Tom Walker signed on with a small band of mercenaries guarding a caravan from Middleton to Rivermarch. On the second night, bandits attacked, and Tom was grievously wounded. He was the sole survivor. After he woke and bandaged himself, Tom pursued the bandits and the wagons to their new camp, unsure whether he would die before getting his revenge. Lying in wait, Tom managed to kill four bandits, while at least two had gotten away earlier.

About to succumb to his wounds, Tom was surprised by a noise. With a final effort, Tom discovered eight elven slaves in a cage. Realizing that they would be trapped, Tom managed to give them the key to the cage before laying himself down to die.

Diavla Urula took the key and freed the elves. Sheema was a Healer, and saved Tom. The elves looted the wagons and foraged for clothing and supplies. They still wore magical slave collars, and Tom was their new owner.

Lost in the middle of the human continent, the elves desperately needed information. When Tom woke the next morning, Diavla and Kervan attempted to learn some of Tom's language, Western, while Tom started to learn Elvish. He explained what he knew as best he could. By the end of a long day, they had enough words for Tom to make a suggestion: they should bring the caravan wagons to Rivermarch.

Doing so would get them a pile of gold, which Tom proposed to use to get the elves to the coast and on a boat back to the elven continent. After a lot of arguing, the elves agreed to drive the six wagons for two days, because that would bring them deeper into Great Oak Forest, making it easier for them to disappear.

Eventually, the elves were forced to admit that Tom had magical control of them. Upon learning that, Tom immediately removed their collars, freeing them. It was an emotional moment, and a big step towards building trust between them.

When the time came, four of the elves went with Tom and four decided to take their chances in the woods, still fearing that the human would sell them back into slavery given the chance. Arven led the leaving group, taking care of Brallik, Rillik, and Sheema, three elves unskilled at survival.

Tom, Diavla, Varga, Kervan and Orvan drove towards Rivermarch in five wagons, containing fabric, grain, alcohol, ironwork, and a set of mysterious black cases. Along the way they faced mishaps including a broken wheel and a wolf attack. Tom and Diavla grew attracted to each other, while Varga flirted with them both. As they approached the northern edge of the forest, the elves hid with four of the wagons in a small valley. This was the moment of trust.

Tom entered Rivermarch alone a day and a half later, and delivered the fabric wagon to the tailor's widow, refusing any payment. From a lawyer, he learned that he had rightful claim to most of the goods in the caravan, including the elves. Tom decided it would be better to sell the cargo before reporting all the details to the city Guard. After buying clothing and supplies, he hurried back with the news, to find wagons but no elves.

While he was away, Mark, Joan and Winnie Carver had found the elves and brought them home. They were treated well, and traded the spare ox for silence.

Not knowing this, Tom tried not to panic. To distract himself, he opened the one mysterious crate already damaged by the bandits. Inside, he found very, very old crystals. Two of them were basically piles of sand, but a third was more recently broken, in just a few large pieces. Tom's instincts warned him not to touch the crystals, so he packed the crate up again, resolving to hire a mage in the city to examine them.

With help from Mark Carver, Tom and the elves were reunited. That night, Diavla sleepwalked into Tom's room and curled up in bed with him. This was just one of several odd behaviors Diavla was showing.

On the road the next night, Diavla examined herself magically. This had the surprising effect of making her extremely amorous, and she propositioned Varga. Tom was very confused, not knowing that it was possible for someone to desire both men and women.

When they arrived in Rivermarch, Tom set out immediately to deliver the ironwork to the buyer for a finder's fee, and then sold the grain at market. He haggled with skill. Tom stored the gold at the Keep, bought the elves sweets, and found them rooms, despite local prejudice against elves.

Then, it was off to The Floating Duck, a tavern where Tom hired the bartender Miranda to price the booze for him the next day. He also met Edge, an information broker, and asked him to look into elves and slaves in the city. Meanwhile, Orvan couldn't bear the bad food and went into the tavern's kitchen to fix it.

