MT Chapter 10.5

At a dungeon town south of the capital church bells rang out. The streets were packed heavier than usual because the slave auction was underway. Humans, elves and gnomes couldn’t become slaves, only serfs. They were treated as the upper humanoids on this continent. That wasn’t true when the dwarves ruled. Since then many things have changed.

Most of the races for sale were orcs, beast folk and dwarves. To become a slave as these races they needed to commit a crime or fall so deeply into debt that they had no hope of paying it back then they’d be collared. Goblins, minotaurs and other monster type races had no such luxury and were controlled with slave brands. They were few and far between. Even still the high end type slaves were of different races created by smaller gods.

Nobles liked to collect rare races like pixies and giants and keep them as oddities. The only rare race would be fought over by the nobles of the town and most likely become a servant at the mansion to help show their wealth to visitors. In one of the dozen beast folk that were up for sale stood a tiny mouse folk. Almost everyone overlooked her. Almost.

A man stood in the back with a monocle of invasive scrying magic. A similar effect to an analyzing skill but the effects were far diminished only giving the class and one of the stats of the person. It showed her having a unique sage class and also having an intellect over four hundred.

The man tried his best to not draw attention to his need to buy her but many people would buy slaves here for other purposes besides having them as servants or using them as their mage. They buy them to have sex with them and a tiny meek mouse girl… Actually just her being female boosted her price up far higher than the man wanted to pay.

She looked at the man with anticipation as he put the blood onto the collar and the contract making himself her owner. More than half of beast folk are agility based with that in mind most wouldn’t think to look through to check for a mage. Mages weren’t rare but competent mages with a high tier class were… He wondered what she did to become a slave for a moment before he squashed that need out of his system.

He tossed her a cloak without saying a word and she put it on. He then tossed her a bag that had some useful supplies and took her to a room with other people inside. He quietly asked.

“What spells do you know and how useful can you be to us as a caster?”

She looked at him with fear in her eyes for the first time. No one should have known about her class, she had hoped to leave behind her past and start fresh after killing her master. The collar prevented it but there were ways around it. Dropping an object above his head while he slept wouldn’t trigger the protection clause on the collar. He said more firmly.

“What spells do you know? How can you be useful to our group?”

The slave collar burned around her neck at her insubordination. She refused to speak and the collar started to release that pressure.

“We got off on the wrong foot, young lady. I’m Burger. The big man in the corner is Booze. The gnome over there is Fries. The orc is Pike, like the fish not the weapon. The dwarf over there is Porter. I’d just like to know what’s your favorite food or drink?”

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A seaside town to the far east of the capital two people yelled across a large gap from buildings on stilts.

“I told you, you stupid fucking bitch! When my friends hear how you treated us we’ll be back with more of us.”

The group of men smirked at the cat beast folk waitress from the restaurant they were just kicked out of. She squinted her eyes before asking.

“Oh? What group are you a part of? You don’t look like anyone from the hook gang. Too fancily dressed to be part of any adventurer or mercenary group. If I were to guess the leader there is a lowborn noble and the rest of your group are his cronies. God you lowborns are the worst. All the pomp and belligerent attitude with none of the money to back it up.”

The lowborn sputtered utterly baffled by her correct assumption. He got his composure back together before asking with a smirk.

“Oh. How about you come over here and take your tip from me. I’ll give you more than the tip then my boys here can give you their tips.”

“That a promise?”

“Maybe we’ll come back over there and give our tips to the nice old lady as well.”

“And now you pissed me off.”

The cat waitress walked back inside leaving the group of men to think they had won the argument. A few seconds later the waitress came sprinting out of the building towards them clearing the thirty foot gap with ease before landing a swift kick into the groin of the leader.

“One tip collected.”

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A group of adventurers stood looking down into the boss room of the C tier dungeon. The group didn’t have to say a thing. It was six months ago that they came into this dungeon and fought against the boss. Months of prepping for the boss only to have their rogue be squashed against the wall to the first boulder the boss threw at him. This was their groups last chance before it would most likely fall apart.

The leader spent a large portion of her funds to buy the spot in this dungeon. The capital taxed ninety percent of the resources pulled from the dungeon but that didn’t put off many dungeon goers who were only there for the experience. Years of scrimping and saving coppers to afford this slot a few months earlier than they would have gotten it again waiting. She took in a deep breath.

