to memorize the spell again. Meanwhile, we still had two Dragon Claw men imprisoned.

I considered releasing one prisoner and having Nar-Nuteng follow him invisibly. But he might first seek revenge on Chuluun or Timur’s son for leaving the Dragon Claw. I decided that the risk was too great.

Despite everything, we arranged a tournament for the Blackbirds, who had been looking forward to testing themselves. We settled on a round-robin format followed by finals. Lord Timur also showed us the beautiful bathing complex he had built beside the river: a hot bathing house, a sweat room, and the cool river itself. We could enjoy his hospitality, but I insisted that the prisoners remain guarded.

Back at the castle, one of the Dragon Claw prisoners was brought up. Ju-Mei attempted an exorcism, but the man reacted with extreme anger and violence. He broke free of his restraints and attacked Ju-Mei, injuring his face. The Emperor and I intervened. I still hoped that we could subdue the man and give Ju-Mei another chance to free him, but the struggle ended with the prisoner’s death.

That evening, the Emperor and I returned to the baths and found a private place together across the river. While we were there, the special cat returned. She waited until we were ready to speak with her. 

This time she spoke Zhou-Deng. She told me that she was connected to an enormous magical cat, the Great Black Panther, though I am not entirely sure of the nature of their relationship. These magical cats also hate the Dragon Claw. She asked me to go to Balanzia and form a team to fight them.

I considered the journey, but the cat cared nothing about finding the Empress. To her, opposing the Dragon Claw mattered more than the lives of one woman and her son. I was not ready to abandon them.

When we returned to the castle, Ju-Mei went down to the cells and exorcised the remaining prisoner. This attempt went much better. Afterward, the man told us that he had seen the Empress and her son. They had been expelled from a village outside Xi’an along with a band of Dragon Claw followers and had continued toward Hanzhong.

After three days at Willow Crossing, we finally had a clear destination. We decided to leave immediately with a smaller group and search for them. I did not want my son coming with us. He was not yet strong enough to fight the Dragon Claw, and I would not put him in that danger.

Balanzia and the team the cat wanted me to assemble remained a larger mission for afterward. First, we would find the Empress and her son.

Nar-Nuteng: Helping Black Dog search for his Empress Part 3 (A student comes home and assists her mentor)

I arrived at Beatrice’s castle after traveling from Banua to see her. I wanted to show her how much I had learned—and I wanted to be tested.

Jumei greeted me and explained that Beatrice had gone on a short mission with two companions. He welcomed me to stay until she returned.

Not long after I arrived, the servants told me that one of the prisoners wanted to speak with me.

It was Chuluun, who I had once known when we had ventured into the Valley of the Five Fires, both of us under the banner of Bo Jing.

Chuluun insisted that his arrest had been a mistake. He seemed certain that once I understood what had
happened, I would help him.

I was not so certain.

I asked one of Beatrice’s fox children what had happened when Chuluun was captured. They told me that he had been associated with the Dragon Claw and, more seriously, had apparently tried to seize their younger brother.

That made me much less inclined to trust him.

I began asking questions about the Dragon Claw. What I learned was disturbing. They are more than a group of fighters. They seem to be a cult. Those who become deeply involved begin to lose themselves, physically and mentally. Their transformation starts in the hands: scarring, damaged fingers, and eventually the development of terrible dragon-like claws. They become increasingly cruel, but also extremely dangerous fighters.

I asked the servants to look closely at Chuluun’s hands the next time they brought him food.

They reported that there was indeed unusual scarring.

That did not prove that everything he had told me was a lie, but it certainly did not reassure me.

Two of Beatrice’s fox children later took me to the site where Beatrice and her companions had fought members of the Dragon Claw. Remains of the battle were still scattered there.

What disturbed me most was the evidence of what had happened after the battle was over.

Something very large—apparently a giant cat—had come to the site, eaten from the bodies, and crushed some of the skulls.

I did not know what to make of that.

A day or so later, a servant arrived from a neighboring castle carrying an invitation to a martial arts tournament. The host was Lord Temur of Willow Crossing.

Beatrice has around twenty bodyguards known as the Blackbirds living at her castle. The past ten years in Happy Valley have been remarkably quiet, and the prospect of attending a martial arts tournament immediately excited them.

Soon afterward, Beatrice returned with her companion, a man whom she introduced as Black Dog. I didn't ask any questions.

We compared what we had learned.

I told her about Chuluun, the scarring on his hands, and the evidence of the enormous cat at the site of the battle. Beatrice told me that a strange and unusually intelligent black cat had been following her during her travels.

Neither of us thought that was a coincidence.

I asked whether Jumei could attempt to remove whatever curse was affecting Chuluun. He performed the necessary rituals, although afterward I could not tell whether they had truly worked.

Beatrice and I were also suspicious of the tournament invitation. The Dragon Claw were clearly operating in the region, and a gathering of skilled fighters would be an obvious opportunity for them.

We asked Jumei to keep that possibility in mind when preparing his spells.

Before we left, I spoke with Chuluun again. I told him that he could accompany us, but that this did not mean we trusted him. We would be watching him closely.

He accepted those conditions.

We returned his armor but not his weapons.

Beatrice chose the rest of our party carefully. She included one of her fox sons, who is particularly gifted at communicating with cat Animaji while they are in animal form. Several of the Blackbirds also came with us.

Beatrice decided that we would attend the tournament.

Interjection from Black Dog: “I wondered why my lady wanted to delay our travel west to watch, or perhaps even participate in, her neighbor’s martial-arts tournament. As usual, the wisdom in my remaining silent was proved by events.”

The walk to the neighboring castle was almost festive. The Blackbirds had spent years protecting a peaceful valley, and they could hardly contain their excitement at the prospect of seeing—and perhaps entering—a real martial arts tournament.

But shortly after we arrived, one of the young women approached Beatrice and me with troubling news.

She had seen a black cat following us on the way to Willow Crossing—presumably the same cat Beatrice had seen during her travels.

That evening, our hosts gave us an elaborate dinner. During the meal, Beatrice asked Lord Temur whether Jumei might bless all the fighters before the tournament began the following morning.

That sounded innocent enough.

Our actual intention was more practical.

If any of the fighters were secretly affected by the Dragon Claw curse, Jumei would have an opportunity to remove it.

That night, we divided into two rooms. Beatrice slept with her “mysterious” partner and her son. Chuluun stayed in the other room with Jumei and the rest of us, where we could continue watching him.

Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke to the loud cry of a cat.

I saw it darting away.

Then I saw something far worse.

Two men with enormous clawed hands were attacking Chuluun in his bed.

They were not trying to frighten him.

They were trying to kill him.

As they attacked, they shouted something like:

“You can never leave the Dragon Claw.”

I yelled for Jumei.

He woke immediately and used magic to hold both attackers completely still. Once they were restrained, he turned his attention to Chuluun and healed his wounds.

By morning, there was no longer much room to doubt what we were dealing with.

We met with Lord Temur and explained what had happened.

To our astonishment, he seemed genuinely shocked that we considered the Dragon Claw dangerous. His own son had been training with them. He dismissed much of what people were saying as superstition and insisted that Dragon Claw was simply an effective fighting technique.

So we showed him the two frozen men.

We explained again that these men had broken into our room in the middle of the night and attempted to murder Chuluun while declaring that no one could leave the Dragon Claw.

That was considerably harder to dismiss as superstition.

Afterward, Beatrice and I looked at one another.

We had both come to the same conclusion.

The cat was not hunting us.

The cat was helping us.

