The waters under the industrial districts were dark and murky with slag from refining metals through non-magical means. The air was also tainted by the smell of thick smoke and what might be toxic metal fumes, but only the slaves were affected by this. The subhumans, familiars, and one female captive all breathed magically filtered air.
Most of the sewer entrances in this area were offset connections to businesses that allowed for the sluicing of chemicals. Because everybody to some extent benefits from the water life of the river, there were some measure taken to filter the water of with sluice stations every few hundred yards. Even if it was just magnetic tracks, the iron pollutants alone that were removed would be large.
As it was, there would be choppy waterways around these stations from the build-ups of sediments. From the looks of it, they were maintained to some extent on a monthly or more basis. Because of these, though, travel through the sewers was slowed.
Not because the way was blocked with splash or debris but because I traveled through this toxic area praying while collecting all of the build-ups to process with transmutation into metalloid composites and safe sediments.
With these composites, I could create cheap emergency tools. While a shrapnel explosive of crystalline metals would destroy these tunnels, certain levels of control and elemental influence would make them perfect for proper cave systems. If looked at the right way, one could say this toxic trash was a bountiful treasure gifted from the gods.
Even though the tunnels were more or less safe from people, the slag chutes from the industries made the path randomly volatile. Every few hours like clockwork for the people above, waste was casually deposited into the sewers in bulk quantities and not all of it was cooled! From down here, you could hear a random surging of water and broken down slag material rushing into the tunnels once every five or so minutes from random locations.
While the odds of a large opening in a nearby wall suddenly grinding open and pouring out potentially boiling water and rocks were not high, they were ever-present and nerve wracking. Worse still was the first time one actually opened up in our area. I just watched a five-by-five metal portion of wall slide up and then… whoosh.
Luckily, my wisps appeared from the opposite wall and physically blocked the twenty-second cascade with their bodies. Once the event was over and mostly only a few slaves had been splashed with splash-cooled water, they disappeared back into the wall to continue probing around. All that was left were dripping puddles on the wall.
After that, I sincerely got my shit together. My merry little company of over fifty low-priority slaves, eighteen ranks, fifteen subhumans, eight wolves, and a bitterly wet and silent free-captive were met with four more sudden splash zones. Sadly, I only managed to compensate for three of them.
Luckily, that one was ahead of us so I and my repellent gear were the only ones in the actual splash radius up front.
It was also the second splash to surprise us.
Because I myself was hungry when we finally reached the end of the industrial area early in the evening, I had the wisps search above for a large and secluded empty area that we could surface in. After finding a few and monitoring them for around thirty minutes, we spent the next half hour reaching the closest destination before we could finally surface and have a meal.
Everybody was surprisingly ravenous after spending all day moving and working but I still limited how much food was given to ninety-nine percent of the prisoners. Greater Ape, however, actually gave the woman more food when I gave her the same as the others. She must have been prone to feeding the subhuman like a pet for these kinds of actions.
When dinner was over, I gave everybody crude disguises of large hooded canvas cloaks and divided them into groups of subhumans and slaves lead by a single wolf. The wolves' jobs were to lead everybody quickly to the Guild chapter through the streets where thug activity was less prone to happen. Their bounties would be collected and the animals would return in roughly two hours.
The only people who stayed were Greater Ape, the woman, my wisps, and myself to finish counting out coins into different purses for the subhumans. My initial goal was to dole out all the small change into fifty silver per purse to start with but it soon because one hundred silver per bag before each subhuman has one-and-a-half gold coins worth of money apiece set aside.
After that, though, I still had plenty of money left over for myself so I simply transmuted the rest and cut a blank gold more for each subhuman. This was a sufficient start for group housing and a few people to tend to them. After I finished clearing the south side of the catacombs overnight, though, there should be enough on the side alone to buy their group housing.
Once ALL of my familiars returned from the Guild, I went back into the underground relying on the ex-mercenary's information for general direction. The first place we came to, as I hoped, turned to to be a busy intersection of shift exchange. However, I was better prepared this time around.
I dispersed the wolves from more than an intersections out to cover potential exits and escapes before sending the wisps in from twenty feet below the ground. At that depth, sadly, the wisps needed to spend mana to maintain their place. Once they were under the center of the intersection, I gave a meat wall of twenty staff wielding slaves the boot before leading the subhumans myself.
The staff wielders generally used their naked wood and stone poles like spears, but they were still efficient enough to buy time for the wisps to emerge and blind the enemy at the moment of conflict. Four people had already left, but the wolves had orders to simply take a foot and retreat. The others were all enraged, blinded, then steadily drained of their mana, stamina, and consciousness.
All while suffering the blunt traumas of the equally blind but longer reaching slaves. The subhumans were mostly and unarmed capture detail for this job, walking up and using my method of slaps to daze and disarm opponents. It was a beautiful thing to watch as half of the fifty-plus people remaining were incapacitated with prejudice.
A few managed to escape the darkness of my wisps and try to retreat, but wolves were already returning in front of and behind wounded escapees. These weakened runners simply threw themselves to the ground. Unsure of how to proceed without guidance, the wolves followed my previous order of taking a foot and retreating before I emerged from the wisps to pursue.
It was a tragic but once again beautiful sight to behold as a dozen screaming and bleeding men in crude armaments were huddled together on the ground while bloody faced wolves sat in every entrance to the intersection.
Completion of the mission, not counting enslavement, took less than ten minutes after probing the area. Enslavement took a little while longer and a potion to take care of, but once in motion I felt more than comfortable dividing my numerous lower value slaves into war parties to take out the enemy with subhuman and wolf reinforcements. The higher value slaves and a few subhumans would come with me.
Midnight came and went before I retracted the wolves and other forces through them to see what all had been captured. The subhumans were equipped with stone chains for hobbling captives but it was possible that their numbers were growing to awkward sizes. It would also be good to reorganize our forces.
What I had originally surmised to be more than half a dozen skirmishes for each group yielded unexpectedly high results in both loot and captives. One group appeared with almost thirty people bound together at the hands and ankles. There were, however, several injuries on the beastmen and half of their meat wall had crumbled while the others sustains injuries as well.
The alpha in particular, whose fur was usually a silky and shiny steel gray with some black tipped traces of fur scattered about, returned with two large patches of singed fur with some reddened and lightly charred blistering in the middle. Greater Ape beat me to the alpha and continued to help me heal the returning wolves and beastmen. I, however, denied the ape from healing the slaves and made them rely on potions while I replenished my own mana.
I had already captured ten more high value targets and used the others to fight along the way but now I was overwhelmed with people to enslave. This alone took an hour just to maintain safe levels. Even though they brought nine new subhumans to the party and more than enough loot for their bags, I was still pressed for time in finishing the southern district before morning.
All of their shifts and loot were in disarray, God only knew which and how many criminals had managed to get caught by what guards with the thinned numbers underground, their supporting income for two days was shaved fifty percent from the top, and I was constantly collecting new information as I went.
The Guild's people would be able to handle the aftermath helpfully funded by some of my own bounty pay while I rested and then push through the slums underground with an expendable army of enslaved death sentences.
*