In the town of Utherplase, a young man and 3 pretty girls walked into a slave trader. Does is even need saying that the young man is a Hero? The Typical Hero had recently vanquished a band of despicable slavers and freed their pitiful victims. So now, of course, he was here to register the 3 prettiest slaves as his own personal slaves. Wait, how is that “saving” them? Seizing girls by force to be his slaves, even if he let some other slaves go, isn’t he just a pickier slaver? Try not to think about it. Hero logic will hurt your brain.
The slave merchant, like a true salesman, first brought a line of pretty girls into the room and attempted to convince the Hero buy a few new girls while he was here. The Typical Hero gulps, his mouth hangs open slightly and drool flows down his chin. The slave girls’ faces twist in disgust. Strangely, the slave merchant isn’t disciplining them for it, yet the Typical Hero doesn’t notice, his mind already full of lewd fantasies.
Now clearly, any gold he spent here would mostly go into the pockets of slavers, encouraging more slave raids. However, the slave merchant just has to make up some nonsense story about the unsold girls being sent to the mines and the Typical Hero's conscience is placated. Are slave girls jugs of milk to go bad so fast?! Would any merchant be so quick to sell off a valuable product at a fraction of its price? Can the Hero possibly be dumb enough to believe that?! Well actually... yes. Its may have been mentioned a few times that Heroes are really stupid.
With a plausible excuse offered, the Typical Hero eagerly looks over the line of slave girls, before selecting 2 that fit his taste. Wait, so it’s ok if the others get sent to the mines?! For that matter, why is he paying this scum bag at all? It should probably be mentioned that nothing being done here is legal. Slavery on Klishay used to be limited to crime slaves, and strictly regulated. Slave raids only became common after the Heroes arrival, thanks to the collapse of public order and the vast amount of gold Heroes pumped into the slave market. But it was never legalized, so trading kidnaped people as slaves is still technically punishable by death. Of course any slave trader will have a few guards on his payroll, but even the most corrupt guardsman isn’t going to throw his life away for a few bribes. So there would be little, if any, trouble if a strong person (like say, A HERO) were to just kill a slave trader and free all his slaves. However, not a single Hero has ever done so.
Instead, the Typical Hero runs his lust filled gaze over his new slaves again. The 2 new ones’ faces twist in disgust. Of the 3 he brought, one forces a pained smile while the other 2 look ready to burst into to tears. The Hero doesn’t notice however, he’s too busy having a 6 way in his mind right now. The slave trader places a contract in front of the Hero and he eagerly signs without even a glance at its contents. A slave collar immediately forms... on the Hero’s own neck. As he’s left writhing in pain and confusion, all but 2 of the “slaves” remove their fake collars and begin to rain down verbal abuse on the Hero. The last 2 are left frozen in shock so, with a sympathetic smile, the fake slave merchant starts explaining what happened while removing their collars.
At this point, do I even need to say that I staged the whole thing? Well ok, Ifective did most of the real work. Slipping a fake slave among those captured by that slaving party, placing a “survivor” in the Hero’s path who told him about the evil men who took his beautiful (of course) daughter away, staffing the slave market with agents after I sent Wannabe and Gun Freak to clear it out. I suppose I could have saved her some work by just bribing a real slave trader to hand the Hero that contract, but I don’t like making deals with scum. Oh, those 6 slaves brought out? Those were just freed slaves that agreed to join in the act just to see a loathsome Hero enslaved. Anyway, since Ifective has done a good job I guess I should answer those questions she clearly has.
“You wanted to ask something Ifective?”
“Young Master... why did that work?”
“Well, in room full of beautiful slave girls, his eyes wouldn’t be on the contract.”
“No... a Hero blindly signing his own enslavement contract is actually the most believable part of what just happened... What I mean is, didn’t you say that the Heroes had to know why they’re being enslaved for the contract to work?”
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“Not exactly. The magic contract just needs to be signed willingly, it doesn’t matter if they ever read it. The rest is just mind games to weaken the Hero’s resistance to the idea of being enslaved.”
“But how did that happen here?”
“That’s because it was his first slave purchase.”
“...and?”
