A night at the river (1/2)

The next and currently most pressing question for Jay at that time was how he could free Arya. As he asked this question, Mortwake that had already gotten competely confused by the young man's questions and statements, had no idea whom Jay was talking about.

After latter had described her, the Undead began laughing and answered that the bitchy girl he had to take care of a while ago had no way to ever be set free.

In between his laughter he stated she was an eternal slave, something Jay had already heard but no definite information.

He had started this interrogation with two simple questions in mind, but already got more to ask from answers he got to that point. Like this he asked about eternal slaves, what was so special and if there really was no way to free her.

The answer he got was not what he had wanted to hear though:

Klaven stated that any eternal slave could not ever be freed from the basics of the spell. They couldn't even die if the owner didn't do so, but then instantly with him, at least he had been told this. The only option for eternal slaves was to set the enslavement as inheritable or to transfer them.

That last part sounded too cruel even for Jay, but at the same time he learned there was at least an option to transfer Arya. But as he asked Klaven if he had been the one to enslave Arya, even if latter had told him so, his hopes got dimmed.

The Undead man stated there was no way it was his spell as this kind of slave magic was levels above him.

But Jay had seen a glint in the man's eyes, showing him this hadn't been the whole truth. He already had a hunch as to how Arya got into her dire situation, so he simply blurted it out and stunned Klaven.

"You used a scroll, right?" J.

"Wha… how did ya know?" KM.

"Transfer her. If you could enslave her with something like this you should be able to change the owner, right?" J.

"Those are completely different things…" KM.

"Transfer her or die!" J.

Jay had seen through Klaven's bluff without problem, and latter had believed him he would die if he didn't comply, even if it meant the woman's death as well.

But the scheming man was already thinking about something else from what Jay could see.

"I'll do so if you let me go and answer me one question honestly… deal?" KM.

"Fine, to show my goodwill, ask your question." J.

"For real? Okay, why didn't you get enslaved with my initial spell? And what about that second spell?" KM.

"Those are two questions, but I won't mind. The answer is the same: I can reflect mostly any spell! But then again, why didn't you get enslaved?" J.

"We Undead already ignored death by sheer willpower, so how can something like slave magic work on us?" KM.

Unsure if this answer was correct or if Klaven interpreted it like he wished it to be, Jay had to accept the fact that Undead seemed to be immune to slave magic.

Though from what he had heard about eternal slaves, that spell might work in the end.

Following this display of a certain trust, it was time for Mortwake to redeem his part of the deal.

The Undead held his arm forward and formed an intricate pattern on his wrist. When a small spell formation formed there and lit up, he asked Jay to stretch out his hand.

As he was pretty safe due to his magic reflection, Jay did as he was asked and felt a tiny bit of mana getting sucked away.

Then he watched Mortwake proceed and after about a minute his mana returned to him, though it felt a bit different.

"When you go back, pour your mana into her heart and she'll be yours!" KM.

A bit irritated to the man's wording, Jay inquired if the transfer was complete. Until then he had always been able to somehow sense his slaves, but it was only to the degree he knew they were alive and the contract still up.

But for Arya there was nothing like that.

Klaven then explained to him that he had freed her from his part of the contract, but she needed a new master. Like he had stated previously, there was no way to set an eternal slave free as far as he knew. He only had locked her on Jay's mana so no one else could take her away.

The Undead further explained this was a skill slavers could learn when they reached higher levels. It would enable them to remotely control their binds and orders on their personal slaves. Mortwake hadn't been sure if this was also true for life binding, the spell that sets slaves to die when their owner does, but it apparently did as an eternal slave was and even higher bind.

Touching the spot where his mana had returned to him, Jay rose from his knelt down position asn walked over to the desk. As he heard no movement behind him he turned around and saw Klaven still sitting leaned on the stand.

"What are you waiting for? You may leave…" J.

Still not believing what he had just heard, the Undead asked if Jay would truly let him go, to what the youth only nodded.