The next morning, Tom woke to find Diavla in his bed again. Seeing each other mostly naked, they resisted their obvious desires with effort, and set out to sell the rest of the caravan. Stopping by Whistler's Fabric Emporium, Tom offered to pay for the fabric the elves had taken, and instead the widow Whistler took a liking to Tom. She rewarded him for killing most of the men who murdered her husband, and offered him gold to kill the others. She was also sympathetic to the elves' plight, and in lieu of more gold, she and her assistant provided clothing for the elves, even sending them to a bootmaker who owed a favor.

Tom and Diavla spoke to a riverboat captain, who explained that the only reasonable way to get the elves home was to find an elven embassy in one of the nations on the southern coast. For information, he recommended they visit an unusual Library in the city.

Once Miranda had priced the booze, Tom sold it all over town, haggling hard. In the end, they had 138 gold stored safely in the Keep. Only then did they go to the city Guardhouse, where Tom corrected some omissions in his earlier report of the bandit attack. Tom hired a mage at the city Temple to come inspect the mysterious crystals the next morning.

At dinner, Edge found Kervan sex work, which he had expressed interest in, and a tough woman named Lily Rose escorted him and brought back the payment. Then Edge mentioned a “ruined elf.”

After getting the details, Tom took the elves home, then headed out at once to Madame Louisa's Delightful Den of Iniquity, where he managed to purchase Eubexa, a sick, horribly-scarred, long-abused elf in a veil. Bringing her back for the other elves to take care of, Tom excused himself, got violently sick, then went back to the tavern to get drunk.

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Eubexa told her story to the elves, then cried when she realized that she might get better treatment from Tom. Once she fell asleep, Varga admitted to Diavla that she was growing interested in Tom, and went to check on him. She found Tom and Lily both drunk.

Lily seemed interested in Tom, and possibly Varga too. Tom and Lily kissed, but it turned out that Tom was inexperienced and didn't know how to kiss well. Mortified to realize that, he fled home. Varga stayed to chat with Lily before following.

The next morning began a very busy day...

Tom took Diavla and Eubexa to the wagon lot, Tom carrying the frail elf. There the mage came to inspect the crystals. In the process, Tom learned that he had a small amount of magical ability, much to his surprise. He also learned that Diavla has a great deal of ability, which she had been hiding from him.

The mage deemed the crystals so dangerous that he summoned guards to escort the wagon slowly to the Temple. Tom told Diavla and Eubexa to stay clear of him for a while, then to go to the Temple and get healing for Eubexa. Tom was examined by magic users, then told to wait, then ushered in to be questioned by Lord Rivermarch himself. Oddly, the widow Whistler was there as well.

It turned out that each of the crystals in the cases contained a captured demon, something commonly thought impossible, which meant that there were three demons on the loose. Two presumably possessed two of the bandits, the ones who broke the seals on the case. The third was unknown, but Tom and the elves were all suspect.

Meanwhile, Diavla drove Eubexa to the Temple and ordered all the Healing available, including surgery on Eubexa's foot, and general healing to stave off the red pains disease, which would kill her in three to six months. Eubexa protested the expense but was overruled. After Eubexa's surgery, Diavla saw the other elves, who had been rounded up and brought to the Temple.

Quietly practicing her magic, Diavla recognized a spell being cast; the humans were testing the elves one by one for demonic possession. She thought, I have to hide. Soon afterward, she did her best to disguise that she had magical ability, and passed the test, as did Kervan, Orvan and Varga.

Tom was forced to relate his adventures in detail, hiding only that there were eight elves, not four. The lawyer knew this, having read the slaver's manifest, but let it slide as Tom made clear that the other four elves were nowhere near the crystals at the time they suspected the third crystal broke. Trying to salvage the situation, Tom proposed that he and the elves go demon-hunting in the Great Oak Forest. They were the only ones who knew what one of the missing bandits looked like, and elves were less prone to possession in general.

Given permission to proceed, Tom picked up the elves at the Temple, and quietly explained about the demons. It would likely take a war to defeat one demon, and Tom was not happy about having three on the loose. He asked the elves to decide whether to follow him into a demon-infested forest to try to rescue the other four elves, or to stay in Rivermarch, possibly being sold to a kind buyer. The five elves all decided to stick with Tom.

