This place was built more like a vault than a mere holding room for valuable slaves.
A second, more thorough run through the room led me to a secreted safe hidden in a false wall panel. The slight discoloration in the wood was my only tip-off, and if I hadn't been listening to my gut, I'd have missed it.
Using a metal crowbar I found next to an empty crate, I forced the handle open. I put all my weight into it, shearing the metal and making a lot of noise. I shattered through the lock and tore the door off the safe. It swung open, only to fall off its hinges, nearly crushing my foot as it tumbled to the ground.
Sitting inside the rather large safe were several boxes of papers and a wooden chest with an intricate lock built into it. A glance through the documents told me they were bills of sale. It seemed Liam kept detailed records of all his dealings. I noticed the names of a few high nobles and aristocrats, and I even saw William Curran's name a few times. It seems the Northern King likes his slave girls. I wonder how his queen feels about that?
I tucked those sheaves into my inventory, never knowing when I'd need to blackmail a monarch.
I kept looking through the papers, hoping for a lead on Magnus, but there was nothing. Not a single scrap to indicate the man even existed. For how many slaves Phineas said he was buying, and how detailed Liam was, the documents were missing for a reason.
I couldn't help but let out a disappointed sigh. Of course, it wouldn't be that easy. What was I expecting to find, a bill of sale with Magnus's name and his exact location and weaknesses? Life doesn't work that way.
I'd have to find him the hard way. The way that would demand a much higher price.
I had his name, and that was a valuable piece of information. There were powerful beings I could call upon to ask for help, though it would cost me dearly. If I have to resort to calling upon them, it'll make the deal I made with the Aspect look favorable in comparison. But I'll do whatever I have to if it means seeing that bastard brought to heel for what he's done to me.
With the documents out of the way, I picked up the chest. It was heavy, incredibly so. I struggled to heft it out of the safe and down to the ground. Once it was on the ground, I was able to get a better look at the lock.
It was a complex number with two keyholes and looked to have a few built-in fail-safes. You needed two keys turned in tandem to open this chest. One glance at the lock told me I had no chance in hell of picking it. I imagine this lock would even give Wilson trouble.
So, I broke the wooden lid of the chest, bypassing the lock entirely. Sitting inside the chest was gold. It was filled to the brim with gold coins, thousands of them. A small fortune, at least.
One look at the money, and I was already thinking of ways I could spend it. I would sort out exactly how much gold it was later when we were away from the slave house, but I tried and failed to store the entirety of the chest in my inventory…of course.
With the destruction of the lid, the chest no longer functioned as a storage container. Which meant I couldn't carry it with me. I could take as much as I could carry. Around five thousand gold was the most I could hold at once since I had no stat points in Carrying Capacity, and that wouldn’t even dent the pile.
I hated to leave that much wealth on the table and walk, but I didn't have any other options. Eris didn't have anything to store it in, and it would only slow us down if we tried.
I scooped as many coins into my purse as I could. It ended up being three thousand two hundred and fifty-three coins added to my wallet. Not even a fourth of the coins still in the chest. Oh, well. I still made a profit on this trip.
With one last covetous glance at the chest of gold, I wound my arm through Eris's and unlocked the heavy door to leave this wretched place.
Chapter 26 - Escape
The heavy iron door groaned as I forced it open, scraping against the metal frame in protest and echoing throughout the massive warehouse, announcing our presence to any who still lingered. I didn't bother shutting the door behind me. Let them loot the place for all I care.
Walking through the ground level of the warehouse was more intense than sneaking over the catwalks. The heat was lessened slightly, but the pungent odor of tightly massed bodies and waste was revolting. I resisted the urge to vomit and started breathing through my mouth.
