Standing outside the tavern, staring and muttering, the federation soldiers stay well away from the strange unconscious magic user.
"Is it a felac? It's as small as a felac."
"It's to flabby to be a felac."
"It doesn't look like it has any muscles at all!"
"How could he use Jarr's visor?"
"It must be a powerful wizard!"
"Are you sure it's unconscious?"
"What species is it?" Sergeant Zion asks. Nocte analyses the unconscious boy as he reaches out. The stolen visor levitates off of Tyc's face and into the gloved hand of the colonel. Scanning the odd little man with his own visor, Nocte uses his aeroarmor's computer to analyze the boy. The armor informs him that the boy is an unknown manoid and he has a broken back. Nocte then stands back and instructs his armor to place the alien manoid in a biostasis energy field. The first aid forcefield will keep the strange man alive until they can get him to the Endeavor’s sick bay.
Bright iridescent magic shoots out of Nocte’s glove as he holds his black hand over the pink lifeless form. A small black device appears on the boy's chest as an energy field begins to emanate out of it. The multi-colored magic forcefield encompasses the chubby manoid as two of the soldiers put their hands over the shield. They think the commands and their gloves attach to shield for transport. The figure rises effortlessly within its biostasis shield as the two men use their magic to carry their injured prisoner. The seven soldiers make their way back to the felac tavern, the paralyzed manoid floating between the last two.
The soldiers climb the wooden steps to the Tigris Tail Tavern above. The two rogs with the criminal cargo bring up the tail end of the group.
Nocte enters the branchy bar and sees that many of the fallen rogs and felacs are starting to get up with help from their friends and their magic healing technology. Slade’s getting into a seat at the table he and Nocte had occupied earlier, his armor having automatically healed him after he'd fallen. The captain’s head is resting in his hands as he watches the female felac help her fallen tribesmen.
Slightly groggy and muddleheaded Slade is having trouble piercing together what just happened. I can’t believe she knocked me out. Is all the captain can think as his armor's magic healing energies continue to wash through him in waves of relief, each one energizing him a little more. The pain in his head from having been knocked out is gone and the leader of the federation soldiers perks up. He notices Nocte come in and he wonders where the colonel has been. How long was I out? The captain wonders.
Slade sees the other soldiers come in after Nocte and his curiosity gets the better of him. He gets up and walks over to the soldiers entering the building. As he comes up to Nocte, the two soldiers, carrying their strange prisoner in a magic biostasis field, come in.
"What’s going on ?" The captain asks his colonel, but Nocte ignores him as he clears off a table in front of him. He tells the soldiers to place their prisoner on the table.
"This is who shot you." Nocte replies to his captain shortly.
Slade is taken aback by this. He stares at the small strange creature. He is like no man he has ever seen, he has a round head, and a face almost like a monchee from Memnonia, yet he has only a little hair around his mouth, and no feathers. As he studies the peculiar monchee-man he notices how fat he is and how little muscle he has. Is he a man or a primate? Slade wonders aloud.
"How?" The captain manages to ask after a few minutes digesting this new information. Nocte then holds up the federation visor which the strange creature had used against Slade. "With this." The captain as well as his men surrounding them are stunned by this revelation. How could this creature use a federation weapon?
"He must know magic!" The stunned federation captain thinks as he looks over at the bizarre, nearly hairless, pink, boy.
Nocte breaks the confused silence. "I intend to heal him in the ship’s sick bay and process him in Ultor. He's a very valuable prisoner. This trip is turning out to be quite prosperous!" Nocte says, his thin lips curling up into more of a sneer than a smile. With that he turns on his heal and walks toward the door to leave.
But before he exits through the tavern door the Colonel turns back towards his soldiers inside and issues a final command. "Place that female felac who started the fight under arrest for striking a federation officer. She is a federation citizen, and that is a heinous federal offense after all." With that Nocte exits and leaves his men to carry out his orders.
Slade is shocked by everything that the colonel just said. He looks over at the strange immobile prisoner. "But how?" The captain mutters as he studies the flabby pink prisoner. He then hears a ruckus behind him. He turns to see a group of his men circling the female felac. She obviously does not intend to be taken without a fight. Slade can see his men getting frustrated as the young female felac begins to resist, and the captain realizes he's facing the same problem he was before he got knocked out. Only the soldiers wouldn't even get questioned for killing a felac that was resisting arrest.