They shopped for supplies for the trip. Tom also ended up visiting a curios shop recommended by Edge, who had been looking for anything related to slaves. It turned out the shady character at the shop had a powerful mind-control slave collar for sale. Tom realized that a collar that could inflict pain could also dull it, and ended up buying it for Eubexa. Tom's best negotiating skills brought the price down to twenty-five gold, a hefty portion of their total funds.

Next, they finally visited the Rivermarch Library. Tom was deeply moved by a giant mural on one wall, a map of the continent. Since he was farsighted, it was the first map he had ever gotten to see clearly. Diavla bought maps, and Tom asked the librarian about elven embassies. She recommended a particular book, but it did not have copies for sale. By leaving a two gold deposit, they were allowed to borrow the book and bring it to Eubexa, as she was the only one in their group able to read Western.

In fact, Eubexa was extremely useful, fluent in both Elvish and Western. At last, Tom and the elves could clear up some misunderstandings, some of them very important or emotional. There were still communication difficulties, particularly concerning magic, because humans and elves thought about magic completely differently.

Eubexa also made herself useful as a relationship counselor. She prodded Tom to tell her in great detail his feelings for Diavla, and he asked about elven courtship customs. Later, Tom prayed in front of Diavla so that she could use her spirit-sense on him and try to understand. He ended up tired and turned in early. Diavla then talked with Eubexa, who suggested that they buy merchandise to sell at their next destination.

Later, Varga came home drunk after a date with Lily Rose. She woke Diavla up in the middle of sleepwalking to Tom's room again. After putting Varga to bed, Diavla was fed up with the snoring, gathered her courage, and told Tom that she was sleeping with him instead. He agreed. Finally, the busy day had ended.

The next morning, Tom dreamt a conversation with the men he had killed. When Tom and Diavla woke together, Diavla wanted to kiss him, but Tom shied away because he was a bad kisser. That hurt her feelings, and she left quickly.

After a tense breakfast, Tom took the elves out shopping for new armor. Tom got metal, and all the elves preferred leather. Next came another round of healing for Eubexa at the Temple, followed by the Library, where they returned the book, borrowed another, and bought a third, On Fighting Demons.

After lunch, Kervan and Orvan returned, having gotten mugged, with Kervan specifically targeted. By request, a city guard escorted Diavla and Kervan to the Temple so that Kervan could get healed. Varga was out on “errands”, so Tom and Orvan went shopping.

First, Tom purchased silver rings for both Diavla and Varga. Then they bought weapons: a new sword for Tom, a bow for Arven, spears, caltrops, and a couple of fishing nets.

Varga returned, realized that Tom was there and Diavla wasn't, and seized the opportunity to have a private conversation, with Eubexa's help. Varga coaxed Tom into accepting a lesson in kissing. He improved rapidly, so much so that Varga wanted sex with him, which he reluctantly refused.

When Tom went to the Temple to retrieve Diavla and Kervan, his emotions were in an uproar. He was confused, because now he felt attracted to Varga too. With a moment of insight, Tom decided to have a long, hard, embarrassing conversation with both Diavla and Varga at once, with Eubexa as translator. That way, they could talk about their feelings and relationships openly without any persisting confusion.

During the talk, Tom gave Diavla a ring as a first stage of courtship. With Diavla's encouragement, he ended up giving Varga a ring as well, not quite sure what he was getting himself into.

They went to the Floating Duck for the last time. Tom dropped subtle hints for Edge about demons, and found out from him where to buy salt, which Eubexa had suggested they sell in the next town. After dinner, Tom brought Varga and Orvan with him to buy a second wagon and make the purchase. On the way back, Varga darted into the Floating Duck and found Lily Rose. Tom cleared the air with her, and they shared a much better, friendly, farewell kiss. Varga went off with Lily Rose.

Tom and Diavla spent most of the evening learning about each other in wide-ranging romantic conversation through Eubexa. At the end, the two of them very self-consciously went to bed together. Unsure of themselves, they began kissing. Slowly they negotiated what they wanted, and finally consummated their passionate attraction for each other.

In the morning, the group made final preparations, said their goodbyes, and left Rivermarch, wondering what had become of the other four elves during all this...