“Is there really no other way?” Anton asked at the last minute. Their group was huddled just a little way from the cave. Kelsey’s strange cart had been vanished away and the group of slaves was just waiting for the way to be cleared.

Kelsey gave him a serious look.

“If you’re just feeling squeamish, I can take care of it for you,” she said. “But if you’re not cool with it at all, we can go over the options again.”

Anton hesitated. He didn’t want to spoil their chances of rescuing his fellow villagers. Kelsey’s other suggestions for getting the slaves back into the city had ranged from unlikely to horrifying.

“I could do it?” Aris suggested. “It might be easier, with guns?”

“It’s not the same,” Anton said, swallowing. “I know you’ve killed people, but they were all at a distance. It’s different when they’re in front of you.”

“If you say so,” Aris said doubtfully.

“Why me?” Anton asked rhetorically. Then, more seriously. “Why are you letting me make this decision, Kelsey?”

“Hmm?”

“I can see how impatient you are,” Anton said. “Those guys are just another tick on your checklist. So why are you waiting for me?”

Kelsey shrugged. “I don’t have a stake in this, remember? This is your quest, I’m just tagging along to keep you happy.”

“Is that really true?” Anton asked. “You went to all this trouble, just to keep Aris and me happy?”

“It hasn’t been a huge imposition,” Kelsey demurred. “And I got to go out into the world, see new things. I’m pretty happy with how it’s turned out.”

Anton’s eyes narrowed with suspicion. He was getting better at reading Kelsey. “You’re not telling me everything.”

Kelsey raised her eyebrows. “I think,” she said gently, “that you’re distracting yourself from the hard decision at hand. It’s almost sunset.”

“Fine,” Anton said. She wasn’t wrong. He gave his mind one last chance to come up with another plan but drew a blank. “Let’s go.”

The longer shadows of the dying day made the cave harder to find. Anton started to turn back, thinking that they might have missed it, but Kelsey kept him going, sure of her navigation. When it finally appeared in front of him and he stepped inside, one of the smugglers was waiting for him.

“Where’s the other one?” the man asked.

“She’ll be through a bit later,” Anton said grimly. “Can we get through?”

He held up a silver coin.

The man brightened at the sight and hastened to collect his earnings. “Yeah, go on through,” he said, gesturing at the back of the cave.

To Anton’s surprise, the man followed him into the tunnel.

“You’re not waiting for Aris?” he asked.

“I’ll leave the slab open,” the smuggler grunted, tapping a slab near the entrance that did not look at all moveable. “Ya need me to signal the other end to open.”

Kelsey gave him a significant look, and Anton forced himself to relax. Kelsey had warned him to make sure both ends of the tunnel were open before he struck.

“It’d be a bit embarrassing if we killed those guys and then didn’t have any way to open the tunnel,” she’d said.

This time, Kelsey pulled out her torch and used it to light their way through the tunnel. Their guide looked at it suspiciously.

“Get that in the dungeon, did you?” he asked.

Kelsey looked at him. “Dungeon’s closed,” she said mildly.

The man snorted. “Didn’t come out with it, must have picked it up from somewhere,” he pointed out.

Anton knew the truth was different. She hadn’t shown it before, because she hadn’t wanted word spreading about her “technology”. Now that the smugglers were—

Anton paused his thought as it ran to an uncomfortable place. Being silenced had a better sound to it than being murdered. He went with that.

Now that the smugglers were being silenced, Kelsey was being more free with what she showed them.

The smuggler wasn’t done, though. “What else didya get?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Kelsey said. “Certainly not a whole pile of gold. Or gems.”

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Anton looked back at Kelsey and saw the grin on her face. We already have to kill these guys, does she have to mess with them as well? he thought.

Then they were at the ladder, crammed into the small open space around the shaft. The smuggler pulled a rope that Anton hadn’t noticed before. Looking up, he saw that it ran through a smaller hole that had been drilled into the cave’s ceiling. The smuggler pulled it three times, paused, and then twice more.

After a short pause, there was a grinding sound from above. The smuggler licked his lips nervously.

“I reckon,” he said. “You should be paying a tax on what you took out.”

“That wasn’t what we agreed,” Kelsey said. “And we didn’t take anything out.”

“Right,” the man said, but Anton could tell from the tone that the man didn’t believe her.

“We paid for passage, and you won’t be getting a penny more. Go on up Anton, I’ll be right behind you.”

Anton felt a twinge of fear from his geas at the thought of leaving her behind, but the shaft wasn’t that long. He nodded and started climbing up.

He was about halfway up when he heard a scuffle below.

“Hey! Hands off the merchandise, buddy!”

“Jeb! These guys are loaded. Grab that one when he comes up, I’ve got the girl!”

Oh. That was what she was doing, Anton thought. He felt like such a fool. Looking up, he saw the unwashed criminal was sober enough to produce a dagger at his compatriot’s words.

“Jus’ come on up, kid, nice and slow,” the smuggler said.