Huge wooden crates lined the walls and were stacked in haphazard piles at random throughout the warehouse, creating a very maze-like environment, and there were plenty of cages mixed with the crates. A few were empty, more than likely the once homes of the slaves that were auctioned off outside, but most of the pens held the less valuable ones: the young elves and dwarves or the too valuable ones like the rabbit men. The nobles just go crazy for bunny-girls, much too valuable to just auction them off. More than likely, Liam would have held a private event for them and raked in a mountain of gold.
I tried to ignore them, tried to ignore their pleading or judging eyes, but I could feel them like daggers in my back, begging me to save them. I can't help you. We've been here too long already, and I have to get Eris out of here. She comes before all others. I didn't have the time to waste helping them.
I could ignore the looks from the slaves, could leave them to their misery, and whatever awful fate awaited them. It would only further damn my soul to whatever pit of hell I'd resigned myself to, but I could do it. However, there was one gaze I couldn't ignore.
Eris was wide-eyed, staring at the horrors of this place. Her face held such sadness at what she was seeing. I tried to put it out of mind, but she felt such conflicting emotions that she'd inadvertently opened our connection and spilled her overflow of feelings into my mind. Considering the many lifetimes she'd spent locked away herself, she couldn't bear to see others going through what she did.
She tugged sharply on my arm, forcing me to stop walking, which had been me dragging her more than anything.
"Sam, we have to help them."
"We don't have time to waste. Look, I'm sorry, I know how this must pain you to see, and I don't exactly like it either, but this world is a harsh one, and we can't right every wrong we come across. Bad things happen to good people. It's just the way it is."
I yanked on her hand, trying to force her to keep walking. The bay doors were just a few yards away, and freedom from this place was so close, but Eris wasn't having it. She dug in her heels and wouldn't budge, using all of her considerable strength to stop me in my tracks and pulled away from me.
"No, Sam, I'm going to help them, whether you like it or not. I love you, but you're better than this, I know you are."
I stared at the bleeding marks on my arms where her fingers had scraped the skin free from my arm.
Godsdamn it!
She was right, though; I knew she was from the beginning. I just didn't want to listen. Much as Eris thought I was good, I wasn't. I'm a monster, but she's right, I can't just walk away. Not when she's begging me to right a wrong against innocents.
"Fine," I sighed.
The smile that lit her face put the sun in the sky to shame. She squeezed my hand tight and mouthed, "Thank you."
I managed a half-smile, which I quickly dropped as I got down to business. Staying here means staying on guard. Let's get this done and get out.
"Right, let's make this quick."
Whispers around us told me that our conversation had been overheard, and a few death glares withered into ones of relief. They crowded against the bars of their cages, each of them begging to be freed—their voices combining into so much incomprehensible noise.
"Quiet!"
As if a switch had been flipped, they obeyed—instant silence.
I walked over to one of the cages. A slight elven male resided in it. His thin features even more so, as malnourishment emaciated him. He flinched back as I got close, but I ignored him and looked at the lock on the cage. It was different than the one that housed Eris. The key I took would be useless.
"Does anyone know where the key is kept?" I asked. It wa
sn't in the vault, and there wasn't a key in Liam's remains. I don't want to waste any more time on a scavenger hunt.
"Here," one of the slaves spoke up from a cage along the far wall.
As I got closer, I noticed the slave was one of the rabbitmen demi-humans. A small girl, maybe six years old. Her black hair was a tangled mess, and her gray bunny ears had dirt and filth on them. Her blue dress was ragged and soiled with grime. It looked as if she'd been wearing it for weeks.
Her face was equally dirty. Except for where her tears had washed away the dirt, leaving thin streaks down her face. She looked up at me with wide, unblinking eyes. Such bright blue eyes.
"The key is kept over there," she said in a whisper, pointing at a small office hidden behind even more crates. The door was ajar, and I spied a desk and a rack of keys hanging on the wall.
Not wasting any more time, I took off at a sprint and hopped over the crates in my way, barging into the office. I knocked aside the door with my shoulder. It slammed against the wall with a thud to rattle the single window in the cramped space.
