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Message: <blockquote data-quote="spyscribe" data-source="post: 1304082" data-attributes="member: 5808">Sorry about the delay in posting this update.  I'm on the road.  Still, look for a series of short, but frequest posts over the next week or so.Part the Twenty-firstIn which: the party attempts a rescue.Annika’s door shudders on its hinges, the beast lets out a blood-chilling howl and...falls silent.Before Annika has time to recover her wits a huge man opens her door.  They stare at each other for a few seconds and Annika realizes he is still more boy than man, a few years younger than herself.  "Umm…" her rescuer says, "You should probably get out of here."  Annika wastes no time following his instructions.  She runs for the West doors—smashed to splinters on their hinges—and doesn't stop until she's caught by a group of her classmates.It takes a little work to convince them she's all right, but Annika soon gets a bowl and joins the line of students in the bucket brigade.  It's only then that she has time to wonder who the people who slew the beasts were.Further down the burning building an elf coaxes a warhorse forward, pulling out bars over one of the dormitory windows.  Several students tumble out the window, but now that the doors are open, most that can are braving the hallways.Throwing a bowl of water against the flaming building Annika sees that she ran right past another shadow beast without even noticing it, as it was completely surrounded by men wielding swords.  As she watches, a man in leather armor sinks a short-sword into its side and the creature boils away into thin air.The man sheathes his weapon and yells down the south corridor, “Lira!  Get out of there!”Several of Annika’s classmates come running out, followed by a woman about her age with soot-streaked red hair.“Is that everyone?” he asks.The woman shakes her head.  “No, but it’s everyone who’s going to make it out.”At that moment, the burning administration building, four stories of flaming logs that went up like a torch in the initial explosion, collapses in on itself.  Amid the hail of burning debris, Annika watches as molten hot sparks shoot upward, then float on the wind to the academy greenhouse, where they quickly begin to burn.to be continued...</blockquote>

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