"Man, I hate driving so much. There's gotta be a better way. Can't they invent cars or trains here or something?" Blake said.

They were hanging out at the usual pub in Bright Hill. He was drinking strictly non-alcoholic. Riley and Sophia were drinking, lightly. Nash was huddled in Sophia's lap.

"Whatever those are, it's kind of an inevitability that you'd drive to Queensland and back so much. We just keep running into bandits. Honestly, we should be glad we haven't run into any really, really big groups. We'd be ruined, having to move, like, two dozen Companions at once," Riley said.

"Well yeah that's part of the problem, it's almost like every camp of bandits has a secret slave stash. What's the deal with that? Are there really just that many slaves sitting around doing nothing? It's like there's a huge criminal underworld or something."

"We've been taking guard jobs in one of the most transportation-heavy parts of the world. Long River north of here is a major shipping channel. And we've been avoiding normal, 'legal' Transporters, too, so all we're running into is bandits. Of course all the Companions you see are gonna be in bandit camps. What do you expect?"

"Uh... I guess I don't know what to expect. How're the bandits getting their hands on so many slaves, anyway?"

"The Empire's been taking Companions as tribute, but the caravans keep getting raided. Then the bandits bring them to that bit of Queensland where there are so many bandits and strip the contract with a rebellious scribe. You know why."

"I'm kind of concerned that they're collecting that many slaves."

"Take it up with the Empire, then. Like, you could go walk up to Emperor Viral and beg the man himself to make Dominion illegal if you really, really wanted to."

"Could I really?"

"No, he'd kill you on the spot."

"Ah. Wait, why?"

Silence.

"How much do you know so much about what the Empire is going through, Riley?" Sophia asked.

"Oh, that's... I came from there. The capital city," Riley said.

"The city of Third Capital?"

"Yes. I was 'owned' by a duke living there."

"I don't mean to pry, but..."

"I'd... rather not talk about it. Sorry."

"That's fine. I understand"

"I definitely don't have any respect for him. Or the Empire. You don't have to be careful talking about it, it's not that sensitive to me. I just don't want to dig out my personal memories like that."

Sophia nodded.

"Can I get a reminder on how Queensland is staying out of the Empire?" Blake said.

"Okay, listen closely—" Sophia started, but she got cut off.

"It began decade or two ago," Riley said, interrupting. "Demons started coming out of mountain dungeons in southwest Icemarch and raided the nearby towns. It was a thousand years after the Demon Wars, so everyone, everywhere, was very worried that it was a repeat of that. Icemarch didn't dare send their army, only adventurers, but the adventurers couldn't do anything. They were outnumbered and outsmarted, and they stopped taking the jobs."

She paused.

"The Empire stepped in. They sent several armies, but they couldn't navigate the mountain roads without getting cut off. The demons had the high ground. Flying mages didn't work, either. Not even the Empire's weird magic-crystal-backed army military could do anything. Demons are just that much better at magic than humans. By a lot. Everyone sat around and waited for a Hero to arrive, like a thousand years ago, but the demons stopped expanding once they secured everything down to the Komorebi River. They weren't interested in expanding any further."

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

She paused.

"Locals that didn't want to live under demon rule were sent to Icemarch. That was pretty much all of them. Then the demons sent out diplomats and negotiated to hire themselves out as mages. Demons can get incredibly good at magic, so it was a big deal. Opened up the door for proper diplomatic relations and everything, despite the recent rebeillion. At this point, aside from the Empire not officially recognizing them, and how young they are, they're as legitimate a country as any other."

"Where did you learn this in such detail?" Sophia said.

"The duke that 'owned' me wasn't careful about my hearing. I overheard a lot that I wasn't supposed to. I read a lot, too."

"Wait, that story can't be right. If I read something like that in a textbook at school I'd immediately see through it as propaganda. There's no way it went down that way. There's gotta be something missing. Did they do any pillaging? Random murder? Scorched earth? Why would you learn a version this clean from the Empire?" Blake said.

Riley responded.

