Written by: AtheistBasementDragon
Edited by: The Usual Gang of Drunken Perverted Idiots
...Wenmark...
They rode in silence for awhile through the city, Neia kept her eyes straight ahead of her and her back was ramrod straight. Despite her best efforts, she could not completely contain her killing intent, but as it was undirected at anyone, it gave her an oppressive air that was so generalized that... it helped her fit in. Tinamoc rode beside her, but could think of nothing worth saying to fill the silence that she'd slipped into. For her own part, she couldn't help but notice the guards riding on the road ahead of her, they wore high quality armor, it wasn't plate mail, they were wearing chain mail, but the links were not all steel, many of them appeared to be platinum, mythril, and orichalcum, all interspersed with steel ones.
Neia gradually realized they were closing on one particularly ominous looking building, and decided to break the silence. "Their armor is different." She said.
"Remember when I was talking about the mines out here?" Tinamoc asked, to which Neia nodded.
"They have orichalcum mines, mythril mines, platinum mines, iron mines... there is a lot out here, and because it is close, it is inexpensive... relatively speaking, and so they buy materials and make links, they still don't have enough coming in to make full plate suits for everybody, but links are cheap, if produced in odd numbers anyway, and so they make mixed chain armor that is unique to the Holy Kingdom, and to this city in particular. Because the links vary in strength, but it only takes one good link to stop a slash, they use fewer of the strongest links, and it frees up more material for other projects or more suits of armor." He explained.
"Very clever." She said begrudgingly.
"They may not be very good, but that doesn't make them stupid." He replied.
"If only it did." She said.
"If only." He replied.
They fell into silence again, with no small amount of discomfort, as normally happens after a bout of temper, even if it was not directed at the one present.
Neia was grateful when they arrived at a large wrought iron gate, two guards in full orichalcum plate and halberds with mythril heads stood by.
"Tinamoc Garamoj, merchant." He said.
"Neia Baraja, Black Justice." She said.
As they checked the list and opened the gate, the pair rode through without another word. As they passed out of earshot, the guards said to one another, "That was the squire of the Sorcerer King, did you FEEL that?" He asked.
The other one nodded numbly, "I would not... not... not want that one coming after me. It’s what you'd expect out of a servant of the undead."
They closed the gate behind the two, and a servant... a human one this time, approached and took their horses by the reins as they dismounted.
It caught Neia by surprise that he wore no chains. This prompted her to look him over more closely, he had sandy hair and clean but not excessively rich clothing, his hands were calloused but his face was soft, he wore good boots and was armed with a small dagger and a short sword. "You're a servant here?"
He smiled, "In a manner of speaking, I'm an apprentice, my father works in one of the offices, I'm going to take over his job one day, so this is where I'm starting out, learning the grounds and how things work."
"That makes sense." Neia said simply, "Very well, thank you for taking the horses." She said politely.
"This way, Neia." Tinamoc said, and started walking, the door was opened by another human servant, also a young man, and as Tinamoc led the way down the corridor, Neia noticed a distinct lack of any of the elf servants that were so common elsewhere. As her confusion grew, Tinamoc noticed and explained, "Simply put, they don't trust them that close."
"If only they did." Neia said with regret as she imagined how easy it would be to bring them down then.
It was the rational efficiency of it all that disgusted Neia the most. The human guards she'd seen were disciplined and well equipped, better than most of the places she'd been, the streets were orderly and clean. The layout for the city was predictable even in their horror, every square contained a pair of punishment pillars, visible so regularly that she couldn't help but imagine that they were there as much to remind the servant class of their existence, as they were for actual practical use. The servant classes were obedient and quiet, whether human or elf, but only the humans in those green and white chains... and not all of the white ones, had any evidence of hope on their faces.
Neia kept her mouth shut from that point forward, keeping her thoughts to herself as she took note of the layout of the place. It was a step up from the red brick of the hotel, this building was made of soapstone, beautifully polished, and decorated with elaborate paintings and frescos that were literally made by careful placement of stone, it was just before the entry to the main council chamber that she was brought to a sudden stop with a mixture of horror and awe. On the ceiling, the stone patterns had been arranged to reveal humanity and the gods, an elaborate scene representing a heavenly paradise, but in every human hand there were whips. Meanwhile on the floor, there the multicolored stone was laid out to show demihumans and other races, all of them chained or bleeding, all eyes turned upwards towards the ceiling in fear. Humans were represented with dignity, but no nonhuman of any kind was represented as anything but servile, pathetic, cowardly, or evil... and though Neia had fought demihumans before, her experience with orcs, elves, and her time in the Sorcerous Kingdom, not to mention her time in Nazarick, had taught her that they were no less deserving of life and dignity than she was. The contrast between the 'heaven' in the ceiling and the 'hell' on the floor that she was now walking over, made her stomach roil. More than anything she'd seen so far, this beautiful and terrible opulent chamber where people waited to see the heads of the city government, encapsulated all that she saw was wrong here.
