I needed people I could trust with the middle management or I'd go crazy. Especially I needed someone smart enough to run my projects and trustworthy enough to not sell my secrets to the highest bidder. After talking to Nanna, she asked me what I thought about the inn maid I've met.

Arwia was a seventeen-year-old girl, sold as a debt slave by her father two years ago to the innkeeper. As any men do with the female slaves that strike their fancy, he took Arwia's chastity and attempted regularly to impregnate her. Yes, let's write it like this so I don't have to commit too many expletives to the digital paper.

The older sister of six, her mother died in childbirth seven years ago. Up until then, she was the lynchpin of the family, keeping her husband's gambling habits in check and managing the family's meager finances and the children's education exemplary. After she was gone, the husband went into an ever-descending spiral, spending more than he could earn, selling their possessions, and getting deeper and deeper into debt. The loan sharks stopped giving him any more money and they started to attempt to collect their due. What did he do? He sold his eldest daughter to a certain innkeeper.

Nanna was friends with the innkeeper's wife and she told me that the woman disliked the girl. The truth was that she feared being replaced. Arwia suffered under the wife during the day and suffered under the husband during the night.

She learned how to read, write, and do the math from her mother, a jewel hidden in the night-soil-swamp that were the slums. And now I was going to make her mine. Not really mine but I'd offer the innkeeper something he couldn't refuse.

Maybe I'd even play the role of a mafia boss. And if the innkeeper doesn't like it, he can go... attempt to impregnate himself.

We reached the inn and entered, leaving Penny outside. The place doesn't even have a door. That might be the reason they cut off thieves' hands. The punishment must be harsh or everyone would be one. Anyway, I remembered locks and postponed that project. I promised I'd do it today but I'm too damn busy. The inn was almost deserted. There are not too many patrons. I honestly think the location is bad. To get travelers, the inn should be in the north-south axis of the town, where the merchant wagons go through. It didn't take long for Arwia to find us.

"Miss, welcome. Madam Nanna, too. What can I get you?"

I was divided between asking for some dark ale or joking that I wanted her but Nanna went before I could make my mind.

"Call the mistress. I want to talk to her."

The girl went pale and dashed into the kitchen. I think I did right in associating myself with the witch. She could even stay as a freeloader, I wouldn't mind. Nanna is invaluable as my guide in this weird world. If I only could convice her to wear a tuxedo and a top hat... While I digressed, the maid returned with the innkeeper's wife.

"Nanna! What a pleasure to have you in my inn. And who is the lady by your side! Welcome, welcome. Please have a seat. Girl, bring us some drinks."

We took a table in the otherwise empty taproom.

"Nice to meat you. I'm Sandra Rinaldi," I introduced myself and extended a hand to her.

"Oh, miss Rinaldi! I heard about you, you are the talk of the town! What an honor to have the miss in my humble inn. You even rested for a night here, didn't you? Oh, where are my manners? I'm Tiazi."

"Well met, Tiazi," I answered.

I was the talk of the town? Oh, well. I did cause a few ripples here and there. I could even imagine Brandon raising his blonde eyebrow and staring at me, asking back 'a few?'. And I'd blush. Then we would find a grassy field, and...

I stopped my wet delusions to see that Nanna was staring at me and so was the innkeeper's wife.

"So, as I was saying, what brings such an esteemed lady to my inn?" Tiazi asked.

I calmed myself and went straight to the point. "If you allow me to be blunt, I am here to buy Arwia. I need her to help me."

The silence that followed my declaration was broken by pewter mugs dropping on the floorboards and spilling ale all over Nanna and the innkeeper's wife's skirts.

Tiazi looked at me, "Three silver mina and she's yours."

I showed her one finger, "She only has one year left in her. One."

"Two. The lady is very rich. Please."

"Deal!" I tossed her the two huge silver coins. "Nanna is our witness."

We looked at her. Arwia was frozen. "Me? Lady Rinaldi wants me?"

"Cleanup this mess, girl," Tiazi shouted.

She stood up and raised a hand to hit her. I held her wrist. "You better not hit my people," I warned her.

I moved past Tiazi and held the stunned Arwia by the shoulders.

Nanna was cackling. "Let them go, Tiazi. You got three times the girl's worth."

Who knows how the witch's sense of humor works. I was pushing Arwia in the direction of the front door, Tiazi was regretting selling Arwia before she could clean her parting gift, Nanna was catching her breath when the door was blocked by the innkeeper.

"Oh, great. We have guests. Welcome," He said and glanced over us at his wife picking up the tray and the mugs from the floor. He saw Arwia in front of me and anger took over his face. "Why aren't you cleaning the floor, you bar wench? Do I have to hit..."

He raised his hand and I swapped places with Arwia, expecting to be hit. Nanna said two short words that resounded in the whole inn. Something invisible slammed the innkeeper and he flew two meters back and out of the inn, falling on the street cobblestones.

"You stupid moron," The witch cursed. "Stop right now or the horse will kick you!"

I focused on our bond to stop Penny from making innkeeeper pureé. I glanced over my shoulder, Nanna was standing up and moving toward us. I regarded her as a force of nature. I just waited for something to happen while restraining my newest hire from escaping. Not for a lack of trying.

