"What about the other prisoners?" I asked, pointing to the ten prisoners that either lay around staring blankly into space or watched us with idle curiosity. "Some of them do not look like they'd be willing to come with us. And the old woman in the corner probably wouldn't be able to keep up."

"There's only one I'd be willing to bring along with us. The middle-aged man with the long black hair and shaggy beard to your left. He looks like he has had some military training and should provide some information to us," said Uncle Finneus.

I took a second to observe the other occupants within the cage, since all of my attention had been on Uncle Finneus and then on George, Zara, and the group of clients. It occurred to me as I looked at the prisoners that I had not seen any of them move, nor had they talked to either of us.

"Is there something wrong with them?" I asked aloud.

"Ahh, you finally noticed," said Uncle Finneus. "This is something you may not have seen before, but as you'll come to learn, most kidnapped people, especially if they are going to be trafficked, are drugged in some capacity. While they didn't do anything to you, they did shoot me up with 'Dream Bark.' It's a pretty strong depressant with some small hallucinogenic properties. I guess that they keep these people on a constant drip to keep them helpless and so passive they are unable to think for themselves."

I nodded my head at Uncle Finneus's response. Such a thing made sense. If I was trying to move a large number of people without running into too many issues, that would be the best option. Better to drug them up or keep them in stasis than deal with the potential noise and violence of having them chained or tied up. "Uncle Finneus, if this is the normal operating procedure for the trafficking syndicate, why wasn’t Gabriela or any of the other prisoners we rescued, either drugged up or placed under some kind of magical stasis?"

Uncle Finneus stood up while I talked and began walking over to each of the prisoners. He wrapped an arm around their neck upon which they would collapse. Doing so, he pinched their carotid artery, shutting off blood flow to the brain. The survival response to such a decrease in blood flow is for the body to conserve energy. And the fastest way to conserve energy is to shut down brain function in its entirety. He was in the middle of knocking out a skinny middle-aged man when he replied to my question, "Well, Bartholomew. Why don't you take a moment and think about the scenario you're asking about? Use your situation right now as a foundation for your argument. Why weren't you drugged after you were kidnapped?"

I thought about it for a second but was unable to come up with anything but the obvious. "Because George wanted to gloat at me?" I asked.

Uncle Finneus grabbed the man he had pointed out earlier and effortlessly threw him over his shoulder. Mind you, he was still in the form of the small boy, so it was a weird visual, to see such a small boy, holding an adult male in such a relaxed manner. Uncle Finneus shook his head at me. "Child, I asked you to think not say things we both know are incorrect. The man, while he was down here, mentioned that you would be sold. He brought potential customers to look at you. Would it have made sense for him to drug you if he was showing him off to customers?"

"I mean I guess not," I said, "But that still doesn’t explain why Gabriela wasn’t drugged, it's not like she was going to be sold, or at least we don’t know if she was or not."

“She had already been separated from her magic at the time. Did you not see the collar around her neck when we saved her? She was no longer a threat, but a trained wizard is a high-value product. Think of the amount of money they could have made off of her just for her magic alone, not even including the information she had picked up through the Magic Society. Potential clients need to see high-quality goods without drugs. Low-quality goods which I and these other prisoners were considered do not need to be sober to be bought. Does that make sense to you? Now if you would be so kind, heat the metal on those two bars.” Said Uncle Finneus, pointing to the two middle bars that faced the doorway that George and the party had left through.

I didn’t have much to say in response to Uncle Finneus’s explanation. Afterall what was there to say in the face of such indecent behavior? I mentally tossed away such thoughts and focused on escape. Walking over to the bars, I grabbed each with a hand and then called the fire. The heat spread out from my hand, and soon most of the two bars were glowing gold. I glanced over at Uncle Finneus to see if he wanted me to do something more, but instead, he showed me out of the way. With the drugged-up man still on his shoulder, the little boy walked up to the bars. He angled parallel with cage bars, then kicked one of the bars I had heated. The bar bent out of shape from the force of the kick, creating a large gap where there had only been a small one. He moved into the opposite side and kicked the other bar creating a gap, big enough for us to slip through.

I went first, brushing against the hot metal and feeling happy that the clothes I was wearing were magically reinforced. Uncle Finneus handed me the man through the bars. I found the man to be far heavier than I thought. Uncle Finneus followed after and took the man from me as I struggled to keep the body off the ground. Uncle Finneus lifted the body like it was nothing then headed towards the door he had pointed out earlier. I hurried after him and moved past the boy so I could open the door, which I found to be unlocked. A brightly lit tunnel appeared before us, just as my uncle had hypothesized.

Uncle Finneus walked past me as I was gaping, “Come along Bartholomew. We still have a long way home, and I want to send some letters tonight before everyone is asleep. We have many things to prepare if we want to have a chance of bringing down this organization.”

“Fair enough,” I muttered and hurried to catch up with my enigmatic uncle.

After two hours of walking through the tunnels and sewers, we arrived back at the house on Golden Trout Lane. I had the stench of the sewer all over me, while Uncle Finneus seemed as though he could walk through the stomach of a live dragon and come out the other side looking and smelling like he had just stepped out of a mountain spring shower. It was unfair, to say the least.

