Seagulls squawked overhead as Charity walked down the hard wooden pier with her arm interlocked with Lord Tai beside her. They cut a strange sight, an otherwise dapper looking fellow accompanied by a plain looking woman in a long black robe, both of which were wearing matching white masks carved into the likeness of demons. The handful of guards they had passed earlier that day as they walked into the city of Marketon had tried to approach the couple until they noticed Tai's clothing and promptly decided to look in any other direction.
She had to admit, the nobleman skeleton had a knack for getting them into places that they had no business getting away with, simply by the quality of his clothing. Other small tricks she had picked up from him would have felt almost scandalous at one time, such as walking with their arms interlocked to make sure that street merchants and thieves wouldn't try singling them out for an easy mark. Now however, Charity could see nothing but the cold hearted calculations the ‘Lord’ by her side was making for both of their benefits. It was conniving, intelligent, and manipulative.
And most concerning of all, the man was trying to convince her to start wearing formal dresses to better accompany him.
Charity was losing a lot of herself, that she was at least self-aware of as she felt the very emotions that used to dance at the tip of her tongue die out with the turn of every new day. That being said, her face still flushed with the idea of ever wearing noblewomen's garb out in public. It was one thing entirely for Lord Tai to do so, but for Charity? No. it would never happen. Could never happen.
What if she slipped, or made a mistake? Every eye they passed would be drawn to them whenever they entered a room if she ever made the change, that last little tricky step that Tai wanted her to make. After all, Charity was no noble. Surely not. Nobles didn't go door to door knocking on peoples houses and asking them if they wished for a second chance with their loved ones. And nobles definitely didn't have a name like Charity. She was common, through and through. A bar-keeps daughter from the day she was born to the day that she died.
But now that bar-keep's daughter was walking down the dockside arm in arm with an undead nobleman that never left her side. How quaint.
They were taking a bit of a day off since they had just arrived in the city. Doing the rounds, experiencing the dock market that was supposedly the namesake of the city, and just generally getting to know the area. It was peaceful in a non-stressful way as they merely spent time together going about their day.
Dry patches of ice crunched underneath her feet as she looked out upon the rolling waves and massive ships docked at the port. Hard working men and women marched back and forth with nets of fish, crates, furniture, and arms full of small bags clutched to their chests as they filtered on and off the nearby ships. Others could be seen nearby haggling with the dockmasters armed with a clipboard, a pen, and the power to tax goods, A sailor's worst nightmare.
Hammers tapped a series of nails into place as the duo passed a strange boat that had somehow been lifted out of the water on a series of stilts, the workers repairing a small hole near the front of the ship. Then Tai stopped suddenly in the middle of the pier, obviously noticing something despite the lack of eye holes in his mask. He looked away from the shore, staring straight through a nearby building as he must have watched something on the other side. Not to be left out of the loop, Charity allowed the bone sight to overtake her, and was nearly blinded by the large number of ethereal human bodies that came into sight within the first moment of concentration.
She pushed the pain from her mind and focused in the direction that Tai had been looking, allowing herself to see past the mundane walls of wood that tried to obstruct her view. There she saw a pair of skeletons fighting with each other, surrounded by a series of other skeletons waving their arms up and down in a large circle around them. The larger skeleton was trying to punch at the smaller one, over and over, but the smaller person simply dodged and weaved around the blows with an graceful flow to their movements. The larger human kept his assault up, but the smaller one must have seen an opening and spun quickly to the side, throwing three short jabs into the larger body's ribs.
Tai had reached up to grasp Charity by the arm interlocked with his, and her vision bled back into reality as he nodded in the direction they had been watching. She gladfully accompanied him in the direction without a single word spoken between the two of them as they peeled away from the busy dockside in order to walk deeper into the city. A handful of hardy sailors elbowed each other with smiles on their faces as they watched the strange couple pass them by, but no one gave them any trouble.
They passed by several plain buildings on the way to their destination, finally coming to a large heavy door at the front of a building. No sign hung out front, so Tai tentatively tried the door and found that it was unlocked, opening the entrance quickly then ushering Charity in with a wave of a hand. He could be rather charming at times, if you could ignore the quiet indignity that drifted off of him.
The room they entered was dark, the only light being the faintest streaks of sunlight that came in through the thin cracks in the window shutters. A voice called out to them from behind an empty counter.
“And what brings you here?” A gravelly voice seemed to emerge from the darkness itself.
“We're here to inspect your wares and entertainments if you'll please us.” Charity responded on their behalf, leaving the words rather vague since she still wasn't sure what they were getting into yet.
“If i'll please you? The fuck are you trying to say?”
Charity amended her words before he started to get any angrier. “I suppose I misspoke. Lord Tai would like to see your bottom floor.” She pointed at the ground with her words, though it was hard to see in the dark room.
“I don't think he'll find any ‘pleasing’ down there either.” He said.
Charity tried not to roll her eyes at the man. “How about an entrance fee then? Two silver coins if you'll let us see what all the fuss is about down there.” She pulled out the money with her words, placing them onto the counter with an audible click. The sound of a man's hand moving over the wood snatched the coins up then the squeak of shifting wood sounded as he stood up.
