A short rotund man entered the hall. His attire looked high priced.

He shot a sharp glance in our direction ignoring the masked man completely.

The masked man went down on his right knee as soon as he recognized the visitor. Even the robed man raised quickly from his chair only to fold into a deep bow.

The visitors silver white hair had retreated far back forming a narrow rim. An embroidered cloak was slung around his shoulders, while a short sword hung at his belt.

He began to talk to the robed man and it seemed the robed man actually had a voice. I couldn’t understand anything they said.

I shot an questioning glance at the others, but they shook their heads.

The discussion went back and forth for a while.

Finally our robed tormentor sat down on his chair again and started to write.

The visitor impatiently stood beside the desk, crossing his arms in front of his chest while giving us a smug smile. Then he signed a paper and set a heavy pouch on the desk. I heard a metallic sound.

The robed man waved at his goons and pointed in our direction.

The two masked men were in front of our cell in a few moments. They never used such brisk pace before.

One of them opened the cell, and the other motioned us to come out, yelling at us. I came to my feet after few tries and left the cell, as well as Alessia and Gordon.

Did I mention needing the need of names at some point?

One of the masked men shoved me in the direction of the old man. Getting the hint I started to move until I was standing in front of him.

I didn’t like the way the old man looked at me. At all.

He was seriously creepy.

One of the masked men placed a leather collar around my neck. New gifts. I sighed. It had leather manacles attached which were immediately attached to my wrists. Finally he attached a leash which he fastened to Alessia’s leather collar. Gordon’s leash was attached to my collar.

It was daisy chain time again.

Finally, how could I forget it, we all got matching ankle leather manacles.

They removed the metal manacles and the gags. Then our new owner was given Alessia’s leash and the robed man gave him a ring set with three stones.

The old man put it on one of his fingers. A short tug and a few seconds later we left a place I never want to see again. Ever.

It helped that we had a bit experience with the ankle manacles already. We managed to follow the old man with only a few stumbles.

We got icy stares when we yelped. After that I did my best to keep quiet.

I had to focus to avoid tripping. Alessia and Gordon turned silent as well.

I wondered why we could understand only some people. There had to be magic at work.

We followed many corridors with plenty of forks, twists and turns. I gave up keeping track after a while. I didn’t want to return anyway.

After silently following the old creep for a while we stopped in front of a door. He turned to us with a stern gaze.

“Only talk when I ask you something! Understood?” he glared at us.

As I nodded he frowned.

“Talk back to me when I ask! Don’t dare to defy me.” he barked.

“Yes Sir!” said Gordon. Alessia and I followed suit.

“You have to address me with Your Grace!” he gave us a cold stare.

He looked at us sternly.

“Of course, Your Grace!” I piped, getting the hint.

After Alessia and Gordon used the correct title as well he seemed satisfied.

“Now open the door.” As I started to sweat it got even worse. We were running across a large market place at that time.

Alessia, who ran in front of me, had the same problems. She was blushing furiously as well.

It felt like everyone we passed was staring at my butt.

Obviously we were in a large city with mostly stone buildings. All streets I saw were paved with cobblestones and there seemed to be a drainage system.

Finally we started to lose our wind. The bearers slowed down a bit, but not much. The old geezer seemed to enjoy the ride, frequently looking back enjoying our predicament.

Finally we stopped in front of a larger house with a walled yard in front of it. I nearly crashed into Alessia.

After His Grace barked a short command one of the bearers knocked at the gate.

A few moments later it opened and we entered the paved yard. There were some flowerbeds as well at the sides.

The old fart got out the palanquin and recovered his leash. While we were busy catching our breath he gave the bearers some money.

They left quickly, obviously relieved to get rid of us.

He tugged at the leather strap and directed us to a low building at the side. It looked like a stable. He barked another command and all people left as quickly as they could. After waiting for a minute perhaps he started to murmur strange words while making strange gestures.

“Quiet!” he glared at us.

Then he slowly walked back into the yard back right next to the gate.

Everybody else seemed to ignore us.

Alessia shot me a questioning glance. I shrugged. There was something fishy here. I put my index finger on my mouth while looking at the others and got two nods in return.

A few minutes later someone knocked at the gate and a servant hurried to open it.

A small cart started to enter the yard. In the meantime our owner tugged us cautiously back to the street. We followed him quietly. There is definitely something amiss here. What he was doing made no sense.

I shouldn’t call him owner anymore I think. It looked more like a thief. We followed him quietly, still daisy chained, down the street.