Chapter 81 - Staking Out the Slave Auctions
That had easily been the most successful day in Trey’s tiny career of summoning thus far. All three of the minotaurs accepted under threat of death, and he was rather thankful they’d beaten the shit out of each other prior to meeting him. Otherwise they might have put up a good fight and possibly even killed someone in the process. None of them were pushovers by any means, and the black one specifically took up 2 slots while the others took up 1 each. He’d named the black one Cow-Daddy, and the two brown ones Lil-Daddy and Fat-Daddy.
Control Limit Slots: 13 of 17 used.
Trey’s Minions:
* Napoleon, Primal Imp, Level 18 (1 slot)(Admired)
* Talsh’Noc’Un, Sword of Ruin, Living Weapon (1 slot)(Content)(Thirsting Level 1)
* Atharost, Ifrit, Level 41 (1 slot)(Very Friendly)
* Rivia Ahst, Culn, Level 24 (1 slot)(Forever Indebted)
* Piggy, High Elf Thrall, Level 1 (1 slot)(Infatuated)
* Karus, Dwarf Thrall, Level 36, (1 slot)(Liked)
* Juila, Human Thrall, Level 1 (1 slot)(Subservient)
* Toady, Oblivion Toad, Level 39 (2 slots)(Unsatisfied and Angry)
* Lil-Daddy, Minotaur, Level 41 (1 slot)(Disliked)
* Fat-Daddy, Minotaur, Level 45 (1 slot)(Disliked)
* Cow-Daddy, Minotaur, Level 59 (2 slots)(Disliked)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Simplified Status Page for Cow-Daddy
Name: Cow-Daddy
Race: Minotaur, Demon
Class: Warrior
Level: 59
HP: 708/708
MP: 80/80
SP: 254/254
DP: 1/1
Skills: Blunt Weapons*(lvl. 101), Crushing Blow^^^^^ (lvl. 50)(Sacred Art),
Enrage^^^(lvl. 32)(Sacred Art), Battle Shout (lvl. 26)(Sacred Art), Axes^ (lvl. 11),
Hand to Hand Combat^^ (lvl. 25)
Traits: Sturdy, Resilient, Trey Bon’s Minion
Magical Attributes: None
Opinion of you: Disliked
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The other two minotaurs were quite similar to Cow-Daddy in terms of status pages with some minor changes Trey found insignificant. They certainly wanted to rip each other’s throats out, but Trey’d specifically commanded them not to and to even avoid walking nearby each other if they could help it. The contract kept them at bay, but the three brutal killers wouldn’t talk about why they hated each other so much without Trey forcing them to do so – which he did briefly, only to find out it had to do with some kind of betrayal the black minotaur (Cow-Daddy) had conducted when he tried to steal an item of value from the others’ tribe.
Trey couldn’t care less about that though.
What he DID care about was that he now had three frontline tanks, each as valuable or even more valuable than Karus in a fight. Their frontline would be pretty damn solid from here on out as long as they worked together well.
That, and the toad he’d gotten was a nice trump card he could use too. Unfortunately, the rest of that day had ended up with absolute failure in terms of summoning... despite staying there another 6 hours through the storm and into the night. They’d all still come back happy though, except for the new minions Trey’d captured, and celebrated by buying some alcohol from one of the guild vendors while showing off their new catches.
Jason still hadn’t come out of his room even after knocking on the door and the minotaurs wouldn’t fit inside the apartment. Neither would Toady. So aside from Jason’s absence, the three minotaurs and the oblivion toad were all dismissed to their individual nether realms to wait it out until Trey summoned them back at a later time.
“Today went pretty dang well!!!” Ashe clapped Trey on the back of his head and laughed at his scowl. She slumped over in a chair, ordering Juila to massage her feet while she relaxed under the influence of a wine bottle. Smiling a little drunkenly and toasting their success, she downed another swig and laughed as Izumi did the same.
“You grow red in the face when you drink Izumi!”
The Japanese woman hiccupped and waved her hand around in front of her face. “I’m seeing double.”
