ALL NOVEL Ch 20: A Very Unpleasant Journey
The last twenty minutes of their trip were miserable for Elwen. She was already exhausted from the last few hours of walking, which made it difficult to keep up with the horses, even if they were going at a slow pace. This was only made worse because she couldn’t see anything, which led to her to nearly constantly be tripping over rocks or branches or her own feet or air. Additionally, she couldn’t see when the guards changed directions, which resulted in her being tugged in that direction. If it was only a couple of times, it might’ve been okay, but it was happening nearly constantly because the road was windy. She was being tugged around nearly the entire time, and she felt like they were going to rip her arms off by the end of it.
This was all made worse because she couldn’t even complain, as they had decided to shove that wooden thing in her mouth. Should couldn’t decide which was worse, that or the blindfold. Tripping again made her decide it was the blindfold. Her jaw aching changed her mind. Another tug on her hands entered a new competitor into the race.
Luckily, the guards only decided to follow the company’s protocols at the last minute. They were supposed to put those things on her after the carriage left, but they decided it wasn’t necessary. Really, they were only there to prevent escape by limiting her ability to navigate or call for help. They weren’t concerned with her getting away, and even if someone did decide to try to free her, they were confident that they could take them. After all, they were on one of the starter islands, so there wasn’t anything too dangerous around unless one went into the challenge areas. This was also why they were able to do this with only two of them. Sure, it was skirting the line, but it wasn’t technically over it, so they were fine. The only thing that could actually pose a threat to them around here are other players, but it was incredibly unlikely that they would encounter an over-leveled player here.
When they finally reached the gate, they were stopped by the gate guards. Well, Scot and Gordan were stopped by the guards. Elwen kept walking forward, glad that she could finally get a little slack in the rope, because she couldn’t see the signal that the gate guard gave. He didn’t shout ‘Halt!’ like they did in the movies, mostly because he had been doing it all day and his throat was tired. It helped that they had dismounted and appeared to be stopping when he gave the signal anyway. Gordan stopped Elwen from getting to far away from them.
The gate guards were, naturally, highly suspicious when a pair of burly men came up to them with a tied up girl, so they pretty much immediately called the entire squad to them with a whistle. And because the rest of their squad was just on the other side of the gate playing cards, they were there in seconds.
“Hang on, hang on. She’s a slave. We have the paperwork right here.” Scott said, pulling out a copy of the contract that Elwen had signed as well as a few permits. He handed them off to one of the guards as they approached, being careful to keep his other hand away from his sword hilt. That was pretty easy, as it was holding Elwen’s lead. Still, he would rather not take on six city guards, even if he could do it easily.
The guard took the papers and hurried back to his commander, the only other guard that wasn’t currently pointing a spearhead at them. It took the man a few tense minutes to read through all of the documents and verify that they were legitimate.
“Well, these seem to be in order. Still, don’t you sorts normally come in convoys? I think this is the first time I’ve seen slave traders walk in on foot.” The guard stated.
“We’re with the Red Dragon Trading Company, slave trading is just a small part of our business. When we are moving slaves, yes, we normally use carriages. But this is kind of a rush job, and there was an emergency down south, so we got split up from the rest of our group.” Scott responded.
“Ah, the Red Dragon… my apologies. I didn’t realize you were from such an esteemed organization.” The guard apologized. He was confused as to why so well-equipped compared to the slave traders he had seen, who looked more like ruffians than proper traders. But if they were actually part of such a successful enterprise, it made much more sense. He was a lot happier letting men like themselves into the city, he never really liked when the slave traders came.
“It’s no problem. Are good to go? I’d rather get to our branch store before the sun goes down.” Scott said, hoping to hurry things along.
“Still, didn’t we get a convoy from the Red Dragon earlier?” The guard inquired, holding on to his last bits of suspicion.
“The convoy from Ravensburg? Should have arrived several hours ago. Why?” Scott asked.
“Why didn’t you come with them?” The guard returned his question.
“There was a delay. We were supposed to catch up.” Scott replied.
“Who led the caravan?” The guard asked.
“Should have been Deacon. Deacon Goldsmith.” Scott answered.
“Check the records.” The guard ordered one of his subordinates.
One of the men with a spear quickly ran behind the gate, before returning with a brown book. “Umm… Merchant caravan. Six wagons, eighteen persons. Operated by the Red Dragon Trading Company. Led by Deacon Goldsmith.” The guard read out when he found the appropriate entry.
“Alright. Seems like you are you claim to be. Fees four silvers.” The guard stated.
After giving one of the guards the fee, they were let through. Elwen was glad when they finally got to the branch store and they took off the blindfold and gag. She looked around at the room they had taken her to, noting that it was a lot smaller than the room she was in earlier. This one looked like it might have been a storage closet or something.
