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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Plane Sailing" data-source="post: 259491" data-attributes="member: 114">As Lysander and the others lead the villagers outside, and start helping them come to terms with their ordeal, Trajan and Anne-Marie investigate the arena on the ground floor – and find the two combatants they had seen earlier manacled to stake in the centre of the room, beaten and bloodied. Spotting a key by the door, Trajan moves across and unlocks their chains.One of them is a tall, blonde Borderlander, with a thick beard and braided hair. The other is a hawk-nosed man with a deep tan and his hair gathered in a long ponytail – who springs back into a wary crouch, facing the new intruders. Trajan makes conciliatory gestures, and smiling attempts to calm the man down.The Borderlander introduces himself as Sean, a ranger who was captured while he was half-frozen in the depths of winter. He had been following a rumoured trail of fiends at large… but ended up closer than he had intended. Since then they had pitched him against a series of foes, human and humanoid, in brutal fights to the death. It was only when the pony-tailed man arrived that they were able to draw the fights out in a way which fooled their captors – which had been going on for nearly a week now.Meanwhile the hawk-nosed man, who clearly didn’t speak any of their languages, gingerly approached Trajan, sniffing approvingly. Trajan looks around, hands spread wide, when the man startles him with a clear and distinctive whinny. Puzzle pieces fall into place, and they realise that he must be one of the Dukan nomads, horse barbarians from the far West.Gathering outside, they decide to donate one of their horses to the barbarian, to give him a chance to find his way home. Discarding the saddle and inclining his head respectfully to Trajan and Sean, the man rides off.The villagers are obviously distraught at the idea of returning to their village. Barely two thirds of them are left now, and they have terrible, terrible memories of this place. During conversation with the acting head woman Lysander finds out that until last summer they normally had quite a lot of trade with a village in the woods a few leagues downriver from here, a hamlet known as Ossington. It seems that the best thing for them to do would be to travel down to Ossington and set up a new life with friends from that place. Lysander, K’tan, Trajan and the others decide that they will help escort them and their remaining goods to find this new life, before continuing their journey towards Bridlerest. Sean also elects to stay with them, to help provide protection for the people.Meanwhile, Lysanders thoughts are turning more and more frequently back Westwards, to the refugee shanty town of his people, suffering outside Knightsbridge. What is the point of fighting against evil from outside the world when there is no help for the ordinary people? He has helped many Southlander villagers overcome dire perils; when is it time to help his own Singharese brothers and sisters?After spending a day packing up belongings onto handcarts and wagons, the party lead the villagers across the river and down past the thick deciduous wood, where leaves are just starting to appear on the ends of twigs as the month of Greening dawns bright and clear. At last, a time free from unknown horrors!If only they knew...(at about this point some of Lysanders training and experience pays off, and he gains another level of Jazumai, making him a Jazumai 9/ Sorcerer 1)Next:  The Standing Stone</blockquote>

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