Ugh. Right here and now, I swear I’m never drinking again. Somehow I managed to sleep with my head slightly downhill, and I was suffering from the worst heartburn I had felt in years. Oh God, what did I end up doing last night? Things got a little hazy after I sang a few songs, but did I really try singing Billy’s Got His Beer Goggles On? I really hope nobody remembers, shit. Some of the guards weren’t drinking as much. I’ll never live this down! And to go with my shame, there’s a blasted rock digging into a kidney, and something is trying its best to crush my bladder.

Wait, what the hell is on my bladder? That though finally pierced through the fog in my brain, and I desperately started blinking bleary eyes to clear them. My right arm came up just fine to wipe away the goo that always accumulates in the morning, but something was holding down my left arm. Something with long, soft hair. “Uuuunnggg.” I groaned as I finally got my eyes open and working properly. Elendria was out cold, her head tucked onto my chest.

Oh God, what did I do? Wait, calm down Sean, calm down. No need to panic. You still have your clothes on, and so does she. I think. Anyway, this is probably just a residual effect from all those years of classical conditioning. Even if we removed the compulsion to feel better the closer she sleeps to her master, it still probably has an effect. Especially if her inhibitions have been lowered by say, a night of drinking?

“Elendria.” I croaked out, before clearing my throat and trying again. “Elendria.”

“Hmm? Master?” She asked, stretching her body out and inadvertently rubbing it against me.

“Could you get up for a second? I need to go pee.” I said.

“Okayyyy.” She answered with a yawn, and simply rolled over and went back to sleep. I shook my head, and headed to take care of business. Oh what a glorious feeling!

Turning back to the camp, I saw we were getting a slightly late start today. I headed over to where Bribis and Carrigan were sitting and grabbed a bowl for breakfast. “Morning guys.” I said as I sat down.

“Morning!” Carrigan cheerfully greeted me, and Bribis gave a simple head nod as he had just taken a bite of breakfast. “How was your night you silver tongued bard?”

“Nothing like that happened.” I immediately denied.

“Uh huh, suuuuure.”

“Anyway, I wanted to thank you Bribis, for the stress relief last night. I was wound a bit tighter than I realized, and cutting loose a bit helped.”

“You guys deserved it.” He said with a shrug. “I should have done one after the nosferatu nest, but I had too much on my mind. This was as good of an excuse as I was ever going to get, so we went for it.”

“Speaking of the nest, you’ve been out of sorts ever since. Care to explain?” Carrigan asked.

“Not here. I don’t know about you guys, but there’s a few of those prisoners that I just don’t like the look of.” Bribis said. “I’ll let you know on the way to Shineheart.”

“Fair enough. Do we have a plan for the city?” Carrigan asked. “We’re what, three days out?”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.” Bribis asked. “Sean? This is mostly your show.”

“Well, I figure that I’m going to have to do a bit of blackmailing with the Slaver’s guild to get what I want. Threaten them with releasing a status card showing that the Chosen of Ariana was enslaved until they remove that from my status and free the ones that deserve it. Could you be on standby at the Mage’s guild Carrigan?”

“That’s fine, and probably a good precaution. I can release the cards if you don’t show back up in two hours or so.”

“Perfect. After that, I say we head to the Mage’s guild where anyone who was at the Slaver’s dons a disguise, then make our way over to Bribis and head out as quickly as possible.”

“I like it.” Bribis nodded. “Don’t give them a chance to track you down, and the Mage’s guild can remove any tracking skills that they attach to you. I can time it so that we are getting to the city in the late morning.”

“I appreciate that.” I said. “I’m going to be working on a few new ideas, so not a lot of training the next few days. Though I am looking forward to learning earth magic from you.” I said as I nodded at Bribis.

“Well, let’s get ‘em up and get going then. Tomorrow night I’ll send Gareth out to get our plans in motion.” Bribis said, standing up and heading off to rouse the camp.

“Lot to do, and very little time to do it.” Carrigan groaned as he stood up. “You never did say, but what are you going to do about the prisoners?”

“This is where we’ll have to part ways. I’ll let them turn in the adventurer tags for the rewards and keep the money. That should be enough to get them all started with whatever they need.”

“That’ll make Bribis happy. Come on, let’s get going. Make sure everyone has an extra ration of water, unless they want to deal with a hangover all day.”

Soon enough we were on the road, and I was trying to enjoy the ride. Elendria was humming softly, apparently no worse for wear despite what she drank last night. Norie had decided to join us, though he was looking a lot paler than usual.

“Overindulge just a bit?” I asked, to make conversation.

“Yes. Quite a lot in fact.” He groaned. “I should have known better, but oh well.” With that, he turned and tried to get some rest. I took the hint, and spent the day relaxing. Luckily there was no issues that day, and hopefully there would be less the closer we got to the city. As soon as we stopped to make camp for the night, Gareth rode off on a spectral summoned mount.

That night was when I started practicing. The goal was to use my mana control and varying uses of shadow and light mana to make a mask. It was rough at first, though creating the topography of the mask was easy. Getting it to reflect the proper amounts of light and the right colors was much more difficult. I spent nearly five hours trying to get it with just light magic, but the brightness of everything kept taking away from the realism. Frustrated, and nearing the end of my concentration, I slipped a bit and accidentally used Overlook on the mask, and was surprised by the result. The colors dampened, and it felt much more realistic. Slipping it onto my face, I had to concentrate and hold it on with my mana control for nearly a half hour before a skill popped up.

New skill acquired!

Magical disguise

Journeyman (40/50)

Alter your facial features using a map of magic. Reserves 50 mana for each mask created until the spell is released.

“Sean! Bribis!” Panicked shouting from Norie woke us up in the morning.

“What’s going on?” Bribis hissed, trying not to wake the camp, though it was a bit late for that.

“It’s Wesley! He’s gone!”

“Who?” Bribis asked, confused.

“Wesley! He was a prisoner with us, though he was always off by himself. Shifty type of human. I think he left sometime in the middle of the night.”

“He has to have run off to the city, do you think he was a thrall the whole time?”

“No, he couldn’t have been!” Norie recoiled from the accusation. “He wouldn’t dare!”

“Then what do you think he has gone to do?” I asked gently.

“I, well. I don’t know.”

“You said he was shifty. Do you think he would sell information to someone?” Bribis asked, a lot calmer this time. “It’s what you fear, isn’t it?”

“I. Yes, but you don’t understand! Things have been deteriorating in Three Rivers for quite some time! Taxes being raised, and other, things.”

“What else did he take?” I asked, seeing the hurt in Norie’s eyes.

“A bag that I had a bunch of worthless rocks in. They were supposed to be the adventurer tags you were leaving us.”

“And when you say things are changing, I’m willing to bet that the humans are charging higher taxes on the non-humans?” He didn’t want to admit it, but it was obvious on his face. “Bribis, we need to change our plans.”

“Indeed. Norie, if you’ll excuse us.” AS the elf walked away, Bribis looked at me. “How bad do you think it is?”

“I’m going to assume as bad as I can think of, and it’ll be a lot worse. Even in my world, humanity is horrible. We were going to reach the city tomorrow, right?” Bribis nodded, so I continued. “Let’s try and make it to the gate at dawn. I’ll be disguised as one of your guards, and use Overlook. When we get in, Carrigan goes to the Mage’s guild while I help out turning in the adventurer tags. After that, I’ll head to the Slaver’s guild and take care of things there, while you and the rest of the non-human prisoners prepare to leave. I’ll change disguises at the Mage guild, and we all get on your caravan and head out.”

“And the human prisoners?”

“Give them a choice. Join us, and they remain with you at all times, or stay in the city. We will let them go as our caravan is heading out, so that they don’t have a chance to betray us.”

“You do realize that’s like turning them into prisoners again, don’t you?” Bribis asked uncomfortably.

