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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 446404" data-attributes="member: 8530">Chinese Take-outChapter 21, "The Hendry Family Saga (continued)", September 17, 1018, 3:00 P.M. Rainville continues telling several members of the Silver Moon the tale of his family's recent adventures, and the problems they have gotten into.   "We arrived here in Shosun a week later, on September 9th, and secured lodgings at the Common House Inn in the Caucasian district.   We found that the slavers had arrived in the city on the 3rd, and had split their two-dozen captives into three different groups.   One group of six Hengeyokai had been auctioned off on the 5th.  Another group of the slavers left the city with ten Hengeyokai on the 6th, their destination being the city of Y’Cho Kang several hundred miles to the west.  The remaining slavers, with the other eight Hengeyokai, were planning to leave Shosun on the 11th as part of a caravan heading south to the city of Zun-Hi.    Father was able to sign up our wagon to join this caravan, and we then spent the next two days in Shosun finding out where in the city the six Hengeyokai who had been auctioned off were located.We left with the caravan on the 11th, then some of us teleported back here to Shosun that evening, rescuing two of the Hengeyokai, who we then returned to the biosphere.   We did the same on the night of the 12th, rescuing and returning another Hengeyokai.    On the night of the 13th we found that each of the remaining three Hengeyokai in Shosun were now being very well guarded, and the three of us who came that night did not have the right combination of skills and spells to pull off an easy rescue, so decided to refrain.We came back on the 14th”  “The night that you killed four policemen,” Aradyn interjects.  “Unfortunately,” he answers.  “Father had brought with his that night Barry, Kenneth and Ling.  Ling sneaked into a building in cat form, to inform the Hengeyokai of the impending rescue.  Only then did she discover that it was a carefully set trap, and that she was now a captive as well.   Before she could alert us to this, Barry had held what we thought were the only guards, and Kenneth entered the building.  It was then that the twenty policemen charged out of their hiding places at him.  Father ordered an immediate retreat, but Kenneth refused to leave Ling behind, and fought his way to her and the other Hengeyokai.   While still invisible, Barry and Father joined them, and all teleported away.On the 15th, Father returned with Barry and my brother Hendry, using that night strictly for surveillance of the remaining two Hengeyokai captives.   Both locations were now very heavily guarded, and they planned an assault plan for the following night.   We decided that it was too dangerous to bring either Kenneth or Ling back, so last night, the 16th Father brought with him myself, Hendry Junior and Barry.    Using a combination of Hold and Sleep spells, as well as magical sleep dust, we managed to incapacitate the twenty police and five other guards.  Unbeknownst to us however, another five-dozen police plus additional guards were also lying in wait.  As we neared the Hengeyokai they sprang their ambush.  Father tried to teleport us away, but was hit by Magic Missiles, loosing his spell.  He then tossed up a Globe of Invulnerability to protect us from further spells, as our three spellcasters used more Hold and Sleep spells to stop the foes.  The enemy numbers, however, were far too great.  My twin brother was hit by a weapon, which knocked him unconscious, with police swarming towards his body.   This caused Father to panic, and he used some of his more forceful spells to get to Hendry Junior, which must have been when the casualties occurred.   Barry then exhausted his remaining Hold Person spells, and urged Father to retreat.   During that time, I had managed to get to the Hengeyokai prisoner, of the sparrow sub-race, and freed her from her cage and magical collar.    She changed to bird form and flew to my father, who I yelled at to leave while he still could.  He reluctantly teleported away with the rest of the team, leaving me behind.  I dived out a window and ran, with a small army of police chasing after me.   We had been in one of the interior districts of the city, and I used my Boots of Climbing to get over the wall to the adjacent Caucasian district of the city.   I quickly made my way towards the final city wall, but by now a city wide alarm had gone out, and the entire exterior wall was lit up and heavily fortified.    I headed back towards the Common House Inn, and climbed up to the fifth floor rooms where we had stayed earlier that week.  