Trey and Ashe had a good laugh at that one and Trey promptly ordered his high elf Piggy to get a jug of water for his friend. The elf bowed and went to the kitchen to fetch the pitcher, returning quickly and pouring Izumi a goblet of water as told to do. Then, having finished her order, she went back to the balcony where a fire was lit on a stone platform and tended to the cooking.
“Has she grown any cooking levels lately?”
“Just one level over the past couple weeks.” Trey frowned the elf’s way and shook his head. “Her progress is slow, but that’s likely because we aren’t giving her anything hard to make. Maybe if I had her bake or create more complex meals it’d change… or if I found some of those ascended cooking recipes. Who knows.”
Izumi nodded adamantly, still bright red in the face and hiccupping again as she took a swig of water. Gulping it down and sighing in contentment, she set the goblet down. “Definitely! We should go to the market tomorrow to see if we can find any! Maybe… maybe we can convince Jason to go with us. Maybe he’ll stay if we include him more…”
Izumi’s face fell into sorrow and Ashe sputtered a bit, barely keeping her cool with a glare from Trey.
“Maybe.” Trey shrugged with a soft touch to his voice. “You could always ask. It wouldn’t hurt.”
Again, Izumi nodded adamantly and her smile returned. “I’ll ask him tomorrow when we go then!”
“Pshhh… don’t forget Trey and I have a job to do tomorrow.” Ashe pointed to Izumi and then to Trey, still enjoying Juila’s foot rub and switching from left to right.
Laughter from outside on the balcony echoed about as Karus threw a hissy fit about Napoleon cheating at a game of chess. Piggy was smirking their way, a common practice for her nowadays, until she caught sight of Trey’s gaze. She then went a bright red, turned her smirk into a full blown smile, and went back to cooking after he gave her a wink.
Trey clapped his hands together after remembering what he’d set the two slaves up to as they’d left for the jungle earlier that day. He turned his own gaze to Juila and snapped his fingers a couple times to get her attention. “Juila, did you and Piggy figure out anything about the brothels?”
The tanned Amazonian woman didn’t turn around, but she nodded her head and kept massaging Ashe’s feet with pressing motions of her hands. “Yes master. The other brothels charge about the same pricings that Brae’d told you - higher end prostitutes usually cost about 300 coin for a half hour, while lower-end prostitutes can be as low as 40 coin. We asked around the guild alot about the prospect of setting up a brothel here in the guild compound, and many of the men seemed to like the idea.”
***
Teretog’s primary slave auctioneer was an old scrawny mage with a mean temper and a posse of bodyguards. His name was Ronnie. He always opened up right at sunrise and closed shop when the sun went down. Throughout each day would represent a variety of sellers, holding the slaves in large pens and hundreds of cages while chained to stakes with the owner’s symbol branded into their bodies to keep track of who’s sale the auctioneer would split with. He got to keep 5% of all earnings, but even 5% on a single 3,000 coin slave was 150 copper coins. Needless to say he made quite a killing because the market here was huge.
The residents of Teretog and slave traders came to him because of his reputation, past history dealing fairly with everyone involved, no nonsense attitude, and his ownership in this niche of the market. He owned not only a large corner of the actual marketplace where hundreds of pens and cages were kept, but he would actively seek out and kill anyone else who tried to sell slaves on their own. The manpower he possessed with the small hired mercenary army under his thumb guaranteed that he maintained a healthy amount of respect even aside from his proper business dealings and kept his monopoly hold on the slave trade solid.
Today was no different from other days. Ronnie opened the cages and marched the lines of slaves off to the display line – a large, raised, wooden platform where they were chained down to individual metal rings nailed to the wood.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.
There were hundreds of slaves to be shown at any given time. Elves, dwarves, humans, demihumans, goblins, and even a few orcs of a variety of levels and classes were being held in chains awaiting new buyers to come and take them away. All of them were stripped naked, some of them looked like they hadn’t eaten in weeks and others looked healthy or even overly fed.
