Chapter 69: DD3 Chapter 015 – The Marketplace

Eliza answered the door to see a frustratingly spritely Xan beaming down upon her. The inquisitor’s tag read as that of a level 38 warrior and at a glance, it appeared that she was maintaining the overly cheerful facade that went along with her disguise. The bard could never tell how much of the other woman’s positivity was part of the act—Xan always seemed to be in a good mood around her. Even when the inquisitor claimed to be irritated by one of Eliza’s many failings there was usually an undercurrent of good cheer beneath her scathing criticisms.

Considering exactly how much she’d seen Xan drink last night in the spirit of ‘blending in,’ Eliza struggled to believe that the smile was real. But if she was really being honest with herself, Eliza struggled to believe that anyone who knew about the true extent of her complicity in Riyoul’s crimes could ever be so pleased to see her. Suspiciously absent hangovers aside, the cheerful inquisitor barged into Eliza’s room with a bundle of tattered leather tucked under one arm.

“Get dressed, I found our man,” Xan grinned.

“I am dressed,” Eliza tapped.

“Not in this,” the inquisitor said, shoving what turned out to be a ragged suit of stained leather armour into Eliza’s chest.

“Is this real blood?” the bard asked.

“Are you sure you want me to answer that? Now enough tapping. Put it on.”

They stared at each other in silence for a long moment—Eliza holding her costume while Xan ignored the fact that she was still standing in the bard’s bedroom. The awkwardness rose and Eliza dearly wished that she could clear her throat. Eventually, she settled for a questioning eyebrow.

“I’ll give you your privacy then, but don’t forget to wash off the make-up—or failing that, make it look several days old. As much as I appreciate a nice red lip, you’re not supposed to look pretty for this,” the inquisitor stated. 

Her piece said, Xan stepped back into the hall, and Eliza quickly closed the door. With the inquisitor out of sight, she pressed her back against the hardwood and listened to the other woman chuckle while she walked away from the bard's room and moved down the stairs. Ignoring the bloodstained outfit that she was destined to wear over her clothes, Eliza raised a hand to her mouth and tried not to think the words.

She likes my lipstick.

It shouldn’t have meant anything. It probably didn’t. It was almost certainly a throwaway comment meant to soften the blow that she’d wasted half an hour putting her face on. Yet, Eliza still found herself with a smile almost as broad as the one the inquisitor had treated her to.

Fuck.

Then she frowned, her dismay overcoming her optimism. The flirting that seemed to come hand in hand with the inquisitor's attention was nice, but it seemed foolish to encourage it when Eliza didn’t know if she was even capable of being in a relationship, let alone anything physically intimate. After Riyoul, she was hesitant of being touched platonically and she’d never wanted more than that.

Could that ever be enough for someone else?

She didn’t think so. Relationships were not something she could let herself fantasise about, least of all with someone like Xan. The inquisitor was an ancient creature, more classer than human, and whatever she saw in Eliza would surely pass once she grew bored.

Trying not to think any more on the subject, the bard sighed—consigning herself to the discomfort of wearing what was certain to be ill-fitting leather armour stained in someone else's blood.

It fit her like a glove, and Eliza couldn’t decide if that was worse than the chafing she’d been prepared to endure for her country.

When she was ready, she climbed down the stairs of the Amorous Beagle, the inn where they’d both been staying for some time. Eliza’s slow descent didn’t go unnoticed, and it wasn’t just her charisma score that earned her numerous stares. The bloodstained armour that Xan had provided would have been well-made if not for both the numerous and obvious stab holes that covered the legs, arms, and torso. 

Eliza was dressed like someone who had been stabbed to death. Repeatedly.

Unfortunately, she wasn’t in a position to question the inquisitor’s plan. In their dubious partnership, Eliza was decidedly the junior to Xan in all things related to espionage. While the bard thought that the ruined armour was overkill, she was about to risk her life on her ability to play the victim and whoever had been wearing the tattered leather when it gained several new holes had certainly been the victim of several sharp somethings. 

Already, she hated this plan. Eliza had promised herself that she was done pretending to be less than she was, but it was a role that she knew well and the stakes were high. The gang who had gotten their hands on what they were calling the ‘Capstone Solution’ had been unable to give up their source. Not for a lack of trying—Xan had certainly seen to that—but ability. Their only lead was that the solution was being distributed by the upper echelons of Helion’s criminal underworld, the very same people who ran the increasingly infamous Experience Markets.

