Chapter 111

I watch as the elves from the other wagons are taken in different directions out of the empty area of city we ended up in. So I guess we aren’t all going to the same place. I sigh, since that means they might be on their own until we can get them out. They finally get to my wagon and I’m taken in a different direction than the elves. I wave goodbye to the others, who have all woken up by now, but with all our stats severely debuffed any fighting right now would be useless. It’s best to wait for help from everyone else. I remember Jessica and Ruby saying we should wait a month, so I hope we can still manage.

I already checked, but the Brand blocks skill use just like the collar I had before. It doesn’t shock me, but it does hurt a lot when I try. I could probably deal with it, but there’s no reason to if the skill doesn’t even work anyway. As I’m walked through the streets with my hands tied, I see a lot more people than last time I visited Canton. I wonder where they all came from, or were they just hiding last time? I doubt that they would all hide from just me and Pops, so they’re probably new. Maybe.

A lot of people look at me with smiles, but some of them frown when they see me. Maybe it’s because I’m not wearing clothes, since all the humans around are clothed. I do notice that some of the humans have marks on their arms or neck like the one I got when branded, so I guess they have human slaves too. I’m brought to the front of a really big and fancy looking house. It has a lot of windows, and I’m a bit jealous because I like how glass windows look, but we don’t have any in Opal’s Home. Hopefully the human who can make them is one of the ones we capture later, and not one of the ones we kill.

The woman who branded me knocks on the door, and it’s soon opened by a female hound with white hair in a strange outfit… it’s Snow and we lock eyes. I’m about to talk but she shakes her head, and I realize she doesn’t want me to talk. Amber makes the same face when I’m about to say something embarrassing and she stops me. “What can I do for Sirs and Ma’am? My master is a busy man.” she asks. The human men with me cough, but the woman sighs and says “We got another animal slave for your master to buy, tell him if he’s not interested we’ll just sell it to someone else.” Snow nods and closes the door. The humans just stay quiet and wait, I decide that I’ll do the same and not ask any questions.

A few minutes later the door is opened again and a man wearing fancy clothes looks out at us. Standing behind him and to each side are Snow and her daughter Pepper. I smile a little seeing that my red haired grandbaby is okay too. “Are those bunny ears?” The fancy clothed man with a weird mustache asks, pushing the woman to the side, and getting behind me. “And a fluffy bunny tail?!” he asks in a higher voice, and I feel a tug from my tail, and then from my ears. “They aren’t fake, so I’ll give you the normal price.” He finishes saying towards the human woman. She shakes her head and says “10k more for this one, she’s a 5th tier and was a bit annoying to hold down for the brand.” The man straightens and sticks his hand out to the woman. When she grabs it and shakes it he says “Deal.” He laughs and I hear a chime and see a short screen.

Ding!

Brand ownership changed.

That probably means this man owns me now instead of the woman. She was kind of rude, so I hope he’s nicer. If he is, then I won’t kill him when I have the chance. The woman talked about doing some very rude things to Ruby on the walk over, so I can’t say the same thing about her. The humans who brought me here start to leave and the fancy man grabs my arm and pulls me into the house. “Tell me your name slave, so I know how to call you.” He tells me, so I smile and say “My name is Opal, I like your fancy cloths.” The man gets an even bigger smile and says “Yes, that’s the spirit. They do look spectacular on me don’t they?” He asks and I nod as he twirls around. He continues “Snow, get Opal washed and into her uniform. You’ll be in charge of teaching her the maid’s duties. Now go, I’ll be in my dungeon.” She bows to him and he leaves the room with Pepper following. My hound daughter motions for me to follow her, so I do. We get to a room with a big hole in the floor, filled with water, and Snow closes the door behind us.

Next thing I know, she’s hugging me, so I wiggle as she says “Mom, how did you get captured, and why do your have those ears and tail?” I respond by petting her head and answering “Ruby’s Rest was attacked and I was visiting my wife, we were making plans to come get everyone.” I see her look around the room then she pushes me towards the water saying “We can talk while you clean, we don’t have a lot of time here.” So I step into the water and sit down. “Are you and Pepper doing okay here? Do you know where anyone else from Dragon Roost is?” I ask her.