“Hurry it up! Get movin’!” Ronnie snarled and took his whip to lash out at a slow moving child. The little boy screamed in agony as a red lash began to bleed across his back, but he picked up the pace to Ronnie’s satisfaction.
The old slave auctioneer snorted and moved on past the crowds of slaves or his men herding them into organized lines. The chains connecting their shackles came up from their wrists and ankles to attach to their metal collars, and those metal collars attached to the next collar on the person in front of them until one of the slave keepers wanted to start a new line and detached one of the slaves to start that next row.
Smoothing his old silver hair back against his head, adjusting his robes and mumbling to himself about the smell of the people around him, he began to make his way to the front podium where buyers were already lining up beneath the stage. The first light of the morning was already here, and they expected him to start.
The actual auction would go through the entire set of wares, all 345 of them. It would include status pages, background information, the starting price, and showing off the body of each sale. With each slave would come a little parchment his men would hand him with this detailed information written down, and independent identifiers were there for clarification in case anyone doubted his own man’s reading. Those who weren’t sold were recycled back into the cages, and usually that comprised most of the slaves - because they were then sold at comparably low prices later in the day. When they reached the cages, they were for open sale and priced anywhere between 1000 and 100,000 apiece. Slaves during the auction often advertised new options whenever new cargo was brought in from coastal raids or when pirates captured a ship’s crew. New slaves would come in regularly and sometimes the bidding even went as high as many hundreds of thousands of coin. If they weren’t sold within a month, they’d be given back to the ones who’d enslaved them or killed and used as fish bait and food for animals.
The wood of the podium creaked and groaned under the scrawny wizard’s weight, and making note of it he decided to get his hired men to fix it later that day. It was an old platform and he didn’t want it breaking down while standing atop.
He then waved to the crowd to silence them.
“Ahem. Good morning everyone, let us not waste time so I may get to eating my lunch properly in the next couple hours.” Ronnie pulled out a pair of glasses as the crowd quieted down even despite the laughter of some of the bidders. The crowd was a little smaller than usual but there were still a little over a hundred people present – though his eyes narrowed and focused in on one cloaked man in particular near the back. He was no doubt a warlock or summoner considering the imp perched on his shoulder, along with the demonic attributes he displayed: being his horns, eyes and tail. The people around this man gave him a wide berth, wary of the three huge minotaurs, the huge muscular brute made of iron and muscle, and the ifrit in particular. After briefly identifying the group and clarifying that this man was indeed a summoner, Ronnie did find it a little odd that a demihuman rogue was mixed in and comfortably sitting upon an elf woman’s back – using the elf as a chair while the straining woman was on all fours. Summoners usually only intermixed with other practitioners of the black magics and didn’t usually appear in civilized society… They were even hunted down and often killed simply for what they were: demon affiliates. They were usually even more reclusive than the despised necromancers that were sometimes found in these parts.
Then again, Teretog was far from civilized. Ronnie just shrugged it off and paid it no more heed, he shouldn’t have been surprised after all the things he’d seen in these Lawless Lands since arriving over a decade ago - and it certainly wasn’t the first time he’d seen summoners or warlocks walking around here in broad daylight. It just wasn’t that often. As long as the man paid for what he wanted, there wouldn’t be a problem.
A tap on Ronnie’s shoulder from one of his men brought him out of his internal trance as he took the first parchment and read it aloud – just as a shackled well-built human man with long black hair and two long scars across his abdomen was brought to the front of the stage next to him.
Taking a look at the parchment, Ronnie began to read. “Name: Bartamus. Human man, age 46, a professional soldier who served in the Excelia Wars back to back and came out with over a hundred confirmed kills. He is a level 58 Warrior class and would make a fine gladiator. Starting price is set at 14,000 coin.”
Immediately people began bidding. People raised their hands and called out a number to signify what they wanted to bid, often raising their hands more than once as Ronnie orchestrated the auction while yelling out loudly to either clarify the offer or ask if anyone wanted to up it.
Two minutes later and the man was sold for 39,940 coin. The slave was roughly taken away by two of Ronnie’s men to collect the payment and the buyers began to push their way through the crowd – making off to the side to do business as Ronnie continued the auction.