Tetsukichi and Salt follow Bo-Jing Part 2 - the Grand Reunion

 

Tetsukichi and Salt, disguised as Guardians, joined a group of the Master's soldiers who were pursuing the mysterious foreigners that Tetsukichi and Salt hoped in fact were their friends.

The soldiers were happy and honored to be joined by such learned companions and the group set off. Conversation was awkward as most of the party, despite their disguises could not speak Hun-Yi. However, the white-robed soldiers did not question the apparent reticence of their superiors; they set themselves to their mission and with their locals’ knowledge of the countryside, the group traveled quickly, reaching the banks of a river by the end of the day. Here, the soldiers, explained, they should camp for the night and the make a plan to ford the river the next day.

The travelers, still disguised as Guardians, agreed to the plan and made their own camp some distance from the soldiers. According to Mustapha, the effects of his magic would wane as the sun set.

The soldiers, accepting another rebuff with little protest, made their own camp next to the river, and prepared a fire.  A few hours after sunset, the party noticed another group approaching from the other side of the river.  A woman from the other group called out a greeting, and then asked if any of the soldiers spoke Zhou.  By luck, two of them did and they exchanged banter with the woman and her friends across the river.  In time, the party recognized the voices of Nar-Nuteng, Dolkar, and Bo-Jing.  They called out to them from the upper camp, and using a few words in Tuigen, confirmed that they were all friends. The soldiers, confused at first, gratefully accepted the words of their “superiors” that these charming foreigners were not spreading Misinformation. The soldiers were especially grateful to recognize the foreigners as “allies” when they suddenly joined them from the other side of the river (thanks to clever use of Salt’s portable apartment and Bo-Jing's night-colored flying horse.)

The still-disguised “Guardians” explained to the soldiers that they had fulfilled their mission. They should sleep until morning and then return to Gilgat alone.

The night passed and in the morning, the soldiers followed the instructions they’d received the night before, breaking camp and departing with an awkward salute to the sleeping tents of the Guardians on the hill. When the soldiers had gone, the assembled company greeted each other and planned their next move.  Salt the sorceress, finding the presence of Narnutang the woman warrior even more objectionable than her reputation, retreated into her magical apartment.

The others began their journey home, sharing stories about their respective journeys across Hunza and pondering the strange words of the giant bird. Bo-Jing made frequent scouting sorties and assisted his companions to avoid any more encounters with the remnants of the Master's armies and other followers.

Bo-Jing Follows HIs Wife Part 2

Based on Batar’s directions, Bo-Jing flew west, following the course of a rod. When the road forked North and South, he didn’t follow either fork but continued westward, toward the darkest spot in the mountain range before him. Towards sunset, Bo-Jing saw an enormous bird rising into the sky, carrying a limp body in its talons. He urged Tse-Hemi to gradually descend as he continued his approach toward a group of people and horses on the ground. Some men were struggling to manage panicked horses while others cowered behind rocks or under trees. Among the horses and shouting men was Narantsetseg. She had seen Bo-Jing and was walking toward him, even as he glided toward the ground.

Bo-Jing slid off his horse and walked slowly toward her. Her eyes fixed on his face and she smiled and ran to him and kissed his haggard cheeks. 

“Let others have the morning sun. Too long I have waited for the cool evening rain.”

Bo-Jing received a full recounting of his wife’s quest to find him. He thanked Narnutang and Dolkar for protecting her and mourned the loss of Altani, who had been killed a band of savage and cunning bears, seemingly of the same ilk that had harassed Bo-Jing on the red dragon’s bluff. Finally, he dismissed the bandits who had trailed her from Banua.

And so it was time to return home. After giving the bandits an opportunity to ride out of sight, Bo-Jing asked his wife to join him on Tse-Hemi’s back and started the return journey. After an hour’s travel in darkness, they made camp, with Narnutang and Dolkar agreeing to share responsibilities for keeping watch. The next morning, they were met once more by the giant bird, who spoke to them in Zhou: “Your friend was a holy and righteous man, a most noble soul. His beautiful and generous heart has nourished my children.”

The bird continued, “So, you human children must nourish yourselves for a time is coming when you will be tested like never before. Hosadas was a wicked man, corrupted by power, but centuries ago he defeated a greater evil. When Hosadas gone, the Zaharans are preparing their return.”

The Zaharans, according to the bird were an people besotted with death and cruelty. The remnants of their capital lay beyond the Dark Wall. “Whoever told you to seek passage to the place of Hosadas was not your friend.”

The Roc explained that at the time Hosadas first came to the land of Hunza, he had a rival, a man remembered only as the “Broken Saint” who preached that the Zaharans could not be defeated by any human army, but only by the power of love and righteousness. When the Broken Saint was killed, his followers buried him in secret, and their descendants might still be found in the most remote corners of Hunza. But that was a quest for another day.

The Lingering Disquiet of the Khatun Part 2

Narantsetseg left a letter with Batu explaining that she feared for her husband’s life and would find him though it cost her her own.

As companions, she chose Altani, the long trusted shaman, and Narnutang, the woman warrior would had established her reputation for prowess and loyalty fighting at Bo-Jing’s side during some of his most desperate battles, and Dolkar, a baghatur of high birth, so far unproven. Tetsukichi, visiting hero of the Sansar clan, had identified Dolkar as a youth of great promise, despite his penchant for gambling and other reckless behavior.

The people of Banua would speculate why the Khatun selected this small retinue to escort her on her journey. Less conscientious chronicles might join in these speculations, this one only reports knowable facts.

Narantsetseg and her retinue made their way first to the monastery on the ridge. The monks there did their best to persuade the Khatun that she should trust her husband to return and failing that, she should trust her people to protect her and, remembering her young child, return to the safety and comfort of Banua. But she would not be persuaded and, after threatening to venture into the wilds with nothing to guide her but her love stricken heart, the monks took pity and gave her their best counsel.

The monastery had a well-stocked library including several maps. The monks that they should travel due north for a day, changing their course to the west as the sun set. For another week they should travel westward, through the open country that separated the Empire from Hunza. The Master’s realm was surrounded by steep mountains. As they reached the mountains, they should find a stream and follow the reverse of its course. Finally, they copied from a map, the sketch of the safest pass between the mountain peaks.

Even with the monks directions, the journey was a difficult one. It was cold and the stream bed was dry. Narantsetseg responded to the hardship of the journey by insisting on her status of the Khatun. The three members of her retinue, being little acquainted with each other, did not dare to discuss their misgivings about the journey, their questions about what they would find in the land where a larger, more powerful group of adventurers with no queen to escort had disappeared.

By the time they reached Hunza, Altani, Nanutange, and Dolkar had gone two days with nothing to eat or drink but gravelly snow scooped from a crevasse I the pass. So when they saw a farmstead, they approached boldly. The farm was deserted, and the scavenging travelers made a meal of half-spoiled grain. The water in the well was clean.

The next day, they reached working farmland. The farmers did not speak to them, but happily received the Khatun’s gold in exchange for good food and decent beds.

After several days, they reached Magden, a large market town on the river. The Khatun found a good inn and the others split up to try to learn more. The Most people were unfriendly, or didn’t speak Zhou-Yi, or both. No one wanted to the discuss the Knowledge of the Master, but the Guardians of the Knowledge were even stricter in enforcement, closing the town gates at dusk and shuttering townspeople in their houses after dark.

Nevertheless, the Khatuna and her retinue did confirm that yes, almost a year ago, Magden had been visited by a company of foreigners, led by the “One with a the Face Like the Morning Sun.” The people of Magden didn’t know why he had come or where he had gone, and before they could find anyone to answer such questions, Narnutang did something that forced them to leave the town quickly.