So, while he carried our newly made unsober friend to the study to get rid of the effects of the drug the man had been shot up with, I went to shower and change my clothes. The hot water against my skin felt glorious, as it removed the filth and muck of the sewers. It was not all fine and good however as thoughts of what I had just learned and experienced rolled around in my head. When the heat produced by my body kept the water from reaching me because it was so hot, I gave up on the shower. Dressing, I went to go see how Uncle Finneus was doing with the prisoner.

When I entered the room, Uncle Finneus who was kneeling over the body of the prisoner, turned and waved me over. “Ahh, nephew your just in time. Come here and give me a hand with him. He’s sobering up, which is making him more difficult to handle. Come hold him down so I can give him this last shot.” He said holding up a syringe filled with a foul-looking purple fluid.

“Ok,” I said walking over.

I grabbed the man’s arms and pressed him down onto the couch Uncle Finneus had placed him, while the man feebly struggled against me. I looked at the syringe and raised an eyebrow towards my uncle, who in case the reader was wondering, had returned to his original appearance once we were in the house. “Uncle Finneus that looks more like a poison, than something that could help him. Mother always said, that if it looks rotten, it probably is. No offense, but that looks rotten.”

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Uncle Finneus laughed and stabbed the man with the syringe directly into the left side of his sternum. “Well, Bartholomew. It looks like poison because that's what it is.” He said as he pushed the plunger, sending the substance directly into the man’s heart.

Uncle Finneus stood up with a satisfied look on his face, “Bartholomew, make sure to hold him down well. Once the poison has a chance to circulate through his body, his struggling is going to become far fiercer than what it is now.”

“Ok, but what exactly did you inject him with?” I asked, bracing myself in preparation for what was to come.

Even though Uncle Finneus had warned me, the first buck almost sent me crashing into the wall. “Ugh, could you give me a hand?” I asked through clenched teeth.

The man’s limbs moved at a hundred miles an hour as he thrashed around, making it seem like he had grown more arms. A fist came out of seemingly nowhere smacking me in the jaw and knocking me backwards. As I was reeling backward, Uncle Finneus stepped forward, lifted the man into a sitting position, and then sent a resounding slap into the man’s brain stem. The man instantly went limb, while Uncle Finneus shook his head in regret, “It works faster when the body is metabolically active, but it should be fine even if he is unconscious. It’s not like it wasn’t already working or anything.”

“What was that stuff you injected him with,” I asked for a second time as I tried to catch my breath.

Uncle Finneus waved a hand dismissing my concern, “Just something of my own concoction. It’s a poison of sorts, not deadly or anything. Think of it more like something that tricks a body into believing that it’s about to die. It forces the body to significantly increase its filtration rate while not activating significant autoimmune responses. Unless this man is a severe alcoholic or is at high risk of heart failure, my ‘poison’ will be harmless. And the man is neither.”

“How could you tell that? He hasn’t been cognizant the entire time we’ve known him.” I asked, looking at the man and trying to see if I could tell anything from the unconscious figure.

“Ahh, that’s rather simple nephew, if you know what you’re looking for of course. There would be signs if the man is unable to filter out the poisons or has a weak heart. For a bad filtration system, you look for yellow in the eyes, acne rashes across the face, yellowing of the skin, excessive redness in the palms, trouble breathing, and coating on the tongue. For a poor heart, you just look for clubbing of the fingers, redness of the skin is not caused by sunburn, irregular heartbeat, and excessive swelling on the feet and legs. This man has none of those things. Which means there should not be an immediate risk to him dying.” Uncle Finneus explained.

I nodded, then shook my head, “I understand what you’re saying uncle, but surely this isn’t true 100% of the time. Couldn’t he have a problem and not be showing it? I was reading this one book...”

I stopped talking when I heard a groan. Turning I saw the man who had been at the center of our discussion sitting up on the couch and rubbing his face with his hands.

“There are always signs nephew, no matter how hard you try to hide or run away from them, there are always signs which do not change. What does change is our ability to not only perceive those signs but to recognize what those signs are trying to tell us. But let’s table this discussion for later, it appears that our guest would like to ask some questions.”

“Yeah, where exactly am I would be a good place to start.” Said the man still seated on the couch.

“Ahh, of course. Where were my manners” Uncle Finneus offered the man a smile and a courtly bow “My name is Finneus Burgeon, and this is my nephew Bartholomew. It just so happened that we shared a cage together for a few minutes and decided to bring you along back to our home. Might I ask what your name if?”

The man looked confused, “Cage? I wasn’t in a cage. Wait, maybe.” Our guest grabbed his head and rubbed his temples. “Sorry, I’m feeling a bit frustrated and scared. My name is Lawrence. Lawrence Gibbee. I’m a mercenary based out of the kingdom of Rotege. I was there preparing for an assignment. And then I was. And then I was. I don’t know. And then I was here, I guess. I thought elves live in the forest. Wait you said Burgeon, there’s a famous elf in Glueburn by that name.”

