Chapter 42: Slave Markets

When Danica finally sat up, lifting her supplicative hands and face from the earth, the elf was brimming with delight. She surveyed each of the three adventurers in turn, taking note of the respective disappearances of their previously highly visible injuries, and the looks of haleness and well-being that positively blossomed from each girl. Like flowers opening their faces to the sun on a spring morning, each of the three adventurers was aglow with the restorative energies imbued by the Earth Mother into them through the intermediacy of Danica’s prayer.

“You’re amazing!” Gretel said, breaking the spell of silence as she dove forward to wrap the elf in a tight hug, her generous breasts squeezing tightly against Danica’s nearly flat chest.

Clearly unused to such praise, Danica’s face nearly glowed red, her ears quivering involuntarily and luminous green eyes sparkling with joy. “Th-thank you for s-saying so,” the elf stuttered, not quite able to fully draw breath due to the mage’s tight embrace.

Samantha’s fists hit the ground in front of her with an audible thud that drew the attention of all three girls. The monk, still kneeling, bowed forward deeply until her forehead touched the ground, leaving everyone with a nice view of the broad expanse of her thickly muscled back’s deep striations. “You have my deepest thanks,” Samantha said to Danica when she rose, the monk’s formality and clipped accent bringing a smile to Lexi’s face when she thought about how different it was from both Gretel’s bubbly personality, and Danica’s mile-a-minute naive mouth.

“Seriously,” Lexi joined in. “That’s a pretty fucking awesome ability you’ve got there, Danica. We all really appreciate your help.”

“I-It was my p-pleasure,” the elf said, still wrapped tightly in Gretel’s soft flesh. Lexi noticed that Danica’s eyes kept sinking down to stare intently at the mage’s exposed cleavage, before snapping back up to look the paladin in the eye.

I bet if she had a cock, we’d see a cute little bulge in her skirt right now, Lexi thought to herself with an interior grin. At least I know that a face full of big squishy tits is, apparently, a good way to stop the chattering. Although, I bet I’ve got another way to plug that mouth up...

“It was the l-least I could do after you s-saved me from those s-slavers,” Danica finally managed to get out, snapping Lexi out of her increasingly dangerous reverie.

“Yeah, no worries,” Lexi said with a wave of her hand.

“We were honor bound to intercede,” Samantha added. “I, for one, could never stand the loss of face that would occur if I did not at least attempt to prevent such an injustice from occurring.”

“But,” the paladin asked. “What happened with those two slavers? How’d you end up in that situation to begin with?”

Before Danica had a chance to answer, Gretel leaned in quickly and gave the elf girl a quick peck on the cheek. Seeing her ears quiver excitedly at the impromptu show of affection, the mage giggled, sitting her voluptuous form down on the leaves right next to Danica.

“W-Well,” the elf said, her eyes still flitting back and forth to Gretel, apparently entranced by the mage’s body. However, as Danica told her story, her preoccupation with Gretel’s figure was sublimated by the rapid-fire tsunami of words that came pouring out of the tiny girl. “I was just minding my own business, having a perfectly lovely conversation with a badger — which, in case you didn’t know, are some of the chattiest little creatures — but anyway, the next thing I knew, I was hanging upside down by my ankle! I’d dropped my bow when the snare grabbed me, and before I knew what was happening, those two creeps just kind of appeared — I’m guessing that the super weird little one with the mask had cast some kind of invisibility spell over them — but, yeah, it was really scary until I heard you girls coming down the hill, but before that the big ugly one kept calling me knife ears — which is, like, super rude — and the little creepy one kept going on about how much money they’d get selling me at this market. I mean, what kind of person thinks that they can just steal someone else and sell them?!”

“Damn,” Lexi said, glad to catch a breaking point in the elf’s story. “That’s definitely pretty fucked up.” Looking to her companions, the paladin asked, “Any of you know what’s up with this market they mentioned?”

“Never heard of it,” Gretel said, shaking her head. “Slavery is one hundred percent illegal in Astyanax, but, then again, this week is the first time I’ve been outside the city’s walls. So, it wouldn’t surprise me if there’s some kind of black market that’s been set up outside the city guard’s visibility. If it’s happening somewhere out here in the King’s Wood, then it’d be pretty much guaranteed to go unnoticed by the city’s authorities.”

“I have heard of no such specific markets here in the North,” Samantha added, a coldness coming into her voice as her gray eyes narrowed beneath her shaggy white bangs. “But ... where I come from in the South, slavers such as these are not uncommon. After my parents died, my...” The monk took a deep breath, closing her eyes. “ ... my younger sister was taken by slavers.”

Lexi gasped in shock. Gretel’s hands went to her mouth, her eyes wide with distress at the monk’s revelation.

“I tried to fight them,” Samantha continued softly. “But I was too weak — too pitiful — to do anything. I begged them to take me instead of her, but they only laughed. Instead, the men beat me to within an inch of my life, leaving me broken and bleeding to death in an alley. I swore that day that I would make myself stronger. If I could not save my sister, then I would ensure that I would never again be unable to defend the weak. And so, as soon as I was once again able to walk, I set out to seek the Abbey of the Fist.”

That explains a LOT, Lexi thought. She was rocked by the monk’s intimate revelation, but it certainly went a way towards explaining so much about the strange girl whom the paladin had come to care for and to rely on.