With no other plan, they followed the road westward, passing through more farmland, and then into forests and wilderness. One night, when camping in a clearing under tall trees, they heard deep moaning from deep in the forest. As the sound drew closer, it was answered by another moan of the same timbre. Narnutang recognized the sounds as belonging to bears, but heard something alien in their vocalizing. Altani, long accustomed to leaving among the beasts, called out to them, imitating their ursine moan. The voices answered viciously, even seeming to pronounce insults and invoking the name “Zahra.” And then the bears rushed into the clearing.

Dolkar stood by the Khatun and readied his bow. Narnutang and Altani stood on opposite sides of the clearing, with weapons ready. The bears charged in, each taking an arrow from Dolkar without recoiling. Altani raised his staff in front of him and continued to murmur soothing words. The bear attacking Narnutang was met with similar slashes from her sword. Neither charm nor force deterred the bears attack. They swatted with their enormous paws and lunged with open jaws. Narnutang was knocked to the ground, but when the bear stooped to finish her, Narnutang braced her sword against the ground and drove its point into the bear’s throat; Narnutang rolled away, extracting her blade as the beast feel with a heavy thud.

Altani, meanwhile had been severely beaten, slashed and, and bitten. Narnutang rushed in, and while the bear was doing its best to bite through Altani’s staff, thrust her blade into its side, finding its heart.

Altani tended to the Khatun, and then to Narnutang, and then to himself. Guessing that it was close to dawn, the party elected to press on in the darkness, and put the danger of the forest behind them.

Over the next few days, they timed their travel carefully, and paid liberally to sleep in huts and barns along the road to a town named Gilgat.

As the sun was setting, the lights of Gilgat came into view. Remembering the curfew in Magden, the travelers elected to camp in the hills. But as they were starting a fire, they heard the moans of bears; as in the party’s previous encounter, the ursine voices seemed to call to each other across a distance, and seemed to be drawing closer on all sides. Leaving their fire still burning, the party mounted their horses and made haste toward the lights of the town. Narnutang led the way and when, she encountered a bear, closed with it to fight, urging the others to press on. The bear was eager for the fight, and called for its fellows. Narnutang slashed at the bears head, severely wounding it, and then followed her companions.

Gilgat provided a most uncivil welcome, demanding that the travelers prostrate themselves and declare their allegiance to the Master. When Narantsetseg refused, she was thrown to the ground and beaten until she wouldn’t get up again.

The Guardians summoned their superior, Batar, one of the Experts of the Knowledge, who ordered that they brought to his own house for questioning. At Batar’s house, Altani was permitted to tend to Narantsetseg’s wounds, and they were provided a place to sleep.

Batar woke them at dawn and fed them. As they ate, he asked why they had come and seemed very pleased with their answer. Yes, he had heard about the One With a Face Like the Morning Sun. He and and his companions had visited Gilgat close to a year ago and left in secret after offending the Guardians.

Batar had given it little thought at the time, accepting his subordinates assessment that this was just a foreigner troublemaker. But there were rumors now that he was The One. The Master’s successor. For since that time, there had been no new Knowledge from the palace over the mountains. Instead of Knowledge, there were rumors that the war had been lost, the Master’s armies broken and scattered, his bright-eyed soldiers returning in confusion.

Batar pressed the travelers on the identity of the man they were seeking. Why had he come? Was he the One? Was he the new Master? They didn’t know.

Batar had never been to the palace over the mountains. The only way he knew to get to the palace of the Master was over the Dark Wall, the citadel of the Zaharans before the coming of Hosadas. The Master, of course, had another way, but Batar didn’t know it. Again, he had never been invited. The Dark Wall was a dangerous place and becoming more so. The beasts who lived there were turning wicked and migrating from the wilderness to the fields and villages. There were rumors—not Knowledge—about flying lizards gathering in the sky above the old Zaharan citadel.

“If your friend is the Master’s Successor, then he will protect you from these forces of ignorance and help you cross the Dark Wall. Whoever he is, if you live long enough to find him, tell him that Batar showed you kindness.”

Batar allowed Narantsetseg and her retinue to leave Gilgat by a rear gate, directing them to the Dark Wall.

The next day, the retinue were met by bandits. Not Guardians or soldiers, but bandits. Zhounese thugs who had followed them all the way from Zhou-Deng. “We were supposed to escort the Khatun, but you left before we had the chance.” They were eight in number, but carried poor weapons, and did not sit strong in the saddle. Dolkar’s hand drifted to his sword and the Khatun looked to the open road. But Narnutang spoke up. “We are glad you have found us. The Khatun will gladly pay you handsomely for your escort. And give you an additional reward when we return to Banua.”

The bandits smiled and their leader gratefully accepted a heavy bag of coins.

The bandits were poor escorts. They rode badly, had difficulty crossing the river, drank at night, and didn’t wake in the morning. But when the group reached the Dark Wall and the bears attacked, they were the easiest prey. While the cruel beasts tore apart two of the cowardly bandits, the Khatun’s true protectors secured the high ground and prepared their bows. As a half-dozen bears gathered around them, Dolkar and Narnutang assailed them with arrows. Some fears fled and others chased another of the fleeing bandits into a canyon. One bear, however, did scale the archers’ post and fell on Altani, seizing him with both arms and crushing his body. Narnutang drew her sword and killed the beast, but the loyal Altani was dead.

In the distance, the sound of screaming bandits were silenced and the few remaining bears retreated with their feast, but the party knew they would return.

Naransteseg collapsed in hysterical sobs. “What have I done?”

A shadow fell over them and Dolkar looked up to see an enormous bird descending.

Siege of Banua Day 4: Bangqiu rescues Naransetseg

It was easy to follow the fresh tracks of the Nergui refugees. It was also easy to note the fresher tracks of a huge number of beastmen. These tracks stayed with those of the refugees, an ominous confirmation of Bo-Jing’s theory that Naransetseg was still alive and still being pursued.

Seeing no other way to reach the Nergui refugees before the beastmen did, Bangqiu took the form of a falcon and soared into the sky.

Bangqiu quickly pulled away from Bo-Jing, Batzorig, Nar-Nuteng, Ryu, and the rest of the war band. Before long he had reached the horde of beastmen, which had half-encircled the Nergui encampment.

There was no fighting.

Instead, a group of wizened men wearing red caps and wielding long, barbed swords were parlaying with a number of Nergui warriors. Naransetseg was clearly the chief point of negotiation. She stood alone on a small mound, eyes darting and hands twitching, at once terrified and terrifying, like a small animal ready to fight for its life.

The Nergui spearmen surrounding her—at a distance—were guarding her in both senses of the word, protecting her while preventing her escape.

Bangqiu soared higher into the sky until he was directly above Naransetseg. Then he resumed human form, using his enchanted levitation boots to break the impact his free fall. He gave her a secret sign to persuade her that he meant no harm. Then he swept her up, cloaked them both in a thick cloud, and used his boots to carry them back into the gloomy sky.

Enraged, the beastmen attacked the Nergui spearmen and refugees.

That evening and deep into the night, Bangqiu summoned all his natural athleticism simply to hold onto Naransetseg while his boots kept them suspended high in the thin air. Naransetseg clung tightly to him with her arms and legs, her tears mixing with the stinging rain on both their faces.

Below them came the terrible sounds of battle and slaughter.

A steady wind from the east carried them toward the mountains guarding the Valley of the Five Fires. When Bangqiu was certain they were far from the battle and the marauding beastmen, he lowered them toward a grassy mountain slope.

