Vallum tossed an apple core to the side of the road as he traveled with his companions in the early morning. Sari was munching on a pear and Kenra was long since finished with her fruit. They were all riding on Raef's back, so progress was going smoothly. The traveling went mostly in silence, partly due to the fact that not even the sun was up yet and partly due to each person readying themselves for what was to come.
"We are going to find her, right?" Sari asked quietly.
"We will." Kenra said simply.
They traveled until they came upon the warehouse that they were hoping was holding Vynn. Kenra and Sari slipped off of Raef and silently approached the building so that they could scope it out. Both of them disappeared inside the door and Vallum waited patiently on top of Raef. After a moment, the two of them reappeared, but they were followed by a third. Out of nowhere a coin hit Vallum on the forehead.
'... Vynn? Did they really do that so quickly and easily?' Vallum was perplexed.
The plan was that once the warehouse had been scoped out, Vallum and Raef would cause a commotion so that Sari and Kenra could start to free everyone. He hopped off of Raef and ran toward them, as Sari raised her hand in triumph.
"Woah, farmer boy. Aren't you a little too excited to see me?" Vynn said.
"Wasn't it a little too easy to rescue you?" Vallum countered, stopping just short of the group.
"I agree. It was far to easy for this witch of yours to kill every guard in the building."
"You killed them all, Kenra?" Vallum asked.
"Yes." She gave no explanation.
Vallum looked at her for a moment, thinking about her reasoning. They were slavers after all. They are the reason that him and his companions had been made into slaves. Even more, they were the reason that countless others had been enslaved. In the end, he just gave her a slight nod.
"Hey, quit looking at her, farmer boy. I am the one who was just saved from slavery." Vynn waved both hands at him.
"What do you want? To steal my wallet?"
Vynn walked up and gave Vallum a big hug, and in his ear she whispered, "Yeah, I want your wallet."
Over her shoulder, Vallum could see Kenra's face, which was covered in a smile... a smile that put him in a cold sweat. He had never seen her smile like that before. Her smiles were always warm and comforting, but there was something different about this one. He uncomfortably pushed Vynn away.
"Knock it off," He said.
Vynn flashed a look at Kenra and then sighed. "I guess it won't work after all, Sari." She tossed his coin pouch back to him and then walked back over to Sari.
"Aw. So, no big brother?" Sari asked.
"Not yet."
Without knowing what to say, "What does it look like in there?..." Vallum asked, leading into a conversation about how they would proceed.
It turned out that there were nearly a hundred people caged inside the building. Vynn suggested building their own village with all of the people, and of course Sari, who was in tears at being reunited with her big sister, sided with her. Both Kenra and Vallum decided firmly on letting the people themselves decide what they wanted to do. After their chat, the group started to free the people from their cages.
"It's a trap!"
"Don't leave your cages. They are tricking us."
"They are just going to make us their own slaves. Look what they did to the guards. They will probably kill us too."
Warnings echoed throughout the warehouse. Some of the elders seemed to be wary of the situation, so they tried to prevent everyone else from getting in trouble.
Vallum spoke up to dissuade their fears. "We are former slaves," He started calling on his arena experience to work the crowd, "We have come to save you..."
He continued and answered all of their questions until each slave slowly stepped out of their cage, one by one. They all gathered in an empty area of the warehouse so that they could talk about what was next.
It seemed that they split themselves into groups. All of the women and men split themselves up except for the children and the elders, who grouped together. The largest group was that of the children and elders followed by the women and then was the small group of men.
"You can do whatever you want. If a majority of you want to go to a specific location, then I will escort you personally with my gheji bull." Vallum said.
There were murmurs from the groups. The people were talking among each other to figure out what it was that they wanted in the face of their sudden freedom. The first group to speak was the children and elders. It was the old man that Vallum had met during his time here that spoke for them.
"What is it that you plan on doing after you deal with the aftermath of freeing us?"
Vallum took a moment to consider his answer, looking at Kenra. "I plan on removing myself from people and living in the mountains."
The old man gestured to his group, "We are weak, and most of us are from faraway places. On our own, there is no way for us to make it back to our homes. Not only that, but the cities are dangerous places where we could end up being enslaved again. On behalf of my group, I plead to you: let us join you in the mountains. We want a good place to raise these misfortunate children where they can be safe."
Vynn smirked at Vallum. She seemed to be saying, 'Told you that a village was a good idea.'
He looked at Kenra who was beaming at the idea of harboring these people in the mountains. Then he turned back to the old man.
'It really is my responsibility. I did kind of save them on a whim because I had a friend in here. Abandoning them would be pretty bad.' Vallum thought.
"What about the rest of you?" Vallum asked the rest of the people.
The response he got was the last one that he had expected to hear. He stared at the people dumbfounded and Vynn smirked at him harder than ever before.
'I told you so.' Her face said clear as day.