After finding the rescued captives in the Happy Valley, Bo-Jing and his crew, along with Bangqiu returned to Khanbaliq. Nar-Nuteng had elected to stay behind in the Happy Valley and train with Beatriss. Although Bo-Jing had sometimes denigrated the girl's prowess in battle, he admitted that her unique way of looking at things was often useful and enhanced his own decision-making. Finding his men too obliging and Bangqiu too selfish, Bo-Jing was glad to meet Salt, a plucky team-player with a mind of her own plus nascent magical abilities.
The party set out early in the morning and encountered a group of imperial guards. The guards recognized Bo-Jing's status as a baghatur and seemed embarassed when it become apparent that they were going to the same place. While Bo-Jing and his friends were seeking to infiltrate the monastery, the imperial guards had been charged with-- guarding it. Reaching the monastery, Bo-Jing learned that their previous entry point was no longer an option. The stables had been reduced to rubble, with broken boards, large stones, and garbage blocking the passage that had once allowed access to the lower level. This was the point the guards were expected to patrol. With feigned naivete they suggested that if Bo-Jing had business with the monks inside, he should present himself at the front gate. Their solemn duty was to remain "right here directly in front of the ruined stables no matter what might be happening somewhere else such as at the front gate-- way over there on the other side of the monastery from where we couldn't possibly be expected to see or hear anything anyway."
Following the guards directions, the party found the entrance, a roofless gatehouse with two portcullises and a courtyard beyond. The monks in the courtyard seemed welcoming, pausing in their work of lading a cart to greet the visitors, but soon showed their duplicitous nature. The monks opened the outer portcullis and, once the party had entered dropped it closed without opening the inner portcullis. When Bo-Jing drew his sword and threatened him, they turned the heavy cart toward him and blasted him with a stream of boiling oil. Bo-Jing sustained little in the way of burns but his armor was damaged and all of his men sustained minor injuries from the splash. More seriously, it seemed likely the monks had the means to cause more mayhem from behind the near-complete safety of the portcullis.
Bangqiu stepped forward and blasted the monks with hot steam. As they ran away from their machine, he used his magic to become invisible and levitate over the inner gate. Bangqiu found the winch room and raised the gate and allowed his comrades inside. Then he assumed bird form and flew away.
The monks, with their poor weapons and threadbare robes showed little appetite for combat without the protection of a gate between them and Bo Jing's sword. They fled to their ramshackle dormitory and Bo Jing led a charge toward the temple. In the gloomy, cobwebbed sanctuary, dominated by a huge statue of a man with a sword raised above his head, they found the head priestess and her minions. She hexed Bo Jing and his man-- Ganyul and Ganwei were transfixed, while Bo-Jing shook off the paralyzing magic and responded with a curse of his own. Clenching the Eastern Coin in his palm, he castigated the deceptive priestess as she rose her hands to cast another spell; she froze as if his on the head, blinked and wandered away in a stupor.
And so the battle was on. A dozen captives, in chains, turned on their captors who were cut down by Bo Jing and his men. Ryu tended to Ganyul and Ganwei. Salt watched from the shadows until a monk in black robes slinked up behind Bo Jing with a wicked dagger. A bolt of blue energy from Salt struck the man in the back of the head. He cried out in shock; Bo Jing spun on his heel and cut him down.
The panicked priestess stumbled toward the statue and bent over to open a trapdoor. As she raised it, the statue's sword swung down and killed her.
The captives cheered. Bo-Jing found the key to unfasten their chains and together with his friends, led the newly-freed people out of the monastery.
Like the others, they were mainly from the "Southern Empire" of Zhou Song. They would not be safe in Khanbaliq and could not make the long trip home unaccompanied. Most had lost their families in the war and were grateful to start a new life in the Happy Valley.
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