Reaching solid ground, they collapsed into exhausted sleep.

By the time Bo-Jing and the war band reached the remains of the Nergui camp, the few survivors they encountered were too traumatized to explain much of what had happened. The “deaf witch” had disappeared, and the beastmen had taken vengeance by killing everyone they could before scattering to the four winds.

Batzorig searched among the survivors for any word of his sister, but none could tell him what had become of her.

Bo-Jing thanked the survivors and urged them to return with him to Banua. Many had little desire to return to the town they had so recently fled, but Bo-Jing promised them his personal protection and convinced a number of them to come with him.

As Bo-Jing would learn later, one of the four winds brought a group of beastmen, yeti, and fanged flying stags north to Banua.

They attacked in a series of poorly organized, desperate raids.

Ganbaatar invited all noncombatants to take refuge within the inner walls. Archers lined the outer walls and targeted the beastmen as they charged through the broken gate.

The beastmen destroyed property and killed animals, but found few human victims in the outer town. Nor could they reach the inner town.

Although the gates had been destroyed by the giant demon-badger during the siege, the pit it had created was nearly impassable. A line of brave warriors armed with spears waited on the far side, turning the ruined gateway into a death trap for the attacking beastmen and yeti.

Most dangerous to Banua were the flying stags. They simply passed over the ruined defenses and descended from the sky.

Fortunately for Banua, Ganbaatar had one defender he had not counted upon.

From whatever shadows had lately occupied him, the mercurial magician Hyamsam emerged to defend his adopted home.

Magic missiles streaked into the flying monsters.

A ball of fire exploded among them.

Then Hyamsam engulfed another group in a cloud of scalding steam.

Several of the flying beasts fell dead into Banua.

The rest fled.

By the time Bo-Jing had returned to the battered city, Banua had survived yet another assault.

And somewhere in the mountains overlooking the Valley of the Five Fires, Bangqiu and Naransetseg slept exhausted on the wet grass, separated from their companions and unaware of what their escape had set in motion.

Siege of Banua Day 2

At dawn, watchers on Banua’s towers saw the enemy encampments stirring. Beastmen began withdrawing, marching westward toward a long ridge. Despite their rout the night before, they still outnumbered the defenders three to one. Strangely quiet and efficient in their movements, they no longer resembled an undisciplined horde. It was as if an alien intelligence had assumed command.

Sensing deception, Bangqiu and Salt cloaked themselves in invisibility and set off to scout. Skirting around yetis scavenging the battlefield, the two magicians crept to the ridge’s crest—where they beheld a disturbing sight: the beastmen were clustered around a deep pit, excavating with inhuman speed. Lines of them marched out carrying dirt. Something was tunneling toward Banua—fast.

Among the monstrous laborers stood a solitary human in black armor. Without hesitation, Bangqiu and Salt unleashed a barrage of magic missiles, driving him into his tent. To compound the chaos, Bangqiu summoned a stone wall and dropped it across the mouth of the tunnel. Then, taking the form of an owl, he flew back to Banua. Salt, cloaked and cautious, made her way back on foot.

That night, few slept. Red flashes lit the sky. The ground trembled. Rumors raced: the well water tasted wrong. People heard screams beyond the ridge.

Before dawn, watchmen saw movement: beastmen advancing again—this time with giants and juggernauts.

Ganbaatar organized the defense. Armed soldiers manned the battlements. Citizens were herded into the inner barracks.

Then, the earth split.

Right beneath the inner gate, a colossal claw burst through the ground, ripping stone and earth apart. The gate crumbled. Up rose a monstrous, red-eyed badger—taller than two men, its snout dripping with hunger. It lunged. A slash of its claws cleaved a soldier in half. Its jaws snapped a horse’s spine.

Soldiers fled. The beast pursued, killing, devouring.

Then came Bo-Jing. With him stood his henchmen, also Nar-Nuteng, and all of the bravest warriors of Banua. Long spears drove into the beast’s flanks. Arrows peppered its back. At first, it seemed unstoppable. But a spear found its underbelly. It halted. Bo-Jing leapt forward, slashing deep into its face. Nar-Nuteng struck beneath its foreleg. Surrounded and bleeding from every side, the beast collapsed—its death shaking the earth again.

But chaos reigned.

Beastmen had scattered into Banua, setting fires, slaying unarmed townsfolk, killing livestock. The juggernauts arrived next—three immense engines of war—rolling toward the outer gate. With the city’s defenders drawn inward, the gates fell. The juggernauts rolled into Banua.

But the magicians were ready.

Bangqiu, Hyamsam, and Salt struck the wheels of the lead juggernaut with fireballs and magic missiles. Flames erupted. The behemoth veered, tumbling into the pit torn open by the badger. The others crashed in behind.

Still, the beastmen pressed toward the marketplace—toward the tents of the Nergui refugees. Arrows rained down from the rooftops, but the monsters moved from tent to tent, slaughtering the defenseless.

Then Bo-Jing and Nar-Nuteng returned.

Rallying Banua’s remaining warriors, they charged. This time, the beastmen broke. Driven into a corner of the marketplace, they were caught, surrounded, and destroyed.

Defending the Lands of the Five Fires 01 (Cleansing the Shrine of Sum Sakhius)

After their adventures in Khanbaliq, the company returned to their house in the city and allowed themselves a couple days of rest. There were long baths, good meals, and few responsibilities beyond deciding when to leave.

But then, one afternoon, Bo-Jing announced that they would depart the following morning. He was eager to return to his official post at Banua—and equally eager to leave Khanbaliq before the Emperor found some new reason to summon him to court.

Bangqiu used the quiet interval to send a thought-message to Kafka in the Happy Valley. The Monastery of the Two-Fold Path, he reported, was now free of the slavers and corrupt monks who had been using it as their stronghold. It should be suitable for reconsecration and occupation by genuine monks, although there remained certain practical difficulties involving ants and a badly neglected sewage system.

The company set out the next morning: Bo-Jing, Bangqiu, Nar-Nuteng, Ryu—Bo-Jing’s spiritual adviser, an adherent of the Two-Fold Path—and the rest of Bo-Jing’s retinue.

As they traveled north, Bo-Jing and Bangqiu discovered that their reputations increasingly preceded them. Where there was no inn, someone found them a snug house. Where there was no house, there was an encampment around a roaring fire, the smell of roasting meat, and a crowd of smiling faces.

Mostly, people wanted to hear about the coin Bo-Jing and Ganbaatar had presented to the Emperor. Where had they found it? What powers did it possess? What would the Emperor do with it? Would Bo-Jing now be rewarded with marriage to an Imperial daughter?

Others had heard about the feud with Gansukh and the Nergui horde. Some knew rumors of Bangqiu’s magic.

And nearly everywhere there seemed to be one or two young men eager to test themselves against the bright-eyed warrior maiden traveling in Bo-Jing’s company. Nar-Nuteng rarely declined the challenge.

Bo-Jing and Bangqiu, meanwhile, had begun thinking seriously about finding another of the ancient coins.

Along the road they met a mystic named Erke, who claimed to travel through the Valley of the Five Fires in the dreamworld. There, he said, he had heard a rumor concerning the Northern Coin.

“The horse of Khagan Harad still looks for his master.”

It was little enough to go on, but Bo-Jing invited Erke to travel with them.

Farther north, the welcomes remained warm, but the questions changed.

People were hearing stories from the western lands: men losing themselves to the minds of beasts, surrendering to hunger, rage, lust, and fear until little remained of the men they had once been. There were still occasional jokes about the barbaric habits of the Nergui horde, but most understood that this was something different.