The captain thinks his men to stand down. The soldiers hear the command in their ear pieces and let the girl go. The well trained federation soldiers stand back. Slade and Shia lock eyes and she lights up her whip. But as Shia brings up her weapon Slade shoots a red energy beam from his eyes and then two from his hands. The girl is able to deflect the first shot but not expecting the others she's hit twice. Her paralyzed muscles give under her weight before her pain filled mind realizes what happened.
"Stand down men!"
Three rog soldiers go for the fallen felac but Slade orally commands them to stand back. The large rog officer strides up to the small unconscious female. He kneels down and tenderly picks up the small forest girl. Captain Navar removes the whip still clutched in the girl's hand, now extinguished, and places it on a nearby table. He turns and carries her in his arms like a child, as he walks out the door of the tavern.
Perched high on a branch of the tigerwood tree, Wingsong watches as the drama unfolds below. With his keen owlwin night sight he can see the strange boy race into the jungle. The old wizard wonders as he watches the federation troops follow him. He is shocked to see them all emerge from the forest after a bright magic red and orange flash. He instantly knows what happened when he sees the boy in the biostasis healing field. The wise wizard watches as the big federation soldier takes Shia out of the tavern followed by two more men carrying the boy.
"Oh no!" Wingsong says as he realizes what this means. "Shia is too young and innocent to be taken to Ultor. She will never survive. And Aries will never allow the boy to live, he is obviously a wizard and therefore a threat to his holy order."
The frustrated owlwin quickly flies in through a door in the tavern and picks up Shia’s whip and her flute which he sees behind the bar. Exiting quickly he never touches the tavern floor. The dazed and contused felacs barley notice the eccentric old man they call Wingsong the Whimsical.
Wingsong flies high over the shore toward the ruined bog until he catches up and then passes the soldiers returning to their ship with their two prisoners. He watches from the sky as the soldiers take their two prisoners aboard the big black ship. The frustrated old man hovers over the ship as the remaining soldiers stagger back from the bar. As he watches the last of the federation troops return to the ship, a few men emerge from the front and open the back hatch where the trees and equipment are stored. The rogs go inside the back hatch leaving the door open behind them.
Gliding high overhead on the warm currents of air, Wingsong sees his opportunity. Using his keen spectacle corrected eyesight he quickly checks as far as he can see for any soldiers. Seeing none, the owlwin dives down toward the open hatch. The old man perches on the top of the hatchway, and begins to manipulate his magic crystal amulet. The two soldiers inside the ship's large cargo hold quickly succumb to the silent magic melody the old wizard weaves into the rog’s subconsciousness. Wingsong then swoops in and perches high and deep in the largest crystal tree, his white, and silvery feathers melding into the texture of the crystal tree in the dim light of the cargo hold.
From the safety of the crystal tree the wizard starts to manipulate his crystal talisman. With his magic, Wingsong breaks a weak branch off one of the crystal trees and brings it down near where the two soldiers are laying unconscious. The old owlwin then plays the magic spell that will awaken the federation soldiers.
Very groggy and muddle-headed the men awaken confused. When they see the branch lying right next to them they realize it had broken off and hit them in the head. One of the rogs opens his gloved hand and vaporizes the branch with an extremely bright purple and ultra-green beam. The mens aeroarmor's automatic magical healing begins pulsing through them and they instantly feel much better as their bodies absorb painkilling chy. The two soldiers return to checking the precious cargo as if nothing happened.
Fifteen minutes later the rogs complete their tasks and exit the cargo hold. The hatch door slams shut and a few minutes later Wingsong hears and feels the ship’s engines hum to life.
As the ship lifts off a sharp pain in the old owlwin’s chest makes him almost loose his balance on the crystal branch. The wizard reaches up his wiry hand to his amulet and begins to manipulate it, while with the other hand he digs into his pouch, and extracts the ingredients to his healing spell. He holds up the plant and animal parts as a rainbow of light reaches from his amulet to the spell ingredients. The contents of the wizard’s hand begins to vaporize into an iridescent puff of smoke. The glowing vapor mixes with a stream of magic energy which flows into the old man's chest. Mystic light refracts off the wizards crystal perch then fades as the pain subsides and the old man sits back against the trunk of the dark crystal tree.
The young felac lays unconscious in the federation ship’s brink while she misses the first sunrise over Memnonia since her birth.
The human boy is lying almost dead in the federation ship’s sickbay as the complex magic machinery passes over him using many specialized types of crystals and magical beams of energy all over the boy's body.
The last of the owlwins sits in the cargo hold of the federation ship. Sitting amongst the last of the crystal trees taken from their natural habitat the old man says a traditional prayer to the father and soul of Aryn:
