In a city that smells so bad, the worst smell doesn't come from dirt or garbage, but from cruelty and pain. The pain slaves feel from the torture and cruel conditions slaves are subjected to causes the city's air to become contaminated.
I believe that all groups are affected by this atmosphere, seeing the happiness and lust on the faces of those who don't hide or in the actions of those who are ashamed of their actions makes me feel dirtier than when I explored a swamp with poisonous properties and corrosive.
When passing through the streets of the city, not only were slaves being exposed, products and tools to be used on slaves as well as equipment to equip the slaves, ranging from clothes and armor to weapons and normal tools such as abacuses and feather fans. It also ran various events in a variety of ways to use slaves or even compete against them.
We go through more than one type of arena, they go from battles to the death like a slave defending an arena against various challengers, when he dies the responsible slave owner will earn a few hundred gold coins.
I found this odd since there was no cost to send a slave to challenge the champion of the arena, but when I saw the owner of the arena using it as a method of proving the quality of the combat skills of his trained slaves, I was quite shocked at how little life of slaves and considered by some slavers.
I can't even try to understand the logic behind these actions, to me this business method seems like a waste of money. It is nothing but a form of cruelty and not a trade.
Our path came to an end at an inn called the lazy cat, according to the information Raven gave before leaving on a mission this middle-class inn is managed by an informant from the kingdom, but he doesn't own the establishment so we must keep the high guard and not doing anything flashy.
There's no way for us to know if the owner has been watching the inn or another spy working at the inn, but even Raven and the inn's manager think this is unlikely as the owner is nothing more than a fourth-generation nobleman who takes most of his time. time and money on liquor and slaves.
He seems like he's never done anything productive in his life other than spoiling his sources of income, which in my humble opinion already shows that he has a functioning brain. But at one time I saw and heard stories of second and third generation masters doing shit because they think they're important.
Upon entering the inn our group was found in a separate room where meals are served to those who want attention, this kind of service seems normal.
I think even some low-level inns can have very small rooms for meals and some business transactions that shouldn't be done in public, this city really has different characteristics than I'm used to. And this is not a very good thing, my actions can be seen as strange and draw someone's attention, but I believe that the fact that this city has a very strong trade, the presence of the team will go unnoticed, as long as no one fucks up.
That's when I say nobody, I mean Little Flame. She may not have the fire element at her core but her anger that boils over makes me feel like her aura is on fire, calling her Little Flame really makes a lot of sense now but I still hope she manages to maintain her silence and lack of action during the mission.
A part of me was rooting for her to interfere with the mission and not help them, but now I think it's safer and more productive for her to stay completely out of it. A moving statue that keeps judging everything around it as wrong is way better than an angry girl talking and doing shit because she doesn't like what the slavers are doing.
With an extra layer of protection, I see Raven's anger manifest in her voice.
"What the fuck was that?! You know what kind of town this is and I've warned you more than once what kind of shit goes on here, I don't want to see or hear anyone having an 'I want to kill slavers' attitude."
"The slavers here are a bunch of scum who deserve to die cruelly or be imprisoned for the rest of their lives to suffer for the rest of their miserable lives, but it's not our job or right to do that. Want to change a shit city like this is simple, focus on your mission and help the kingdom win the war."
"With her winning, the conquered territory will change for the better and slavery will change to the model of our kingdom, where slaves have rights and the innocent are not enslaved for the profit of the slavers."
This is a very different form of motivation as this mission will help in a different way, dealing with the cultists will prevent the war from having unpredictable events as the cultists only have their own interests as their goal, but that can be good or bad for we.
But during this mission any attempt to harm Mirue's kingdom was seen as illegal despite Little Flame's clear displeasure, normally it would even make me think that it's possible for her not to censure us if we harm the slavers' operations, but I doubt that her faith will not prevent her from reproaching us, even her displeasure will not cause her to fail in her duties.
It's really complicated to deal with people who have their faith at the center of their existence, logic or sentimental appeal doesn't always work when their faith forces them to perform the action you don't want them to do.
"We still have several hours for Lightning's group to enter the city, but that doesn't stop us from starting our work and when I say our work, I mean yours, Wolf and Earth."
"We need to discover the secret passages that may exist in the targets house and begin your surveillance, the two of you with Little Flame will scout the homes of the four main targets for obvious clues, but you are not allowed to break into their homes or interact. with other people."
"I don't want you to draw attention, so try not to interact with anything, but if your group is approached by someone, let Wolf handle the interactions. Dwarves are not always welcome in this realm; many people have bad memories of the dwarven slave revolts that took place seventy years ago."
The episode Raven refers to as part of the kingdom's recent information, it seems that the last slave problem she hears in Mirue's kingdom was caused by two slave companies that had amassed too many dwarves together. Dwarves were used as basic miners and blacksmiths, which basically consists of creating metallic ingots is a basic job, but extremely important in the market, to be able to create good quality ingots it takes skill and not simply strength.
Companies wanted to change or add a new source of income, but dwarven slaves had a different idea. It took only six years for them to organize themselves and break their chains and take control of the operations of the small mines and workshops that the two companies owned.
The dwarves used weapons created from the metal ingots they created themselves, the kingdom's report stated that the two companies did not properly guard the slaves and this allowed them to arm themselves against the slavers. In the end many people died and the dwarves attacked the two other mines that were close to them to free even more slaves.
Mirue's kingdom had to interfere in order to destroy the slaves who were trying to create a rebellion, many people lost their lives during this episode. Since this has happened to some areas of the realm where dwarven slaves are almost banished, there is no law that allows this, but slavers have tried not to keep dwarven slaves in these regions.
Canos was not a city attacked by rebel dwarves, but as it was close by, many of the people who lived here went to fight the rebellious slaves when the kingdom summoned them. As the rebel army was not much of a challenge for the kingdom's elite army, they decided to send regular people who lived near the rebel army bases to save time and money.
A decision made by people who just don't care what happens to ordinary people. I believe if I researched more about the history of this kingdom, I would find more events like this, in a world like the slaves starting a revolt is much simpler when the slave can wield a stronger personal power than average, but unfortunately that also means it doesn't matter how many slaves you gather, in the face of power and a red or blue core warrior or mage the revolted slaves will be destroyed.
It is very rare for a slave to be able to achieve this level of power as the founder of the kingdom I was born in, he not only had the potency but he had the opportunities after running away from his owner, without all these factors he would never have been able to. to free the slaves of the kingdom in which he was born.
Leaving Volkan and the Little Flame out of the inn, I led the way towards our first lookout target.