“I’m telling you, I have no idea why he got himself involved,” Soraya insisted, her voice raising as she repeated herself. “I’ve never even met him!”

“You haven’t met your fiancé?” Zaphar asked skeptically.

“He is not my fiancé,” Soraya said heatedly. “Father was talking about it, but nothing was decided yet! I was going to meet him at the auction, but events… intervened. Not that I’m complaining about that.”

She grinned slyly.

“I was planning on avoiding him as best I could, but as things turned out, the whole event was cancelled before he could force his presence on me. Why he’s chosen to involve himself is beyond me.”

“You said that the match wasn’t an advantageous one, and you didn’t know why your father had made it,” Kelsey said thoughtfully. “Could it be that the pressure for the marriage was coming from Al-Kadir?”

Soraya stared at Kelsey. “That— why would he want to marry me?”

“It could be that he sees an advantage to him in joining your family,” Kelsey speculated. “Or maybe he saw you from a distance and liked your looks. I’m no judge of courl attractiveness, but…”

“I’m gorgeous, as if you need to ask,” Soraya snapped. She gave a little shudder. “I don’t like the idea that he’s been stalking me, though.”

“It could be romantic?” Aris suggested. “If he really likes you and is going to all these lengths to save you…”

“He’s a thug and a killer,” Soraya said frostily. “I realise that may not sound disqualifying, given current company, but I don’t want his bloody hands touching me.”

“Awfully picky, given your father’s trade,” Kelsey said evenly.

“We trade in live slaves, thank you very much! Slaves for pleasure and delight, not for hard labour and combat! Our merchandise is carefully handled and kept safe— I can’t remember the last time a slave died on our premises.”

“Well, you’ve thrown in your lot with us murderous criminals now,” Kelsey said cheerfully. “Unless you feel like giving up and going back to dear old Dad?”

“No,” Soraya said sullenly. “If I do, I’m sure that I’ll be bundled off and sold to Al-Kadir before my feet hit the ground. But how are we going to send the ransom note?”

“He can’t stand at the post forever,” Kelsey said. “Or can he? Is that something he can do?”

“I don’t think he has any Traits that let him go without sleep,” Soraya said. “But his Toughness is surely high enough to go a week without. He has other duties though, he can’t stay there forever.”

“The fact that he just went down there, expecting to intercept Zaphar, does suggest he’s a bit of an idiot,” Kelsey said. “Just extremely physically capable. Do you know what his Traits are?”

“Not all of them,” Soraya said. “But he has used some in the arena often enough that they are widely known… let’s see. He can make his opponent feel terror by looking at him. He has Traits for striking and parrying, like most duellists. His most feared ability is Blink Step.”

“Blink Step?” Kelsey repeated.

“One moment he stands in front of you, and the next he is behind you with his sword against your neck,” Soraya said, shivering. “You want to hope at that point that the duel is not to the death.”

“Nasty,” Kelsey said. “Still, I think we can manage to nail something to a post.” She looked over at Zaphar. “You’re off the hook for that part, but you will have to show me where the damned thing is.”

“I can do that,” Zaphar said, nodding. “If, if, I don’t have to get within thirty yards of that man.”

“No problem,” Kelsey said. “I think I want to wait for nightfall though. The next item on the agenda is new Classes!”

She looked over at the rescued girls, who had been following the conversation nervously.

“Who wants to be a weaver?” she asked brightly. “It’s an honourable profession that is due to take off in Kirido.”

The girls were divided into two groups: those that wanted to learn to fight and those that didn’t. Some of the latter group had already gone back to their old Classes. Aurora and Elysia had gone back to Server and Servant respectively and reported that they were getting experience from cleaning up after the group’s meal.

Kelsey had them all practice with the loom that she set up regardless of their current Class.

“A new skill is never wasted,” she told them. “I know you want to go back to your parent’s inn, Aurora, but you might not get the chance.”

