Chapter 84: Chapter 76 – Hive of Scum and Villainy

"The greatest criminals are never the ones who break the rules and do as they please, oh no. The greatest criminals are the ones who worked within the rules and abused it to their advantage in every turn. The truly great ones among these would even do it in a way that made them beloved by their people. Many emperors or kings are examples of these." - Words attributed to the Silver Maiden, veracity undetermined.

 

The rest of the group's stay in Gtou'rergh was relatively uneventful, and they left on the seventh day as scheduled. Scaemille had escorted them back to the shores of Al-Shan where they bid each other fond farewells.

 

Another couple of days was spent on the island, as they group fetched Vark and his family, and made their farewell to Xain and Layla, as well as others they had grown closer to in the time they spent there. Cal gave Xain another hug before they parted, and she spotted Aideen whispering with Layla for reasons she had not cared to learn.

 

They made their way back to Paradise through the gates, where they actually picked up two extra members, Salicia and her wife Grünhildr, both of whom were more familiar with their next destination. Grünhildr was a tall, bulky woman, who many would have easily mistaken as a man, with visible scars on her face and limbs.

 

She had learned of the students from Salicia's stories, and quickly introduced herself to them. Much like her wife, she too was an unliving, mostly human with some visible orcish and dwarvish lineage, which likely contributed to her bulky musculature. Her skin had a slight tan, while her dark brown hair was mostly unkept, bound up roughly in a ponytail that reached below her shoulders.

 

Cal was not that surprised about the other woman's scars. Amongst mercenaries or those of dwarven descent it was not uncommon to keep scars like they were medals of pride and honor. Grünhildr ticked both of those boxes at the same time. Much like Salicia she too was mediocre as best for a mage, though her Void affinity made her "mediocre" into something quite lethal.

 

The group then went on through the gate that lead them to Levain, where Vark, Krystal, and Ilena bid them farewell as they would not be joining the next part of the trip. Cal herself was a bit curious about their next destination, a city-state in the union that Aideen had suggested they bring their students to. In her words, to show them the darker side of the world.

 

Sev-Galas, their next destination, was located roughly four days away from Levain by carriage, and with the return trip accounted for they would have around a week to stay there before the students' holidays ended. Aideen chartered an express carriage for the group, a larger one that easily accomodated the group of eight comfortably, and naturally declined the mercenaries who offered to escort them for the journey.

 

Since journey by carriage was definitely on the boring side, the group burned their time as they chatted with one another. Grünhildr and Salicia mentioned that they had met when both were mercenaries who fought in the turmoil that followed Paradise's founding in Northwestern Alcidea. They mentioned that their becoming unliving together was probably dumb luck, but neither elaborated on the matter.

 

Aideen mentioned that the Governor of Sev-Galas was an old acquaintance of hers, and theirs too, which made the city a good study case for the students. Many in the union disparaged Sev-Galas as a "Hive of Scum and Villainy", or as the "City of Sin", monikers that the city wore proudly on its sleeve instead.

 

It was a city where drugs, slavery, and deathfights were all legalized, and where prostitution and gambling thrived. A well-known retreat for less savory underworld types, and where many criminals made their base legally. Each member of the union had the right to handle their internal laws on their own, so calls for censure had fallen to deaf ears.

 

Despite its horrible reputation, Sev-Galas remained a very popular retreat for the wealthy, both the legitimate and unlegitimate types. It was a city where mortal enemies might meet in a pub and ended up sharing drugs and companions willingly, and none would blink and eye. As they say, what happened in Sev-Galas, stayed at Sev-Galas.

 

Two days passed uneventfully as the group journeyed by carriage, the monotony only somewhat broken up when they camped for the night. During the nights, Cal and Aideen made sure to have the students keep up their training, and Grünhildr happily helped with their training. The muscular woman was no blood mage, but six centuries of experience was far beyond what the young students could handle.

 

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Grünhildr dual-wielded a pair of short halberds, and used their many points to easily deflect and unbalance the students before she punished them with a whack from the shaft. With Aideen around injuries were of no concern even if the students were not mostly blood mages, and they all had portable baths with them, which helped keep the carriage from stinking up.

 

On their third day, in the afternoon, just shortly before they would have entered territory demarcated as Sev-Galas land, a group of bandits on horseback - roughly twenty five in number - accosted the carriage. They demanded coins and valuables as toll for passage, and the sighing driver had just went down to inform his passengers when he was greeted by eight pairs of eager eyes.

 

The group was bored after three days in the carriage, and just on time, some bandits came to offer themselves.

 

What the bandits found was not the toll of valuables they usually received - they were smart enough only to prey upon poorly guarded carriages -, but eight bored and eager heavily armed people who viewed them as nothing more than some stress relief.

 

Aideen went for the three bandits who she assumed were their leader and vice leaders, as in her words, none of the others were any good at live capture. Cal told her students to hit the sides of the bandit group while she and Grünhildr followed behind Aideen. Salicia covered them from behind.

 

What violence ensued was not worthy of being called a "fight", as it was closer to a one-sided beatdown of a massacre instead. It took barely five minutes before the once feared bandit group was reduced to corpses, other than their best up leaders who Aideen deftly tied up to their horses. They gathered the other horses that survived as well, and tied them to the rear of the carriage. The driver was both awed by what his passengers just did, and brightened considerably when Aideen casually tossed him a small pouch of coins as bonus "hazard pay".

 

They went on with the trip, a trail of horses behind their carriage. The remains of the bandits, they had burned - Leila's magic proved very useful there -, other than some things that had value and their heads for identification, which they brought along.

 

Four of the bandits were left as unidentifiable messes, one had his head splattered by Ognar's hammer, another burned to charcoal by Leila, while the other two literally got run over by Willa. Her spiked armor and mass coupled with the charge left only a mess behind, and the wolf-therian had spent a good hour scrubbing herself and her armor clean after the battle.

 

They reached a small guard fort that belonged to Sev-Galas the next morning, where they offloaded the horses and the captives to the appreciative guards. Aideen undid her little work of magic as the three bandits were dismounted, and all three men wet themselves explosively at the same time. She had fused their urethra shut over the past day so the group would not have been bothered by their needs.

 

Most of the guards just laughed out loud at their one unfortunate compatriot who got splashed by the urine, and they handed the group a comprehensive list of the items, captives, and horses they handed in, stamped by the commander's seal, for them to turn in when they reached Sev-Galas proper.

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