She was a statuesque, beautiful woman which was a shock to everyone including her parents. Being born from a kappa demon and a frog beast folk she should have been ugly as all get out. Both parents were green, short and ugly and she wasn’t any of those things. Her pure white skin, dark black hair and piercing red eyes made her appear as a higher demon.

Even the things both of her parentage were known for were improved upon. The shell could be removed from her back and while it left her feeling unsafe she could use it comfortably as a shield. The extremely long tongue that would drag across the ground when used because of it’s extreme length was shortened but still strong enough to almost be used as another arm.

She slid down the rope first trying to be as sneaky as possible. The only downside to her body was her extreme weight and lack of stealth. If she was caught by the boss before she reached the bottom they would abort and wait until it lost interest, burning up valuable dungeon time but letting the group have the best chance of winning. Luckily this time the boss didn’t notice her.

The rest of their group made their way down leaving the rogue as the last. He whisper yelled.

“Hey! I just want you guys to know this isn’t personal. The blackswords group said you should have joined them when you had the chance!”

With that the rope ladder was pulled free and a glass of poison was thrown towards their healer.

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Victor woke up that day like normal. He had a busy day ahead of him. He had to go visit the mayor and request a scouting party to the south. It had been too long since any goblin scouts had shown up, something big must have been happening and they might need to prepare for a goblin stampede. He had to make sure the new guards weren’t slacking and check on three new villagers that moved in.

Besides that he had to do his normal daily routine as the village's sheriff. Victor was worried for the future of the village. He had tried to attempt to get the crowd to see reason but even after he thought he talked them down they still forced their future healer out of the village. Healers weren’t exactly rare but any that weren’t bound to the church were.

Requesting for a healer from the church would come with its own set of problems but no one listened to Victor. They would spread their influence here and a significant portion of the non-humans would be persecuted for their differing religious beliefs. Even the mayor forced the boy out to his death, most likely guided by his daughter.

The further you made it away from the capital the more people had to work in harmony to survive. Most people wouldn’t care that their blacksmith was a dwarf or the person who sells fish at a stall was a beast folk. That would surely change if the church would gain more authority here. Being married to an elf and having a half elf child skewed him towards not wanting the church to get involved. After checking on the new recruits and doing a few smaller tasks a guard ran up to him.

“Sir! We have someone at the south gate asking for you.”

Without saying anything Victor headed towards the gate. He hoped it was one of the hunters who worked on the outskirts of the village to provide meat. They would have enough stores to make it through the winter but it was always better to have a good stockpile just in case it went long. A good size bear would help alleviate some of that burden.

As he opened the door he couldn’t help but be shocked by who appeared before him. No, it didn’t really make sense, this person should be dead. With a weary voice he asked.

“That you Kai?”

The boy had dramatically changed. In just a month or two the boy had put on thirty pounds of muscle and a few inches of height. His bare chest shown healing scars which made no sense. Healers couldn’t heal themselves and every second that past led him further to believe this person was a doppelganger or changeling and not the original Kai.

“Yea. I’m back from my test. Just wanted to make sure someone higher up was around before I shown off my new tame.”

He let out a loud whistle getting the attention of the guards on the walls beside the gate and yelled.

“The goblin that’s about to show up is my tame. If you fire an arrow at her I won’t be able to stop her from fucking you up and if you manage to kill her I’ll spend the rest of my life getting stronger so I can come back and murder you.”

A few seconds later the bushes began to shake along the treeline and a goblin girl popped out. Once again the thought that this person wasn’t a person crossed his mind. She slowly approached staring at Kai until her eyes fell on Victor. The defensive posture she had faded as she cooed questioningly at his sight. She took a few steps towards him before Kai slapped her on the back of the head knocking her out of her stare down.

“You can’t go fucking every good looking man we come across Aki. Chirp krimp kkrmhf eee eee ahh.”

He spoke the last part in the same way a goblin would and the goblin chirped back sliding in one or two human words in every sentence before she grabbed him by the arm and bit him. Victor’s hand went onto his sword before Kai grabbed her arm and bit her back. He let out a sigh as his shoulders slumped and he was suddenly covered in a beam of light that appeared out of nowhere.

His arm visibly healed as he stood still. He sighed again in relief this time before saying.

“Alright, can we get the tests over with to prove I’m still human then I’ll fill you in on what has happened to me in the past two months.”