"Well, the first few towns they captured, things didn't always go as planned, but there weren't any peasant casualties, and—"

"Wait, no, that's not a 'but'. Every death matters, even soldiers and mercenaries. Like, you can call them necessary or expected deaths, and yeah, sometimes you've got to do bad things to get on with life, but you can't just make them a 'but'."

"I don't know. I think it's like, just deserts, if you're helping hold up a messed up system. Anyone defending the Empire is as good as dead as far as I care, since the Empire's the whole reason slavery is everywhere."

"I'd never sign up for that job. Surely some of the people that died there were only there to help make ends meet. Like a lot of the kids I went to high school and how they joined the military so they could go to college."

"I know reality's probably more complicated than this. This is just what I've heard growing up. I don't believe it a hundred percent, especially not after seeing Sky Crest in person."

"Oh, I get where you're coming from now. Okay, reasonable doubt done. Thanks for the explainer." He paused. "Wait. Hold on a sec. Did you just pull a fast one on me? How were people supposed to know that the demons weren't going to do slavery? Is there a precedent for that...? Maybe they thought they were doing to do worse slavery! Why should they die then?"

"Uh... I don't know. I'm not old enough to know what people thought about it back during the rebellion. I'm just saying what it looked like from the stories I heard."

"Man..."

"Bartender! Three full Rye Grasswisps!" Riley said.

"Sure thing," the bartender said.

"Are you sure about this?" Sophia asked.

"What do you mean?" Riley said.

"I mean, the three of them..."

"I just want to forget."

"Oh, they're all for you. Carry on."

"I'm not letting Blake drink that much again. I know he can't handle what we drink here."

"I still think that's weird," Blake said. "I wasn't a competitive drinker or anything, if those exist, but where I'm from, I wasn't this bad with it. Not like it matters now."

"You pass out after two puppy's lights, every single time."

"I mean, I know that, but..."

"She's saying you don't really have a place to talk," Sophia said.

"Fine, fine, I'll drop it."

Over time, their conversation shifted to idle chatter, and then to jokes and jest, as Riley got more and more drunk. She was going on it hard. Three wasn't enough. She asked for more.

In the other corner of the pub, a tall man in a robe listened closely. Eavesdropping.

As the conversations went on, he nodded his head, scratched his chin, and sipped from a glass of flavored water.

Eventually, he got up and left.

Riley had reached the stage of mindless babble. Even she was not truly invincible.

"Oh, Blakey... Why aren't you... Instead of... Wait... No, I..."

"Carry you home?" he said. "Mmm. Yeah, at this point I guess it's my turn. Sleep tight, princess."

He slung her onto his back.

"Ehehe... Princess..."

----------------------------------------

"Blake! Wake up! Did I say anything weird last night?"

Riley sat on Blake's upper chest in complete panic, her tail as straight as a yardstick and her balance unstable.

"Ugh... Uh... Good morning. What's going on?"

"I'm so sorry you saw me like that! That's not me! Did I say anything weird? Did I do anything bad? I'm so sorry!"

"Hey, stop thrashing! No, you didn't do anything weird last night, you're doing something weird now!"

He rose, trying to get her off of him, but she just slid backwards onto his knees. Well, it was an improvement.

"I didn't? Oh, thank god. What a nightmare."

"Don't worry, it happens to everyone. Now off my bed!"

"Right! Sorry!"

She jumped off of his bed and into the middle of the inn room. She twiddled her fingers behind her back, awkwardly. Her tail was unreadable, and her ears kept twitching with nervous energy.

"Don't be so nervous. You just wanted to uh... Forget something, right? Well, mission accomplished if your memory's blacked out."

"Oh, I did?"

"Yeah, you gave me an exposition dump about Queensland and then started drinking like crazy."

"Ah... I must've..." She paused. "Sorry."

"Sorry for what?"

"Don't worry about it!" she said in a bright tone of voice, skipping out of the room.

Blake was amused. That was something, but he wasn't sure what. Oh well. He had better things to worry about, like money.