Four different keys lined a small wooden shelf on the wall. The only thing inside the office besides the large plain desk and chair was a small potted plant that resided on the desk—likely an attempt to bring a little life into this den of iniquity and vileness. A nudge sent the plant crashing to the ground.
“Whoops.”
Stop doing that!
The Aspect laughed as I pocketed all the keys and hurried out of the office.
"Eris, catch!" I tossed her two of the four keys, and we set about freeing the slaves. As I opened the little rabbit girls’ pen, I handed her my extra key and sent her to help with unlocking the rest of the cages.
Within five minutes, we had all twenty or so unlocked, and the group of former captives was huddled together in an awkward attempt at solidarity. They still bore looks of confusion and sadness, but there was a splattering of hopeful faces in the crowd as well.
Eris finished unlocking the final cage and rushed over to join me. Her hand around mine was a comforting warmth in this dank, decrepit place.
Though the current slaves had been freed, this place held the weight of too many lives sentenced to bondage. That kind of darkness leaves a stain that will never fade. Save for under the purifying light of fire.
Let the former slaves escape under cover of smoke. Burn the place down, and while the slavers are busy figuring out what the hell is going on, we'll be long gone. A solid plan with a decent chance of succeeding.
I had a thought and cleared my throat, speaking loudly to the crowd.
"All right, you're all free. You can walk out that door right now if you so choose. In the back room, behind the heavy iron door, is a chest filled with gold. Take what you can carry with you. I recommend traveling in groups to avoid getting recaptured. Use the gold to buy what you need any way you can.”
“You have five minutes to grab what’s here. After that, I'm taking a torch to this fucker. Okay, speech over. Good luck to all of you."
After my words, I walked over to one of the crates and splintered it with a kick, grabbing a few planks of wood and a discarded rag in one of the nearby cages. It was filthy with all manner of nastiness, but it would serve as decent kindling.
The slaves had started bustling about after I finished speaking. A few had found metal pipes and were in the process of ransacking the crates looking for anything of value. Grunting from behind me caused me to turn. A couple of the dwarves were carrying the chest of gold. They dropped in the middle of the room and went through counting it and dividing it equally among the twenty or so slaves. They counted the money like machines. A blur of hands counting and stacking coins by the thousands.
I left them to deal with the loot and set about getting ready to burn this place to cinders.
I was walking hand in hand with Eris, making my preparations, when she stopped dead. It was sudden enough that my hand was nearly yanked from hers.
"What?" I started to say when I noticed the look she had.
Her face was wide in disbelief, not in fear, just like she couldn't believe what she saw. I followed her gaze to see her staring at two children huddled together by themselves, away from the main group of freed slaves. For some reason, they seemed familiar to me.
I was trying to figure out why, when it hit me like a ton of bricks. I had seen them before. In the flashes of memories from Darren. They were the strange children with long, curved ears—the not quite demi-humans.
Eris let go of my hand and walked unblinking towards the children. I called out to her, but she paid me no mind. I called again much louder this time—still nothing. The children had heard me yell and looked up to see Eris walking towards them. They looked at her with confusion on their faces before it crumbled into dawning realization.
They know what she is.
This turn of events more than piqued my interest, and I rushed over to stand by Eris. I brushed my hand against hers, and she jumped like a bolt of lightning had struck her. She whirled around at me, before calming herself once she realized it was me.
"Eris, what the hell?"
"I'm sorry, Sam, you startled me."
"Obviously," I replied, "You mind telling me what's going through that beautiful head of yours?"
She stared at me, incredulously, motioning towards the children. "Do you not see them?"
"Yeah, the kids with the long ears. What about them has you in such a frenzy?"
Something clicked on Eris's face, and she turned away from to kneel in front of the children. They seemed a little wary of her but not nearly as much as they feared me. They shivered in fright just from looking at me.
Great. Durandahl, Hive Knight, and monster to children everywhere.