Eliza found her erstwhile partner sitting at their usual table enjoying a hearty breakfast of some fell-beast or another—an expensive choice considering the ever-rising price of meat. Thanks to the sudden increase of classed farmers surrounding Helion, the price of grains and vegetables had actually gone down despite the massive growth of the city’s population. The same could not be said for meat, which was unlikely to be affected by the newly classed farmers until their levels started to outstrip those of the animals they farmed. 

Xan was also drinking a large mug of frothing ale, which again was unusual for breakfast.

“It’s for the effect. It needs to be genuine,” she said, responding to Eliza’s questioning look.

“You sure you’re not just trying the hair of the dog?” the bard asked.

“If only… I have to travel far and drink a lot to even get a light buzz these days…” the inquisitor sighed.

“You could have fooled me.”

“Fooling you isn’t the point, dear Eliza. It's the rest of Creation I sometimes have trouble with,” Xan said, momentarily maudlin before her good cheer reasserted itself. “You look good in the armour. After this is over we should actually get you a set.”

“No breakfast for me?” she asked instead, determined to ignore the compliment while the other woman ate uninterrupted. 

“You can if you want, but you’re probably going to vomit it up. Which isn’t a bad thing, it will lend to the believability of your character. I just don’t think we need to go that far.”

Xan’s words have her pause, but in the end the rumbling of her stomach overrode any caution and the bard ordered an equally large breakfast much to the inquisitor’s obvious amusement.

***

They eventually departed the Amorous Beagle for Helion’s busy streets. For all of Xan’s enthusiasm to start the day, she was not an early riser, and it was approaching midday before they joined the hustle and bustle of the city. 

The roads were filled to capacity, and it was only by following close in Xan’s wake that Eliza felt like she had the space to breathe. Eastern accents from Padia and Agrovia were just the latest additions to the din. Their voices subtly altered the sound of the city almost as much as the nonhuman throats that had come before them. Everywhere she went, nonhumans’ spat out intelligible words in a depth and breadth of pitches that would have made her head spin a few years ago.

This late in the morning, there wasn’t enough space for people to give the nonhumans the wide berth they’d likely prefer, and out of necessity they mingled. It was a surreal experience, worming your way through the crows to come face to face—or mid-thigh to face—with a well-dressed goblin, or a ratling patrol clad in thick runic steel. It reminded Eliza of the camps outside of Rhelea, but even then and on the long march to Helion they had been separated by the luxury of personal space. 

There was none of that here. Instead, while there was certainly fear—especially in the eyes of the new arrivals—by and large people dealt with it. A silver drachma handed to you by a warg spent the same as one given by a human, and the powers that be frowned heavily on any discrimination when it came to the spending of coin. Eliza understood enough about commerce to know that several shocks were currently running through the local economy, and she was decidedly glad that dealing with them wasn’t her problem.

They continued to travel through busy thoroughfares until they passed into the heart of the mercantile district where the streets grew noticeably quieter. The prices displayed in windows grew ever larger and the shopfronts grander and better spaced out. When they came to their intended street, Eliza couldn’t help but crane her head. Each building was a veritable chapel to the church of coin, far more impressive than the handful of temples they’d passed in the city. While there were no noble classers walking alongside them on the road, the few people who did all bore the marks of wealth and prestige. 

While fear was just a distant memory for Eliza, she did find herself growing concerned. When Xan had told her the plan she had initially expected to find herself taken into Helion’s seedy underbelly, and in a way she was—she just hadn’t expected crime to look so upstanding on the surface. She was prepared to deal with violent thugs, but wealth on this scale had its own more respectable enforcers, the kind she had far less experience navigating.

They ducked into an immaculate alleyway beside Westhorn’s Menagerie, a well-known mercantile company that provided exotic pets to the wealthy and also dabbled in providing wild beasts for the ludicrously wealthy to kill—For all intents and purposes, they were the original Experience Markets before the demand had far outstripped supply. Typh’s decision to take the vast majority of the noble population hostage should have put a large dent in the institution's coffers. While there was enough old money to keep the business limping along until their eventual release, she was surprised to see the store flourishing with a steady flow of well-dressed classers coming and going from its main entrance.

“This is the place?” Eliza asked.

“Sort of. Westhorns is deeply involved in the markets, although they do most of their business elsewhere. There are other offices and buildings throughout the city where people are delivered and stored, but it's here where the majority of the actual selling is done.

“This is also your last chance to back out,” Xan warned, producing a slender knife in her hands.

“I’m not backing out, but can’t we get away with an illusion or a glamour?”

“No. Both of those can be detected and dispelled, either of which would get you killed. The real thing is unpleasant, but there’s no better way.”