The shadow that guided them further into the building was a large, towering man who had to stoop his head so he didn't hit the door frame as he guided them into a faintly lit stairwell further down into the basement. He closed the door after the two of them as they had started moving downward towards an even better lit room at the bottom. A large hallway awaited them, perhaps fifteen feet wide and occupied by a dispersed group of men standing patiently next to raised platforms by the sides of the walkway.
An assortment of strange substances lined the tables beside them, dominated by small boxes of dried herbs, small vials of liquid, and alchemy apparatus. Further down another table was lined with an assortment of strangely shaped weapons, sickle shaped daggers, and short swords that seemed to resemble meat cleavers more than any weapon of war. Instead of the simple market places that Charity was used to, the merchants at this one merely allowed the two of them to pass without a word. Either because they didn't trust newcomers, or perhaps because most people only came down here with the intent to buy something specific.
As they moved further down the hall towards another room conjoined with it, Charity started to focus on the large mass of people gathered in a large circle ahead of them. The way the heads descended further into the room, it was like a small receded theater stage at the bottom of a circular depression, though it was hard to see between the close packed mass of human flesh cheering on the fight below.
Tai took the lead for the two of them, pushing past several rough individuals who tried to push back at first until they caught his fine clothing and looked more than a little confused. When they finally made it up to the front of the crowd, Charity could see a fit looking woman doing circles around a much larger man, both of them fighting in their underclothes in the dirt hewn pit the crowd was looking into. The man looked to be a bit on the worse side, mouth bloody and eyebrow cut open by some daring strike from the girl, but she had received a few good licks to her face as well. Both her cheeks were slightly swollen as she looked over her upraised arms in a tight guard between herself and her opponent.
The man decided to charge after the two had circled each other for a couple seconds. He missed the girl with the full-on tackle that Charity supposed he was going for, but still managed to grab her by the hips as he tried to drag her into the wooden walls of the pit. The girl in return shifted her weight up and onto his shoulders before wrapping a single arm around his neck from the back and squeezing with all her might. He did manage to slam the girl into the wall with an audible thud of flesh and wood, but she somehow held on through the pain and audible gasps that came from her throat.
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The man shifted back again like he was going to slam her into the wall once more, but stopped halfway through. He fell to a knee a second later then collapsed entirely soon after as the woman remained coiled around his neck. Cheers erupted from the crowd, the onlookers jostling one another like they didn't have a single inch of personal space, and bookkeepers started calling out from the rear of the stands.
“Abigail won with three to two odds gents. Pay up.”
“Clement, don't you dare try to sneak away from this one.”
“Get your money out lads. We all knew how this one was gonna go.”
Anyone who wasn't trying to get someone's attention was either cheering or booing in equal measure, as Charity saw a couple of onlookers grasp their heads like they had just lost a loved one in the fight. The girl got up slowly, raising her tightly cloth bound hands to the crowd, a large red mark visible on her back where she had just been slammed into the wall. She climbed up the side of the pit and dropped on over the railing to join the rest of the crowd as men and women sidled up to her to pat her on the back or say a few words with her. The larger man was merely left in the middle of the pit forgotten as he slowly regained consciousness, curling over to his side as a few random pieces of pocket trash were thrown at him.
Charity and Tai withdrew from the circle as the crowd started to thin out, slowly spreading out into the different hallways that all shot off in a different cardinal direction from the circular main room. They chose to explore the hall to the right of the first hall they had come down through, exiting into a similar sized room with merchants standing next to their wares. This time however, instead of raised tables, there were thick metal cages containing other people.
She had always been distantly aware that slavery was happening under the dark shadows of the world, but the Princedom's were supposed to be different than that. After all, they called their slaves by the term ‘serf’ instead and claimed ownership by way of indentured servitude. As if to explain the distinction, the merchants seemed to actually be interested in Lord Tai's patronage in this wing of the black market, and started hawking their wares to him as they passed by.
“My Lord, please feast your eyes upon these fine girls, guaranteed to satisfy each and every carnal desire that you might be looking for. Their debts can be transferred to you for nothing more than a meager surcharge of a single gold coin.”
The merchants held small sheets of paper that Charity was sure would explain the terms of their contracts. Something like, ‘Blank individual has accrued a debt of fifty gold coins to be paid off at a rate of two copper coins per week over a forty-eight year period.’ Not that any of these individuals would likely live through the remainder of their debt. It was merely slavery with extra steps.
‘At least the southern wastes were more upfront about their moral depravity than this.’ Charity thought to herself.
Still, Tai moved slowly through the hall with Charity in tow as she looked over a wide variety of men and women in nothing more than the thin scraps and rags that they wore on their body. They never met eyes with hers, always staring at the floor and the shifting feet of passing patrons. Only moving the barest minimum when a merchant would randomly bang on the cage bars to show that they were still alive.