“Stay here. We’ll be back in a few minutes.” Scott said as he left the room. A little click told her that he locked the door after he left. Elwen frowned at that. What was the point of telling her to stay here if he was going to lock the door? It’s not like she could do anything else if she wanted to. At least she could sit down now, which she happily did, finally giving her feet a chance to rest.
True enough, Scott came back a few minutes later, joined by two new faces. One was a bald man, wearing a dark tunic. The other was a woman, wearing a similar tunic but with a white armband. She was carrying a large handbag in front of her. The man was also carrying something, but she couldn’t quite tell what it was.
“Heh. I can see why someone wanted to make her a slave.” The bald man smirked upon seeing her. “This’ll just take a second.” Elwen couldn't help but shrink back as she saw him barreling towards her. She let out a little scream as he roughly pulled her up by the hair.
“Careful!” Scott yelled at him, too late to stop him.
“Tch! Why should I?” The bald man spat out, his grip unrelenting. Elwen couldn’t do anything to make him stop, her squirming only made things worse as he practically lifted her by her hair. But just as quickly as he grabbed her, he threw her back down to the ground. “She’s just a fucking slave! All she deserves is to be treated like the animal she is!” The man’s voice boomed, “I’m outta here! Call me when there’s some real work to do!” He said as he stormed out of the room, intent on getting to the bar as quickly as possible.
Scott could only stare daggers at him as he left. The man outranked him, so he couldn’t tell him off. Worse, he knew that even if he reported him to his boss, he wouldn’t do anything. All of the slave hunters were like that. In fact, his boss was probably worse. He would probably have to elevate this all the way up to the president to get anyone to do anything, which was way over his head.
“Sorry about him,” the woman said, gently picking Elwen up, “the good news is you won’t have to deal with him again.” She smiled at Elwen trying to comfort her. Those brutes never stopped, no matter what she said. Why did the slave hunters have to be the only ones available? There should have still been someone from the ship that could do this.
Only now that the man let go could Elwen feel something cold around her neck. “W-what i-is t-this?” She stuttered as she felt around it, still filled with fear of that man.
“It’s a temporary slave collar. You’ll wear it until we can get you to the processing facilities in Blackmarch.” She explained, “I should warn you, always do what you’re told from now on. Those collars are enchanted, and they will shock you when you disobey. It hurts, a lot.”
“W-what? Why?”
“It’s for disobedient slaves. But you don’t need to worry about that, do you? You’re a good girl, right?”
Seeing that the nurse seemed to have everything under control, Scott left the room, hoping to find someone to complain to. Or at least grumble to between glasses of ale.
“Now, my name’s Sophia. What’s yours? I’ll be taking care of you. Does anything hurt? Let me take a look at your feet…”
Varian had finally arrived at the edge of the Deadwoods, formally part of the Greenwood Forest. Immediately upon arriving, he could tell that whatever happened wasn’t natural in origin. He followed the edge of the forest all the way here. It was, like its name, very green. Healthy. And then he got to the edge of the Deadwoods, where that abruptly changed. The green trees were replaced with their brown skeletons, the black soil with cracked mud. It looked like the area was ravaged by a forest fire, followed by a drought, where it rained only once, a month ago. He would attribute it to changing weather patterns, if it were not for the fact that the abrupt change was a line. On one side; a bountiful forest. One the other; deadlands.
He decided to venture inside. The nearby town had a guild, where he learned there was a missing party that went in to figure out what was happening. There was a hefty reward for their return, which he couldn’t pass up. If they were lucky, he could get some leads on where the source of this was, plus a nice reward. If they were unlucky… Well, hopefully at least one of them decided to write something down.
About an hour into his exploration, he encountered a scorpion monster. It was buried under a suspicious pile of sand, which he approached only after drawing his sword. He wasn’t an idiot. The scorpion was tough, but he was ultimately able to kill it after damaging its legs enough that it couldn’t turn well. He made short work of it after that.
‘Maybe the party was ambushed by one of these? It was pretty difficult, and it was fast enough that even I wouldn’t be able to run away easily…’
He decided that he would keep going, looking for any trace of them. Even if he didn’t find them, hunting these scorpions would be good experience. His experience bar made noticeable progress after he killed it, after all. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t earn any money from them, as there was no bounty for them, as far as he knew, and he had no idea where to even start on what parts of them might be valuable.
And so, Varian began a hunting spree. When he was finished, the corpses of dozens of massive scorpions littered the ground, one every twenty minutes or so of walking apart, in a line heading for the center of the desert. When night fell, he emerged from the former forest, now three levels stronger.
‘It doesn’t seem like a lot, but that was good progress for one day. I’ll have to return tomorrow…’