Before we had left the Inn, Ling had rigged the windows to be opened from the outside, for just such an emergency situation.   I found one of our rooms to be currently unoccupied, and entered it.  I could see dozens of police searching the city below, but my entry to this room appeared to have gone undetected.   Still, I waited another half-hour before lying down and sending off my Astral form to find Father, and let him know of my situation.He was glad to hear that I was safe.  Because of the spell lost in the battle he no longer had enough teleports to return and get me.   We both assessed that the Common House was too dangerous for me to stay at, and Barry suggested that I go the this church of his Pantheon.  He had spoken to the groundskeeper the week before, which had offered to let him, stay there.  I then sent my Astral form back to Shosun.  On my way back into the Inn I came upon Cassie-Andra’s Astral Imprint, and realized she was also staying there.  I then approached her to help me.   The rest you know.”The party pulls back together.  Aradyn asks, “What do we do now?”  Lono says to Aradyn “I’d say that you’d better keep your woman in line from now on.”  Fiona says to Lono “You’re not helping.”    Cassie says to Rainville “What are your plans now?”  He answers, “Wait here until tonight, when Father will come and get me.”   “And then what,” says Aradyn “You’ll attack the city again to get the remaining human-animal, killing dozens of police at the same time?”  Rainville answers,  “No, the authorities are clearly prepared for us.  We will concentrate on the group with our caravan, and leave this one here for the time being.”  Aradyn replies “Are you sure your father will agree to that, he sounds like a mono-maniacal person to me.”  Rainville answers, “I’d have to agree, he does seem to have tunnel-vision in regards to this current mission, but my brother and I find it an improvement over his previous severe depression over the loss of his wife, and even you must admit that slavery is a bad thing.”  “So is killing police,” Aradyn answers, adding, “Cassie and Hiroshi’s helping you has caused us enough trouble already.  If you guys cause any more trouble in this city they’ll not go as lightly on us.  How do we know you’re father will listen to you?”  “He is a very intelligent man,” Rainville answers, “It would be foolish to do anything further in Shosun in the immediate future.”The party suggests getting more information from the Hendrys.  Aradyn interjects “No, I’m in favor of members our groups separate.   Here’s the deal Rainville.  You tell us now what you can about exactly where Morgarth is, and we’ll go our separate ways.”   Rainville agrees to this, and describes the heavily forested area east of Anchou that they traveled through from the anti-magic shell.  Fiona comments “I wish we’d brought Hiroshi’s map with us.”   Fiona then asks “And why is it that Morgarth came after us in the first place?”  Rainville answers, “He wanted to retrieve a magical teleportation ring of his that your druid Serita had.”  Cassie interjects “Well, it’s his own fault for leaving it lying around on another world in the first place.”  “Why would he need that?” asks Fiona, “Couldn’t he just make another one?”  Rainville answers “Well, that one apparently has some unique properties, and he needed it as a component for an artifact that he is creating.   That no longer is the case, as the Hobgoblin King had a comparable item, which can be substituted instead.  Still, he’s not happy with you guys for defeating his troops.”  “Yeah, like we told him to come and attack our Island,” Lono adds.Rainville continues “Speaking of the Island.  I agree with what Aradyn said about it being best to keep our groups apart.  Father still harbors anger towards Cassie for brutally killing him.”  “He touched my library!” she yells out.  “Yeah, and also tried to kill you,” Aradyn adds.  Rainville quickly responds, “No, he was not trying to kill Cassie, only capture her.”  “Yeah, to give her to Morgarth. What are the odds that he would have let her live,” Lono throws in.  The group decides to leave, but only after Aradyn gets Rainville to promise that he will not let Morgarth know that they are on this continent looking for him.  Rainville assures him that they have had no contact with him since leaving the castle, and fully intend to keep it that way.  Lono later adds  “That promise was worthless.  He was still invisible, so he probably had his fingers crossed when he said it.”    The five go get Toshiro from the Heian church, return to their rickshaws, and head back to the city.   They get back in time for supper, joining Timothy in one of the dining rooms.   The other group has not returned yet from Chunming.</blockquote>

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