“Fine. But are you sure it’s necessary at all? Can’t you just stroll in and use your charisma on them until they spit out the name of the smuggler?”

“I only do that to people I intend to kill, and as distasteful as this operation is, we're leaving Westhorns intact—we’re only here for the Capstone Solution. Leave the markets for the dragon to deal with. We’ve gotten lucky that they’re being relatively decent in their approach, so they’re not a priority.”

“Decent? They’re selling people to be murdered for experience.”

“Yes they are,” Xan shrugged. “but they’re not sending out slavers in the dead of the night, or stealing people from their homes. They’re only buying those who are sold to them, which makes them a cut above their competitors in terms of morality.”

Eliza hesitated. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. The experience markets were evil, unmitigatedly so, but were they really inevitable? Was it remotely acceptable to leave them intact for fear that what came next could be worse?

“I can do this by myself, Eliza. There’s no shame in sitting this one out,” Xan offered, jolting her out of her thoughts.

“No. I want to do it. I just have issues being cut… it brings back bad memories,” she tapped and Xan only chuckled. 

“Relax, this is mostly for me,” she said, before pricking her finger. “Now open up, I don’t want to risk losing you in there.”

Xan gestured for Eliza to open her mouth and when she did, the inquisitor smoothly stepped forwards, invading the bard’s personal space in a way that wasn’t quite uncomfortable. The older woman placed one open hand behind Eliza’s neck and using her thumb and forefinger, she squeezed a single drop of blood onto the bard’s waiting tongue. It should have been disgusting, but it wasn’t. Instead, from the way Xan cradled her head, it felt intimate. 

The inquisitor held her for longer than was strictly necessary, and Eliza didn’t hate it.

How she wished she could say more than that.

“What exactly are your classes?” Eliza asked, staring into the eyes of the woman whose face was so very close to hers.

“Never you mind. Now hold still.”

Xan took a step back and was still. Or at least, she took a step back and then moved far faster than the bard could see. Suddenly where the gaps in Eliza’s loaned armour had once revealed her clothing underneath, now there was nought but bare skin. She felt chilly and exposed. She was also keenly aware that she was standing alone in an alley with a woman who’d never been shy about making her desires known.

Again, she wished for her body to have some reaction besides gooseflesh.

“Are you ready for the hard part?” Xan asked.

Eliza nodded, too nervous to speak.

“Good, now this will hurt and for that I’m sorry.”

And then Eliza was on her side, sprawled out on the surprisingly clean cobblestones while everything slowly spun around her. She felt a hand make a rough fist in her hair and she was dimly aware of being dragged around the back of Westhorns Menagerie. 

She tried to stand, but couldn’t—tried to speak, but knew that she shouldn’t. The familiarity of the unpleasant experience dredged up half-faded memories. Her old flat’s floor superimposed itself against her cheek in vivid multi-sensory clarity while the accompanying self-recriminations and self-hatreds ran rampant through her mind. The old voices that told her this was now her purpose in life—her just punishment for her many crimes—came back into focus, no quieter for their prolonged absence.

More than that, Eliza was dismayed to realise that the wounds she’d thought she had left behind were only one punch away. The skin around her left eye started to sting, and by the time she was dragged through the back door of the shop, it had swollen shut.

She cried on the varnished floorboards she’d been tossed onto. Trying to ignore the persistent link in her life between intimacy and violence. She knew it wasn’t real this time, that she’d harried Xan to let her help, that she’d consented to being struck, but now that it had happened she realised that she’d just brought her old traumas into her new relationship.

A conversation was happening around her, one voice raised with alarm while another was calm and collected—Xan’s. With the throbbing of her face it was hard to even think, let alone hear, but she pushed through the burgeoning pain by relying on her skills. [Troubadour’s Ear] was shakier than it once was, but hearing a conversation in the same room as her remained well within its capabilities.

“For someone so concerned with causing a scene you should stop yelling. I came in through the back door,” Xan explained.

“You can’t just bring a person into my shop in broad daylight! What if you were seen!” the shopkeeper yelled.

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“Relax, I told her we had business in this quarter. I only hit her once we were practically outside the door. No one saw us.

“I suppose that’s better than nothing. But you really shouldn’t be here—”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before, but this is the right place? Coin for levels? She’s got 42 of them sitting in her useless chest, and after all she’s cost me I want something back for my trouble.”

“That depends, do you have a referral? Or do I have to fetch a guard from the front?”

