<~> Chapter 184The further south we traveled iy the more beastfolk I began to see among the crowd, and the more sves as well... Eventually we began to see more beastfolk than humans and roughly one in two beastfolk were wearing colrs.

  "Tch, looks like they're blog off roads. We're going to have to walk through the market to get there," Cecilia said grimly.

  Up ahead of us, barricades were blog off the alleyways and some of the roads. The occasional Tamin priest or padin walked by, patrolling the edge of the slums and f everyohrough a checkpoint so they could keep an eye on everyone who came a. The beastfolk and even more of the sves teo give them a wide berth, most knew better than to get anywhere he Tamin adherents.

  Eventually we followed the crowd te open-air market and one look at it made my stomach turn. Sure, there were plenty of other goods at this market, carpets, spices, ons, and everything else, but it was obvious what the most promi good this market sold was. Sves.

  Nearby was a rge gaudy building that was immediately reizable as the capital branch of the Sver's Guild. There was a rge doorway from the building right into the market where many of the 'lower value' sves were presented in cages that sat on lifted ptforms above the crowd. The sves were and tidy and wearing those thifits I had seen ba Traehall. It was clear the fight had beeen out of most of them. Some of them stared off into spad just stood there as the crowd talked around them. A few were dang to ehe crowd, these oeo have scars or disfigurements that made them less desirable despite their pliant behavior. They were heavily marked down in price, some as low as a few dozen silver. There were even a handful of obviously resistant sves, covered in bruises and marks and colred as crime sves. They cursed those around them through their gagged mouths and tried to sm their bodies against the bars impotently.

  There were hundreds of them in these cages being dispyed to the crowd, sometimes begging to be purchased. Hundreds of low value sves, this wasn't even ting how many more must be in the fancy fortress of a building that loomed over the market. Bel took my hand to try and distract me from the twisted sight. I could tell through the bond that I was the one most affected by this picture. Raya and Sibyl were also disgusted... but not to the same extent that I was. To them this was somewhat normal.

  "Let's hurry through here," Bel spoke aloud.

  Cecilia didn't say anything, just cleared a path through the market. A majority of the people around us were weaker than anyone in roup, both the sves and the people bidding orailing my eyes over the people, there were even some sves bidding on other sves. Most of the crowd parted for us, somehow intuiting how much stronger we were than them. Even the pushy salesmen hawking their wares backed off a us pass without engaging us the moment they saw the look on Cecilia's face.

  With the afternoon crowd, it took more than a bell to make it to the other side of the huge market. The sves on au only started to thin out withi ten or so minutes as we reached the edge of the bazaar. I had to avert my eyes away from all of them in the cages. There were too many. I couldn't help them all. Even if I spent all my money pulling them off the au blod freeing them, what was I supposed to do with them? I wouldn't have even made a dent in the number of people here and only enced the practice with my money. After walking past them for almost aire bell I realized that my iimate was wrong, there were thousands of sves out here. That's just the ones at au right now, just how much of the popution here were sves?

  I had been took actually seeing this to uand how big this industry was here. The sve colrs they all wore enforced their servitude and made it so that they could have a rger portion of their poputiohis way. The colrs reduced the risk of a sve rebellion dramatically and even if the sve popution was higher than the free popution, most of them wouldn't even be able to pick up a o alone rebel with it.

  "We're almost there," Cecilia eventually said. "I haven't been to this p a long time. It's not the safest part of town but it's not like most people would be able to fight any of us anyway."

  Now that we were oher side of the market there were predominantly beastfolk and demi-beastfolk here. The number of sves had lightened up siderably but there were obviously sves here too. They were just owned by other beastfolk in this part of town. The idea almost disgusted me more, despite the beastfolk being discriminated against, the free ones owned sves here too. It didn't take long to notice a pattern, the beastfolk following other beastfolk were almost always of other tribes. There were mice following cats, a cougar followed a deer, two bears were following a tiger. Only rarely did you see a beastfolk sve following another of the same type.

  I was broken out of my observations when we walked up to a three-story building called 'The Hungry Hippo,' the name was so familiar and ridiculous that it even got a ugh out of me despite my awful mood. The building looked older than some of those around it, predominantly made of stoh wood ats. Like a lot of the architecture here, most of the building was made from one solid tinuous sb of stone created using magic. It was iing to see that much of the 'low css' housing was made of sturdy stone using magid the 'high css' buildings were made from hand-shaped wood. It was a reverse of tastes pared to my old world where most houses were made from wood and only ercial buildings and expensive brutalist homes were made from crete. I suppose something like quarried marble would be more expehaher but I suspect marble doesn't have the same luster here as something artisanally created.

  Cecilia opehe door and all of us filed into the lobby. There weren't many people hanging around in here right now and the only staff person here at all was a middle-aged demi-beastfolk that sat behind the desk. She had long bck hair tied behind her in a loose ponytail with bck cat ears stig out the top. Her eyes were a bright red that shined in the dim light. Around her neck was a ade from dark metal with thin blue lihe woman looked like the spitting image of Man if she grew a couple more feet and decided to grow her hair out.

  Whewins followed in after me the woman sat up in shock. "Man? Torien?"