Now, instead of asking for stories of Imperial treasure, people wanted reassurance.

Was it true that Bo-Jing and Bangqiu had fought wolves, giants, and flying monsters?

Had they really led men against the Master’s creatures?

And if those creatures came again, would they fight them again?

Yes, Bo-Jing told them.

They would.

By the time the company reached Banua, thoughts of the Northern Coin had begun to seem less urgent.

Ganbaatar greeted them with relief.

“So thankful you decided to leave the good life in the capital and return to little old Banua.”

He had already forbidden his people to travel west into Nergui lands. The stories coming from that direction were too disturbing, and Ganbaatar believed the Master’s beastmen might already be moving east.

But another report troubled him even more.

The shrine of Sum Sukhis had been defiled.

The shrine lay several days northeast of Banua, and Ganbaatar considered it the true jewel of his lands.

“A holy place for all people,” he told them. “No matter your faith, anyone who went there with an open heart came away with peace and joy.”

Until now.

Pilgrims had disappeared. Others had abandoned their journeys after finding themselves increasingly uneasy as the shrine’s stupa came into view.

Bo-Jing, Bangqiu, and Nar-Nuteng agreed readily to investigate. Ryu and several of Bo-Jing’s other associates went with them.

Erke declined.

He would remain in Banua and await their return.

The journey to Sum Sukhis took several days. At first they still encountered shepherds, travelers, and small settlements. As they drew nearer to the shrine, the country became steadily emptier.

Eventually they met a hermit who told them something of Sum Sukhis’s strange history. The shrine had been deliberately constructed in three levels: an upper story, a ground floor built around a sacred pool, and beneath them an underground level that had always been closed to pilgrims.

The design, the hermit explained, expressed a truth about the world.

Peace and holiness did not exist because evil was absent.

They existed because evil was continually resisted.

Now blue and purple oni had taken the shrine. They attacked pilgrims, desecrated the holy place, and filled its former silence with violence.

On the day the company finally reached Sum Sukhis, they encountered two of the creatures before they even entered.

The ten-foot-tall blue-skinned monsters were trying to knock down a tree in which an eagle had built her nest.

Bangqiu and Ryu used their magic to transfix the oni, sending them crashing rigidly to the ground. The eagle immediately descended and began pecking at one monster’s eyes, carrying bits of flesh back to her chicks.

Examining the bodies, Bo-Jing noticed something unsettling. Both oni were covered with large pus-filled sores and bloody boils.

Ryu spoke with the eagle. She told him that the monsters lived in the “quiet stone house.”

They had, she said, “taken the silence away” with fighting and screaming.

Inside the shrine, the party found the sacred pool just as the hermit had described it. Nearby, a staircase descended below ground.

At the foot of the stairs stood two oni guarding a closed door, their backs toward the party.

Bangqiu addressed them in their own language and in his most commanding voice.

He had come from the Master, he announced, and required a full report.

The guards immediately became defensive. They insisted that they were faithfully carrying out the Master’s orders. They were guarding the place as commanded.

But something underground was making everyone sick.

Most of the oni wanted to leave.

The chief would not allow it.

Bangqiu informed them that he would speak with the chief immediately.

The guards obligingly escorted the visitors back upstairs.

The other oni seemed almost pleased by the novelty of guests. Bo-Jing, displaying both his sword and the power of the Eastern Coin, helped persuade them that the strangers were powerful allies of the Master.

The creatures were violent, certainly, but not in any organized way. Their aggression came and went in bursts, sometimes directed at the visitors and just as often at one another.

At one point, apparently on a whim and perhaps hoping to entertain their guests, two oni seized a third and threw him over a balcony into the sacred pool below.

All of them bore the same sores and lesions.

The chief was less welcoming.

By the time Bo-Jing and his companions entered his quarters, they found themselves surrounded by a dozen enormous creatures. The chief himself was suspicious and openly hostile.

Bo-Jing acted first.

Calling upon the power of the Eastern Coin, he spoke a single sharp command.

The chief collapsed, motionless.

For a moment, the oni stared.

Then one of them lunged for the fallen chief’s yak-skin cloak and wrapped it around his shoulders.

“I am the new chief!”

Another immediately challenged him.

Within seconds the room dissolved into a brawl.

Somewhere in the confusion, Bangqiu made the cloak disappear.

It took the oni a little while to notice.

When they did, their outrage turned once again toward the visitors.

Bangqiu had already vanished from sight.

Invisible, he climbed outside through a window and called down to them.

“The chief’s cloak is outside! Whoever reaches it first will become the new chief!”

To prove the claim, he allowed the cloak to become visible and dropped it to the ground.

The oni crowded at the window. They considered jumping, but even oni could recognize a bad idea when staring down from sufficient height, and instead began shoving one another toward the stairs and over the balcony.

By the time they reached the ground, the cloak had vanished again.

A short distance away, it reappeared.

The oni charged after it.

Then it vanished once more.

While Bangqiu led the shrine’s occupants farther and farther away in pursuit of their wandering symbol of authority, Bo-Jing and the others slipped out.

Near the exit they encountered two oni unlike any they had yet seen.

Disease had transformed them almost beyond recognition. Their swollen skin had stretched into a pale, sickly violet. Most of their teeth were gone. Their bodies were a mass of sores.

They attacked without fear and with almost no regard for their own survival.

When Bo-Jing and his companions cut them down, it seemed less like defeating enemies than releasing creatures that had already been destroyed.

The party exchanged grim looks.

Then Bo-Jing led them back downstairs.

The door the oni had been guarding had been smashed open.

Beyond it, the company found more diseased creatures and put them down.

And then they found the source.

Deep beneath Sum Sukhis rested a boulder of black stone nearly as massive as the shrine above it. Sickly purple light pulsed within it like a heartbeat.

Almost immediately, their skin began to itch.

Their thoughts changed.

Anger came easily. Suspicion seemed reasonable. Cruel impulses arrived with the seductive simplicity of common sense.

They withdrew and continued exploring.

Nearby they discovered two chambers whose walls were covered in unfamiliar writing. The moment they entered, the oppressive feeling lifted. Touching the inscriptions brought an extraordinary sense of peace.

Bo-Jing could not read the characters, but they reminded him of writing he had seen in Bangqiu’s books.

The party left the shrine and made camp outside, waiting for Bangqiu to return from his successful campaign to establish the yak-skin cloak somewhere else on the northern frontier.

When he finally rejoined them, they told him what they had discovered.

Together they entered Sum Sukhis once more.

Bangqiu could indeed read the writing.

As he spoke the words aloud, a profound calm settled over them.

When they returned to the chamber of the black stone, they discovered that something had changed. A gentle yellow radiance now surrounded the enormous boulder. Its purple light still pulsed within, but the corruption no longer touched them.

They could stand beside it without feeling their minds turn against them.

The evil had not been destroyed.

It had been contained.

Bangqiu considered the broken door through which the oni had entered the undercroft.

A wooden barrier and good intentions, he announced, were clearly inadequate.

He raised his hands.

Stone flowed across the opening.

When he was finished, the passage beneath Sum Sukhis had vanished behind a seamless wall.

Slave Pits of the Undercity 03 (Finale)

While in the Happy Valley, Nar-Nuteng had trained rigorously with Beatriss; in sparring contests with Bo-Jing’s retinue, the bright-eyed girl proved she could hold her own with any of them. Bo-Jing never openly acknowledged her prowess, but his insults desisted. And when she announced that she would return with him to free the slaves, he made no objection.

