Solution sat in the carriage with her hands crossed in front of her chest. The black and white of her maid outfit and her high boots did nothing to take the mind of the Prince of Chains off of recent events. He found himself sitting in silence while he reevaluated again, the way he thought of his mistress. He kept his hands interlocked and sitting on his lap, his eyes looking out into the rainfall that drenched the city that destroyed his life more than any other. The rain formed little rivers amidst the many cobblestones, occasionally loosening one and tearing it away, he watched while the water carried a stone with it, sliding it scraping against its brothers.

The round stone stopped sometimes, and for a moment more than once he felt sure his carriage would leave it behind, only for the press of water to topple it over an obstacle and the force carry it briefly faster than his slow moving transportation. Out in the streets, some were seeking shelter, others were like the stones of the street, and had none.

The stone that caught his eye finally groaned to a halt, like it was fighting the waters to return to its place, and the carriage he shared with his owner’s maid and ‘bodyguard’ finally left it behind.

‘One of my people will be forced to fix what the rains broke.’ He thought and tore his eyes away from the view.

He touched the gold collar of his status, and then slowly rested his hand back in his lap again. His jaw ached a little, despite the healing potion his owner had given him after their clash.

He shifted it a little, and this prompted the buxom blonde monster of a woman to speak. “She rough you up there, slave?” She had a smile on her face when she spoke that was almost too large to be human.

“Yes…” He acknowledged reluctantly, but didn’t meet the azure blue that appraised him up and down.

“Do you know why?” Solution asked with a deceptive syrupy voice.

“I expressed dissatisfaction with the course of things… in front of you, I assume.” The fallen Prince replied, only to have his face snap to look at her when the silvery laughter spread over the expensive carriage.

“Oh my, oh my no. Yes, that might be part of it.” Solution touched her hand to her breast as she spoke, “But I taught her, even more than the late Cardinal, her twisted nature is my handiwork. She wouldn’t make you raise a hand to her for something like that, not by itself.”

Sado pursed his lips and sucked in air through his teeth as he thought that over. “So why then… Lady Solution?”

“When you understand, I’m sure you’ll thank her. Assuming you don’t force her to kill you.”

“On our way back… the mistress spoke to me of helping my people… she told me how our spirits would be twisted by our fall… I saw the way… the way the former Lady Kaiji bowed to her, prostrated at her foot. I never imagined she could do that. I think I understand what she meant.” He looked out the window again, watching Pas’en’s cityscape pass him by, the sturdy buildings of the middle district were mostly on an extra block or two of stone that let most water pass beneath. Grates were everywhere to catch the water and carry it away to, he had no idea where.

Solution’s amusement was visible out of the corner of his eyes, though he sensed her growing disinterest when she reached beside her to take up a small book. Before she began to read however, she added, “If you’re thinking that is part of it, you’re right, slave. Me personally, I don’t care either way. But whatever you think about that one? Think again. The Lady Aiwenor has many, many layers. I’m simple, and I like it that way. She is ‘complex’. If you fall in love with her, slave… I remind you, you’re only going to get hurt.”

“It rarely ends well, for slaves who love their owners.” Sado remarked as the carriage made its slow, careful turn that took it toward the adventurer’s guild.

“I imagine not. But that doesn’t stop it from happening. Let me just tell you this, slave. Every man who has ever loved her, has suffered immense pain, and died. You want to join them? Be my guest, but don’t get in her way. Just do what she tells you to do, and be grateful to her if she fixes what you screwed up with Komestra.” He saw the ample breasts of the twisted woman rise and fall with faint laughter before she started reading.

Sado however, did not feel like laughing. He simply watched the scene pass by. ‘Love her? No. She’s strong, she’s very beautiful in a deadly sort of way. And I’ve never seen someone fight like her. And it is true… she saved my life. But she also put a knife to my throat...twice, she’s buying up my people… she made Kaiji prostrate herself… whatever she wants, it damn sure isn’t a lover.’ Sado kept the matter bouncing around in his head as he tried to riddle out the many mysteries of Mistress Aiwenor’s words and behavior, and he still had no conclusions when the carriage made a final slow turn that pulled it up sideways in front of the stone steps going up into the adventurer’s guild.

“Get out.” Solution said to him, but without need as he was already sliding over to the door and reaching for the handle.

“Why am I even here, Lady Solution?” The Prince asked, his feet splashed down into the wet grass of the grounds, thunder rolled overhead and the dark, overcast clouds hid the light of the moon and the divine stars, leaving the world a deep gray despite the relatively early hour.

The noise of the rain slamming down forced him to speak louder, but Solution’s impeccable hearing needed no assistance from him. She splashed down beside him and started walking.

“You’re a thick one, aren’t you, slave?” She asked him above the storm. She drew her cloak over her head and her long powerful legs devoured the distance from the steps to the dark curved wooden door of the entrance.

“I must be, Lady Solution, because I’m asking.” Sado glumly humbled himself in the way he spoke, and though it rankled, his longing for answers compelled him to do so.