The reddish-skinned girl nodded. She was one of two girls from the Ett Confederacy to the west of Zamarra. Well, three girls if you counted Tyla, but the elves were only loosely associated with that nation.

Kelsey showed them how to string the loom, and then left them to practice. It was the chance that Anton had been waiting for.

“Can I have a word?” he asked, indicating an unoccupied portion of the building.

“Sure,” Kelsey said. “What’s up?”

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

“I just wanted to ask about my Class,” Anton said. “I haven’t been getting experience like I used to.”

“Your old Class was a beast for getting experience,” Kelsey said. “Almost anything can be an adventure. You’re just finding out what it’s like for the rest of us.”

“I get that,” Anton said, “But didn’t you say I’d get experience from freeing slaves? I didn’t bring it up at the time, but I never got any experience when we freed the girls.”

Kelsey looked thoughtful. “Huh. I would have thought… could it be that they’re not free yet?”

“I’ve got to get them all the way back to Kirido?” Anton said in dismay.

“Maybe not that far,” Kelsey said. “Think about it, though. We’re just one step away from being recaptured. I’m not sure what will do it. Maybe we have to get out of the city, maybe the girls have to think that they’re free.”

“That’s… unfortunate,” Anton said. “I could really do with some more levels before we get out of the city, especially if we’re up against that Al-Kadir guy.”

“You’re not wrong,” Kelsey agreed. “But there’s always the old standby— killing people. How do you feel about going vigilante killer on the criminal underworld.”

“Not great,” Anton said sourly. “That sounds like a way to get innocent people dead, and the city guard after us.”

“Credit me with some discretion,” Kelsey said, smirking. “I’m pretty confident that I can find some people you won’t mind killing. Not that innocent or guilty makes a difference to the experience.”

“It makes a difference to me,” Anton insisted. Something about Kelsey’s expression alerted him to a bigger problem.

“Have you already started vigilante killing?” he asked. “Was that what Tyla was doing last night?”

“It was mostly skeletons,” Kelsey told him. “But there were some unsavoury characters who followed a pair of girls into a dark alleyway with less than honourable intentions.”

“I don’t believe this,” Anton said. “How is this keeping a low profile?”

“She needs levels, Anton,” Kelsey said reproachfully. “And we didn’t leave any evidence behind.”

“Those people will have friends,” Anton said. “If they saw you go into the alleyway, others will have as well. People will start to talk when the people you killed are missed.”

Kelsey started to brush him off but then paused.

“Maybe you’re right,” she admitted. “That’s the sort of attention I used to want, as a dungeon. I’ll be more careful in the future.”

“Just don’t do it at all?” Anton suggested hopefully.

“I don’t know if I’d go that far,” Kelsey said, grinning. “Tyla still needs another level before she gets actual spells to cast. When she wakes up I’ll see if meditation exercises can give her some gains.”

She cocked her head to one side. “And that’s a definite no for you? No heroically stalking the streets for criminals?”

Anton shook his head. “I get the feeling there will be quite enough fighting with just what we’ve got planned. We don’t need to go out looking for fights.”

Kelsey grimaced. “I just wish I had my dungeon available so you could keep grinding. All this waiting isn’t getting us levels.”

“Which brings us around to the new fighters,” Anton said. “Are you going to…”

“I’ll make a new room, first,” Kesley said. “I don’t want to panic the non-combatants by summoning zombies in their living quarters.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you,” Anton said wryly.

It took Kelsey a while to get around to making a summoning room, there were a lot of other improvements that she wanted to make. Mostly she provided materials and instructions and left the actual work to the penned-up humans.

She pronounced herself happy with the stone walls of the warehouse but insisted on additional “insulation” for the roof. She produced a thick, light, soft material that she had Anton hold up while the others secured it behind panelling. She made Anton wear a mask while he was holding it.

