The second time, the salesman was back sooner. This time, he brought a set of folders instead of people. “We have eight,” he stated. “Five male, three female, including that one. How many do you want?”

Andarit frowned. “Go over their skills with me, but if they meet the general criteria, I can make eight work. Depending on price, of course.”

Serenity left her to the negotiations. He didn’t really care about the price; tiny monster cores were easy to get. He wouldn’t be able to come away with tons of them once the Tutorial was over, but the exchange rate was so severely in his favor that it simply didn’t matter. It was a good thing Andarit was taking care of it; his lack of caring about the local currency meant that he was likely to be noticeable, and that was exactly what they didn’t want.

Actually, that brought something to mind. Why were they kidnapping people? They clearly didn’t consider it all that risky, but it couldn’t be all that rewarding, either. Not when they could simply collect some monster cores, even in the Tutorial. A normal instructor couldn’t walk away with the kind of rewards that Serenity was, but they could collect some. Most didn’t bother, because the cores were common enough that Tier Three and Four people had better things to do with their time.

On top of that, the resources they were using to fool the Voice were unlikely to be cheap.

No, this seemed like a money-losing proposition, so why were they doing it? What was special about these people that made them worth the risk and cost? And if there was something special about them, why were they simply being sold as slaves for less than they cost to acquire?

A hand touched Serenity’s arm and he looked up. It was Andarit. “You’ll need to take possession of the slave marks. We’ve agreed on a price.”

Serenity nodded. It was something they’d discussed when they set the whole thing up. The “reason” Andarit was there with her new bodyguard was so that the bodyguard could “own” her slaves, because her father wouldn’t let her. They weren’t going to explain that to anyone; it was better if they let people come up with their own explanation.

Duke Lowpeak had proposed it, and he’d had to explain that to Serenity.

“What do I need to do?” Serenity was more than a little bothered by the idea that he’d be taking ownership of slaves, however briefly, but he’d done worse things in the past. Far worse. Even if he hadn’t done them as Serenity.

Serenity could tell that six of the eight slaves were from Earth. They all shared that same touch of familiarity with Death, but now that he had several in front of him, Serenity knew that wasn’t the only reason he knew they were from Earth. They felt like they’d been touched by Gaia, though he couldn’t say why or how he knew. Something to investigate later; it was probably connected to Worlds’ Friend somehow, but Serenity wasn’t certain how. Either that or it was a gift from Gaia.

Wherever it came from, it was useful under these circumstances.

The salesman smiled benevolently at Serenity. “Take this token and push your mana into it. It’s already primed and linked to the slave brand. When you’re ready to make the bond permanent, press it against your skin and push more mana into it. Some people do that here, but most people take slaves using the temporary tokens. Don’t lose or break the token until you’ve bound the mark; if you do, you will have to come back for a replacement token. They aren’t cheap, because that requires re-marking the slave. If you want to sell the slave after you’ve accepted the permanent mark, you will need to come back for it to be transferred onto a new temporary token; that is only a nominal fee. The reason to make the bond permanent, other than the chance of losing the token, is that in order to use the commands built into the bond, it must be permanently affixed or you must hold the token.”

Serenity just stared at the salesman. He’d clearly given the spiel before, but Serenity hoped he had it written down somewhere. For now, though, all he needed to know was two things: He could “take ownership” of a “prepared token” by pushing mana into it, and breaking the token would free the slave.

At least they didn’t make him sign anything.

Serenity pushed his mana into the eight tokens; they glowed slightly, then dimmed back to what they’d been before. “Is that everything?”

Andarit nodded. “Yes, we can head out now. I’ve asked the salesman to keep an eye out for more slaves that match my criteria; we’ll have to come back to see what he’s found.”

“Perhaps at that auction?” Serenity doubted there would be earthlings at the auction, but it wouldn’t hurt to check.

“Yes, the auction would be a good time to check in,” the salesman confirmed. “I can hold any slaves that meet your criteria for that long.”

Serenity nodded but didn’t say anything. That response meant one of three things. The salesman could be lying and simply intend to sell whatever he could, he could be on commission, or Andarit could have overpaid. All three options were plausible, and it was even possible that they were all part of the truth.

The eight slaves, still dressed in the cheap gray coveralls, followed Serenity and Andarit as they followed the salesman out of the building. It wasn’t until they were a block away, where they’d originally dismounted the flyer, that Andarit turned to Serenity. “How are we going to get them to the house? They won’t fit in the flyer. I guess we could do several trips? But I’d really rather not have it be publicly known that I’m bringing slaves to my father, that could … ugh.”