"It is... impressive." She said with ambiguous truthfulness, as it truly did make an impression on her.
Pretending she meant other than she did, the uncomfortable Tinamoc replied, "Yes, it is. The art style here is quite unique." He knelt to the stone under him, moving his foot off of the terrified face of an elf. "To make this, they mine soapstone in the thousands of tonnes, then the artists cut stone pieces down sometimes as much as a finger width to make just the right shape, sometimes injecting shading dyes into the porous material to get just the right shade, then they use magic to seal the stone back together seamlessly, creating it like a great puzzle piece. The floor underneath us is probably no more than a finger's thickness and is laid over cheap granite, and I would say that the ceiling is done much the same way. It’s all very... impressive." He said, putting the same meaning into the word that Neia had, by way of his tone of voice.
In front of them there were two enormous bronze doors. They had elaborate sculpted shapes, showing the six gods standing with their palms up, as if commanding anyone coming in front of them to halt. It was particularly impressive since the doors went up thirty feet up from the floor to the high ceiling, and Neia wondered just how they planned on opening it. Her answer was not long in coming, when she heard the turning of a crank echoing from the other side as the door opened slowly, she concluded that they used a system of pulleys in the walls, augmented by gears to ensure they didn't have to use muscle to hold anything in place.
She allowed Tinamoc to step through first, and then she followed. The chamber was not the dark and oppressive place she expected, a skylight was atop a rounded dome that the ceiling became, and it flooded the chamber with the light of the Sun. The seating was very high, she saw that the chamber went from being a flat surface at the door, to about three quarters before the other side of the room, and there it became a stairway that gradually moved around the curving side of the room, which lead to a large platform where a black stone panel rested. It too curved around, bowing away from the entrance, and various men and women dressed differently from one another, sat next to one another, those dressed alike, all sat together, which told Neia that they were members of the same factions.
The military faction was clear, they wore martial uniforms with decorations on the breast, and bits of light armor such as vambraces on their forearms, and she thought she detected pauldrons and rerebraces underneath the fabric covering the shoulders and biceps. She couldn't tell the material, probably leather or very thin metal, but it gave them a size difference outside the norm. The five of those sat on the far left side of the table. On the far right, merchants were equally obvious, they were richly dressed in silks, and jewelry, and on the breast of each of them she saw what she guessed was a symbol for the product category they specialized in. Metal, wood, and one of them wore the embroidered image of a whip. She guessed what his product was, and as she smiled politely, she vowed he would die screaming. There were four of them, but five chairs.
The other seats were taken up by men in suits and priestly robes, representing other factions of the oligarchy. Neia barely suppressed her urge to snort at the lordly image these 'creatures' tried to create for themselves. Their finest work was nothing but child's scratches compared to what she'd seen in Nazarick, and their lordly airs, which they tried to put on by setting themselves ten feet higher than a grown man's head, seemed petty. She'd knelt before the king of kings, the god of gods, these were nothing to his ageless and dignified reign. They lacked the air of kings, whatever their efforts. The white light of the chamber gave off an air of an attempt at holiness, one she found sickening given what she'd seen of the city.
"It’s good to see you Tinamoc." One of the women sitting with the priests said.
"And you also, Lady Reika." Tinamoc said with a polite bow of his head.
"I expected you to come back with your uncle." She said, "He went to the Golden Roan to meet you before you came here, there are... urgent matters to discuss." She said.
"How strange." Tinamoc said, I didn't see him, we must have missed one another by mere minutes.
"Who is that behind you?" A firm voiced man in the military faction asked.
"Lord Ginya, that is Lady Neia Baraja, the King assigned her and her party of fighters to secure my caravan along the course of our trade mission. Her support has been invaluable, I would not be here if not for her." Tinamoc answered, and Neia nodded politely.
"I've heard of you." He said.
"Thank you." Neia replied.
"I didn't say I'd heard good things." Lord Ginya replied.
"That depends on what you call good. If you've heard what I've said and done, then I say I've done very good things. If you think those things to be bad, well I doubt we will see eye to eye on what being 'good' means." Neia said sharply, offering a not all that subtle implied criticism of his moral worth, it was good enough to shut him up at least, but his eyes didn't leave her.
The priests for their part, had begun to stare daggers at her. Neia took their stares impassively at first, then she looked down, removed her visor and folded it so that it would hang from the breast of her armor, just below her neck, and then she raised her face back up and met their eyes with hers. Between her reputation and her terrifying gaze, it was not something they were prepared for, and the silent war of hate between the rival religions filled the air with tension, but one by one the priests broke their gaze away, unable to bear the terrible eyes of the mad eyed archer.