“It’s non-toxic,” she said, “But it’s scratchy for anyone who doesn’t have invulnerable skin, and you wouldn’t want to get bits of it in your lungs.”

Several of the girls reported gaining access to the Carpenter’s Apprentice Class, and one girl who’d helped in setting up the toilet unlocked the Plumber’s Apprentice Class, which Kelsey found amusing.

“It’s a chemical toilet!” she laughed. “The only plumbing involved is straight down!”

Anton wasn’t an expert on plumbing by any means, but he thought that it might refer to pipes. If so, she was right about the lack of it. The way the toilet worked was that a container was filled, which Kelsey disappeared from time to time and replaced with an empty one. He wasn’t sure what the chemicals were or how they were involved.

Meanwhile, the weavers reported that they now had access to the Doffer Class. No one had any idea why the weaver apprentice Class was called that, not even Kelsey.

“Damn,” she said when she was told. “Must be some seventeenth-century term I never heard of or something.”

When she finally turned her attention to the would-be warriors, she ran into a problem. To start with, Cheia wanted to be a Gunslinger, like her sister.

“That’s not going to be easy to get,” Kelsey told her. “For a start, I can’t have you practice firing here— it’s too loud. Aris can show you how to use a gun, but you’ll need to kill ten enemies with one before you qualify for the Class.”

“But I want to use a gun,” Cheia protested. “Isn’t it the best weapon?”

“What you want to do,” Anton put in, using his authority as an Adventurer, “Is get one kill in, take the Warrior Class. Then when you get those ten kills, the experience will go towards Tier 2, which is what you need for Gunslinger.”

“Actually,” Aris said, “I think there was a requirement of not having a combat class to get Gunslinger.”

“Ah,” Anton said. “Well then, you won’t get Gunslinger that way, but there will be some kind of specialist class for ten kills with a weapon.”

“Kelsey set things up for me so that I could kill ten zombies all lined up in a row,” Aris explained. “She can’t do that here.”

“I’ll kill ten humans then. Or courl,” Cheia said sulkily. “It doesn’t matter how long it takes or if it’s not efficient.”

“That’s the spirit, kid!” Kelsey said, ruffling her hair. “Here’s your starter gun pack. You can have the ammo once you can field-strip it and put it back together, and Aris convinces me that you’ve got some trigger discipline.”

“I don’t know what any of that means,” Chiea said.

“I’ll explain it…” Aris said, whisking her away.

Next up was Lyra, the other one of the Ett Confederacy girls. She had taken back her Hunter Class and wasn’t interested in a gun. Kelsey found a short, curved sword for her, which she liked, and a bow, which she did not. She was also uninterested in Kelsey’s spiky bow-like thing.

“Nobody likes my compound bow,” Kelsey complained. “Even though the power you can get is insane. I had to reinforce the arrows so they wouldn’t splinter.”

Anton just shrugged, not really seeing what the problem was. Lyra was going to fight a few skeletons for the experience, and then she’d take part in the sword-fighting lesson that Anton was holding later.

Finally, there was Syrena, who had used to work in the tavern back in Kirido.

“Should I do the Warrior thing?” she asked.

“That’s the simplest,” Kelsey said. “Got a weapon preference?”

“Something… graceful?” she asked. “I like to move on my feet.”

She gave an elegant twirl. Kelsey looked appreciative for a moment, then frowned.

“Sounds like you want a rapier, but they’re not good against zombies or skeletons. Thrusting is… ineffective.”

“A rapier can slash,” Anton said. “She’d likely get it caught up in zombie flesh, but as long as she goes for the joints, she can take down skeletons. If you can find a heavier one, that’d be great.”

“I am quite strong for my age,” Syrena offered. “Server gives Strength advances.”

“Fair enough,” Kelsey said. She pulled out a scabbarded rapier. Anton took it and checked to make sure it had a good edge.

“This should be fine,” he said, passing it over to Syrena.

“Great,” Kesley said. “Let’s get to killing!”