Defending the Lands of the Five Fires 02 (Into the Valley)

The party returned to Banua and shared news of their success at Sum Sukhis. Ganbaatar was thoroughly pleased and announced a small feast in their honor.

The celebration was muted, however, by the growing evidence that their recent triumph, however symbolically important, had done little to address the danger now gathering around them.

The population of Banua had noticeably increased during the weeks Bo-Jing and his company had been away. The most obvious newcomers were members of the Bolad horde returning to the seat of their khan, as was their right. But more and more of the new arrivals were refugees from the Nergui horde.

They were not soldiers.

They were families. Widows. Children.

Ganbaatar called them his “long-lost people returned,” deliberately striking a tone of generosity rather than conquest. Clearly, Gansukh had not been able to defend his people as well as Ganbaatar.

But an uncomfortable question hung over Banua.

Would “better than Gansukh” prove to be good enough?

Bo-Jing discussed the matter with Ryu and came to the one obvious conclusion. As an Imperial baghatur, he was not Ganbaatar’s man and he was not a partisan of the Bolad horde. His commission might have brought him north to collect taxes, but it also gave him responsibilities to the people of the frontier, Bolad and Nergui alike.

He would go to Khazu Kala.

He would make peace with Gansukh if possible and, regardless of whether he succeeded, find some way to bring help to the people there. If he could not organize a defense himself, he would gather enough information to make a compelling report to the Imperial authorities.

The mysterious Salt had also found her way to Banua.

Bo-Jing suspected that Bangqiu had somehow contacted her through the dreamworld. Regardless, he was glad to have the advice of another magician before confronting the armies of the “Master.”

Another newcomer also volunteered to join them.

Nekhil was a wandering warrior with a poor horse, shabby leather armor, and little besides his spear. His explanation was simple.

Every shaman deserved a bodyguard.

Salt, apparently finding nothing unusual in this arrangement, accepted his protection. Bo-Jing welcomed Nekhil into the company.

Nar-Nuteng, however, made a different choice. She respected the customs of her people and the ancient taboo against entering the Valley of the Five Fires. She would remain in Banua.

And so Bo-Jing departed with Bangqiu, Salt, Ryu, Nekhil, and the usual members of his retinue.

En route to the lands of the Nergui, they encountered a khimori—a blue-black flying horse—who introduced himself as Ses-Hami, son of Npi-Nhut, the khimori Bo-Jing had previously met in the Valley of the Five Fires.

Ses-Hami brought grim news.

The Valley had been invaded by evil creatures who defiled the cradle of humanity with wanton bloodshed. They fought one another, killed animals, and set the grasslands ablaze.

At first, the khimori had been able to avoid the danger simply by taking flight.

Then the land-bound monsters were joined by flying abominations: lions with the heads and enormous razor-sharp beaks of eagles.

These creatures could pursue the khimori into the sky.

Several of the herd had already been killed. Without assistance, Ses-Hami feared the rest would soon be eliminated.

Bo-Jing immediately promised to help.

That night, however, he slept badly.

He had been traveling toward Khazu Kala because frightened people needed him. Now he had promised aid to the khimori as well. Every detour carried a cost, and Bo-Jing found himself wondering whether the promise he had just made might eventually be paid for in human lives.

By morning, he had reached a decision.

Helping the khimori might also help the people of Khazu Kala. If nothing else, entering the Valley would teach him something about the creatures causing such havoc throughout the northern frontier.

The company turned toward the Valley of the Five Fires.

On the approach, they passed through the Bolad fire camp that guarded one of the traditional entrances.

It had been completely destroyed.

Every firewatcher was dead.

Bo-Jing and his companions crossed into the Valley.

There they encountered a group of haggard soldiers carrying crimson shields.

The strangers reacted with open joy and relief at the sight of other natural people. They identified themselves as warriors of the Clan of the Worm and told a story much like the ones Bo-Jing had already heard elsewhere.

