The town of Argent proved to be both smaller than what he considered to be an actual town, but filled with wonders. Humanity made up the vast majority of people seen on the streets, but the occasional individual with animal ears could be seen as well. Large creatures that resembled a cross between a bipedal dinosaur and a horse pulled carts along the roads. Idly, Blackthorne wondered if they were called Equinasaurus Rex, or Tyrannohorse.

The buildings were a mixture of quaint medieval-esque architecture and modernity. Glass windows with store front display cases that beckoned to people walking along the stone sidewalk were mixed with street signs at the corners of well-designed intersections.

It took a few minutes for them to reach the first stop on the Argent dream tour, the Screaming Onion Tavern. It was actually quite close to the center of town, which suited Blackthorne fine. Reasonable access to the town gate counted heavily in favor of the charming little town.

The surly patrolman, however, was quite a negative mark on his first contact with natives from the dream world. He continued to be passive aggressive despite the fact that there was no prior contact between them before today.

Blackthorne soaked in the sight of the tavern for a moment. It was a brick building, actual masonry akin to something like the modern world. The sign out front offered the image of a screaming onion, but from inside lively music played in the background.

He walked through the wooden double doors and then over to the sleepy-eyed man who was running the bar and asked, “I’ve heard that you buy onions and meat here, is that true?”

The scraggly looking man looked him and down then nodded. “Yeah, we do, but you’ll have to have a lot of them for me to bother.”

“How much?” asked Blackthorne.

Scraggly man rubbed his chin for a moment then nodded. “Ten units of meat, or a dozen onions.”

Blackthorne nodded to the man in kind then said, “I have that, easily.”

“Right then, go talk to Jack in the back,” said the man.

The mage nodded to him once more then walked into the kitchen area. His escort ghosted along behind him, silent and annoyed.

Jack in the back, turned out to be Jackie in the very little clothing. Blackthorne tried to fight down his immediate reaction, but he’d never been in the presence of someone who openly cooked while wearing nothing but an apron and a thong. It was such an out of place occurrence that he was almost certain that he only imagined the scene before him.

Jackie smiled at him brightly. “So, what brings you back here tall, dark, and bloody?”

Blackthorne noted that her hand remained perilously close to a large cutting knife despite her cheerful demeanor. “I bring you meat and onions.”

“Oh, do you now?” She gripped her knife in one hand then casually made her way over to him.

When she came close to him, he noticed that the delicate seeming choker she wore around her neck was actually a thick metal ring. Jackie noticed where his eyes went and she rolled hers in response. “Yes, I’m a slave. Yes, I’m for sale. No, you can’t afford me. At least, I don’t think you can.”

“Uh, right. About those onions...” said Blackthorne. From what he'd seen on the Internet, and a tiny fraction of the information earned from the books on the first day, he knew that slavery existed in this dream world. Until now, he did not realize how blatant it truly was.

“Just going to ignore my status? Fine... What do you have for me? Put it on the table,” said Jackie.

Blackthorne lifted his bag then casually dumped its contents out onto the table. He quickly snatched up the vita stones and few other items that were neither meat, nor onions.

Jackie eyed the large pile of various rat bits and onion halves for a moment then nodded. “Well, the onions are a bit bloody, but they can be washed.”

She continued. “The meat though... it looks like you tried to carve it with a sword. It’s only fit for stew. Rat I take it?”

“Rat fiend, yes,” said Blackthorne.

The slave chef picked up a few chunks and leaned her head left and right. “Seems decent enough. Let me weigh it.”

She brought out a large scale and placed a chunk of meat inside. After making a note of how much it weighed, she moved on to the next few chunks.

“Looks like about four units of soup stock.”

“I can swear out forty-eight Jerin for the lot, including the onions,” said Jackie.

Blackthorne nodded once more. He did not care much about that. If anything he considered it a decent haul for something that he only gathered as an emergency food source. However, he did ask her one question. “How much for a room here for the night?”

“Well, that depends,” she said simply.

“Depends on what?” asked Blackthorne.