“Well... I guess first you should know that on the Heroes’ world slavery is illegal.”
“WHAT?! But... but...”
“I know I know. It seems impossible considering how they’re the reason slavery exploded on Klishay, how they collect slave girls faster than the horniest noblemen, how they’ve never once tried to end the practice, not even on their own lands for those who become kings or nobles, how... well, you get the idea. However, I’ve been talking to our enslaved Heroes and it seems, incredible as it sounds, that they all started out believing slavery was wrong.” Ifective still looks confused. “What I’m getting at is, when he signed that contract the Hero’s mind was busy making all sorts of excuses for why enslaving people is ok.”
“Ah!” she exclaims “Only... aren’t all Heroes gigantic hypocrites? I’m sure he never thought it was ok to enslave him.”
“Of course, and I sure right now he’s coming up with all sorts of reasons why it was ok for him to enslave pretty girls, but not for us to enslave him. But he didn’t have those excuses ready before hand, and while he was still scrambling for them the enslavement finished.” At this point we are interrupted by the third girl the Typical Hero brought with him, the one that forced a smile at him. Ifective’s agent obviously, and also her niece Zellus Cervant.
“Young Master! Your plan worked perfectly!” Zellus’ eyes have an odd gleam to them... she’s must be excited at completing her first assignment.
“Yes, and you performed your own part wonderfully. By the way, who were those other 2 girls the Hero brought with him?”
“Oh them. Just 2 slaves that were afraid to run away after the Hero killed the slavers, we were in the middle of nowhere after all, and the Hero took that as meaning ‘We love you! We want to be your slaves forever!’ ”
“...that does sound like something a Hero would do.” Ifective gives me a discrete nudge. “Ah... is there perhaps some reward you would like to ask for? Since it's your first big assignment.” The gleam is growing brighter.
“Actually, Young Master... could I escort you back to the manor?” That doesn’t really seem like a reward though? Is she to modest to ask for one?
“Ahem” Ifective speaks up “I’ll have everything here settled in an hour or so Young Master, why don’t you and Zellus go ahead.”
“...very well. If that’s what both of you want. ” My arm is instantly seized and Zellus eagerly pulls me along. I wonder... why did I just shiver on a warm spring day?
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Meanwhile, back in the town of Sumplace, a squad of guardsmen are chasing an escaped monster. Normally no one would be that worried about one goblin, but this one was different. A piece of bent wire found just inside empty cage had led to the impossible notion that the goblin had picked the lock. Further, the unnatural beast had timed his escape to match a shift change in the guard watching the monster pens, and the new guard had assumed the cage had already been empty. The crafty beast likely would have escaped scotfree, except he had somehow managed to walk in on the monster trader’s daughter as she was changing. Her scream had roused the household.
This brings us back to the squad of guardsmen, ordered by the guard-captain to catch this impossible “intelligent goblin” so he could get to the bottom of this nonsense. The squad’s mage cast tracking magic again. “Still 10 meters ahead on the left” he reports. The little beast is running across rooftops now, we’re following on the closest street using magic to keep track of him. Here in the slums the roofs are too shoddy to support a grown man. In fact, even for a goblin it has to be... a crash announces the too clever beast has finally broken through. A young woman’s scream echos down the street. Again?!? Is this goblin some kind of Hero or something?!
The perverted beast runs out of the shack’s front door... and finds itself confronting a fully armed squad of guardsmen. It turns and runs, making a lot of gabbling sounds that strangely reminds the guardsmen of cursing. But its little legs aren’t fast enough. It takes one last look over its shoulder at the rapidly closing guardsmen before, with a despairing shriek, it jumps into a convenient open hole in the street.
A splash and a gust of foul air tell them what just happened. There is a long silence, finally broken by the squad’s mage. “I am not going in there.”
“Agreed”
“Figures a dumb beast would hide in there.”
“Why did we think it was intelligent again?”
“Come to think of it... isn’t it more likely someone released the goblin as a prank?”
“Ah, that would explain it!”
“Well, lets go report to the captain.”
The guardsmen left, no longer worried about the free goblin running about. After all, a goblin is just a goblin.