  Man froze in pd gasped. "Aunt Lorriene?" She bolted over to the older woman and crashed intiving the woman a big hug.

  The woman worriedly sed the rest of us but when no one objected, she ed her arms around the younger pantharian. "Man? How did you get here? I heard the two of you were headed to the frontier."

  Torien walked toward her more casually but she had a big smile on her face. "Aunt Lori! I didn't think we would find you here. What are you doing in the capital?"

  She looked dumbstruck, lookiweewo sisters. "I... my master purchased this ily and I'm the ohat takes care of it with some of his other servants." Lorriene looked down at the two of them, her eyes traveling across their adventuring maid-uniforms. "The two of you are adventuring servants? Is one of these dies your new mistress?" She asked as her eyes skimmed across the six of us.

  "Ah! Aunt Lorriene! I want you to meet Lilith!" Man ran over and pulled me over by an arm, her exuberance made me ugh.

  "Lilith..." Lorriene murmured my name under her breath before looking over at one of the people behi struck me as odd so I gnced over my shoulder and saw that she was looking right at Silva for some reason.

  "Aunt Lorriehis is Lilith my... mistress." She gave me a ed look before turning bad tinuing. "Uh, we met her in Traehall and did a duogether! Afterward she said she was going to free the two of us but heh, seems she didn't know about us pantharians. Anyway, she bought us anyway and we've been traveling with her!"

  The woman smiled warmly at me. "Looks like you've been taking good care of my nieces." She turned baan. "Did you get the kind of mistress you were looking for?" she asked her quietly.

  Man's face turned bright red and she nodded. "Y-yes um. Lilith, Bel, and Mimi over there are my um... girlfriends."

  Lorriene's eyebrows rose as she looked back over to us. "Oh... A harem... iing..."

  Man chuckled awkwardly. "Yeah... it's... different. But I'm happy! Lilith's been super good to me and Torien. Oh! And guess what! I'm not the only one who got a girlfriend while we were out. Torien hooked up with that sexy rabbitfolk over there with the big muscles."

  "Mo- Mori! Don't just go blurting things out like that!" It was Torien's turn to ght red with embarrassment.

  "Oh? I didn't know you were into girls like your sister," Lorriene said letting go of Man and pulling Torien into a hug.

  Torieed into the hug, looking more rexed than I'd ever seen her. "Yeah... I didn't know till retly either..."

  "We shouldn't talk about these things out in the open with so many of the Tamin bigots around town," Silva ented.

  Lorriene hugged Torien close and looked over her shoulder right at Silva. Unlike when she was looking at me and my girlfriends the look she gave Silva was... frosty to say the least.

  A moment ter she let go of Torien and smiled down at her. "I'm gd you're doiorien. I always worry about you, you know."

  "I know Aunt Lori," Torien said with a grin.

  The older demi-beastfolk let go of her nied looked at me. "So, did you and yroup need a pce to stay? You look more well off than someone who would o stay here but I'm aware the Tamin church is pushing all of the beastkin to the southern quarter right now. ...Family retions aside, I'm afraid I'm not allowed to give any dists."

  I smiled at her. "That's alright, how much would it be for three rooms?"

  "Fifteen silver for the three but uh..." She looked over at Silva. "The rules say crime sves aren't allowed to be left in a room unsupervised. She'll o stay with someohat isn't wearing a colr."

  I sighed and looked over my group. Cecilia raised her hand. "I wouldn't mind rooming with Silva and Torien." She gestured at Raya and Sibyl. "I would like to spend some time with those two at some point though."

  "Right," I said with a nod. "We'll rotate a bit then I guess. For now, Raya and Sibyl will get a room to themselves."

  Sibyl raised an eyebrow. "You're not making us pay our own way?" she asked.

  I ughed. "Don't worry Sibyl. We're family, I don't mind paying for your room while we're here. We'll talk a bit more about what our pns are but I o run some errands tomorrow and figure out how long we're going to be staying here. Oh and ugh, I have to meet with that guard captain tomorrow as well."

  "Why are you meeting him? If you don't mind me asking of course." Lorriene asked.

  "Probably something to do with hunting demons I'd bet." I waved at my group. "They let us into town because we're demon hunters, I'm not even sure they would have let us in at all if not for that."

  She looked bewildered. "Uh, you all are demon hunters?"

  Torien sighed. "Yeah, the two of us, Lilith, and Bel over there were outside of a demon dungeon during a dungeon break. Ever since we've been ed up in it. We just came from Goldeh and helped clear out their castle."

  Lorriene cleared her throat. "Uh, right. It sounds like the two of you have been really busy sihe st time we've talked. We should talk ter if your mistress allows it." She gave me a meaningful gnce.

  "I don't mind if the three of you catch up but I would prefer if you didn't call me their mistress, legally true or not. Just call me Lilith."

  Saine

  Hello! Enter a new character! Bet you weren't expeg that! For those ied, her name is pronounced Lor - ree - enn, simir to Tor - ree -enn and Mor - ree - genn. I feel like the twins' names probably aren't being pronounced incorrectly but based on the spelling I think that Lorriene's might at first gnce. I'm excited to see how you end up liking her, she's a bst to write. Hope you enjoyed reading!

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