He reached for the door handle, only to feel her steel like grip on his fingers and her arm locked tight so that he couldn’t pull the door open. “It’s simple, you’re going to be one of her soldiers. You already saw the mercenary company she raised from buying your people. She might have ‘said’ you’re just going to notify the headman ranked adventurers of her return so the training can begin. She wants them to know you.”

“How…?” Sado’s jaw hung open and he lost the ability to ask the rest of the question.

Solution’s arrogant smile returned and spread over her pale face, “She didn’t need to say it, I know my student as if she were a daughter. That pretty little elven killer has learned from some of the best. This is what ‘I’ would do if I were in her position. So make a good impression, Prince of Chains, because very soon you can expect to be wearing armor again, bearing a sword again, commanding your soldiers again.”

“...As a slave.” He added the caveat, staring down at where their hands joined at the door handle.

“Well, you lost the last time you fought as a free man, so yes, get used to it. She will command, you will obey. Don’t forget it, if you want your people to be anything better than a forgotten bunch of failures who followed a fool… throw your will at her feet and follow.” Solution’s words had no hint of care or empathy. They bore the coldness of one advising a way to do something so that it would pose the least inconvenience to themselves, not improve the well-being of the one to whom they spoke.

But he didn’t sense a lie. So he bowed his head and her hand came away from the door, it clicked open and he walked into the largest guild in Pas’en, to the smell of sweat, cooking meat, beer, and the sound of laughter and cursing. It was not even a little surprising to himself, he felt right at home, and hoped to stay for hours.

“So, is it possible to leave the city?” Taen asked for the fifth time in what felt like as many hours.

“No, whoever is in charge of the search, they had enough sense to lockdown the way out. Nobody is leaving without an inspection.” Saelin’s tanned elven ears twitched, and dark eyes looked away from Taen and toward the exit to the building. “Also I checked with Hoadman, he’s wanting to get away from the hotel area, he’s not happy with being so close to watching them work.”

“He can be sick as he wants or as scared as he wants, but we need to know what they’re up to. All we took was one slave, bronze collar sure, but just one damn slave. They’re not going to keep a whole regiment looking all week.” Taen slammed his fist against the stone wall with a thud. ‘Then again you didn’t think they’d use a regiment at all, so would they really go as far as using them for a week? Are you just trying to comfort yourself?! Damn it, bitch! This isn’t how the game is played!’

Taen looked away from Saelin toward the heavy door behind which their unconscious captive still sat, slumped over chained to the chair. ‘So many questions… so many questions and they’re locked in her head. Maybe we’ve gotten enough. Maybe this is plenty. Fucking orc… stupid fucking orc. Why’d he have to hit her when she started ranting? I told him not to touch her.’

“I’ve got to think of what to do. Stay here and mind the slave, if she wakes up, fine, keep asking her questions. If she doesn’t, she doesn’t.” Taen didn’t wait for acknowledgement, he simply headed for the door that would lead him out into the rain, even from there he could tell it was getting worse.

“Where are you going?” Saelin asked with suspicious eyes narrowing in on his employer.

“To drink. I think best when I’ve had a glass, and there’s a deal going today to celebrate the life of the Prince’s favorite whore before she heads off as a Tlalmok sacrifice. Don’t worry, I’ll bring you back a few rounds on me. It may just be a few hours thanks to…” Taen opened the door and looked out into the rain that fell in sheets, “that.”

“Right…” Saelin’s ears twitched a little in distaste for the filthy weather, water still dripped from his last venture out, and he cast off more droplets from himself before reaching down and wringing out his soaked shirt.

“Right. Just stay here and lay low, if you did your jobs right, there’s not a chance of them finding this place, and you did your jobs right, didn’t you?” Taen asked reassuringly, his calm reassuring speech resonated through his subordinate, encouraging him, he saw the sense of comfort come over Saelin as the elf’s body relaxed with departing tension.

“Can do. See you when you get back, Taen.” Saelin said and opened the door to join his large orcish comrade, and keep the violent orc in line if the captured slave raised a ruckus again.

Kaiji was beside herself with the leads she’d gotten, her breath was going so rapidly that it was practically hyperventilation, her ears twitched unconsciously, flicking away the rain that came in sheets, but barely noticing the feel or the flicking at all.

Freyjin however, was of sound mind, she went to her knees before the purple tagged Kaiji, the soft rain soaked ground giving way beneath her knees took her slightly lower. It wasn’t a ‘vital’ formality, given their common ground as possessions of Lady Aiwenor, but for Freyjin who remembered the once free ‘Lady Kaiji’ in all her regal glory, it felt proper.

“Voice of the mistress… we need to stop.” She said loudly over the falling rain.

If the kneeling hadn’t gotten Kaiji’s attention, the shouted words did.

“What?! No! We’re so close!” The demon-elf’s body flinched back as if struck. “We can’t! Priceless is out there! We know more than we did! We can find her! We can find her!” Kaiji shouted and looked out into the rain swept darkness through eyes of ruby red.

“We can’t! Not in this!” Freyjin swept her arm behind her to show the darkness and falling rain that acted like one blanket over the other. “The regiment can’t possibly search the lower districts in these conditions! And there will not be anyone else to question. They’ll be waist deep in water at the lowest segments since we’ve shut the damn gates!” Thunder rolled again and lightning cracked over the sky, bringing brief illumination to the sweeping waves of water that rushed down the slope.