Salt, meanwhile, had disappeared. She had accompanied Bo-Jing and the others to the Happy Valley but refused to enter Beatriss’s fortress. Villagers claimed to see her from time to time and Bangqiu seemed to know where she was. Truthfully, no one seemed to care and soon it was time to return to Khanbaliq.

Bo-Jing, Nar-Nuteng, and Bangqiu made the now familiar journey back to the capital. Rumors of an invasion from the western deserts circulated in the taverns and Bo-Jing and Bangqiu were often recognized as that baghatur and that sorcerer who had deflected the Master’s advance. Good food, welcoming company, and soft beds made the short trip feel way too short.

Back in Khanbaliq, the hospitality was less hospitable. Bo-Jing was invited to tea with one of the Emperor’s high-ranking ministers. In this meeting, Bo-Jing learned that the Emperor was surprised that Bo-Jing had tarried so long in Khanbaliq. Bo-Jing bumbled through a few excuses and then promised to make preparation and leave the day after tomorrow.

Bo-Jing, Bangqiu, and Nar-Nuteng agreed that they had one more day to drive the slavers out of the Monastery and free the captives within.

They party made this approach by the main gate, fully prepared to meet another ragtag group of monks and their fire-breathing machine. The courtyard was empty, the machine still in the same ruinous state that Bangqiu had put it in during the last assault. Bangqiu made himself invisible and using his magic boots, rose up over the gate to land in the courtyard. The doors to each of the winch rooms were closed and barred—from the outside. Listening at one of the doors, Bangqiu heard scratching and slavering, but smelled something far worse than rabid dogs. He knocked the bar off the door and then rose into the air. A half-dozen ghouls rushed out with wild eyes and bloody teeth. They smelled Bangqiu but couldn’t find him and clawed furiously at the air.

When Bangqiu did appear, he was only a few feet above their heads. They rushed towards him and—into a thick cloud of scalding steam that delivered their second death.

Bangqiu entered the winch room and raised the first gate to allow his friends into the gatehouse. Then he opened the second winch door and blasted its two undead occupants with a barrage of hot green bolts of light. He opened the second gate and the rest of the party entered the courtyard.

Bo-Jing led the way to the temple room in which they had fought the priestess, and warned Bangqiu and Nar-Nuteng that the priestess had been killed by the sudden descent of an enormous sword held aloft by a thirty-foot statue while trying to escape through a trapdoor at the statue’s feet. The sword was once more poised aloft, and no one wanted to open the door. Bo-Jing persuaded Ryu to eat one of the lotus pods to enter the dreamworld so that he could pass through the trapdoor without opening it. After passing through the door, returned from the world and deliberately triggered the trap door from the safety of the other side. With silent cheers, the party lit torches and went below.

The party found themselves in the narrow, fulsome tunnels of the antpeople. Wanting no quarrel of double-sword-wielding creatures whose carapaces were like steel, and whose voracious larvae lurked in huge pools of offal, the party sought and found the path of least resistance—by avoiding the sound of clicking and clanging and the smell of rotting compost, the party passed through the antpeople’s lair and into the relatively homey tunnels of the Khanbaliq sewer system. The tunnels were well-made with wide iron walkways alongside an easy-running course of garbage, waste, and storm runoff.

By accident or evil design, the iron walkway was insecure in some places and the bold Bo-Jing was dropped unceremoniously into the sewage canal. There was a circular current here and Bo-Jing found himself pulled swiftly toward the bottom. The fast-thinking Nar-Nuteng through him one end of the a rope. Bangqiu seized the other end and with the help of his magic boots, ran up the arched ceiling to hover above the canal and help Bo-Jing pull himself out of the sewage. The party continued, Bo-Jing still leading the way, but tapping the floor ahead of him with a half barge pole.

The party group found their way to the cells where the slaves had been held captive, and found that they were now occupied by a several monks, who murmured softly to each other while sharing a bowl of rice perched on a stool. One of them saw the party’s approach and caught his breath. The others turned to stare in terror, not moving until the rice bowl slid off the stool onto the floor. None of them reached for his spear or hatchet. At last one of them spoke, “You have come to kill us too?”

Bo-Jing had learned from talking to the rescued slaves, that many of the monks had come from the same southern villages. These monks were thin, one of them emaciated, shivering in his thread-bare scrap of saffron cloth. It was clear to Bo-Jing that if a lucrative slaving operation was running through the monastery, these men were seeing none of the profit. He asked them why they were there. Their answer, in Southern-accented Zhou, with references to soldiers, burning rice paddies, and promises of getting educated in the North, became completely unintelligible when Ryu asked them to name the basic precepts of the two-fold path.

Ryu shook his head and looked at Bo-Jing. “You understand the way of the two-fold path better than these men.”

Bo-Jing asked the men if they wanted to leave the monastery with him. After receiving his reassurance that he did not wish to torture or eat them and his promise that if that was his plan he would just kill them now, the monks agreed to show Bo-Jing a way out.

But it wasn’t time to go out. There was something else down there that Bo-Jing needed to deal with. The monks didn’t know if there were more slaves but there could be soon. There were two bosses and after the priestess boss disappeared, there was one boss, a disgusting man with several pet weasels.

The party wandered the sewers until they met another group of sewer-dwellers. Well-fed and well-clothed Northerners, these men did not even pretend to be monks. “This is just our home.” They were led by a sinister look shaman and maintained a fortified stretch of tunnel on both sides of the sewage canal, with no obvious way of crossing between them.

They knew the weasel man and where to find him. If the party was looking to buy slaves, they could take a message. The party waited and played dice on one side of the tunnel while runners from the other side went to find weasel man. During this time, Bangqiu found a way to cross the sewer undetected and eavesdrop on the men on the far side of the tunnel. The men expressed mild curiosity about the visitors, but said nothing that betrayed a hidden agenda beyond selling slaves. When the runners return, the conversation changed. Weasel man did not want to meet the visitors. These were the robbers who had killed all the monks and stolen so many slaves. Instead, the runners, explained, weasel-man wanted them to find out where the robbers lived so he could report them.

When the runners shared their message with Bo-Jing and Nar-Nuteng, the warriors didn’t need magical powers to know something was up. Bangqiu, invisible in the darkness of the shaman’s cave, promised him new powers if he could help him meet the weasel man.

The shaman liked the sound of this offer. The other men were confused, but when the shaman ordered boards to be placed across the canal so the rest of the party could cross over. After a brief and amicable farewell, the party were on their way, led by the shaman who school his staff and rattled his bone jewelry as he led “the voice” and “the voice’s companions” through a series of passage, at last bringing them to the circular room where Bo-Jing and Nar-Nuteng had once before encountered weasel-man.

Weasel-man wasn’t there, but the weasels were, three of them, large as wolves. Bo_Jing called on the power of the Coin of the East and the weasels, fell to the floor and curled into tight balls. Nar-Nuteng heard the sound of human footsteps running out of the room. They followed the sound back into the antpeople’s tunnel, but soon lost the trail. The monk-refugees were afraid and asked to return to their cells. Bo-Jing told them they could if they found their own way back. They decided to stay with him.

The party decided to return to the circular room, hoping to lay in wait for the weasel-man. While rummaging through his belongings, they found a store of decent food, a sack of tael coins, and business records. A group of monks arrived, unarmed, but well-fed. They greeted the visitors and promised that their master did want to meet them. But he was in the city.