"It is fine, Arwia. I'll protect you," I told her. "Just stay near me."

The innkeeper recovered his wits and was standing up, "What in the abyss happened here? Was it you, woman? Why are you holding my maid?"

He glowered at me. I'd learned my lesson at the caravanserai. People pay much more attention to you when you flaunt wealth. Sometimes it is good, sometimes it is bad. Seldom very good but often very bad. So I fiddled with my ruby and gold necklace.

"Your wife sold me Arwia. Now if you step aside, we can go on our way. Please?"

"Tia, did you sell Arwia? On whose authority, woman? Undo this business right now."

Nanna reached us. She raised her eyes until she could look at the innkeeper's face. "Step aside or I'll give you another concussive blast. And I won't hold back this time, scum."

A man this szie flew back two meters and she was holding back? Is that what the gods consider lesser magic? More importantly, could I use it too? Would Nanna teach me? I could wear a pointy hat, no problem. It'd be halloween every day. Instead of a piss-poor living health-code-violation renaissance fair I was stuck in. Dream on, Sandra.

But the witch was far from done. "But now that you are here, hurry up and go fetch the girl's contract. It now belongs to lady Rinaldi. And I bet you know what happened to the last four merchants that dared to cross her."

He looked around and found his wife. The woman was glaring daggers at him. I didn't like the last line she said but whatever allowed me to get away from here with my employee without bloodshed would be fine.

Yeah, look at me. A week in another world and I was already considering bloodshed as a viable outcome. I was afraid of what a month would do.

"Mister, your wife has the money I paid for her," I added. "Get the contract and we will be on our way." And nobody gets hurt. Not.

"Just go, you big oaf!" The wife had a pewter mug in her hand. If the lead poisoning doesn't kill you...

Arwia was shaking like a bamboo shoot in a storm. I didn't resist and hugged her. The innkeeper walked in and we sidestepped to avoid bumping into him. He returned with a small scroll. Nanna took it, looked at the contents, and finally pushed us past the threshold.

Outside, the girl finally spoke, "Why me?" She was on the verge of tears.

"I need you to organize my employees," I answered. "Pay wages, listen do complaints, settle disputes. I also have nine children in need of tutoring. Nanna told me you are good with children."

She basically raised her siblings.

"Nanna," I continued. "Stay here with Arwia and Penny. I'm going to give the innkeeper some saving grace."

I go inside. The innkeeeper and the wife are having an argument in the kitchen. I barge in and they both stop to loook at me.

"Would you take on a commission for me? I need you to prepare me for dinner for fifty people today. I'll pay two gold shekels, ingredients included if you do."

A pint of their ale sells for two bronze chips. A bowl of stew with bread sells for one copper shekel. If a patron eats and drinks six pints, they'd need to serve over four hundred patrons to make a single gold shekel.

I can feel the gears in the Tiazi's head cranking. She opens up a wide smile. "For that price, we'll serve the ale too. I know where you are living, leave it to us. We'll load the tankards of our best ale on a cart and meet you there once we buy everything in the market."

I give her a gold shekel. She hides it in her cleavage. "I see you there then."

Before I returned home, I had two stops. The first one was the central marketplace, to buy as much tallow and lard I could. The second was the glassblower. There I ordered a big convex lens. I'd have to return later for glassware, but the lens would be a good icebreaker. In the road home, I noticed the increaed wagon traffic. One of the wagons coming back empty was from the smithy. I recognized one of the apprentices.

I entered through the gates. The feeling that everything was a dream increased. The guards bowing as I walked past them. A real witch on my side. A scared girl trying to find out her place on the other side. Everything happened so fast I couldn't believe. We went around the two-story sandstone building and into the back. One of the guards ran ahead to give the warning.

After a few minutes, I assembled everyone in the backyard. Except the guards manning the gate, eveyrone was gathered. A barrel and some crates served as a dais for my speech. I looked around. Belle-Sunu, Arwia, Nanna, Aristunn, the other eunuchs, the guards from the three merchants. Hama-Tula's children, the other slaves that came with the house. The others that came from the caravanserai. All of them waitng for me to say something.

I thought about the week I've spent here. I changed. A lot. I woke up in that forest, watched powerless the caravan's demise. Got penny, met Nanna. Got tangled up in Hama-Tula's web. Back on Earth, I was a follower. Now I am a leader. I have around fifty people here, eagerly waiting to hear what I have to say. What changed? What motivated this change? Was this what Lord Acton was warning against? Was I becoming some corrupt entity because I had power?

I touched the necklace, played with the gold strands. Decompose would allow me to make things against which this necklace would be a mere trinket. I was stabbed in the heart and survived. Who wouldn't change given superpowers? I was afraid. Except for Nanna, every person there was my slave. I was a certified slave merchant. I bought and sold people. Worse, in the environment I was, it was considered normal. The usual backlash society would deliver upon me did not happen.

Why do we refrain from committing crimes? Isn't it because of the law? Because we fear punishment? Would a common person have the moral fiber to act righteously and remain true to her principles if nobody was watching? In zombie movies, people turn to looting. Some of them even leave money behind on a counter that will never be manned again. Who am I? What kind of monster is wearing Sandra's skin right now?