Her cold gray eyes took it all in from behind the demon's mask she wore, ironically looking like one of the more questionable patrons in the underground despite her personal feelings about the trade at hand. Then again, those graying eyes were starting to follow Tai's search through the nearby cages with a distant curiosity. Just what did He think about all this?
A strong hand reached out from the crowd to tap on Tai's shoulder, causing the man to spin around towards the new individual.
“Have we met before, Lord…?” The fighting woman from before had put on a loose pair of pants and a vest to cover her tight fighting clothing, but she still seemed to exude a sense of control over this place. Charity noted that her hands were still bound tight with what she could now notice were cloth bandages. Wasn't that more common in the eastern tribes?
Charity cut in on Tai's behalf, “We've just come from Midton for a bit of a working holiday in this town and wanted to see the sights here.”
The girl gave her a deadpan look before she spoke once again looking at Tai, “Yeah, see the sights my ass. How's a random nobleman walking around through my market without me knowing about you beforehand.”
“Ah, well, I might have paid the man at the front counter to let us come down here.” Charity responded.
The woman pointed over at Tai as she finally turned to face Charity, “What? He don't like talking to commoners or something?”
“No actually. He's mute. It's why he travels with me.” Charity used the lie with the confidence of practice after using the same excuse several times over. She supposed it was at least partially true though.
The woman glanced back over at Tai with a raised eyebrow, which he met with a comfortable look back from his inexpressive mask until a man bellowed across the room.
“Abigail!” The larger man from the pit started shoving his way past the patrons in the room, and Abigail turned around to face the man as she put her hands on her hips.
“Durn, I beat you fair and square. Now shove off before you I have to kick you out myself.”
“You bitch!” The man had almost made it to them at this point and Charity noticed as Tai moved smoothly out from behind the woman towards the other side of the hall. As the larger man finally broke away from the bulk of the crowd by the door, he started moving into a full on charge, and Abigail shifted into a fighting stance.
‘CRACK!’ Just as the man was about to reach the woman, Tai's cane shot out from the side of the crowd to land on the front of the man's knee, causing him to buckle under his momentum and come crashing to the ground as he howled. Abigail looked up through her guard at Tai as he took two steps over to the man clutching at his broken knee, then brought down his cane on the man's head. ‘CRACK!’
The man dropped unconscious to the ground, bleeding out of his head onto the ground as the rest of the crowd seemed to snicker around them. The only people that seemed the least bit concerned about Tai's behavior were the slaves cowering in their pens nearby. Abigail readjusted to the new situation quickly and snapped over at a man cloaked in shadow near the corner of the room.
“Hey, go get Paully and take care of this for me.” She yelled across the room, then turned to look at Tai and Charity. “And you two are coming with me.”
—
“Who the fuck are you?” Abigail asked them from a leather padded chair set behind a sturdy desk in her office.
The room itself was rather nice, complete with a lightly burning fireplace, a fine rug, and several bookshelves lined with strange and interesting trophies around the room. The office was set off to the side of the arena, down a secluded hallway set between two of the merchant halls. It was evidently part of the more business oriented side of this operation as Dei caught several other bedrooms and offices through the open doors to either side on their way to this room.
“Well, this is Lord Tai from the city of Midton.”
“Yeah. I call bullshit. Lords don't just randomly arrive in secret fighting rings and take out a man like Durn Channel with a fucking cane like its nothing. So stop playing with me and tell it to me real. Who, the fuck, are you?”
Charity began to talk again, but Tai raised his hand to her and started pulling out his book and pen. Abigail raised her eyes as he started writing in the book then held out the pages for Charity to see.
“We'd like to make you an offer.” Charity spoke for him.
“Well I'll be damned. The mother fucker actually is a mute.” Abigail's eyes considered Tai for a moment before she continued, “Go on then.”
“It seems to me that you could use better security here.” Charity read from the book as Tai scratched things out on the paper.
“You think so? I could have taken care of Durn myself.”
“And what about when you're not there, or when you're asleep? What about the guard that let us down here with a bribe?”
“It works well enough for what I need.” Abigail spoke tensely.
“It works well enough until the guards actually decide to do something about this place and you need some real muscle.”
“And you, my Lord in shining armor, are going to be that muscle?”
“Oh goddess no. What I'm offering is forty armed guards on the clock twenty-four hours a day for ten gold a week.”
“You think I can afford to pay ten gold a head for guard work?”
“No. Ten gold a week for all forty men.” Charity said.
Abigail's eyes went wide at the offer. “How do you figure you'll make any sort of money at a rate like that?”
Tai shrugged his shoulders then continued writing.
“Get us a discount on the slave traders, say thirty percent, and we should both be more than happy. I can throw in another twenty men on the job for an additional five gold per week if you need the manpower.”
Abigail's mouth hung open, then she spit into her hand and leaned over the table to extend it over towards Tai. “Show me you're not just all talk for the first week and you'll get your pay and your discount.” She said.
Tai withdrew a small handkerchief from his pocket, spread it over his right hand, then grasped Abigail's wrapped hand in a firm handshake.