“Where you sleep and with whom you sleep,” she replied, a soft smile rising gently upon her lips. Her eyelashes lowered slightly and she leaned toward him a little for emphasis.

“Whom?” asked Blackthorne.

She gestured toward herself. “Of course, I freelance as a whore.”

Blackthorne blinked at the curvaceous chef. Did she actually just say that sort of thing? “That sounds like a wonderful evening and all, but I’m not sure that I could afford your rates...”

Jackie nodded her head lightly. “True, I overcharge anyway.”

He eyed her carefully. “I highly doubt that what you’re charging is nearly enough...”

She grinned at him. “Well, aren’t you the sweet talker. Save up some money and buy out my contract.”

Patrolman Greene muttered loudly, but they both ignored him. He might as well have been a wall decoration for all they cared.

“Would it be rude to ask why you’re a slave in the first place?” asked Blackthorne.

She shrugged. “Same as most of my tribe. I was captured during a raid on my village. I wasn’t strong enough to beat all of the guys who came after me, so I was bound to serve the one who defeated me.”

“Somehow I doubt the guy out at the bar beat you...” said Blackthorne with a snort. The way she deftly held her knife and the sleekness of her musculature bespoke strength. She possessed great muscle tone alongside her absurdly curvaceous form. It was obvious even to him that she was a good bit stronger than the scraggly guy out front.

Jackie shook her head. “Nah, that guy just bought me off my husband.”

“Your husband sold you into slavery?” Blackthorne stared at her incredulously.

“Well, of course. It was his entire purpose in leading that raid on my village," said Jackie. After she said it, a petulant pout appeared on her soft pink lips. "The jerk could have at least knocked me up first, though.”

Blackthorne rubbed the bridge of his nose for a moment. This entire conversation made little sense, and now his brain had begun to hurt. Who spoke so flippantly about being enslaved, anyway?

“So, basically... You were captured in your village, and the one who beat you automatically became your husband. Afterward, you were sold into slavery by your husband, and now you’re a slave chef who freelances as a whore?” he asked her slowly.

He wanted to be certain that he knew her bizarre backstory well. Lore was important for a proper game, after all. Not to mention, it was all so ridiculous that he simply needed to know more.

Jackie nodded. “Yep. So, what do you say? Want a little company tonight?”

He gazed into her eyes for a moment then looked away and said, “My heart’s not ready.”

She laughed in a good-natured manner then grinned. “Well, I don’t much care about your heart. I mostly just want to scream a little. You seemed capable and I have to admit that I love a man who’s covered in blood and guts.”

“You’re an interesting sort of person aren’t you.” said Blackthorne before attempting a proper smile. He was well practiced at trying to show such things to the world. He hoped that it did not come off as creepy or strange. It was hard to concentrate due to the copious amounts of curvaceousness that he bore witness to at the moment.

She winked at him. “Flattery won’t get you anywhere, but come to my room later with a sack of coin and I’ll show you just how interesting I am.”

Blackthorne laughed a little then smiled. “Don’t tempt me woman.”

She turned the side and flashed him a generous helping of side-boob. “Don’t tell me what to do. That’s my husband’s job until I can find him and smash his skull.”

“Will you use your breasts to do him in? I’m sure they could crush a man.” Ok, so Blackthorne was also a bit of a pervert. He could not help himself. The woman was so alien to everything he knew that he was absolutely fascinated, and sought a way to continue the conversation or to force it to an end so that he could stop conversing with her. Those words seemed liable to do either, and simply walking away without an easy out seemed impossible for some reason.

“I planned to use a war hammer, but maybe your idea is better,” she admitted candidly.

“Jack! You still back there with that guy?” called the scraggly man from the front.

“Yeah. I’m trying to solicit him for sex,” she called back loudly, and without hesitation.

“Right, did you check his stuff?” asked the man after walking into the kitchen.

“Yeah, it’s not the best quality but you’ve bought much worse. Onions are decent. The meat’s good for stew or sausage maybe,” replied Jackie.