I don't know. I was just a dedicated student back on Earth. Here, I became someone else. Roleplaying. I'll erode and vanish, getting reborn differently. But I made everyone wait for too long. I turned to GoPro on and told Aristunn to go around pointing it at the slaves and at me. We still had sunlight but in an hour and a half or so, it would be gone. I had a hunch the days had a different length here.

As my trusted bodyguard went around recording the scene, with uneasy steps, I climbed the crates and stood up on the barrel. It didn't wobble because it was filled with water.

"Attention, please," I start my speech. "I know you have lots of questions and I don't even know your names yet, but we'll fix it with time. First, thank all of you for being here. You had the choice of going away on a caravan, of being set free but you chose to be here. I'm thankful. I'm going to say a lot of strange things and I guess I'll need to repeat some of them later but I want you to repeat one thing with me. Each one of you here is important to me. Please, let's do this team-building exercise. Repeat, 'I am important'. Because it is not a lie."

Nanna cackles. The laughter of the witch makes everyone uneasy and silent. Then she catches her breath and says. "I am important, there you go." And resumes her laughter. "Good grief!" She mumbles.

I am beet red. I thought and thought of what to say and the first thing I do is met with laughter. Maybe it is better than flying vegetables.

Some of the slaves mumble. One of the women from the caravanserai claps her hand. "The first day with a new master and you are already disobeying her orders? I'll say it. I am important."

Her words triggered the kind of reaction I deserved, but not the one I needed. They mumbled and repeated, and I could see the cognitive dissonance stamped in their faces. It was a start.

"Now, let me tell you something about me. I am not from this world," I continued. But the word for 'world' and 'people' were the same. So I had to embellish and explain a little more. "I am not from this world, this land here. I am from a place far away up there, among the stars. Another land like this, floating around another sun. I come from beyond the sky. I lived in my world until I almost died. Tarhun brought me here to live in this land."

Disbelief, awe, religious fervor. I didn't use the tablet on them but I was sure it would buzz stronger. Some of them started to talk among themselves again.

"And in the world I lived, things were very different. The laws were different. We didn't have slaves. Not for a long time. We had but we found out that slavery was bad. There were other differences too but I'll talk about them later. Now, I am going to tell you something..."

One of the guards came and I had to stop my speech to hear.

"There is a couple at the gates saying they came to cook dinner."

The innkeeper. I pointed to Belle-Sunu. "Belle, go there and show them the way to the kitchen. Stay there to oversee them. You are in charge."

The young freckled girl ran back to the gate with the guard. I continued my speech. I explained how I found the caravan, met Nanna, got tangled with Hama-Tula, the judicial trial by water, the three merchants and then reaching today. A busy week.

"As long as you are willing to stay here and work here, there will be no punishments. If you give your best, I'll pay you a wage. We will have several tasks to do. And if any of you want to leave, I still have the writ of release and the branding iron. I want you to stay here because you want to, not because you are slaves. If you decide to stay, maybe, maybe, we can build a better life for ourselves.

"I brought Arwia here so she can teach the children the letters and numbers. If you want to learn, we can arrange a time for that too. Today, we will feast. I brought an innkeeper to cook for us. And there will be some rules."

I explained to them they were forbidden from eating with dirty hands. I bought some ash soap in the market, it was terrible. Greasy, ashen. Guaranteed to put stains in all the wrong places and destroy any white. But that was what we had for now. I had some guards put a set of trays on a table and showed them how to lather and rinse the hands. The last tray would have to be replaced with every washing. Then I made everyone line up and clean their hands. I gasped at how dirty the water came out. Some of them had terrible fingernails. I clipped their fingernails. Most slaves refused to let me because it was beneath a slave master.

I was not a slave master. I bought and sold people, that was true. But I gave them a choice. I told to myself that trimming their fingernails was part of my atonement. I didn't dislike doing that. So maybe just a bit. Maybe.

I miss home, where my biggest moral dilemma was why my advisor was secretly a mad cultist-murderer.

I asked for some names. I hope my memory perk works. Some asked about the GoPro. Some asked about life among the stars. A few that heard the story, asked about if I was really stabbed in the heart. I promised to show them proof. I wanted that convex lens so bad. With it, I could project an image from my computer on a big screen. Here's wishing a good job for the glassblower. We changed the water of the trays. They found washing hands a new experience. Most of the slaves were from a raid in another city-state.

The young girls from the slave market tried to play with Hama-Tula's children but they didn't want to mingle. I'd let them on their own unless some kind of bullying happened.

The night was falling and it was finally time to eat. The innkeeper never did the stew on the same day as it was served. The meat was softened through one day or two of simmering. They sold me the stew for today and tomorrow. They returned to the inn and would be back for their kegs, tankards, and tableware later.

I separated a keg of ale for the guards that would be on night duty. Everyone else ate and drank to their hearts' content.

Night fell and they lit some torches. The party went on until they finished all the food and drink the innkeeper brought.

I retrieved the GoPro and went to my room to sleep. One week. So many changes.