The tension was broken when an industrialist spoke up, "I understand you've been reestablishing trade ties all over the Kingdom. Very impressive, we've actually had contacts from some of the trade offices you've reestablished. Prart sent an envoy recently, and so did several villages through them, we've heard a great deal, and... military concerns aside, it’s all been a boon for business. So will you be buying up anything in particular while you're here?"
"I'll be purchasing grain with the intention of taking it North on the return trip, but I've also noticed the abundance of elves here, and I was hoping to acquire some for a test run of domestic service elsewhere." Tinamoc replied, quickly creating a cover story for the purchases of elves he was sure was already taking place.
"Would the king approve?" A merchant asked curiously.
"If one won't, the next will." Tinamoc said with a grim voice. It was met with several wolfish grins, but Neia found herself also faced with some concerned looks in her direction. "Is it alright to say that around... her?" Lady Reika asked.
Neia looked stone faced at the woman and stayed silent.
"If you can say it to me, you can say it to her." Tinamoc answered firmly.
That drew some looks of doubt, but mostly relief.
Neia's arms crossed in front of her. "My loyalty is reserved for the divine and for my people. No one will hear what you say, who should not." She said in a voice that fairly dared anyone to call her a liar.
There was silence for a moment, and then Tinamoc spoke up. "As I said, I trust her completely."
That fairly settled the matter, for the present at least.
Neia drifted off into her own thoughts as Tinamoc haggled out the fine points of how he would trade, what he would charge, how long he would remain, and what goods he was willing to accept in place of currency for future trading. In the end, he came away with a license that allowed him and his caravan to trade in every quarter square, as well as allowing all his merchants the right to yell for their goods, and the right to take penitent workers... i.e. slaves, outside of the city walls as long as they were guarded.
The one thing that caught Neia's attention was the punishment clause.
"...And also, as you have agreed to yield a ten percent tax on gross sales as opposed to net, you are entitled to the punishment clause for life sentenced penitent labor, placing full discretion on the matter of their lives in your hands. However, any that you put down will result in compensation to the city treasury for the cost of future resale, with a total fine for unskilled child labor to be seven silver coins, unskilled adult labor to be twenty silver coins, and skilled adult labor to be assessed on a by profession basis." Lady Reika said, reading off the terms.
"I have a substantial party with me at the Golden Roan," Tinamoc replied, "I can't swear that the soldiers in particular will be considerate of the costs of damaging the females. Are they counted as skilled or unskilled?" He asked with a cold mask on his face.
There was a brief conversation between the priests and the merchants, in the end concluding with Lady Reika saying, "At high end establishments costing two gold or higher per day, they will be counted as skilled labor, at cheaper locations where the cost is as low as a few coppers or silver equal to half the value of a gold piece, they will be considered unskilled labor, with the cheapest places being priced the same way as the cost of unskilled child labor." She gave her decision like she was giving the weather report.
Neia felt sick again. She comforted herself by imagining the room on fire.
She tried not to listen in on the remainder before she saw Tinamoc bow, and she imitated him, with equal stiffness to her bow, before turnin around and walking out behind him.
Tinamoc kept the mask on his face. "Hold it in." He said roughly under his breath. "Keep it together till we get the fuck out of here and back to the hotel."
"I admit... I drifted off there for a bit, how long are we staying?"
"Three weeks." Tinamoc said.
Neia raised an eyebrow. "Most of our visits have been for a few days at most, why so long?" She asked.
"Because of the way this city is centralized, a lot of goods pass through here that I'll be trading for, I don't know if you've noticed, but aside from dropping people off, I've been dropping weight as well." He said, prompting Neia to look at him dubiously.
He smiled broadly for the first time since getting to Wenmark, and he began to explain in an animated fashion, "I always begin with the heaviest and most raw goods, then I trade my way up, as the goods I acquire get smaller and lighter, more and more value is taken up in a smaller and smaller caravan, until I reach my final step and need only deposit the wealth and the credit documents to the merchant's guild house. Thus my expenses continue to decrease at every step of the journey as less and less food is required, I can even sell the wagons if I don't take on enough passengers looking to move from one city to another."
"That is... brilliant." Neia said with sincere admiration.
Tinamoc bowed in mock humility, "Yes, yes it is." He said with a raw and happy smile.
By then they arrived at the entrance and a pair of horses was led over to them both, they remounted and rode out at a gentle trot, "By the way," Tinamoc said, "I really enjoyed seeing you beat the living piss out of my uncle."
Neia did a double take at his words. "That was your uncle?!" She exclaimed.
"In all his disgusting glory." Tinamoc said, his face beamed, "Don't even consider apologizing. He's a vile, nasty man and I wouldn't doubt that he was just using visiting me to see if the hotel had any new elf women to make a room worth staying in."
"Will I ever find anything in this city that doesn't disgust me?" Neia asked with a sigh.
