“What ransom?” Kelsey asked.

“I left a note in my room,” Solaya said loftily. “Ransacked it as well so it looks like someone kidnapped me. Then I gave the guards some drugged wine and waited here for you.”

“You wrote a note,” Kelsey said. “I don’t suppose that your father knows your handwriting?”

“I thought of that, of course,” Solaya sniffed. “I wrote it with my off hand, and in blood, so he knows it’s serious.”

“Wow, you really have thought of everything,” Kelsey said with what Anton recognised as fake enthusiasm. She turned to him and asked, “It sounds like a good deal! We should go for it, don’t you think?”

“Please tell me you’re joking,” Anton said. He snatched the light stone from Kelsey’s hand and stalked the rest of the way down the corridor, looking for more slaves. Soraya flinched away from him as he went past.

“We have enough to worry about without taking on a passenger who… she’s one of the enemy!”

The rest of the cells were empty, though Anton noted that the cell that Soraya had walked out of had two leather travelling cases in it. Walking back he saw that Aris had, with Zaphar’s help, been quietly waking the slaves and getting them ready to go.

“Oh well,” Kelsey said. “I guess you’ll want to kill her, then.”

“What? No!” Anton protested. He was just drawing near Soraya as he spoke and she flinched away from him again.

“You can’t— do you know who I am?” she squeaked. “I was given to believe that this was a heist, not a murder spree!”

“Zaphar’s new,” Kelsey said wryly, barely keeping laughter in check. “I do apologise if he’s given you the wrong impression of how we do things here.”

She looked over at Tyla. “What about you, kid? You want to go for the trifecta?”

Tyla had been looking at the space where her two victims had lain, with a disturbed look on her face. Now she looked up, at Kelsey and at Soraya.

“No,” she said. “Maybe her father, but not her.”

“Looks like it’s up to you then, Anton. Make it quick, for her sake.”

“I’m not going to murder her in cold blood,” Anton told Kelsey firmly.

“We can’t leave any witnesses, remember?” Kelsey said in a singsong voice. “I suppose we could tie her up and take her with us, but that seems like a lot of extra effort for someone who’s asking us to take her with her.”

“Fine!” Anton exclaimed. Soraya yelped and ducked away from him. “She can come,” he clarified, glaring at her.

Kelsey clapped her hands. “Yay! We’ll have such fun!” she said. “We’ll braid each other’s hair, and I can scratch you behind the ears.”

“You will not,” Soraya said, instantly regaining her composure. “I am not a cat. And I will only reveal the contact method if I am well-treated.”

“Hmm. We’ll discuss the ransom later,” Kelsey said. “For now, let’s get on with the rescue. Sandal pack!”

She produced a bag which she handed to Aris that turned out to contain a bunch of sandals. Aris started handing them out to the captives, who had no shoes.

“Where did you get the leather for those sandals,” Anton said suspiciously. He knew Kelsey was a cornucopia of numerous goods, but there were some things that she was short of.

“They’re not made of leather, they’re synthetic,” Kelsey said, handing him one for closer examination. Sure enough, the soft, flexible material they were made of was like nothing that Anton had seen. It didn’t seem that it would be as comfortable, or as long-lasting as leather, but it would do for one trip.

“I assume,” Soraya said haughtily, “That you have transportation waiting outside? Can one of you carry my luggage?”

Kelsey raised her eyebrows. “The thing about that,” she said, “Is that someone forced us to do the heist while we were still in the surveillance phase. So we didn’t have anything ready. You’ll be walking, like the rest of us.”

“Walking? Are you joking? How far is your secret hideout?”

“Yeah, about that,” Kelsey said sourly. “That’s not exactly ready either, but we’ll have to make do. And you can carry your own luggage.”

----------------------------------------

It wasn’t easy getting eleven traumatised girls and one entitled courl across the city without being seen, but they managed it. It helped that most of the girls knew Anton and Aris which made the rest of them willing to trust them. There was also a bond that had formed between the girls, that extended to Tyla that helped them work together. Scared and confused as they were, none of them wanted to put the others in danger by bolting or crying out.

Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Rather than travel in one big group, they split up into four, each one led by either Kelsey, Anton, Aris or Tyla. Zaphar scouted ahead.

They left behind a bloodstained flagstone, and not much else. The girls had gathered their meagre belongings and Kelsey had looked speculatively at the bedding they were leaving behind before making it disappear.

“Waste not, want not,” she had said. They had even taken the soap from the washroom. It was of surprisingly good quality. Taking the chamber pots as well seemed like a step too far to Anton, but Kelsey declared that “All biologicals are good biologicals,” and ignored him.

Kelsey had also disappeared Soraya’s luggage, once it had been made clear that the courl couldn’t carry both bags for anything like the distance required. Soraya hadn’t seemed happy about that, as Kelsey had been noncommital as to whether Soraya would get her luggage back.

After all the hurried organisation, carried out in hushed voices and urgent whispers, the trip back was something of an anticlimax. Anton was finally able to relax when he led the last group into the warehouse. Kelsey slid the door shut behind him and unveiled her lightstone.