“We may be fine here, but we can’t do anything else! We have to pull the regiment back, let them rest, and start fresh tomorrow when the water is drained and people are out again!” Freyjin shouted it twice over the thunder, but Kaiji’s eyes only kept sweeping over the dark in front of the street before the hotel like she expected her fellow slave to walk out of the dark and into her arms.

“But she’s out there! I’m sure she’s scared! She’s all alone! Who knows what they’re doing to her or what they want! Please! Just a little longer! She might be behind the next door a soldier checks! What if we pull back rather than open it, and…” Kaiji’s voice was cracked and ripped apart by her desperate cries.

“Priceless!” She shouted hopelessly into the dark and rain that blanketed the city of their captivity.

Freyjin’s heart broke for the slave the lady had become, but her professional knowledge told her what had to happen. Still, she saw the scene happen in her own mind as Kaiji pictured it, a soldier at a door, about to knock, recalled… and within, Priceless sitting gagged and hopeless… the tantalizing possibility was such that even she hesitated.

“We can’t!” She shouted up at Kaiji anyway.

“What do you know?! You don’t love her! You don’t even know her! Why do you care if we find her?! Keep the search going!” Kaiji ordered without mercy, “Priceless!” She shouted into the night, only to have the sound stolen by the crack of lightning and roll of thunder, drowning her words as if the world itself conspired to hide her voice from her lover.

Freyjin shot to her feet and grabbed the voice of their mistress at her shoulders. “Come to your senses! She can’t hear you out there! We made progress, but all you’re doing now is making it harder to find her tomorrow! I don’t know her, but I don’t have to! I know how to do this and you don’t! Signal the regiment’s withdrawal, let the soldiers rest, keep the gate staffed so they can’t leave!”

Freyjin couldn’t tell if the demon-elf slave was crying or not, but Kaiji was still clearly distressed, trying to look past her, but Freyjin kept herself in the way. “Listen to me! We will find her! We’ve got every gate in the city locked down, we have an ‘idea’ of where they are, but it’s too big and too dangerous to search now! Lots of places we can’t get in, if we keep going, we’ll miss her! Do you want that?! To have them look and leave because they don’t see her, and then leave her there to die alone in the dark because they missed her the first time?!”

Kaiji froze as if a spell of paralysis had hit her, the dread scenario was worse than the one in her head, she felt the gauntlet of Sergeant Vargas on her shoulder. He leaned in close, his deep, heavy masculien voice drilled into her right ear. “She’s right, we’ll find her, but there’s just no way now. Let us go back to our cages and rest. Go back to the mistress’s room, she’ll probably be back soon. When she is, she will want a report. She’ll understand. I don’t know Priceless except by face… but she will understand too… just stop now so we can succeed tomorrow.”

Kaiji hung her head in defeat. “Go… I’ll trust you to lock yourselves in tonight, and Freyjin… Vargas… thank you. I’m sorry… I overstepped. Forgive me.” She whimpered the words out, but Freyjin read them on lips illuminated by a series of lightning flashes, and Vargas understood her body language when her shoulders slumped after her head hung.

The pair headed back to the covered stables, most of the rest of the Breakers were asleep already, nestled within the thick warm blankets their owner provided to protect them. Vargas stepped into his confinement, stripped off his armor, and saw the wooden tray off to one side, bread, and cheese, baked that day, were laid out for him.

He carefully stacked his armor and laid it out in a very particular way, then froze. ‘Why did I… why does this look so right, this isn’t how we did in Komestra…’ It was a troubling thought, the tickling of a memory. Too troubling. He set that thought aside and took a long look at the cage door. The bar in his hand was under his control, a flash of lightning illuminated the neat pile of expensive armor he had been entrusted with, and after only the briefest of moments, he slammed the bars shut of himself, and curled up to go to sleep.

When Freyjin entered her cage, she found Lenah and Straen waiting, curled up next to one another in blankets of their own, empty trays holding the crumbs of their last meal sat nearby. The lightning strike frightened the girls, clearly, and illuminated the collars around their necks that the mistress who found them had yet to remove or replace. ‘I wonder if my daughter is as comfortable as these two are…’ The thought filled her with dread, but her owner’s promise loomed large in her mind, ‘Find Priceless, and I will find your daughter.’

Her heart swelled as she looked down at the little white haired girls that had been entrusted to her. ‘Veema will like having sisters, I think.’ She sat next to them, her back against the bars, not even hesitating to shut herself within with the pair. She stroked their sleeping faces, “Not to worry… the mistress is a Duchessa now. She has a home… no more stables at a hotel of the free… you’ll have four walls… good food… you’ll be safe there, she said we could stay together, and I’ll give you a sister, when she’s returned to me. Nobody is going to hurt you again… I won’t let them, and I’ll bet… I’ll bet our mistress won’t let them either…” She yanked her blanket up and covered herself, draping part of it over their sleeping bodies, she leaned over them so that her head was against the wall, and drifted off to sleep.