“How much did he have,” asked Mr. Scraggles.

Blackthorne stood there and tried not to feel superfluous. They chose to speak around him instead of to him.

“Figured the lot would be worth about forty-eight Jerin,” claimed the woman.

“That much for soup stock?” He walked forward them blinked. After coming closer he was able to see around Jackie. He got an eye full of the piles of meat on the table.

“Yeah, he brought in mostly onions. We've started to run a little low on those, remember?” she asked him.

“True. Local hunters are too good to go out and farm since meat pays more," said the man. He checked the quality of Blackthorne's offerings then nodded. "Not bad... The knife-work is pure garbage but soup stock and sausage would be fine.”

Scraggles turned to Blackthorne then looked him up and down before he turned to look at Jackie, “How fresh?”

“Probably cut it up last night. It is good meat, just badly cut.”

“Right,” said the scraggly man.

The tavern owner looked to Blackthorne once more. “I’ll get your money. Bring in better cuts of meat and I’ll pay more. At the moment we're paying slightly more than usual for onions and other things like that, but once we have the stock back up those prices will drop.”

“Sounds good.” said Blackthorne.

The scraggly owner went to go get the money. That left Blackthorne, Patrolman Greene, and Jackie alone in the kitchen once more.

She looked to the mage then pouted. “You sure you don’t want to slap my ass a little, maybe pull my hair?”

“I’d like to, but I suspect you would break my heart,” replied Blackthorne in a friendly evasive attempt.

Jackie sighed loudly then shook her head. “Figures. The first blood covered guy I see in days, and he’s a romantic.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” said Blackthorne.

She tilted her head to the side and quirked an eyebrow. “I’ll let you put it in my ass. That’s pretty romantic, you know.”

“Does that cost extra?” he asked.

“Yes. Yes it does,” replied the slave chef.

Blackthorne did not get the chance to respond. Scraggles returned with the money. They concluded their meat and onion business, and then he asked about normal room prices.

“Aright, you want to stay in a private room for the night with meals and a bath included. That's forty-five. You sure you don’t want to rent Jackie for the night? I’ll throw her in for an extra two hundred,” said Scraggles.

Blackthorne blinked at the man then shook his head. How exactly was she freelancing if her owner tossed her in as part of business deals? In fact, while he would normally avoid questioning people in this way, he felt the need to find an answer. "Interesting, she said that she was a freelance whore..."

Scraggles nodded. "She is, but it's obvious that she likes you for some reason or other. She usually glares daggers at homeless-looking humans who talk to her."

Jackie coughed slightly then turned back to her vegetables and meat. "Like is a strong word..."

The fact that he'd been called homeless-looking was ignored for now. Blackthorne eyed them both for a moment then shrugged. “Ah, no. Not today, thanks. I’ll be out a lot after I get some rest.”

Jackie pouted at him, and then sighed loudly causing her overly intriguing bosom to jiggle in disappointment. "I guess I'll get to making the soup, or something..."

Blackthorne counted out forty-five Jerin then handed it over to Mr. Scraggles. As it turned out his name was actually Alfredo, but Blackthorne had already become used to thinking of him as Mr. Scraggles. That became the man’s unofficial name for the rest of his life as far as Blackthorne would be concerned.

Once Blackthorne, Patrolman Greene, and Scraggles left the kitchen, Jackie sighed softly. She washed onions in an expert manner while glaring hotly at the counter. "How many more of these humiliations will I have to suffer?" she asked the uncaring corpses arrayed before her.

Frustration in her voice, she growled loudly and stabbed at the chopping block with her knife. It took her a moment, but she slowly calmed herself. Becoming enraged and giving in to her frustrations at the moment would not help. "I'm so close now, I can taste it. Just a little more and it's done..."

Briefly, the image of the man she'd just met appeared in her head. She hissed loudly in response. "What, is he just poor, or does he think he's too good for me? Stupid male..."

Jackie mumbled to herself for a while even as she continued washing the meat and vegetables. It would not be much longer. Soon, it would all be over.