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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Silver Moon" data-source="post: 449160" data-attributes="member: 8530">Chinese Take-outChapter 25, “Kim’s Story”, 2:00 P.M. The group return to the train, which has been waiting for them, and Kim-Sung asks that they be taken to the base of the Mountain.   They train travel for about fifteen minutes, down a wide spiral track, eventually stopping at a station with several other trains.   This area is a well-guarded cave chamber which also has a gateway opening out into the city.    Hundreds of dwarves are traveling through these open gates.  Kim-Sung explains this is the major passageway between the Ming Mountains and the City of Chunming.   It is a bright sunny day, with a cool breeze coming off of the ocean.  This section of the city is populated primarily with dwarves.  The party can smell meat being cooked in several nearby restaurants, and they have not had lunch yet, so Duegar suggests they stop for a bite.   Kim-Sung tells the group that most of the restaurants in this area serve excellent food, and asks Chin-Tang to “Take them to one that you like.  We’ll meet up at the school.”  Kim then tells Serita that she knows of a restaurant with a vegetarian cuisine more consistent with their druidic beliefs.  Mojo interjects “Wonderful I feel like a nice salad.”  Serita answers “You’ve never had a salad in your life!”  Mojo answers “I have too, and that’s exactly what I want right now.  I’ll just go dine with the ladies.”   Serita answers “He’s really got it bad if he’s calling me a lady.”  Narg looks at Mojo and says “I don’t know you any more!”  Both Duegar and Lannon debate also joining them, but the smell of dwarven cooking wins out.   As the group splits up Narg comments to Lannon “I’ve never seen him eat a salad before.”    The group of Chin-Tang, Duegar, Lannon and Narg go to a place whose name translates as “Lot’s of Beef”.  They order foot-round two-inch thick juicy steaks, smothered with onions and barbecue sauce.   Duegar and Lannon try to find out more information from Chin-Tang about Kim-Sung, but he is not very forthcoming.  The diner conversation then centers on how they are now getting closer to Morgarth, and specifically what Narg plans to do to him once they find him.   The other three enter the vegetarian restaurant.  Mojo says “Here, let me get that for you,” as he helps both women into their chairs.  Kim, Mojo and Serita look over the menu, which lists about twenty different types of salads.  Serita sarcastically asks Mojo “What do you want to eat?”  He answers “I don’t know, it ALL looks so good.”  He then turns to Kim, and says “I know, why don’t you order two things and we’ll share.”   The waitress takes their orders, Serita ordering for Mojo, and they are soon brought three ornate salads made from multiple types of greenery.  Mojo hesitates before biting into what looks to him like a pile of weeds, but does an adequate job of faking that he actually likes the food.  He decides to take advantage of the fact that his two rivals are not around to hear, and asks Kim-Sung to tell them about herself (sometimes he really does use that 15 intelligence of his).   Serita is also curious, having never known any druids of dwarven blood, and asks Kim to tell her story.Kim-Sung begins by saying “My siblings and I had some social adjustment problems growing up in Chunming, being of mixed race in a predominantly pure-race city.   Since we were direct descendents of the dwarven Clan Chief, nobody mistreated us, but we had few dwarven playmates.   My closest childhood friends were a pair of hybrid race children, also of royal blood.  They were half-elves, a boy named Way-Elorra-Chun and a girl named Mei-Elorra-Chun, who lived in Chunming with their human father Wei-Chun.  Wei-Chun belonged to the ruling human Chun family, although he was far from the actual line-of-succession, being a fifth cousin, twice removed.   In his youth, about a half-century ago, Wei-Chun had led an adventuring team.  The team adventured together for over two decades, and the team’s membership included a gnome wizard named Yulo-Eng, his younger brother, a gnome druid named Yun-Eng, and a high elf archer-ranger named May-Elorra.    May was born in the nearby elvan territories of the Kwah-Ling Forests, and is also a distant relative of the elvan leader.   During this period of time May and Wei fell in love, and had their two children together, who were left in Chunming with Wei’s parents when the team was away on adventures.As Wei and the other human members of the team began to approach middle age, and no longer had the same energy and enthusiasm towards adventure that they had in their youth, the team disbanded.   Wei-Chun decided to settle down in Chunming to raise his children, and asked May-Elorra to formally join him as his wife.  Although flattered by his proposal, and still deeply in love with Wei, it went against her basic elvan nature to be bonded through human law and ceremony.  She also dreaded the prospect of being forever “cooped-up” in a large city of humans and dwarves.   She declined his proposal and returned to the elvan lands, but did agree to spend each winter in Chunming with him and their children.  In the thirty years since that time May has kept her promise to Wei,.  She spends between three and five months of the year in Chunming, living in the elvan lands the remainder of the year.   .  A little over a decade ago the Ming Clan began to run into conflict with the elves along the loosely defined border between our lands.  I had inherited my father's gifts of diplomacy and linguistics, and having been taught fluency in the elvish language, took it upon myself to negotiate peaceful relations between my Clan and the elves.   I approached May-Elorra, as a resident of both locations, to assist in ironing out an agreement between the races.  While both races sought a settlement to the disputes, it required several years of diplomacy.  The elvan leader was very reclusive, and would not venture anywhere near the dwarven or human settlements, nor would he allow a large dwarven force to travel through his territory.  Similarly, my grandfather can also be a stubborn man, and he had no desire to travel without his supporters through unfamiliar elvan lands.  With May-Elorra acting as spokesperson for the elves, myself as the spokesperson for the dwarves, and May’s old adventuring buddy, the charismatic and now renowned gnome wizard Yulo-Eng acting as facilitator and mediator, terms for a meeting were eventually decided upon.  Grandfather and I traveled deep into the elvan territories, where he met alone with the elvan leader, and signed a formal agreement to resolve all present disputes.  They also created a methodology for mediation of future disagreements, through the gnome Eng clan, who reside in both territories.   By that point in time May-Elorra, Yulo-Eng, his brother Yun-Eng and I had spent considerable time together.  May taught me fluency in the selective high elvan dialect of Elvish, and we all traveled extensively together through the elvan lands.   At one point they saved my life from a dragon, and Yun-Eng brought me to safety with his druid friends while the others dealt with the monster.  The druids befriended me, teaching me how to better survive in the woodlands, and to appreciate the intricate web of nature.  Shortly thereafter Yun became my mentor and gave me my druidic training. Grandfather was not sure what to make of my chosen profession, but was grateful for my intervention with the elves, so decided to tolerate it.   Since then, as the Clan’s only druid, I have been given the title of Chief Herder of the Guttar.”  “The gutter?” Mojo ask.  “No,” she replies, not gutter, gut-tar, a unique type of oxen bred by the dwarves to work in tunnels and mines.  The role lacks prestige, but it does enable me to work with large numbers of animals and see that the Clan properly cares for them.”  The three conclude their meal, and Kim-Sung leads them to the school.   Back at the other restaurant, at the end of the meal Duegar orders two more steaks “To go.”  “Good, Mojo will probably want one later to keep from starving to death,” Narg comments.  “Really?” Duegar comments, then yells “Waiter, better make that four steaks to go.”  “Four?” asks Chin-Tang.  “Sure,” Duegar answers “By then I’ll have already finished the two for my snack, and I’d hate for Mojo to have to eat alone.”  “Change the subject” says Lannon, “I don’t want to think about the time he is spending together with her.”</blockquote>

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