NOVEL NEXT Chapter 4
<~> Chapter 4
It was pretty late in the afternoon that we finally arrived at Traehall. Traehall seemed like a pretty large settlement with big walls made from huge tree trunks, it wasn’t quite a city yet but it was getting there. Our carriage joined a long line to get into the town, apparently there was some sort of check to get in.
“Hey Swordsman, are they going to give me trouble getting in the town without any kind of documentation? I’m a traveler and it works differently different places.”
“There shouldn’t be any trouble unless you plan to do specific business in the town. Even then as long as you talk to the guard, pay a fee, and get a permit from the adventurers guild, it should be all right.”
“Why the Adventurer’s guild?”
“This is an adventurer’s guild outpost town. A few years back a dungeon was discovered and the rate of stray monsters in the area has increased dramatically because of it. There’s even rumors of demon summoners in the area but I wouldn’t take those claims seriously.”
Well at least that hints at how people feel about demons. “So when you say specific business in the town, do you mean slave trading?”
He smiled. “Among other things.”
“So if I did privately buy that cutie in the back of that carriage before we entered the town you wouldn’t have to pay a fee to get in, you wouldn’t have to go through the trouble of listing him at auction or whatever hoops you have to go through, and we could all walk into town without any problems?”
“That’s true,” he peered around the carriage in front of us. “Though if we’re going to do this there isn’t a whole lot of time left before we get in.”
“Alright, lets make this quick then. You wanted twelve gold, I think the fees and trouble I’d be saving you makes him worth eight gold.”
He smiled recognizing the intent immediately. “Eight is too low, but it does save me the time. Let’s call it eleven for the trouble.”
“Surely you also save on things like listing fees, commissions fees and such at whatever place you actually sell the slaves but perhaps eight is too low. How about nine?”
“Ten gold fifty silver.”
“I don’t want to deal in silver. Ten gold even and I put the gold right into your hands right now. No need to jump through any other trouble, I pull out the gold, put it in your hands, and we walk into town together.”
He gives me an appraising look and quietly thinks to himself for a minute. “I didn’t take you for a merchant ma’am, fine ten gold if you can give it to me before we reach the gate.”
I return to the back of the carriage and dig through my bag. The cute guy gives me a curious look as I look for the pouch at the bottom. His eyes open in surprise when he sees me pull out ten coins and I give him a wink before jumping back out of the cart.
I walk back up to the swordsman and open my palms revealing ten gold coins. He takes one and studies it closely, seemingly interested in the marks on the side of the coin. Before nodding, he then begins taking each coin one by one feeling its weight before moving on to the next. When he’s satisfied he smiles and calls the slave out of the carriage.
He snaps his fingers and points to the ground in front of him. “Kneel boy.”
He nods once and kneels facing away from the swordsman and looks down, revealing the back of the collar. The swordsman turns to me. “I need to know your name in order to transfer the slave to you.”
“Oh uh…” Shit, I completely hadn’t thought about what to call myself until now. Knowing my pause was already suspicious I just blurted out the first name that came to mind. “Uh, Lilith.” Okay look, I know it’s completely stereotypical for a probably succubus demon to be named Lilith but that’s why it came to mind so fast.
After I told him my name I had that weird ringing sensation in the back of my head again but didn’t have time to dwell on it as the swordsman was starting. “I Mark Williamson hereby willingly transfer ownership of this slave to Lilith.” The collar’s runes began to glow red again and after it was clear I didn’t know what to do he looked at me. “Alright now just touch the collar to complete the new contract.”
“Oh uh right.” I put my hand against the back of the collar, it was warm to the touch and as I held my hand there I watched as the runes slowly turned back from red to blue. Once it finished I heard that strange ringing again. Man, what is that? It’s so annoying.
My new slave just kept kneeling in front of me with a blush on his face and I realized I probably needed to give him orders now. “Oh uh, stand up. Oh and you can speak freely again if I needed to give you permission for that.”
“Thank you mistress,” he said standing up.
“Oh, by the way, I never caught your name.”
”Bruno mistress.”