"Not much. I'll grant that the artisans are second to none, they make amazing works, but... everything here is tainted." Tinamoc said, "When people are steeped in evil long enough, they lose the ability to tell what is good and what is not. And when one generation grows up after another, learning from the ones who came before who didn't know evil when they saw it, that generation is convinced that the evil they do is actually good." He said. A shriek echoed somewhere in the distance, but it didn't register with anyone except the public workers, their shivers of fear made their chains rattle.
Neia's hands went tight on her mount's reins. They were silent the rest of the way back to the hotel.
When Neia entered the hotel lobby, she bade Tinamoc a productive day and went immediately up to her room where she found Illyana, CZ, and Skana sitting and waiting for her. She closed the door behind her and locked it, then moved smoothly over to the table and took her seat. Emotionally drained, Neia slumped backward in her chair and put the back of her hand over her face.
"Skana, I hate to ask, but I'd love some tea if we have any."
Before Skana could react, Illyana had already stood up, "I will do it." She said. Skana and Neia looked at each other hesitantly before Skana said, "It’s OK, I'll do it."
CZ looked curious. "Why does it matter who does it?"
Skana turned to CZ and said, "Neia asked me because we're... let’s just say 'bound' together, we do things for one another out of affection, like you do with your stickers." She gestured to Illyana, "Illyana is a prisoner, to have her to do it would be not a matter of affection, but of cruelty, treating her as if she were a pack animal."
Illyana smiled sweetly, "It’s OK, I know it’s not like that, please, let me do something, however small, because I want to." Skana hesitated, then sat.
"As you wish." She said.
She left the room, and silence filled the space she'd left, it was only broken when CZ took out a sticker and put it on Skana's cheek. "Cute." She said, prompting a smile from Skana.
Neia had begun to undo her boots, and sighed with relief when they were off. "Anything happen while I was out?" she asked.
"Several of our people have bought elf slaves, CZ suggested creating dossiers on them so we could identify them by name, family, profession, and so on. That way they could be reunited with their families later, or they could be more easily integrated into the Sorcerer Kingdom. I assigned one of our people to it already, and they're being..." Her face twisted in disgust, "stored...in the warehouse district, a number of our people have donated blankets and other materials to them to make them more comfortable." Skana said.
"Do they know?" Neia asked.
"No, absolutely not. I wasn't going to risk anything until Illyana gave her report to us today." Skana answered.
It was at that moment when the sound of knocking was heard from on the door.
CZ opened it up, and Illyana entered carrying a tray of silver. A glass teapot sat on the tray, as well as three cups. Neia raised an eyebrow. "You forgot a cup, Illyana." She said as she began to straighten and return to a mindset that was all business.
Illyana shook her head. "I'm an elf, I'm a slave here, if I brought four cups to three humans, I'd draw suspicious looks."
"I'm not a human." CZ said.
"What...?" Illyana asked.
"I'm one of the maid demons of Ainz Ooal Gown, he sent me here to watch over Neia." She said with a flat emotionless tone.
Illyana could scarcely believe what she was hearing. "You... don't hate humans, or elves?" She asked with surprise.
"No." CZ replied. "These two I like." She added, and put a sticker on each of them again. "Cute." She added once again.
"Amazing." Illyana said, finding that she was having to constantly reevaluate what she was learning.
"So, what were you able to accomplish?" Neia asked as Illyana poured the tea.
"A lot. With all of you here, things are a beehive of activity, and I was able to get messages to most of the people who were leaving the hotel, the vines are growing, a few have already come back positive. There is a problem however." She said.
Neia and Skana wore concerned expressions. "Which is?" Neia prompted.
"You've seen the city guard, they're arguably some of the best soldiers in the South, they're very well equipped and very well trained, highly organized, just like the rest of the city. Some of the elves here have experience in the war with the Slane Theocracy, but most of them are like me, captured peasants from isolated towns that our wonderful king," Her expression turned bitter and her tone was deeply sarcastic, "didn't care enough about to defend, we have no idea how to fight, most of us have never held anything more dangerous than a broom or a pitchfork. If we don't know how to fight, what chance do we really have? Nobody wants to just throw their life away pointlessly, we could do that even without foreign aid." Illyana said sadly, shaking her head as she tried to imagine her fellow slaves trying to fight back.
When she looked up, she saw savage, wolfish smiles on the faces of Neia and Skana, who had locked eyes with one another.
The smiles were vicious looking, and they reached down and took a sip out of their tea cups. Skana cracked first, and began to laugh, and as Neia set her cup down she said, in a voice as sweet as sugar on a fresh baked pie, "I think we know some people who can help with that."
"Good tea." CZ said, as her cup went back down to the table with the others, and Illyana looked on in confusion.
The mixed link idea works well against slashes and all but wouldn’t that be pretty weak against thrusts and spears?