Cass left the Sand District, passing the same Warriors that had seen her enter. They were quite relieved to see her, but she waved away their concern and said that nothing had happened. The Matron’s parting words having effectively sealed Cass’s lips regarding what occurred there.

However, Cass did not head back to the castle, instead she walked towards the Stone District. Too her surprise, there was a checkpoint and guards here as well. Her surprise turned to suspicion when the guards gave her similar warnings as when she had entered the Sand District. It was not too far in to the district that Cass found out why.

Cass had expected the Stone District to be much better than the Sand, and it was in some ways. The houses and apartments were small and unadorned, but they were clean and in good repair. The people Cass saw did not have the emaciated, starving look that she had seen in the Sand District either. These people had money to spend, not much, but some.

Despite night having come in full, the middle areas of the Stone District were busy. Taverns and bars filled with light and noise as drunken men and women stumbled in and out. The alleys were cleaner, but people still crouched in the shadows, their eyes staring into the distance as drugs took them somewhere else. Cass heard crashing and screaming from somewhere nearby and thought that this may be more dangerous than the Sand altogether.

The raucous crowds drinking and smoking were interspersed with sober people walking quickly with their heads down, trying to avoid attention as they went about their business. Near Cass, a girl a few years younger than her had someone stumble into her and was grabbed as a result. Drunken laughter resulted from her yelling as she was pulled into the crowd.

Cass turned to leave and then hesitated. She could almost feel Maurice’s disapproval weighing down on her. How can Cass say she was pursuing her dream if she just left? Cass sighed and turned back, walking swiftly towards the struggling women and the laughing men.

“Would you lookie here, ‘er olda sista came to join ‘er!” One man called out and reached for Cass as she approached.

“No! Run!” The girl that they had grabbed wailed, sobbing and struggling weakly.

Cass grabbed the man’s outstretched hand and broke it in her fist then laughed as he fell on his ass screaming.

“You should let the girl go,” Cass grinned. Maurice may have been the inspiration to help, but it was Hall who had given her the ability to enjoy it! “Or I will break every hand you have on her.”

“Fucking cunt!” The men swore and attacked her. A few minutes later, the last of them was on his knees before Cass, fear cutting through his drugged haze as he begged.

“Please, I am a server for the Von!” He cried pitifully, “if I can’t do my job, I will be fired and my family will starve!”

“Family?” Cass paused, “A wife and kids I assume?”

The man nodded vigorously, snot and tears running down his face. Cass found him simply repulsive. She grabbed one of his hands and broke each finger individually, then did the same to the other.

“I have to wonder,” Cass mused as she snapped the index finger on his first hand. “Why someone begging for mercy for assaulting and trying to rape a young girl, not even in her teens, would beg on behalf of their wife and kids?”

The man tried to struggle and escape, but Cass kicked him hard in the groin and he curled up in pain as she methodically continued breaking his bones, “Presumably, this girl has a mother and father, and presumably they would beg just as prettily to save their child from this.”

Well, that is what Cass would imagine anyway. The little she had heard from Hall about his family suggested that Cass’s imagination might just be a fairy tale, something she wished was true but was not. Still, there had to be at least one good family out there, right?

As she broke the last finger she smiled down at the man blubbering on the ground, “For that matter, why would you expect me to show you mercy when I showed none to your friends over there?”

Cass jerked her thumb towards the pile of groaning men, crying and cradling their broken hands. Her only regret was not being able to take her time with them, once they saw just how strong Cass was they would try and run, so she rushed for the first four.

With number five she had the time to enjoy herself, she stepped on his newly broken hand and listened to him scream. Really, was not begging on behalf of family the most disgusting thing ever? Effectively, it was using the people who loved you as shields to protect yourself from harm. Love was too valuable and special to hand to scum like that.

“Lady Strioi…” The girl timidly called out to Cass, “please… Stop…”

Cass turned in surprise, “Why?”

“Thank you for helping me,” the girl bowed low. “But I don’t want anyone hurt on my behalf, just stopping them was enough…”

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“And then what about the next girl to walk by?” Cass raised an eyebrow, “The punishment they received is commensurate with their crime, they put their hands where they shouldn’t and now they cannot use their hands.”

“I…” The girl faltered under Cass’s gaze, “I do not know, but even still…”

Cass sighed, then kicked the man in the shins to make sure he was still conscious. “Get up and get out of here. If I ever see you again we will pick up where we left off, understand?”

As he scrambled away, Cass woke the others up the same way and gave them the same warning. She noticed that she had gathered a decent audience who looked at her with a mix of terror and judgemental satisfaction. She supposed that they liked seeing those men brought to justice and was afraid of her, Cass had to admit that this feeling of power was intoxicating.