“Keep your hair on,” Xan said, and Eliza heard her retrieve something from a pocket. The sound of crumpled paper against skin was repeated as it was handed over, and just like that the conversation resumed. “Are we good, old man?”

“We’re good. Now, onto business,” the shopkeeper answered. Eliza could practically hear the man grin. “I can offer you 4 gold talents and 2 silver drachma for a bard of such level.”

“Goblinshit, I know you charge more than twice that for classers half her level!”

“Nonhumans maybe. Humans are worth less. Many of my higher paying clients are squeamish about taking their levels from the Gods’ chosen people.”

“Yeah, and we both know that some of your highest paying clients are the exact opposite and only take humans.”

There was a pregnant pause and Eliza heard the man shift. His leather shoes scuffed against the varnished word while elsewhere in the shop someone called for him. Garlin, an interesting name for someone who trades in sapient flesh.

“Can she fight? I have warriors and the like who claim to get a better absorption efficiency if she can put up a decent effort,” Garlin asked.

“Not worth her salt. All of her skills are tied up in her broken voice—healer bodged the repair—unless you hand her an instrument or fork out the cash for a complete throat reconstruction she’s harmless,” Xan lied.

“Well then, Arena fights are out as well. I can put her up at the next auction, you’ll probably get more, but it's a bit of a wait. If you’re after a quick payday then I’d suggest you take your four talents and change.”

Another pause—this time it was Xan pretending to think about it. The auction was what they were here for, although Eliza didn’t like the sound of a ‘bit of a wait’. 

“Do it. Auction her off to the highest bidder. See if I care,” the inquisitor spat.

“Very well, I’ll see it done. We can discuss the details while she’s being processed, but until then is there anything you’d like to say to your former party mate? The next time you’ll see her, she’ll be on stage.”

“Yeah…” Eliza was roughly rolled onto her back, and for the first time since entering the Westhorns, she saw something other than clean floorboards. Xan was crouched over her, a firm hand holding her jaw in place while the shopkeep loomed above them both with a look of cold disapproval. 

“Remember why you're here, bard. I expect to see a good show when they put you on stage.” 

Xan’s smile was cruel and not for the first time Eliza found herself amazed by how good of an actor the inquisitor was. Still, even with her head yet to clear from the blow, she knew that the words were important.

A stage. They’re giving me a stage. For some reason she found that incredibly funny.

Eliza opened her mouth to laugh… and puked all over herself instead. Maybe she should have skipped breakfast after all. 

***

Garlin took her down into the basement where she was quickly handed off to a team of disturbingly professional staff. They stripped, washed, and mercifully had her checked out by a healer before she was dressed again. She wasn’t sure if the plain shift they clothed her in was meant to be provocative or utilitarian, but she could tell from how they had neglected to give her a bra that a man was ultimately responsible for this part of the organisation’s cruelties.

The tight-lipped staff were rough, but not excessively so, and when they were done, one of them fetched a guard who led her through what turned out to be a large underground complex, large enough to rival the large building above. She glimpsed well-decorated halls with carpeted floors before she was taken into the narrower staff corridors that likely ran parallel to the ones she’d briefly seen. 

Eliza did her best to memorise the layout of where she walked, using every memorisation trick that Xan had taught her. Having been freshly healed, she’d thought it would have been easy, but lacking the inquisitor's impressive mental attribute scores she knew that she fell far short of the idealised total-recall. Still, what she did see was impressive in a perversely organised sense. 

The first subterranean floor primarily consisted of servants' quarters: bedrooms, living spaces, kitchens and the like. The second was mostly stables and storerooms where true to the business's name a collection of large magical beasts were kept. 

The third floor was where the inhumanity set in. 

Holding cells and—most concerning of all—operating rooms dominated this level. Eliza tried not to look while she was led through the narrow halls that were more often than not lined with cages. With her skills however, it was impossible not to hear the sobs, and closing her eyes just made it worse. With so much audible misery, her brain had no trouble putting together a convincing picture that was far more detailed than what she could see with her eyes. 

She knew instantly that she was going to have nightmares about the third floor of Westhorns, just as sure as she knew that if she opened her mouth and sang she could break them all out. 

That was hard not to do. She wanted to promise that she’d come back for them, but that wasn’t the plan. She wanted to believe that their suffering was the lesser evil, but she simply didn’t. Evil was evil, and Eliza didn’t want to be complicit in anyone else’s crimes.