Bangqiu was skeptical and tapped one of the monks on the forehead, ordering him to tell the truth. The man began blabbering. His master was hiding in the stone shed. The other monks gasped and began to run. Bangqiu and the others chased them, through the antpeople tunnels to the surface, then through a garden toward a small shed built next to the monastery wall. Bangqiu became invisible and reached the shed first. The small room was cramped with tools, cooking pots, and sleeping mats. There was an exit, a stout door built into the monastery wall. The shed appeared empty, but Bangqiu sensed the sweaty, weaselly breath of another person. Bangqiu positioned himself in front of postern door. When the monks reached the shed, they cried out to the empty room that Li-Ho had told the robbers he was there. An invisible man reached for the door and collided with the invisible Bangqiu. The two men grappled and wrestled. The other man stabbed Bangqiu with a knife and Bangqiu retaliated with a blast of magic missiles.

Both men became visible and stared at each other. Weasel-man was pudgy and round with a flat nose and large eyes. But the smell. Weasel-man retreated while commanding the monks to attack. As they grabbed tools and charged, Bo-Jing arrived. He killed the Weasel-man with one slash of his sword and ordered the monks to leave his friend alone. They joyfully threw down their weapons. “We are free!”

Slave Pits of the Undercity 01

tl;dr:

Bojing and his crew go to explore a monastery which has been transformed into a place of human trafficking. Walking in the front door, Bojing saw a woman on a bunk and Nar Nutang yelled that the woman on the bunk was a shape-changing monster and Bojing listened and killed the woman but the woman wasn't a shape-changer but a real slave.

Bojing and the crew saw some ""MONKS" and a merchant; Bojing, a powerful baghatur, stuck fear into the monks' hearts forcing them to run. The slave merchant's two powerful bodyguards remained, one with the abilty of shooting meteorites the other a powerful warrior that the mighty Bojing even struggled with but the crew defeated the bodyguards and recovered the keys to rescue the slaves.


"AKSHULLY":

When Bo-jing learned from Ryu that innocent people were being pressed into slavery in the shadow of the Kanbaliq's walls, his heart hardened against the Emperor. He promised Ryu that we would cleanse the monastery of this wickedness, free the enslaved people, and one day depose the cruel despot who misused his power in this way.

Beatriss knew about the monastery and its ugly secrets. Besides the corrupt monks who received captives from the outskirts of the empire and beyond, Beatriss warned her new protege about shape-changers and a lizard that turned people to stone. After her months-long absence from home, Beatriss herself would return to the Happy Valley. Based on these warnings, Bo-jing and Nar Nuteng both bought mirrors.

Based also on Beatriss's advice, Bo-Jing, Nar-Nuteng, plus their sometimes associate, sometimes rival Bangqiu, along with Ryu and Bo-Jing's men-at-arms, entered the monastery through a secret door and based through several halls so long ruined that their original purpose was impossible to know. They encountered a horde of undead creatures whose chilling touch caused temporary paralysis. None of the party was lost in this encounter, but Bo-Jing elected to choose another entrance to gain access to the actual monastery.

Bo-jing led the party in breaking into the stables. There, the party encountered a group of monks whom were so terrified at the sight of the fearsome baghatur that they fley in terror. A woman who had been hiding in the loft space peered down. "Who is there?" she called. "Who will save me from this place?" Something about the young woman's helplessness put Nar-Nuteng on edge and she warned Bo-Jing of the seductive shape-shifters. Bo-Jing charged up into the loft area and angrily killed the too-good-to-be-true ingenue.  She screamed and bled and died and her body did not revert to a gray, alien form.  She was not a monster but a true victim, killed by the one she thought would rescue her.

Bo-Jing was despondent and blamed Nar-Nutang.  Bangqiu rebuked him for being too emotional.  But Ryu patiently explained that he alone was responsible for his mistake and that he must accept it and learn from it and give his focus in the moment to rescuing other slaves.  

The party found their way into a series of tunnels dug under the monastery and inhabited by disgusting ant-men.  With the power of his magic coin, Bo-Jing drove away the ant-men and the party navigated the labyrinth to arrive at the lair of the resident slave lord, a greasy-looking man in leather armor.  While contending with a dozen cowardly monks and several ferocious giant weasels, the slave lord escaped.  Rifling through his belongings, they found some useful information about the work of the slavers including contacts in other cities.

The party continued to explore and discovered a series of cellblocks, where they encountered a group of monks negotiating with a merchant sought to purchase and enslave a number of the people imprisoned there.  Alarmed by the heavily-armed intruders, the monks and the merchant were put to flight while the merchant's bodyguards stayed in place to guard his retreat.  A blast of steam from Bangqiu killed one of them while Bo-Jing defeated and slew the other in trying hand-to-hand combat.  A search of the surrounding storage rooms located the keys and the party freed about a dozen prisoners.  These people, mainly young women from Southern Zhou were glad to leave the monastery but feared being left alone in a city where they would be regarded as enemies.  Bangqiu suggested that they should be taken all the way to the Happy Valley and resettled there.

The Taxman Part 10: Southern Coin

In Banua, Bojing, Beatriss, and Nar Nuteng parted ways with the sorcerers and resumed their search for the coins.  They made their way once more to the southern cave, guarded by the stone warriors.  Beatriss, Bo-Jing and Ryu fought three of the warriors and then Ryu swallowed a lotus pod to go into the dream world in hopes of accessing the secret chamber at the back of the hall.  He was able to converse wit the stone statute who friendly and chatty but refused to step aside to allow access to the chamber. "I don't know you and I cannot allow you inside unless you know me."

Bo-Jing and Nar-Nuteng reasoned that the word they'd found in the yeti cave was the fox's name, but the fox didn't seem any better to read it than they were.  There seemed nothing to do but go back to Banua and find someone who could read the old script.  But on the way there, they encountered a wild fox and with a few scraps of meet and the power of the Eastern Coin, were able to befriend the fox, speak to him, and learn about his indigenous belief system. Most notably, the great ancestor of all foxes was named üneg.  

And indeed the fox in the Southern cave responded well to that name and happily stepped aside, allowing them into a small dark room where they found the Southern Coin, most notable for its red tint.  Bo-Jing gripped the coin and knew that it would make him an even more powerful warrior.  But he also remembered his honor and his promise to Ganbaatar.  "We will present this coin to the Emperor together."

The party returned to Banua to announce their success.  Ganbaatar was pleased and praised Bo-Jing for his honor.  "Your Emperor will be most pleased will us and with you in particular.  Let us go to Khanbaliq at once."

Within days, Ganbaatar had organized a caravan and they began the trek to the capital. Along the way they stopped in Blue City and received a reminder of the dangers of displeasing the city.  Among the bodies of the criminals hanging from the walls, they recognized the same governor who had warned Bo-Jing against doing anything to cheat the Emperor.  The sign hanging around his neck proclaimed, "In cheating the people, I cheated the Emperor."

The Taxman Part 8

Nar-Nuteng and Bo-Jing's men surveyed the scene-- scores of animated skeletons and a group of men on horseback. Reasoning that while the hollow-headed skeletons were a horror, the minds of evil men were the true danger, the heroes launched a volley of arrows at the men on horseback who reacted by raising their shields and spurring the horses behind the ranks of undead that were closing in around the entrances to the cavern hall.