“I do. And I don’t like it, but I will do what must be done to not get betrayed.” Bribis eventually agreed with a sigh, and we settled in for a few hours of rest. The plan was to shift our departure to the middle of the night, and I would light the way with solar spheres until daybreak. We broke at midday for a full rest, and headed out at midnight once again.

Borrowed armor is uncomfortable. Straps dug in to places I was unaccustomed to, and the noise was dreadful. Clanking along with every step, I was so grateful I only had to wear it for half a day. Bribis had timed the arrival perfectly, as the city gates were just opening up when we arrive.

“Halt, and state yer business.” A guard came out and immediately started talking with Bribis, as several other guardsmen came out and started inspecting the carts.

“Ho, that armor’s seen some use, I’d say!” A guard chuckled as he came up to me.

“Seen a spot of fighting here and there.” I replied, turning to look at him. “Nothing too hard.”

“Spoken like someone who has been in some tough spots, and made it out again. Tell ya what, why don’t you ditch the little bugger there and join up with the army. They’re needin’ good folk ya know.”

“Oh? Been out in the wilds for too long it seems. Care to fill me in?”

“Well sure.” He said, though he got a little defensive. “Aren’t you supposed to be watching the carts though?”

“We get paid to guard on the way to the city only.” I answered, knowing this guy’s game. “Besides, the only ones around are trustworthy human guards. If you can’t trust a city guard to make sure things don’t disappear during an inspection, who can you trust?”

“Heh, I knew I liked the look of you! Yeah, I think you would be a perfect addition. Seems while you were out guarding those merchants, the demons went and got another demon king. So Ariana sent us a champion to defend us, and he’s been raising an army to go and attack them before the demon king can get any stronger.”

“So join the army and go kill demons? Could be fun, but how do I know I’m not going to be placed in a meat grinder position with some snot nosed noble brat throwing our lives away because he is too stupid to know any better?”

“That’s the thing, there are no nobles in command positions unless they prove themselves. Besides, they’ll take one look at that armor and know you’re a survivor. You won’t be put in with those who are slated to die.”

“Hmm. Well, that does sound a bit better.” I said, patting the hilt of my sword. “Family legend has it that one of my ancestors did use this blade in one of the previous demon wars. It might be looking forward to tasting something other than monster blood.”

“That’s the spirit! They’re meeting north of the city, just tell ‘em Guardsman Tom sent ya and they’ll take good care of you.” He said, slapping me on the shoulder.

“Thanks for the recommendation Tom!” I replied, shaking his hand. “Say, what do you call that odd weapon of yours?” I asked, pointing to it. It started out as a staff, but the head had an almost complete metal ring, with a V shaped extension coming out of it.

“This? Invention of the Slaver’s guild. They call it a mancatcher. The arms there guide a neck or a leg into the ring, and then you’ve got ‘em. Sure, they fight like the demon king himself when they realize they can’t get away, but by then you should have a second or third ring on ‘em and they’re stuck. Works pretty well on anyone except those pesky mages, but you don’t send guards after mages anyway.”

“Interesting. I suppose once they are pinned down, a slave collar gets slapped on them?”

“Yes indeed! A few quick commands, and they follow you like a lost puppy. Speaking of collars though.” He leaned in and whispered. “I noticed a few of your caravan there don’t have the right neckwear. Do we need to get a few to slap on ‘em real quick?”

“Can’t.” I shook my head. “Short one there says that they are free. Can’t enslave them.”

“Pity. Alright, I won’t hold you back anymore. Looks like the inspection is finishing up anyhow. Remember, mention Guardsman Tom.”

“You bet! I’ll see you around Tom.” I said, nodding as the caravan entered the city. I hopped in to the lead caravan next to Bribis. “Looks like it was just as bad as we feared. Humans seem to be gearing up to attack the demons, and they are being led by the Chosen of Ariana.”

“This idiocy again? Idiotic humans and their foolishly short memories.” Bribis growled. “Go ahead and get out of that armor, I’ll have Gareth escort you to the Adventurer’s guild. Carrigan is already off with your card, just let him know via speaking stone when you enter the Slaver’s guild.”