Their lands had been overrun by beastmen.

The creatures attacked without reason or apparent purpose except for their obsessive search for two people they called the “deaf witch” and the “queen with no name.”

Circumstances had become so desperate that the Worm Clan warriors had broken the taboo against entering the Valley of the Five Fires. Their plan was to cross it, warn their treaty-partners among the Nergui, and begin organizing a common defense.

Bo-Jing thanked them for the warning and agreed that all people threatened by the invaders would need to stand together.

He believed the “deaf witch” might be Naransetseg, wife of Gansukh, khan of the Nergui horde.

He intended to accompany the Worm Clan warriors toward the Nergui lands.

But first, he had made a promise to the khimori.

The men of the Worm Clan asked to travel with him. They had seen enough already to recognize in Bo-Jing a true baghatur of courage and honor.

Bo-Jing welcomed their help gladly.

Not long afterward, the enlarged company encountered several of the beastmen the Worm Clan had described.

What they saw was worse than expected.

These did not appear to be creatures born as beasts. Beneath the claws, fangs, and strange tattoos were recognizably human bodies caught in the midst of some agonizing transformation.

The creatures were fearsome opponents.

Bangqiu and Salt struck first, blasting them with scalding steam and other magic. Those who survived were swiftly cut down by Bo-Jing and his men.

The Worm Clan warriors pledged their gratitude for having been accepted into such valiant company.

Some time later, Ses-Hami approached Bo-Jing privately.

There was something he had not told him.

His father, Npi-Nhut, had been captured by the beastmen.

The creatures had offered Ses-Hami a bargain: deliver Bo-Jing to them, and they would spare his father.

After traveling with Bo-Jing, Ses-Hami had come to understand that he was not merely formidable but honorable. And he knew his father would rather die than purchase his freedom with the betrayal of such a man.

Ses-Hami also knew where the enemy was waiting.

The beastmen and other monsters had prepared an ambush along the main path into the Valley, expecting Bo-Jing to pass beneath them.

But Ses-Hami knew another route.

A narrow path through the forest climbed even higher than the ambush point.

If Bo-Jing agreed, they could approach the enemy from above, rescue Npi-Nhut, and turn the ambush against those who had prepared it.

Bo-Jing agreed immediately.

Ses-Hami led the company through the forest and eventually to the crest of a steep grassy slope overlooking the main path below.

The khimori had spoken the truth.

A group of beastmen and three trolls waited above the path. They had assembled a great mass of rubble, held in place by logs and ropes, ready to be released onto anyone passing beneath them.

Nearby, Npi-Nhut stood chained to a rock.

Three enormous wolves guarded him.

Bangqiu rose into the air.

From above, he cast down a ring of fire around the would-be ambushers. The flames expanded, trapping the beastmen and trolls inside.

The Worm Clan warriors loosed arrows into the surrounded enemy.

The wolves charged uphill.

Bo-Jing ordered his men to concentrate their arrows on the animals while he stepped forward, sword ready, to meet whatever survived.

Salt added her own magic to the volley.

Two of the wolves fell before reaching the company.

Only one reached Bo-Jing.

He killed it with a single blow.

Below, the ambushers tried desperately to escape Bangqiu’s burning prison. Some were consumed by the flames. Others managed to break free and charge uphill, only to be overwhelmed by Bo-Jing and his men as they reached the crest.

Soon the monsters were dead.

Bo-Jing’s company had turned an ambush into a complete victory.

And not one of them had fallen.

Npi-Nhut was freed from his chains.

He confirmed his son’s account and expressed pride in Ses-Hami’s choice.

The elder khimori announced that he would gather the surviving members of the herd. With Bo-Jing’s permission, they too would join the growing company as it continued its campaign through the Valley.

Bo-Jing agreed.

The party that had entered the Valley seeking information was becoming something else.

Everywhere they went, survivors were choosing to follow.

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!”