I walked over to Uncle Finneus and murmured, “Do all men from the Kingdom of Rotege talk like this?”

The man had a clear accent, far lighter than the normal conversation of the people of Glueburn. It was like he was speaking from the front of his mouth, while all the people from Glueburn spoke from the back.

“Yes child, it is their domestic accent.” Murmured Uncle Finneus back.

He clapped his hands together and said aloud. “Well as I mentioned, we rescued you from the inside of a cage, you were drugged pretty heavily and were going to be sold by a trafficking organization. I’m hoping you might be able to tell me about this assignment of yours. I’ll let you know that I am investigating an organization that I believe is trafficking thousands of people every month. They are selling these people off to the highest bidder, whether it be noblemen looking for the perfect toy, servants to fill out their staff, or even countries hoping to buy free labor for their monarch's many projects. You were in such a cage when we freed you, to be sold at an auction at some point in the near future. I’m hoping that the mission you were going on will be able to shed some light onto not only how you were captured, but what the organization I’m investigating is a part of.”

"Well, I can’t really remember much. My company and I were supposed to gather at a Baldor stable which is near Talga, the capital city of Rotege. We were meeting a rich merchant client there and would be escorting him and his caravan to the border city of Troy."

Uncle Finneus hummed and rubbed his chin. "I haven’t been in the merchant business in a while, but it is unusual for the owner of a caravan to be traveling with it. Do you know why that was happening?"

Lawrence shook his head, "No, I’m just a private within the company. I joined last year, so it's not like I’m quite trusted yet or anything. But yeah, this was the first time I’d seen the owner traveling with the caravan. He was hands-on too. He even came over and talked to me. Asking about what other kind of work I’ve done and if I liked my boss. Jacob, the leader of the company, is a huge prick, but it’s not like I could tell the truth to the client. I gave him the thumbs up and told him some of the more dangerous battle stories I’d been a part of. He seemed suitably impressed and left after tipping me a gold coin. That’s a month’s pay." Lawrence had gotten excited as he kept talking, but after mentioning the coin, his face fell. "Not that it matters since it's gone. Everything is. My sword, my spear, my armor, I had over 6 gold's worth of gear."

Uncle Finneus had a small smile as he shook his head. "Lawrence, can you think back to what the last thing you remember is? I need to know how it happened. How did you go from working a mercenary job to being drugged up in a cage, ready to be sold?"

Lawrence did not seem pleased with the question and glared at my uncle. "That’s what I’ve been saying," he said. "I don’t fucking remember. The last thing I remember is the owner of the caravan, uh, he introduced himself as Gilbert, I remember him waving to me and that was it. I don’t remember anything else. Nothing. So quit asking."

Uncle Finneus eyed the man seriously, then leaped toward him. Lawrence brought a hand up to block and tried to stand up from the couch. Uncle Finneus disregarded the hand, and without apparent effort, grabbed the man by the neck and pulled him close, eyeing him intently. Lawrence brought his forearm down to remove the grip Uncle Finneus had on his neck. The first swing did nothing, Lawrence tried a second then a third, and then a fourth time, yet was unable to break the grip of Uncle Finneus. Giving up on that approach, Lawrence swung a fist at Uncle Finneus. Uncle Finneus blinked as if he had been pulled out of a trance, dodged the first attack, and then slapped Lawrence in the face.

"Calm down, child. I am not trying to hurt you. There’s been a spell placed on you; I was studying it. Why were you attacking me?" said Uncle Finneus, releasing Lawrence and walking over to pick up a pencil and paper.

"You’re asking me why I attacked you when you ran over here and grabbed my neck?" asked the man incredulously as he rubbed his neck.

I sighed and decided to move the conversation forward, "What now, Uncle Finneus? Given you said we have a limited time before they start moving pieces either to disappear or attack, shouldn’t we be spending our time on something else?"

Uncle Finneus, who was busy scribbling away on his piece of paper, ignored me. While Lawrence looked at me as if I was something less than dirt. "Finneus, grab your coat; we need to go out. Lawrence, I’m going to send a message to a mage friend; he and his wife will be coming over. They should be able to release you from that memory spell. I’ve written a few questions on this piece of paper I want you to answer after you regain your memory. I don’t need an essay answering every question, but try to be as detailed as possible; any and all information may be vital. If you’re unable to write everything, just relay your information verbally to the Mage Gabriela; she will be able to relay it to me."

I walked to the front door and grabbed my overcoat when Uncle Finneus shouted after me, "Bartholomew, if you wouldn’t mind, go into my study and grab the shovel that is right behind the door."

I shrugged and walked into his study. Sure enough, a shovel was stashed behind his door. I grabbed it and walked back out, promising myself I would ask Uncle Finneus why he kept a shovel in his study at a later date. For now, I carried the thing to the front door and waited for him. It wasn’t long before he was walking over with a large black briefcase in one hand and a shovel in the other while giving last-minute instructions to the stranger we would be leaving in the house as he went. The door was opened, closed, then locked, and we were once again walking down the street to an unknown destination. This time at least, I was holding a shovel over my shoulder, for whatever that was worth.