“Bruno?” That was such an unfitting name it wasn’t even funny. I usually think of muscular gym hunks with that name not androgynous cuties like this. That must have been written all over my face because the swordsman stepped in.
“If you don’t like his name just tell him to use something else, your ownership status over him means you can change his name to whatever you want.”
“Uh huh. Well it was unexpected but it’s fine.” I took his hand and pulled him next to me. “Alright, lets get going then.”
It wasn’t much longer before we finally made it to the town gates. Since our business was done we decided to split up for the gate, the swordsman reassured me there wouldn’t be any problems at the gate and wanted to go in separately. I just shrugged and rolled with it and let him go through first.
Bruno and I walked up to the guard and he looked over to us. “You seem to be well dressed for traveling outside of a caravan.”
“Ah the group I was with died on the trip and I was the only one left alive. I made it here on my own.”
“Do you have an adventurer’s card?”
“No I don’t have any identification sorry.”
“Hmm, well as long as you don’t make any trouble in the town you’ll be fine. If you’re going to keep traveling around you should probably sign up with the guild though. Even if you aren’t used to fighting there’s plenty of side income from gathering and you’d probably be fine if you came this far on your own. For now just give me your names and I’ll add you to the registry as a traveler, as long as you don’t cause any trouble that will be fine but remember that some cities have entry fees or won’t allow you in at all without identification. You’re lucky this is an adventurer's town otherwise you may have had to camp outside the walls at night. Welcome to the town of Traehall.” He waived us in without even hardly looking at Bruno. Maybe as a slave he doesn’t need to be questioned the way I do.
I walked into town still holding Bruno’s hand. “Have you ever been to Traehall Bruno?”
“No mistress.”
“Mmm, please just call me Lilith cutie. Mistress sounds kinky and kinda works me up a little too much,” I said winking to him.
“Y-yes M- Lilith.” The flustered look on his face when he replied was too cute.
As we walked through town together I looked around. It seemed we were in a medieval style town but had the clear impossibilities of magic around. I couldn’t help but look at all of the interesting architecture. The buildings here looked fairly utilitarian but built with strong materials like aged wood and stone, often with three or more floors despite how difficult that would be in this time period. Examining the stone of one building closely, I realized it was in one solid shape as if the space for doors were cut from an immense block of stone, just that wall alone would weight several tons. At one point I stopped to stare at a magic lamp that glowed without any kind of fuel I could see until I realized people were giving me a lot of strange looks.
After getting my immediate fill of that I looked back at the cutie I was leading down the street. “Well first thing’s first we should find an inn and some food or something. Are you hungry Bruno?”
“Ah, yes Lilith. I haven’t eaten anything but travel rations for the last week. N-not that I would complain about whatever you give me!”
“Jeez relax kid,” I said patting his back. “I’m pretty laid back you don’t have to worry about stuff like that.”
Truthfully I wasn’t hungry at all still, I was however horny as hell but I felt like I should at least treat the kid to dinner before I seduce him hehe.
I squeezed Bruno’s hand a little before walking up to a street merchant selling vegetables I didn’t recognize and picked up an… admittedly phallic one. It looked similar to a cucumber with pale pink spots. “How much for this?”
“Two copper ma’am.”
I paid for the vegetable and stuck it in my bag before looking back up at him. “By the way, are there any inns around here with good food you would recommend?
He pointed me to an inn down the street called ‘The Drunk Duck’ I could make a guess about the clientele from the name. I thanked him and walked off in the direction he pointed.
“What kind of food do you like Bruno?”
“Oh uh, I dunno. I grew up on a farm so we mostly only ate tomoros and eggs.”
“Hmm I see. Well lets hope we can treat you to something new at the inn then.” I have no idea what a tomoro is.
We entered The Drunk Duck and as its name implies they had a full bar with lots of tables. Luckily it also smelled like a hearty beef stew giving the place a pretty homey smell for a bar. We sat down at a table and I waived down a waitress when one walked by.
“Hello dears,” Her gaze fixated on Bruno’s collar for a moment before she continued, “What would you like ma’am?”