Idly, she wondered if when she saw her Master again, if he would enjoy how she had grown. Knowing him, the fact that she had taken his lessons and stood on her own would only make it more fun for him to put her back under his control again. The thought didn’t bother Cass, on the contrary she rather looked forward to it, but he put that thought away for now.

“You shouldn’t be out so late at night,” Cass admonished the girl she had rescued. “And if you must, you should avoid places like this.”

“I don’t really have a choice…” The girl mumbled and she stared at the ground.

Cass sighed, “I will walk you home, what is your name?”

“Natalie, but you don’t need to do that Lady…”

“I put in the effort to help you,” Cass ignored her protests. “At the very least, I would like you to make it through tonight without being attacked again Natalie.”

Natalie’s home was not far away, and, true to what Natalie had said, it was at the end of a cul de sac that opened up into the main street. The girl did in fact have to head through the crowds to head home, Natalie hesitantly invited Cass inside and Cass got a look at the inside of the tiny house Natalie and her family lived in.

Honestly, Cass had no real way to compare or judge. She had considered her first room that Lord Evans had assigned her to be luxurious and the suite her Master had given her to be palatial. This house was somewhere in between those two, but she lacked any real ability to judge.

“Natalie!” A woman rushed over and hugged Natalie tightly, “We were so worried when you were late! Where were-”

She stumbled over her words when she saw Cass standing there, looking out of place in her beautiful and intricately designed dress in this simple home. That look was one that Cass was familiar with, abject terror. Cass was curious what would elicit that kind of response…

“Mother,” Natalie hugged her mother back tightly. “I was on my way home when… When… Well, this Lady saved me and insisted on making sure I made it back home!”

“If that is true, then we are very grateful.” The husband had come in, he was slightly calmer, or perhaps just a bit better at hiding his worry. “Lady Strioi, we have no way to repay you, but you have our thanks.”

He bowed deeply to Cass as he said that, the mother joined as well. She was not very comfortable with it, but that was something she would have to consider later. It was not the first time someone had bowed to her, but it was the first time she had felt so uncomfortable about it.

“There is no need to thank me,” Cass’s voice was calm and cool. “My conscious would not let me pass it by.”

Cass was a firm believer in the Church, so she probably should thank Maurice later. Offering help to others and protecting the weak were virtues in the Church, and without Maurice’s prodding, Cass probably would have left Natalie to her fate. In some respect, the worry that Maurice would be disappointed with her acted as her conscious more than any internal measure.

“And I did want to ask a question, what is going on out there tonight?”

The man laughed bitterly, “Nothing any different from any other night. People spending their money on drinks and drugs and getting into trouble. The lot of them might get hauled to the Sand one day.”

“But why is it going on?” Cass was confused, this was very different from Tyine. “And why do the Warriors even allow this?”

“The second one, I don’t know, but the first…”

“They have nothing else,” The mother answered from where she still clung to her daughter. “We aren’t like you, oh mighty Strioi. We Stones have no place to spend our money but in escapism.”

Now Cass understood, power in this kingdom was stratified, and there was no way to move between those strata. The people of the Stone had no reason to invest in their future, because their future was already set for them. So long as food and shelter were secured, all that left them was paying for entertainment and escape.

“Tina!” The Father exclaimed, “show respect to our guest! The Lady Strioi saved our daughter!”

There was an undercurrent of fear in that admonishment, Cass supposed that he was worried that she would take offense. But Cass did not particularly care, and simply ignored it.

“For the future,” Cass turned towards the door. “If you value your daughter, make sure that someone escorts her home if she must be out this late. Otherwise it is just a matter of time and only luck saved her today, I doubt I will return here again.”

On her way back to the castle, Cass considered what she had learned. She had been kidnapped from her Master and ‘freed.’ But she was only free within Beergmutar, and they would not let her leave. The Sand Caste was organized and preparing something, the Stone Caste was descending into hedonistic abandon without any chance to do anything else, and the upper castes were striking a deal with the southern territories of Haj to support their rebellion.

Cass poured power into her legs and leaped up to the window and returned to her room for the night. She had not been separated from her Master for long, to the point she felt guilty about considering anything other than him. But if what she was seeing was any indication, this society did not have the answers she needed. If anything, this was worse than Tyine.

With that, Cass made up her mind. Hall was her Master, and the kingdom of Beergmutar was her enemy. She would find her way home and do whatever she could to hurt Beergmutar on the way. As Cass fell asleep, she wondered what it would feel like to dominate and break a country… She never would be in a position to do so, but if beating down some rapists could be satisfying than ruling a country would be beyond her imagining...