Draiss waited for a moment, and after a few more minutes, he looked down the tunnel confused, before looking up at the hostages. "Well, crap. I wasn't expecting to capture all of them."<br/><br/>He dropped down from above the ceiling, and shifted from the dragon to his human form. He stared down the tunnel for another minute, before shaking his head in perplexity, and heading over to the hostages. He gave them a quick bow, before he started cutting ropes and handing out cloaks to the women that had been stripped down. "If you ladies will give me a minute, I will go and collect my prisoners, and then try to figure out how to get everyone back to the palace."<br/><br/>He turned and headed to the first cavern, absorbing the magic from the spells he had used, and using another sending.<em>Um yeah, that didn't go like I thought. All hostages rescued, all fifty or so 'bandits' captured. Got enough room for them all I hope.</em><br/><br/>He stuffed all the discarded weapons into his bag of holding, before stepping outside, and looking over them all with a slightly confused expression. "Well, this is a first for me, I will admit. But I will be teleporting everyone back to the palace in groups of seven. So, play nice while I am away with a group, or I will have to be very unhappy when I get back."<br/><br/>He waited about ten minutes, before standing up, and explaining how this was going to work. "Seven of you will stand in a line, hands on the shoulder of the person in front of you. You will not resist the teleport spell, or I will set you on fire when I get back for the next group. Any questions?"<br/><br/>He then began the process of teleporting the groups of seven back, using up his spells frighteningly fast, but he would have enough to get everyone back, but in case he miscalculated, the last group would four people, all of them hostages. It took nineteen castings to get everyone there, and the prisoners went through first, seven a journey to the palace to give the guards time to restrain them and move them, before the next group came through. He bowed to the nobles when it was finally their turn, and sent them back, before finally returning to pick up Tysinni and the last three, before casting it one last time, though he was pretending to be exhausted by now, and the teleport was much sloppier, but still dropped them in the courtyard. Sadly, it wasn't the palace courtyard, but his lairs' courtyard, which was irritating in the least, because now he was late, the princess was still missing, along with three of the more powerful merchants' wives and daughters, and it was a bit of a walk from his courtyard to the teleport circle and then to the palace.<br/><br/>He sighed, and looked at the women with an apologetic smile, before deciding to use his last big spell to teleport them, this time taking his time to counter the 'exhaustion'. They arrived in the palace courtyard, and he leaned against a nearby pillar, nursing a headache.