Before she could do anything stupid that would jeopardise Xan’s plan, she was led down one more floor. Based on the number of heavily armed guards, this one was for the more valuable—or dangerous—‘merchandise’. She passed through thick iron doors, each guarded by bronze rank classers outfitted with enough steel to make most people think twice and covered in sprawling defensive and sound dampening wards. For this reason alone the entire floor was silent, something she wasn’t sure was a mercy. 

Finally, she arrived at the cell that was to be her home for the foreseeable future. She was pushed through the entrance only for the door to slam shut behind her.

After checking the room for listening devices and scrying wards, she allowed herself a few minutes to lie on the uncomfortably thin mattress provided. There she took her time to process the reality of what she had gotten herself into.

If she could feel fear she knew that she’d be terrified. The plan simply might not work, something could even go wrong and she could very easily die, but with Xan in her corner she was certain that everyone involved would deeply regret that outcome.

Eliza tried not to think about the people cowering in cages above her, but after failing at that for the better part of an hour she resolved to do something. She knew that she had the power to save them, but a grand rescue wasn’t in the plan. 

So she’d just have to improve on it. 

It probably wasn’t the smartest idea to deviate from the set of instructions that all but guaranteed her safety—especially when she’d been ‘sold’ to an organisation intent on auctioning her off to a powerful murderer. Fortunately, Eliza couldn’t feel fear so the consequences of failure didn’t really bother her nearly as much as inaction did.

The bard closed her eyes and felt the bundle of chaos in her chest that had displaced much of what her class was. She’d let it loose in Rhelea and for a time, she had transformed ordinary civilians into martial heroes. Since then her limited experiments, while powerful, had been far less impressive.

Clearly, she needed more practice.

Looking around her cell, she saw nothing but four walls, a bed and a bucket to help her pass the time, so she’d have ample enough opportunity for that.

After checking again for signs of magical and mundane observation, Eliza sat cross-legged on her bed and stretched her skills. She pushed stamina through each of them in turn as fast as she could. The rapid beat of her heart took on meaning, broadcasting her intentions to the room and her audience of none, while its volume grew to stress the soundproofing wards etched deep into the walls. Her hearing expanded to hear the collision of each dust mote that danced in the air. Her aura reached out to pull nonexistent eyes towards her, while her voice begged to be used. Her fingers hungered for an instrument while the broken thing in her chest pleaded for a song.

The bard felt the chaos rise in time with the demands of her class. Her skill weakened the fragile bonds that kept it in check. Power surged within her, threatening to consume everything. She felt her ribs bend and flex with the uncertainty the boundless chaos brought. Her heartbeat that was suddenly loud enough to send tremors through the walls lost its rhythm, taking on a staccato beat while something other than blood raced through her. 

She tried to control it, choosing a song not because it was necessary, but because it was what she knew. While the blazing chaos remade her chest iteratively to better hold its power, she channelled what remained into her words.

Eliza opened her mouth and sang.

Within the confines of her cell Creation shifted and reality conformed to meet her melody, as she gave structure and rules to the unstructured and unruly. The wards lining her cell strained, flickering brightly and across its entire length her thin mattress grew maybe half an inch taller.

With an amount of effort, Eliza closed her mouth and the roiling storm within her quietened. A sheen of sweat covered her, drenching her shift. A part of her wanted to complain, but it was admittedly a huge improvement on the last time she’d tried to consciously use her power.

“Everine, did you just hear someone sing a song about… a comfy bed?”

“I doubt it. These cells are warded not to transmit sound; you’ve probably gone insane like I said you would.”

“I haven’t gone insane.”

“Alph, you’ve been held captive for almost a month. Your fragile human mind couldn’t handle the isolation and now you’ve finally cracked. Hearing songs through walls that don't transmit sound proves it.”

“The wards on this wall are broken.”

“What? Since when? Are you sure you're not hallucinating?”

“No, I’m not. Look!”

“I’m a snake, I can’t read runes.”

“You're my familiar! You. Are. Not. A. Snake.”

“Maybe, I bet if you fed me some of your food I’d be a better familiar.”

“You don’t need to fucking eat!”

The two voices quickly descended into insensate bickering, but Eliza was just happy to be able to hear the goings-on all around her in perfect clarity. She hadn’t intended to damage them, but every single ward that lined her cell was now cracked and nonfunctional. It was a potential problem if it was ever discovered, but at least it had a silver lining. 

The bard turned to face the wall, where the crazed man was talking to himself and after settling into a comfortable beat she pushed her intent through the wall.

“Hello? Is someone there?” Eliza asked.

“What the actual fuck was that?” Alph said.

“I don’t know, Alph, but I think I might have finally gone insane,” Everine muttered.

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