***
Trey calmly watched the auctioneer go through dozens of slaves as the sun rose higher in the sky. Most of them had been traveling merchants, sailors, treasure hunters, or unfortunate villagers from coastal settlements unlucky enough to have their homes targeted by opportunistic pirates or slave traders.
Because he only had 4 of 17 slots left to use, and even more so because his unholy script tattooed into his left arm could only hold 3 charges to create thralls out of people from mortal races at a time, he had to be picky with who he chose. He would be taking the best three he could get, even if it meant underhanded tactics to do it. No more wasting spots on people like Juila. He’d learned well operating in his father’s business as a syndicate boss, and on top of that - Trey’d thoroughly enjoyed role playing the bad guy in RPGs. This was no different from either of those things, only this time his life was truly on the line. If he didn’t excel here in this new world, he would die. As would his friends.
He would not let that happen, no matter what it took.
“Is Boxamoth ready?”
Atharost nodded and glanced upwards. As ordered, the little fire elemental was directly in the path path of the sun’s light – obscuring the tiny dragon as it hovered many hundreds of feet above them. “Boxamoth is ready. Just let me know when to send him instructions.”
Him? More like ‘it.’ Elementals were genderless, but Trey wasn’t going to argue that point.
“Good. Ashe’s information suggests that the one we want is coming up… he’s a very skilled ranger and they always start the bidding very high hoping for a potential buyer.” Trey’s eyes went down the row of chained slaves three spots over from where the central pulpit was, looking at a redheaded and tattooed young man. “He’ll make a good backline damage dealer. Apparently he can also imbue his arrows with wind magic and has a few movement boosts to boot.”
Ashe had actually spent the last night asking around the guild compound about potential slaves currently on the market. There were a few other Fost members who would frequent the place, though it took a lot of digging and not a lot of time to do it. Of the seven people she’d talked to though, there was one slave that stood out above all the others… and Trey wanted him for his crew.
“And we can potentially buy some more women to start your brothel.” Commented Rivia with folded arms. She was keenly aware of Trey’s ambitions to start pimping out other girls for easy money, and wanting to stay in his good graces she took the opportunity to encourage this behavior.
The demoness’ gorgeous features turned to her lord and settled as they locked eyes, grinning as she did and gripping her ornate bladed crucifix staff with both hands.
Trey didn’t return the warm gaze but went back to watching the auction proceed as people yelled out their bids and the scrawny auctioneer call out more numbers. “I agree, but I’m not sure we’re going to buy them… stealing them is more like it. I must say, I’m pleased with your recent performance, Rivia. Keep it up. I don’t want you falling back into bad habits of putting in lackluster effort.”
Rivia calmly nodded in acknowledgment. “Of course. I am thankful you are pleased with my performance and I will not disappoint you.”
Trey’s right hand casually slipped under her cloak, pulled her in closer to his body, and cupped her muscular right ass cheek, - squeezing firmly at intervals to grope her. “Good.”
Smiling in satisfaction with the heir’s attention settled on her, she leaned in against him and remained silent while staring ahead.
Two minutes passed before the one Ashe had scouted out came to the forefront of the pulpit. His red hair came down just past his shoulders and his chiseled abdomen testified to years of strenuous physical efforts. He was of medium height for a human man but also sported a tattoo of a coat of arms bearing a bow and a set of arrows, set across his left shoulder. He glared defiantly out at the crowd, and held his head high.
“As long as Ashe’s intel is good, that’s him.” Trey prodded Atharost and the ifrit sent his elemental Boxamoth a mental note to keep an eye on this young man.
“Boxamoth will follow from above.” Atharost clarified with folded arms. “If they end up selling him this time around, it’ll be easier to deal with than if they put him back in the cages. These cages are locked up tight and heavily guarded at all times…”
Trey scoffed loudly as the auctioneer began to speak. “We’ll get it done either way.”