Between Eris and me, they chose Eris gratefully, rushing to her and huddling into her knees. They disregarded the dirt they accrued from the floor onto their clothes, and both of them clung onto her legs, burying their faces to hide from me.
Eris looked from them to me, and with an apologetic look, asked me to back up a tad.
"Sure…no problem."
I crept back on the floor, well out of arm’s reach, and sat down next to one of the few remaining crates that we hadn't splintered to pieces, waiting to find out what was going on with Eris and the strange children.
Eris gently cooed at the frightened kids, brushing their disheveled and dirty hair through her fingers, trying to get the kids to settle enough to stop hiding away. She started humming to them. The same song she kept singing to herself since we'd met. The kids’ ears twitched at hearing it. Seems they’re familiar with it, even if I'm not.
I put the many others bustling about in the warehouse around me out of my mind and watched Eris as she soothed the children's fears. She was acting like a big sister or mother to them. It's a good look on her. That errant thought sent a trill of panic through me. Where the hell did that thought come from?
While I worked through my miniature existential crisis, Eris managed to assure the children that I wasn't going to hurt them and that they were safe. They finally removed their heads from her chest and blinked at me. I managed a weak smile and a half-wave, which, from the looks I received, I doubted did me any favors.
"So, care to enlighten me on what's going on?"
Eris looked from me back to the kids. "It's okay, you can show him," she told the little children.
I didn't know what they meant to show me, but I gave them my full attention. Slowly, a haze appeared around the children's eyes, like heat from a hot summer day. Distorting and twisting around and around. When the shimmering air in front of them stopped, their eyes had changed.
Where once they had both been brown and very nondescript, now a slew of colors filled them. They were not the eyes of humans. The boy's eyes were a deep black with a purple shine around his iris.
The girl's eyes were yellow around the entirety with two pinpricks of black for the iris. They were both larger than a normal humans, but not qu
ite as big around as Eris's.
Are they entomancers like her?
When I asked this question, Eris told me no, they weren't. She had a sad look on her face as she confirmed that she was still alone. However, it went away when she next spoke, answering my question.
"They may not be entomancers, but they are still Hive. They are arachne."
"Arachne…like spiders?" I asked, trying and failing to keep the fear from rising in my voice.
"Yes! They are arachne spiderlings, the youngest of the brood."
She started speaking to them, but not in any language I was familiar with. It used mostly clicks of the tongue and the lower muscles in the throat. It was bizarre, and to top it off, my interface couldn't even translate it, leaving me feeling like I was being left out of the conversation, though I didn't necessarily mind.
Keep the freaky spider kids away from me. I'd gotten used to Eris, and while my once-phobia of insects and spiders had been significantly mitigated, I was still terrified of the creepy things. Even if they looked mostly human, hearing the word spider sent angst and fear through me. I'll happily face Liam again or a horde of crater snakes, but keep the tiny crawling, flying, biting, and stinging bastards far away.
Eris could feel the fear that was still present in me, and she frowned at me, but her eyes were sparkling. She had some idea cooking in her head and wiggled her fingers, letting a few drops of magic slip out.
I sighed, knowing exactly where this was going.
Spiders came crawling through the wooden walls and seeming out of nowhere from the dirt floor, skittering over one another to reach their mistress. The children's eyes lit up at the sight of all the things crawling towards them, like a long-lost pet finally returning home. They picked them up with small squeals of delight and let them crawl up and down. Under the command of Hive magic, I knew the spiders were no threat, but I still froze when they climbed over me.
Eris would get her feelings hurt if I freaked out about them, so for her, I stayed still and let the bugs skirt over my hands. I'd seen her use her magic enough times before, but I still hated the feeling of their many legs skittering over my skin. Eventually, my fear subsided, and I came not to mind the bugs so much, though I heaved a sigh of relief when they finally departed from me, back to their hidden nests.
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