As Bo-Jing reached the tunnel, Gan-Wei pointed out to his master the enemies on horseback. Bo-Jing, clutching the magical coin in his pocket cursed the men with their evil; immediately they broke out into an argument with each other and within moments, blades were drawn.  Beatriss joined the archers and Ryu called for divine wrath on the undead horde; a dozen skeletons exploded in a flash of blinding light just as they reached the entrance to the hall. As Ryu strode toward the entrance to meet the undead horde with his holy symbol. the necro-shaman from outside Khuzu Kala appeared from nowhere and launched an exploding ball of fire into the hall.  Ryu was knocked off his feet and his robes were badly singed, but as the shaman raised his wand, decrying "self-righteous fools who stand in the way of progress," intervened.  Squeezing the Coin of the East into his palm, Bo-Jing cursed the shaman with a word of rebuke that made him drop his wand and wander away in a stupefied daze.

Ryu regained his feet and resumed destroying skeletons, clearing a way for Bo-Jing to reach the skeletons.  Beatriss and the other warriors, meanwhile, cut down the few skeletons that reached the cave.  Some of the men on horseback continued to fight each other while others galloped away.

Soon Bo-Jing reached the befuddled shaman and cut him down without mercy.  When the shaman's body fell to the ground, the skeleton fell into disarray, come continuing to attack, while others retreated, some attacking each others, while other's attacked shadows.  Most of those who pressed the attack were obliterated by Ryu while the stragglers were obliterated by Bo-Jing and Beatriss.  When the dust cleared, Bo-Jing claimed the shaman's ring and reveled in its power-- he was invisible!

Beatrriss noticed that the shaman was once again wearing Narantsetseg’s necklace and encouraged Gan Wei to take it.  "You should return it to her."

The Taxman Part 7

Bo-Jing, Beatriss, Nar-Nuteng and their followers and companions returned to the Valley of the Five Fires by way of the Bolad fire camp.  The fire-watchers asked to see the yeti cave and see for themselves that the yeti were in fact dead.  The party agreed to this request.  In addition to yeti corpses, they also encountered a group of warriors inside the cave.  Although evidence suggested they were members of the Nergui horde, they denied this, claiming instead that they were wanderers looking for a place to camp.  Beatriss order the unknown warriors to leave the cave and they did, muttering curses under their breath.  The party didn't tarry long in the cave, casually the many runes and symbols before escorting the fire-watchers back to their camp.

It was a two-day trip back to the Crystal Cave.  Along the way, they developed their plan for taking the coin.  Ryu explained that with assistance of some honey-scented dried poppy pods, he would be able to enter the dream world or ethereal plane and take the coin. Also on the way to the crystal cave, they encountered Gan Yul.  He explained to them that  Gansukh had sent groups of warriors into the Valley to look for them.  Rather than argue, Gan Yul had silently resolved that in forcing him to break an oath, Gan Sukh had broken his allegiance to the Nergui Horde.  And thus he was free to enter the Valley and would join Bo-Jing's squad again.  "If you'll have me.  Otherwise, I will seek the coins for myself."  Bo-Jing grateful accepted Gan Yul as his noken.

The party reached the cave and by use of potions brewed for them in Banua, Beatriss and Ryu were able to enter the cave.  Ryu entered the dream world and smashed the statue in order to claim the coin. It was pure gold but reflected a green tint.  Ryu delivered the coin to Bo-Jing whom, apprising the new powers conveyed to him by the coin, immediately began to equivocate over the arrangement he had made with Ganbaatar.  "He just wants it because he's power hungry."  Ryu shook his head slowly and stared at ground.

The party made their way north, toward Banua, but with no stated purpose.  As they approached the Bolad fire, they decided to visit the yeti cave once more.  This time, Bo-Jing used the last gaseous form potion to slip through the crack in the wall and discovered a hidden chamber, carved with of the entire valley.  A cave was precisely delineated at the southern end, marked with a  series of symbols:

Rather than return to Banua, the party decided to venture to the south end of the valley and find the cave identified on the map.  Concealed by magic, the entrances, a total of four straight tunnels, would have been impossible to find without the map and the drawing of the cave.  They walked into a tunnel that led to a hall covered with gleaming white stones.  Three columns of stone warriors filled the hall.  As Beatriss and Bo-Jing stepped into the hall, two of the statues cave to life.  The two brave warriors warned their companions to stay out of the hall, for fear of causing additional statues to come to life.

The stone warriors were 20-feet tall and wielded stone swords.  Bo-Jing used his sword to break the statues sword and then level it.  Beatriss meanwhile, stayed low and smashed the statues legs.  The two of them moved to the back of the hall.  There was a bas-relief statue of an even larger warrior with a fox sleeping under his legs.

Bo-Jing and Beatriss puzzled over what to do about this problem.  They invited Ryu into the hall, assisting him in destroying the statue that came to life and attacked the monk as soon as he crossed the threshold.  And then they asked him to ingest one of the honey poppy pods.  He did, and when he entered the dream world, he saw that he could see there was a hidden room beyond the fox, but we couldn't enter it.  As he explained it to to Bo-Jing and Beatriss, the fox had stood up and continued to block his path.

While debating what to do next, Nar Nuteng, from the tunnels outside the hall, raised the alarm.  "Skeletons!  We're being attacked by skeletons!"

Taxman Part 6

 After a meal and a rest, Bo-Jing investigated the area, looking for signs of what had happened to the fire-watchers.  He found blood and other signs of a struggle with large and fearsome beasts.  And in the icy snow outside the fire camp, he found large tracks and sings of bodies being dragged.  Deducing that the Bolad fire-watchers had been victims of a yeti attack, he rallied his troops and explored the area following the tracks to a well-worn path that led higher into the mountains.  The party found a cave of dried flowers and nearby a cave inhabited by three yetis.  Beatriss, Bo-Jing, and Naron faced off against the terrible foes, and supported by Ryu and Bo-Jing's retinue, emerged bruised and battered but victorious.  They explored the rest of the caverns and found runes carved into almost every wall.  By creating a careful map and listening to the wind, they deduced that there was a hidden chamber situated between the flower cave and the yeti's cave, reachable only by a crack in the stone mere inches wide.  They concluded that this was another reason to go back to Banua-- to seek out a place to purchase more of the gaseous form potions that Beatriss had used to enter the crystal cave.

Back in Banua, Ganbaatar was interested to meet Bo-Jing and hear about his rumored success in dealing with the bandits. He smiled to hear about his brother and especially how quickly Gansukh had turned on Bo-Jing.  "That's my brother, he thinks everyone lives to please him and anyone who doesn't becomes his enemy."  He was also grateful to hear that Bo-Jing had hunted down and killed the yetis who had plagued the Bolad fires.  "I will send out new fire-watchers tomorrow."

And then he asked about the coins.  "That's why you spent so much time in the Valley of the Five Fires, right?"

Bo-Jing admitted that he hoped to learn the secrets of becoming invisible or taking on the form of an animal.  Ganbaatar reminded him that the coins were ancestral treasures of his people, but acknowledged that his brother was probably looking for them too "And maybe others, worse than him."  Ganbataar offered to take on the task of collecting taxes in Banua with the understanding that Bo-Jing would continue to look for a coin and-- if he found one-- he and Ganbaatar would present it to the emperor as a gift.  "I'm sure he will reward you and in this way, we will keep the coins away from my brother.

Bo-Jing and Beatriss spent a few weeks in Banua.  Ganbaatar supplied an office and sleeping chambers within the palace and convinced Bo-Jing to hire a scribe to handle the task of accounting for taxes collected and the expenses of Bo-Jing and his staff.  Finally, Beatriss accepted an offer of service from a teen-aged girl named Nar-Nuteng who wanted to learn how to wear armor and fight with a sword.  seeing that the girl was already a skilled archer, hunter, and wrestler, Beatriss was glad to accept her as her sister-in-arms.