Klaven then slowly rose up and when done, held himself in position and leaned down to fetch his leg.

"Leave that here. I'm sorry, but I will need it as proof…" J.

The gulp was audible as the Undead seemingly hadn't thought of him getting exposed and the cover of his bosses blown this way. But with no other chance left, he did as he was asked and hopped towards the stairs.

Jay had to hold his laughter about twenty stairs later, when he heard loud rumbling followed by curses, then after a short break someone hopping down the stairs again. Klaven must have had fallen down quite some stairs as he soon appeared in front of the tower.

Jay had by then walked over to the small window pointing into he direction he had come from. It was there where he saw Mortwake hop away on the small path.

By that time he had gained some distance but didn't slow down his one legged jumping.

Taking out his Trueshot Rifle after a long while, Jay held himself properly and took aim. This time he poured quite some mana into the weapon until he pulled the trigger.

-BOOM-

Two seconds later a headless, one legged corpse fell sideways on the road. Jay had never planned on letting Klaven Mortwake flee or live on.

But he kept true to his word and let him go, at least out of the tower.

Without any care Jay turned around and went back to the desk he had stacked up some papers on. He had glanced over a few of them, but mostly found registers with numbers, dates and times. Those had been most certainly delivery schedules and the amount of people the shipped.

Though the recipients got only noted encrypted, Jay was sure he'd find out who they were from the other papers stored in the tower.

It took him so much time to pick some books he was interested in, the equipment for alchemy or what ever it was on the table, all papers and note books he found and a few more things Jay thought valuable or of use.

As he finally left the tower it had already gotten pretty dark.

Jay only walked until he had reached Klavens corpse to check on him one last time. For safety and as additional proof he took one of the man's hands with him and the small wand he had, as well as a tiny pouch. The rest he left for possible scavenging animals.

Jay then mounted his horse and galloped back towards the main road. In the twilight he still made out a single small figure waiting there from afar, so he sped up even more.

Kearnen had been already waiting for him, so he didn't want to stretch that even more. A few moments later she had spotted him as well and waved to him hello when he got close.

"So, how was it? Found anything?" K.

"Not a single soul. Only dead people there… But I found some papers I'll bring to AI:7 and ask Shalina to have some agents look through them. How about you, found the reason you came for?" J.

The agent then explained what she had found about three miles from there. At the place where a small arm of the river normally flowed towards Westfield, a huge wooden dam had been erected.

She hadn't been able to get close enough for further exploration as a small bandit camp had been set up close to it and patrols guarded the vicinity pretty tight.

She further elaborated that the main camp, the one from where the slaves got shipped, was close to that one. That was the one they would come to first as the dam was about a mile further to the north.

Knowing Jay would try to free the slaves they might find there, Kearnen asked him to help her destroy the dam once they were done. Without second thought Jay promised his help.

If they wanted to restore the fertility of Westfield, they had to break the dam so the river water could flow in and spread along the fields. The reason for why this construction was mad in the first place, they only could guess to that point.

But Jay was sure it was to further hurt the kingdom and press Westfield to comply.

They rode along the main road for a short while until the small agent stated they were close enough.

Jumping down and dismissing his mount, the two of them began to sneak through the undergrowth towards the camp. That took them nearly as long as the ride on the road, but once they climbed atop a small hill, they could see the camp right at its feet, close to the wide river.

From what they saw at their position, the camp only consisted of eight tents and one big carriage. Between the tents, close to the canopied wagon stood cages which Jay and Kearnen bet on had the abducted people inside.

Further behind, they spotted a relatively wide pier at the river.

As by then it had become night, they used it to close in on the camp without getting noticed.

On their way, they took care of three patrols without them giving a single sound away. Jay used his brute strength to twist the bandits necks while Kearnen slit their throats open.

At the side of the bandit camp, Kearnen and Jay counted the men inside.