***
Ronnie the auctioneer clapped his hands together and began to read off the parchment from the pulpit, hoping that today would be the day that he finally sold this troublesome ass. He’d already broken the nose of one of Ronnie’s men and stabbed three more when trying to escape, but Ronnie wasn’t about to give this slave up for anything less than he was worth. So even if it meant temporarily putting him back into the pens, he’d do it if he didn’t get a fair price. “Ahem. Name: Reiklin. A human man, age 27. A special forces operative from the Soquel Empire. His past is a mystery beyond that, but upon boarding his ship across the Kognos Strait - He killed over 15 men by himself after being outnumbered 32 to 1. He is a level 148 Wind Ranger class. He can shoot an arrow accurately at five hundreds yards using an ordinary bow, I’ve seen it myself. He amplifies his ranged attacks with wind magic and can not only boost his own movement speed but also other people’s speed as well. His archery skill is at an astounding 291. His close encounter combat isn’t nearly as good… which is why he was eventually captured, but keep him at a distance and you’ll not be disappointed. I’m sure you could find many uses for a man of his talents, though I would not suggest buying him unless you plan on using a psychic to wipe his memories and replace them with new ones…” Ronnie faltered as he sat his gaze on Trey. “For the summoner, turning him into a thrall would also be a valid means of controlling him. Starting price is set at 289,000 coin.”
***
Oof. 289,000. No wonder he's not sold yet… Still, Trey was interested. Level 148? Would he even be able to dominate someone like that? He hoped so. If he had the money to do it he’d have just bought him and gotten it over with to avoid the risks of procuring this man otherwise, but he had no money and was only scouting out the ones he wanted to steal.
Trey got a few heads turned in his direction at the mention of ‘summoner’, but people still kept a safe distance considering the demons surrounding him. Summoners and warlocks, even here in this lawless city of pirates and criminals, had a reputation.
No one motioned to buy this man. Not even one. The auctioneer scanned the crowd, frowning in disappointment as Trey failed to raise his hand for a bid. “Anyone? Any takers?”
Still, no one raised their hand to bid. 289,000 was a lot of money for a single slave. To Trey’s left were the heads of two different local brothels who’d already bought up 13 women and 5 young men to add to their collections; there was no way they’d buy another slave for the price of all their previous purchases put together. To Trey’s left were a couple people interested in death match betting – people who’d pit their slaves against one another and collect money if they won, but even they didn’t want to buy someone priced that expensive. Everyone else scattered about the crowd had the same thought process and didn’t budge even after the auctioneer dropped the bidding start to 250,000.
Eventually Ronnie gave up, nodded to his men and waited for his cronies to drag the man away. As the chains clanked together amidst his shuffling, the redheaded slave gave a curious look out into the crowd. Locking eyes with Trey for just an instant, he disappeared off the platform and was led away back to his cage.
“Is your familiar really capable of keeping track of him?” Trey clarified urgently after seeing him vanish.
Atharost nodded confidently and tapped a finger against his forehead. “Of course, but it won’t only be Boxamoth that remembers it. He’s sending me images and thoughts through our link, I am able to see what he sees and will help him retain the information.”
Trey gave his friend a big thumbs up and a grin. “Fuck yeah. From what I’ve seen thus far… I feel like he’s going to be the one we target. Any others we get will be extra… and we’ll try to get some women for the brothel, but he’s what I want for our crew.”
An hour later and the bidding ended just in time for noon lunch. All the slaves were taken back to their pens and the auctioneer announced that anyone who wanted a chance at a negotiating price without bidding against others could come and look at the wares until sundown. He stepped off the stage with four gruff-looking bodyguards behind him and went on his way to get some food while the small army he left behind organized everyone who wished to remain and try their luck at haggling.
As the crowd dispersed and went on into the areas where slaves were being kept in cages, Atharost notified the others that Boxamoth was done. “We’ve mapped it all out, escape route and all. Are we going to do this?”
Ashe slapped Atharost as hard as she could on the ass - and laughed loudly at his absolutely livid expression. “We go tonight! Everyone go get some sleep… we’re going to be out very late.”