“We’d like something to eat, as well as a room for the night if one’s open.”
“Sure, today’s dinner is a choice of stew made with either wild minotaurus meat or wild vegetables. If that’s too expensive for your um servant then—"
I cut her off there seeing where it was headed, “Two bowls of the minotaurus stew then.” I was really curious about the stew, would it be like beef stew or would it taste like something else entirely? I didn’t seem to need food but the idea was still appealing. “And about the room?”
“Yes, I think we have a double left. Would that be all right?”
I couldn’t help but smirk for a moment. “I’m sure that would be perfect.”
"Would you like an ale?” I was about to go for it but then I thought better of it. I wanted to be a little clear headed for later tonight.
“Ah no thanks, maybe tomorrow night. I’ll take some water though.”
“Alright, in all that’ll be fifty copper.”
I dug through my bag for a moment and gave her a silver. “Is this ok?”
She nodded. “I’ll bring you your change.” before walking away. I turned my attention back to Bruno. He had stayed silent the entire time but that was probably expected based on the way the waitress reacted to him.
“Lilith, was it okay to spend that much on me? I’m just a slave.”
I waved dismissively. “Don’t worry about it.” Truthfully I only had a limited amount of money and I spent a bunch to pick him up but I was a little encouraged by how cheap the food and room were compared to the total money I had. I would have to find a way to make money soon but it wasn’t a critical concern at the moment.
“So, have you ever been traveling before?”
“No, it’s too dangerous for most people to travel around with all of the monsters around. That’s why it was so surprising to see you walk up to us so early in the morning. I’m sure Mr. Williamson thought you were a bandit when you walked up.”
Monsters huh? I heard the swordsman talk about monsters and a dungeon when we were entering the town but it was kind of hard to believe there are man eating animals running around all over the place. Though those giant ass wolves really fit the bill for that. Maybe I’m luckier than I thought to come across someone before a monster decided to attack me. I know I’m lucky those wolves decided to leave me alone.
“How strong do you usually have to be to travel around here?”
“Around here? Most adventurers would say the monsters around here were weak but most commoners and farmers like me wouldn’t dare travel by ourselves. Mr. Williamson was a good enough swordsman that barring something really unlucky happening he wouldn’t have any trouble with anything this close to town. I think that he makes a lot of money going from town to town looking for people who choose to sell their children to slavery.”
“I see…” That ended on a rather grim note. The conversation just stalled out there but just in time to save us from the awkwardness our food arrived. The waitress also gave me a room key with a tag that I couldn’t read and fifty copper coins. My hunch was right that it was 100 copper to a silver and most likely 100 silver to a gold based on the negotiation with the swordsman earlier. That made things a little simple even if it was odd the breakdown of currency was that exact despite the varying costs of the metals. Maybe that was taken into account when the coins were minted.
The stew smelled really good and had lots of weird ingredients I’ve never seen before. I took a bite of the meat and swooned, it tasted like an amazing cut of beef slow cooked in the stew.
I looked over and saw that Bruno wasn’t eating yet but before I could say anything he cut in. “I’m surprised you can eat meat. I thought that sheep beastkin were herbivores.” Crap I totally forgot I was trying to be incognito, I really don’t know how to talk my way out of it so I decided to just completely roll over the question.
“How come you aren’t eating?” I asked pointing to his food.
“Oh, Mr. Williamson told me that slaves are supposed to wait for their master to finish eating before they’re allowed to start.”
“Ah, well that’s stupid. Just start eating already.”
“Yes Lilith.” he said with a smile before digging in.
I finished the entire bowl, I never really felt hungry in the first place but the food made me feel satiated all the same.
“That was really good. How did you like it Bruno?”
“It was amazing! I never had minotaurus meat before. It tasted soooo good.” I was pretty surprised by his enthusiasm. He had mostly been rather reserved but the food really got him excited. Though I’d probably feel the same if all I ever ate was the same thing all the time.
“Now that we’ve eaten, why don’t we go back to our room for the night?” I asked him with a lusty grin.