They couldn't be sure but had seen about six bandits near the fireplace additionally to two on guard duty at the north and south each. Summing up those ten with the six they killed, it was obvious that there had to be more bandits.

Either they were resting in the tents or on patrol, what was more likely.

Taking to the south, they first got rid of the guard stationed there and then pulled the corpses into some shrubs. Jay had taken up both this time, using his bow with a simultaneous shot and impressing Kearnen. Sneaking on and around the carriage, they tried to reach the slave cages next to it.

If they could free the people first, any later fight would be less troublesome.

Of course there was another patrol stationed close by, so Jay first used hide to sneak around them and then grabbed the first man's head to twist it abruptly while the second ended with a dagger into his neck. With enough distance to the path leading into the camp, they left their victims lying openly after searching them, as there no longer any use hiding.

The moment Jay and Kearnen reached the cages, two of the dozing around people noticed them and woke up their fellows. Jay asked them to stay silent and wait a few moments until they managed to free them. The small agent was at that point working on the first lock to pick it.

Just then a man in the cage two further came to, listened to the woman who had woken him up and looked over to Jay.

He then instantly requested to get freed first, what Jay ignored the first time. But as the man repeated his demand, he got slightly pissed.

The next moment their cover got blown as exactly that man started yelling he wanted to get freed. Even though Jay swiftly picked the bow he was still wearing over his torso and shot an arrow into the man's forehead, it was too late.

Kearnen had planned to free the people one by one and let them gain some distance, but at that point only stared at Jay in sheer surprise.

Jay noticed it, but his priorities at that moment were something else. He jumped over the not too high cages and revealed himself to buy the agent some time.

Silent killing was over!

In the moment Jay had landed, all six bandits that had sat at the campfire rushed in on him. Further back he saw the other guards running as well as some bandits coming out of their tents.

Cracking his neck and knuckles, Jay loaded his fists with magic and got ready.

The first to arrive was like always the first to die. With a straight punch, Jay bore a wide hole into the man's torso and hurled him back onto he second to arrive.

He then redirected a sword coming from the right, grabbed the woman's wrist and kicked her so hard, he only heard a tearing noise as the bandit flew back.

The sword and hand he still held in his left, Jay hurled them into the fourth bandit's chest. The tearing sound had been the third bandit's wrist…

With some distance to the next targets, Jay went with some (Arcane Missiles), resulting in three headless bandits falling down and a few destroyed tents behind them.

The rest was more of a clean up than actual defense for the slaves who got freed behind Jay.

Kearnen hadn't really made any progress as she got immersed in watching his fight. As he saw that and cleared his throat before walking into the camp to find the last bandits, she went back to lock picking.

Five minutes later, Jay and Kearnen met up with all the people they freed next to the fireplace.

Other than the man Jay had to kill, there was only one casualty within the slaves. It happened when a patrol came back from Kearnen's side when Jay had just begun to check on the camp.

A single arrow had been enough to kill a low level citizen.

Kearnen soothed Jay when he came back, stating he wouldn't have been able to do anything and that it was the idiot who shouted that truly killed her.

After that, they searched through the camp for valuables and the keys to free the men and women. They then sat the few that already got enslaved down at the fire and opened the collars. Jay stored those things away and Kearnen excused them that the former slaves have to use the carriage themselves, as she and Jay still had a task to fulfill.

This was no big problem for them as a man and a woman of the group were former Adventurers and another one from the army. They promised to guard the four others on their way back, so Jay gave the three experienced fighters some poor weapons he had previously picked up.

It really was like Klaven had told him:

Of the seven survivors, four were nice looking women and the men either relatively strong or young.

While Jay went to fetch the bull like animal bound near the river that he had spotted thanks to his (Night Vision), the others picked two of the tents. After they stored all on the carriage and then bridled the bull, they were set on leaving for Millshire.

Kearnen and Jay saw them off and then had one last look around the camp to make sure they hadn't missed some patrols, then left themselves as well.