B1 Chapter 17 - Captured

I opened my eyes, but I noticed everything was still dark. I tried moving or speaking, but realized there was cloth in my mouth and my wrists were bound. Huh, this was concerning. I mean, I could probably get through my bindings pretty easily, but that might be hasty. What did I remember?

I was at a bar with Jackson, drinking this sweet nectar, and then… right, the alarm system went off. Slavers. But how did they get me? Well, I guess that part didn’t matter. Was I alone? Doubtful, hmm. I don’t wanna be the first girl to be free, though. That would make me the hero of this situation. That’d draw too much attention.

I tried to focus on my chi sense. I could detect life force with it. I could detect the strength of the life force too, but that was about it. Hmm. Three, no four signals next to me. All pretty weak. Ahead were two much stronger life forces and an animal? Yeah, probably a horse given all the bumps. How long had we been traveling?

Well, no guard back here, it seemed. I wiggled my way to another girl and was careful to try to find her bindings without touching her skin. I didn’t want her to realize I was the one who freed her. A little acid magic should chew through this rope quite nicely. Once I heard her hands snap free, I pretended to be asleep.

I could feel her frantically pulling off her other bindings. Thankfully, she wasn’t speaking, so I saw no change from the front with our captors. More rustling happened, and eventually I was freed too. With my eyes open, I could see who was with us: Emily, Abigail, and two women I didn’t recognize. They weren’t from the shelter.

“What do we do?” one of the women asked. She had red hair, and her clothing made me think she was a merchant’s daughter.

I raised my finger to my lips to try to quiet her. I pointed to my bracelet and whispered. “This is a magic item. It will let me block an attack. Let me handle this.”

The girls looked worried, but we had to try to keep the horse. We could have been traveling for hours. It would take forever to get back to town if we just hopped off. I charged forward quickly and shoved one guy, and he tumbled off the wagon, but unfortunately for him, his leg got caught in the reins, and I could hear him being dragged.

“Bitch, how did you,” he said as he pulled a knife. I caught his hand as the knife hit the flickering barrier. He was strong and slowly pushed the blade through the barrier.

No choice, I thought as, instead of pushing, I suddenly pulled and we both went over the carriage rolling around in the dirt. Thankfully, the barrier had stopped me from feeling much of the impact. My assailant had knocked himself out in the struggle. Where did… crap. I got stabbed.

The horse and carriage stopped shortly after; I guess they got the reins. Nice. I quickly pulled the knife out and assessed the damage. I could heal from this easily enough. The more troubling matter was the hole in my clothes. I didn’t have a way to fix it at the moment. So I would just have to hope they didn’t notice.

“Alexis!” Emily said, jumping out of the carriage. “Are you okay?”

My bracelet was glimmering red, which meant it was out of chi. But that was fine. For now, it being empty could fuel the idea that this was hard fought, and I would have lost without it.

“Yeah, I’m okay, what about you?” I asked.

She nodded, tears almost welling up in her eyes. “What do we do now?”

“Let’s round the guys up and bind them in the cloth before heading back,” I said.

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“You wanna take them with us?” a woman shouted. The same red-headed merchant.

“I do, they will die out here otherwise,” I said, looking at both of them. The guy caught under the horse was near dead already, I doubt binding him was actually needed.

“I’m the one who freed you,” the redhead said again. “Rachel De Lenze. I think I should be in charge. Let the men die out here.”

I chuckled. “Yeah, not a bad idea, but they may know things the guards need to know,” I said. “Plus, do you want them to have such a simple death? I thought you’d be the last to deny the axman his work.”

“Hmm, you make a point, but it is risky. If they get freed. They could overpower us,” she said.

I held out the knife I took. “You can hold them at knife point if it makes you feel better.”

She took the knife and looked it over. “I might even get a bounty for bringing them in alive.”

She began giving out orders on who to carry whom. That was fine. It made her credibility as the one who rescued us more solid. Once they were loaded in the back, Emily took the reins and we began making our way back to town. The only girl whose name I didn’t know was quiet and kept to the corner.

Abigail sat next to me.

“I’ll give you seventy thousand geld if you let me claim credit for taking the knife and bringing both captors down.”

“That is bull,” Abigail shouted. “She might get at least half that from the bounty alone!”

“It is okay,” I smiled. “Fifty thousand, but you only took one down. You can say you fought the guy with the knife and managed to get him to fall off.”

“Huh? But-”

“Your story isn’t believable,” I said. “You are the hero who untied us, but taking down both is a bit much. It makes more sense for me because I have a magic item. You taking even one down is way more impressive.”

“You make a point. But half. Thirty-five thousand geld?” she asked.

“Fifty, you are gonna make up some of this from the bounty anyhow, plus you want the fame, right?” I asked.

“Thirty-seven five,” she countered.

“Forty,” I replied.

“Deal,” she said with a smile.

“I can’t believe-”

I interrupted Abigail. “It is okay,” I said. “We are just homeless women after all.”

“You’re a shelter woman?” Rachel asked. “Your composure and argument skills are strong. Plus, isn’t that a guild uniform?”

I nodded. “My first week. I am still at the shelter to save more geld.”

She paused. “I like you. You should come to the Lenze store at some point, even if it is just to talk.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said with a smile.

We ended up making it back to town just past nightfall. The guards were cheering loudly as they found us safe. I guess they weren’t too used to people returning from slavers like this. They sent guards to inform our families, or in the case of the shelter girls, Nancy, of our safe return. They didn’t want to let us leave until they confirmed the details of what happened.

One nice aspect of the several-hour carriage ride is that we all got on the same page. Rachel De Lenze escaped her bindings and set us all free. Rachel and I attacked the two men; she took the knife and knocked over the man who got caught by the reins. While I tackled the other man off the wagon, which knocked him unconscious, and was protected from injury by my magic bracelet. Rachel then took the initiative and got us to return the slavers back to the city for the guards.

All wrapped up in a nice and tidy bow. And my actions were about as minimal as they could reasonably be. So I was happy about that. The city ended up rewarding us both. She got fifty thousand geld as her reward. Ten for freeing us. Ten for each criminal she turned in and twenty for fighting off a bad guy by herself.

I was given twenty for the man I fought. But with the forty from her, I ended up making sixty thousand geld. And since my pay came in during the week before they paid me the bounty. I ended up having nearly a hundred thousand geld. This was more than enough to pay off my old debts. Not that I had any intention of doing that.

I could technically afford that magic bag! It was a tempting idea.