“This is not a suitable place for habitation,” Soraya declared as soon as the light level was sufficient for her to examine her surroundings. “It’s cold, it’s drafty, there are no beds. There is no water for washing and no way of disposing of—”

“Yeah, yeah, keep your pants on,” Kelsey said, then winced. “Okay, poor choice of words there,” she said, glancing at the girls. “Let’s start with some chairs, and a meeting.”

“Chairs! Of all the things—” Soraya shut up as Tyla pulled her dagger out and glared at her.

“Quiet when the numen is talking,” Tyla said.

“Thanks, Tyla!” Kelsey said brightly. “Now, chairs…”

True to her word, she started handing chairs to Anton, Aris and anyone else close enough. Somewhat bemused, they placed them down in a rough double semi-circle facing the centre of the room.

The four walls and the warm magical light were helping the girls to relax, to believe that they were really free. A murmur spread through the room, as girls started talking to each other, or their rescuers.

“I can’t believe you really came for us,” Althea said to Anton, hugging him. A lot of the girls from Kirido wanted to hug him, or Aris. It made Anton a little uncomfortable. All of the girls were prettier than he remembered, which reminded him that Doxy gave a strong boost to Charisma.

“A lot happened,” Anton said. “But we’re going to do our best to get us all back.”

“All right, everybody!” Kelsey announced. Enough chairs had been produced for everyone to take a seat. Feeling shy, Anton took a seat in the second ring. Aris sat next to him.

“Hello everybody,” Kelsey said. “I’m Kelsey. No need to introduce yourselves, I can see all of your names.”

She ran her gaze over the nervous faces in front of her. “Now, I’m sure you’ve got a bunch of questions, but I’ll just give you an overview of our plans, which are still in a very nebulous stage. We have a boat, we’re going to get you on it, and we’re going to head back to Kirido. I’m open to making stops further west, for those of you who come from there, but I have assurances from Baron Anton there, that you will be welcome to make new homes in Kirido if you so desire.”

There was a muted uproar as every girl from Kirido squeaked or squealed some variation of “Baron Anton?” Anton felt even more uncomfortable as they all seemed to be focusing on him.

“It’s a long story,” Kelsey said, talking over the interruptions. “You can hear it later. Right now, I want to discuss something important. Classes.”

She had the girls’ attention again.

“Now some of you are thinking that you want to go back to your original Class. Anton, can you tell them how that works?”

Anton cleared his throat as all the girls looked at him again. “Um, if you go back to a class you partially finished, you start at level one and you don’t get any benefits until you regain levels to the point you stopped,” he said. “It’s not that bad since you’re all first Tier, but it takes a while to get back on track.”

“I don’t care, I’ll earn the levels back,” Elysia spoke up. “I liked being a servant to the Baron, so I’ll go back to that. If um, you’ll have me, Lord Anton.” She fluttered her eyelids at him.

“Oh ho!” Kelsey exclaimed. “Before this goes any further, I’d like to let you know that Aris is a lot stronger than she used to be. And there are other options than going back. Combat options.”

“If I go back, I’ll be a hunter again,” one of the Confederacy girls, Lyra Emberleaf, said. “That’s a combat Class.”

“Pff, bows,” Kelsey said. “I’m talking real weapons here. Aris come to the front.”

Aris did so, and drew one of her pistols.

“This,” Kelsey said, pointing at the gun, “Is a boomstick!”

“Don’t be crude,” Aris said. “It’s a pistol,” she told the group. “It’s a deadly weapon that fires bits of metal at high speed. It can kill Tier Two warriors with a good hit.”

There were murmurs of surprise and astonishment from the group.

“Have you killed anyone with it, Sis?” Cheia asked.

Aris grimaced. “I’ve already lost count of the people I’ve killed with it,” she said.

“Now these are available, to those that want to fight for the cause,” Kelsey said. “The problem is that they are very loud and need room to practice with, which we don’t have. And getting the class that goes with them… Anton?”

“If they kill just one person or monster, they can get Warrior,” he said. “For a Tier one specialist class? Probably five kills with the weapon.”

“That’s a lot of kill experience going towards Doxy,” Kelsey said. “It’s wasteful.”

“Can you supply bows as well?” Lyra asked. “I think I’d like to go back to Hunter.”

“I can, but you’re not allowed to get sniffy about the quality,” Kelsey said, looking at Tyla. “It’s a stick with string.”

The girls started discussing things among themselves. Four of them were too young to have classes.

“Do we have to fight?” Seraphina, one of the younger girls asked.

“Nope!” Kelsey said brightly. “Kirido needs lots of young workers with different classes, so if you want to hold off there will be plenty of craft classes to take. We might be able to start you off while we’re waiting here if there’s anything you’re interested in.”

“Is one of those pistols available to me?” Soraya asked.

“Don’t be silly, you’re the hostage,” Kelsey said. “You’re lucky you’re not being tied up.”

In the end, only Lyra and Elysia elected to switch back to their old classes. The rest elected to wait for either weapon training or Kelsey’s vaguely specified “vocational training”.

“Is the pistol what you had in mind when you said you had a special Class for me?” Tyla asked when the hubbub had died down.

“Noooo…” Kelsey said. “When I said special I meant it. Let’s get everyone set up with the basics, and then we’ll talk.”