“We just need to get to a nice deserted area, an alley or something,” Serenity suggested. “I can create a portal into your house, it’s not warded against it.” Now that he said that, Serenity wanted to scold himself. The house wasn’t warded at all; he really should fix that once they were back. He’d need some materials to do it properly; a full ritual warding would be far better than the weak alarm spells he could manage on his own. A ritual would let him draw on ambient mana instead of simply precharging it, as well.

“You’re a -” was as far as Andarit made it before she was interrupted by a strange choked cry.

As they were talking, one of the slaves from Earth took advantage of their apparent distraction and tried to run. He made it all of twenty feet before he collapsed, shaking in weakness and pain. It had to be an effect of the slave-bonded tokens, and it also had to be the reason none of the slaves were in chains. Serenity hadn’t really noticed that until now.

The other slaves were watching the one who’d tried to run. Serenity shook his head, then spoke in English. “Go ahead and help him up and bring him back. Trying to run here isn’t safe. We can’t talk on the street; let’s get somewhere safe, first.”

Serenity was already expecting the next thing that would happen: one of them was going to try to jump him. Possibly more than one. They’d beat him up, maybe take the tokens if they knew about them. He’d try to forestall that, but doubted it would work.

Once the shaking man was back on his feet and headed towards the rest of them, Serenity started. “Come on, follow me. We’ll get this all sorted out and get you home as soon as we can.”

The attack came shortly after they entered the alley. It came a little later than Serenity had expected; he’d expected one of the slaves to attack early, while still easily visible from the outside, but they hadn’t. Instead, Serenity was hit from behind by the full weight of a man at exactly the time he’d have chosen for an ambush.

Naturally, Serenity was prepared for it. The impact rocked Serenity forward; while he was stronger than his assailant, mass still mattered. He let himself fall forward, moving one leg out to arrest the fall in a forward-leaning crouch while his arms went up, grabbed the man and pulled him forward, over Serenity’s head. The slave was flung out in front of Serenity and landed hard.

Serenity had a moment to realize that it was one of the two slaves who weren’t from Earth. He really would have to figure out how to communicate with them, but first he had to stop them from attacking him. An experienced slaveholder could probably do it with the tokens, but even if he knew how to do that, Serenity would prefer not to.

Not that his preference really mattered, since he didn’t actually know how. He could guess, but know? No. And he wasn’t going to experiment on people.

So he’d just have to do this the other way and hope the Duke had access to a healer. Perhaps one of the slaves would even turn out to have some healing ability.It was unlikely, mages were far more common than healers, but it was entirely possible.

A second attacker ran at Serenity. Serenity shook his head as he waited; had the man done no physical training? Tackling a higher-Tier opponent wasn’t going to do much good, especially not when the higher-Tier opponent was trained in unarmed fighting and you weren’t.

Serenity rose a little from his crouch, then moved at the right time to spin the man around, putting him off balance and past Serenity without stopping his momentum. The man crashed to the ground next to the first attacker.

Huh. This was one of the men from Earth. The big guy who kind of looked like a football player. He’d picked a good time to attack, even if he’d badly underestimated Serenity. On top of that, his class was a Mage-type or he wouldn’t be here. Maybe there was more to him than muscles.

Most of the other slaves were simply watching, but there were two more that seemed to be thinking about attacking. Foolish of them; they’d have had a better chance of winning if they’d attacked as a group. Of course, it was for the best that they hadn’t, because Serenity might have needed to hurt them more than simply being thrown into the ground. He’d had enough of this; while he could understand wanting to be free, he wasn’t willing to put up with more attacks.

Serenity already had his aura covering the group, so he released a bit of his irritation into it, then followed that up with infusing it with his Incarnate. They’d only sense the irritation if they were capable of feeling others’ emotions, but anyone could sense his Incarnate if he pushed enough out there. He’d tested it. It wasn’t harmful unless he wanted it to be, but it would get their attention.

“That’s enough. Stop.” English would get through to most of them, but hopefully his aura would do the rest.

Everyone else in the alley froze, including Andarit. Oops.

Serenity pulled his aura back close to his skin, before making sure his Incarnate wasn’t flooding it anymore. There were reasons not to depend too much on aura, and it looked like he’d run into another one.