Kelsey would be fine, Anton thought. She was probably waiting for him to get to the top before she made a move. He should go up and secure the exit. Attacking a man at the top of a ladder you were climbing would have been foolhardy for most, but Anton wasn’t everybody.

He stepped off the ladder and braced one foot on the side of the shaft. An awkward pose for most, but Anton had Spider-climb to ensure his footing. He drew a dagger of his own. Quarters were going to be too close to easily use Chainbreaker.

The man above frowned at his lack of compliance, but Anton was a bit too far away for him to fear. He was well out of range.

“Give it up, kid. You’re not gonna—”

Thanks, Kelsey. Having them try to rob us does make it easier, Anton thought.

Leaping Attack.

He shot out of the shaft like one of Kelsey’s bullets. His target was surprised, but he already had his dagger out and pointed at his enemy. He barely had to move to skewer Anton.

Uncanny Dodge.

Anton twisted in mid-air, curving around the man’s stab. His own dagger buried itself in the man’s stomach.

There was the distinctive sound of one of Kelsey’s “silenced” guns from below.

Anton’s leap didn’t take him entirely out of the shaft, but his feet clung to the sides, and he was able to easily scramble out. The smuggler offered no further resistance, dropping his dagger and clutching at the one that Anton had left in him.

“Sorry,” Anton said. The man had tried to rob him, but that thought only helped with Anton’s guilt. It didn’t erase it. He picked up the man’s dagger. It was Tier One trash.

“Sorry,” Anton said again. He finished the man off with a thrust to the chest.

I never even found out his name.

“You all right up there?” Kelsey called out from below.

“Yeah.”

“Well throw that guy down here, I’m all finished as well.”

Anton sighed. He recovered his dagger and sent the corpse back down to Kelsey. Then he stopped fighting his fear and let it take him back down.

The body was already gone by the time he arrived.

“Did you secure the building?” Kelsey asked.

He shook his head. “Too nervous,” he replied.

Kelsey looked up the shaft speculatively. “It should be fine, if we’re quick,” she said. “Let’s get the others.”

It was a short walk from their hiding place to the cave, and from there into the city, but some of the ex-slaves didn’t find it easy. Kelsey provided a pair of crutches to the lame one, but the ladder was too much of an obstacle for some of them. Two of the older slaves weren’t able to grip the rungs strongly enough to support themselves. One of them kept forgetting what he was doing and stepped off the ladder.

Kelsey took it all in her stride. She produced a rope and harness and she and Anton hauled up the ones who weren’t able to make it on their own.

“Now,” Kelsey said, once they were all gathered in the smuggler’s front room. “You can’t go out looking like that. It’s twilight, so no one is going to see you clearly, but people will notice a bunch of raggedy-ass slaves shambling along. First thing, did everybody take new classes?”

There were murmurs of assent around the room. Anton knew that while he could see the entire path of a person he identified, most identification traits only showed the current class.

“Anybody get anything interesting?” Kelsey asked.

“I got Murderous Lover,” Tavik said. “I… didn’t take it though.”

Anton wondered who would take a class that advertised such a horrible crime. It was probably a Rare one though, so maybe some might be tempted.

Other than Tavik, no one had anything to report. Tavik had taken Warrior, going back to Tier One, and others had managed to find their way into various crafting classes. Kelsey waited patiently for them all to finish reporting.

“Okay! Next is disguises.” She started handing out robes to each of them. “These are mostly hooded, but some of you can get away without wearing hoods, and if we were all hooded, it would look like I was starting a cult.”

“Will they fit?” Enara, one of the recipients, asked.

“Yep! The one I’m handing you is sized for you, so no swaps.”

“Did you make all of these?” Anton asked. In the glare of Kelsey’s torch, now held by Aris, he could see that the robes were varying shades of brown, grey and deep blue.

Kelsey winked at him. “Courtesy of the Boneworks Clothing Emporium,” she said. “I knew we’d need them, so I took some approximate measurements and my boys have been working on them all day. No mass production here, it’s all artisanal.”

Murmurs of appreciation were coming from the group as they each tried on their cloaks. Some of them needed help with even the most basic of tasks, but they all appreciated the clothes once they were on.

“So soft!”

“So warm!”

Anton wasn’t sure what the cloaks were made of, but it certainly seemed of better quality than what slaves normally wore.

“Should we wait until it’s darker before leaving?” Aris asked.

“Nah, this is the right time. There’s still a little natural light, and people are going about, headed off to dinner parties or the entertainment district,” Kelsey said. “Our cloaks will fit right in.”

It proved to be so. Tavik helped them shepherd the group to the safe house, managing to avoid being accosted by any random guards. The house was still as they had left it, and Kelsey’s newly installed key got them in the front door.

Producing more water and cold rations, Kelsey urged them all to eat more, and then rest for the night on the simple woven pallets that she provided.

“You’ll stay here for tonight and tomorrow,” she told them. “The night after that, we’ll get you loaded onto the ship and heading back to Zamarra.”

Anton frowned. “We still have to get the others,” he said.

“Yeah,” Kelsey replied. “We’re doing that tonight.”