“Pepper and I are fine, we got lucky I think. The master doesn’t even have sex with us, although Pepper has asked him a few times. He mostly just makes us keep the house clean and look pretty when guests come over.” Snow says as she starts to rub me with a cloth. It feels kind of nice, so I lean back against the edge of the hole. She then continues “Don’t try to fight him though mom, I know you like fighting, but he’s 6th tier. There was a maid with scales when I got here, and she tried to attack him. She died super fast, and I had to take her body to the trash hole.” Snow continues to tell me stuff about what I’m going to be doing, and says I shouldn’t say anything about our rescue plans in case someone is listening.

That makes sense. I wanted to tell her our plans, since I’m kind of proud of my help with some of them, but I can just tell her afterwards. She doesn’t know where anyone else from Dragon Roost was taken since she was brought here quickly, just like me. Snow does say that a lot of slaves get traded to the other towns nearby, so they might not even be here anymore. I tell all of this stuff to the others with my free bodies. Like with the collar, the brand doesn’t effect them. Once she thinks I’m clean enough, we get out of the ‘bath’ thing as she calls it. I kind of want one at my place in Opal’s Home, but I’ll wait till we’ve finished here to ask someone. Getting cleaned by Sapphire’s skill is fine, but the bath was really relaxing.

She rubs me dry with another cloth, so I wiggle since it’s kind of fun. I’ll have to do the cleaning sometimes from now on, and it will even be the fancy man I’m supposed to call Master sometimes. I guess I don’t mind, I was expecting much worse things, so I hope the elves that got brought are the same. Snow helps me get into the weird outfit that she calls maid clothes. I think it looks nice on her, so it’s probably the same on me. “I’ll show you around the house now, and then I’ll guide you through how everything is cleaned. This is going to take a while, so make sure you don’t break anything. I know mom is heavy.” I nod, since I’ll have to be extra careful.

The dungeon the man talked about was an actual dungeon that he paid the Landowner to install in his house. I think something is weird so I ask “Can’t we just live in the dungeon then until the help comes to get us?” Snow gets a weird look on her face and answers “How would we eat or drink? The dungeon doesn’t have any water sources or ways to cook food.” Oh right, I forgot other people need that stuff. It’s a bit unfortunate, but I’d rather spend time out here with my daughter and granddaughter anyways. Since they have to eat and drink, I can’t just bring them with me. Apparently he takes someone in with him every time to carry stuff for him in a bag. It sounds kind of boring, since he doesn’t let us fight.

Opal’s body with Citrine

We are bringing all of the statues with us to Ruby’s Rest, and we’re almost there. “There’s this feather duster thing that I will use to get dust off of stuff for him, it’s kind of neat.” I tell my angel daughter and she giggles saying “I’m really glad you got lucky with the guy who bought you. I really am. He sounds like a collector, and if it were before the system he probably would have had anime figures. Just be really careful not to break anything yet, that type of person is usually really possessive of their valuables.” I nod, since Snow already told me that much a few times. I think Spry is helping a lot, since I don’t remember being so careful before getting it.

Running behind us are all the statues, except for the Fertility ones and a few Knights to protect them. They are just too slow to be of any help with Canton. They can’t even run. I told Jessica to expect us, and the other groups have already left towards Canton. I have a body with each group, the Hounds, the Boars, and the Hoppers. That way I can make sure everyone stays in contact. I also have two bodies staying behind, one for Central, and one for Opal’s Home. Just in case they get attacked by zombies tonight, I can use my shadows to fight them off.

When we arrive, Jessica is waiting for us outside where the old gate used to be and she seems surprised. My brown haired daughter says “I wasn’t expecting so many, even when mom told me what you two have been doing this past week. Are you still sticking with the plan to hand them all over to me?” Citrine nods and responds “Yeah, that way I can fly mom ahead of everyone. I trust you to use them much better than I could big sis, and don’t worry if you have to break them to save people. We don’t think they are intelligent, well I don’t at least.” I nod and chime in with “They can’t even learn how to wiggle right, even the Hounds can learn that, and they’re dumb.” Jessica laughs and Citrine orders all the statues we brought along to listen to my other daughter.

I give Jessica a big hug and a kiss on the forehead before Citrine picks me up and we fly off towards Canton. By the time we get there, the sun has already completely set, and it’s dark. We flew over some of the others on the way here, but since I’m already with them, I didn’t think it was important to stop and say hi. Amber did want to wave at Citrine as we flew by, so I told her when we saw her. Citrine seemed happy about it, so I was too. Now we’re looking down at the well-lit city, surrounded by huge walls. The plan in getting here early is for me to harass them with as many shadows as I can make now that it’s dark. Citrine says it probably won’t be that useful against a place with so many 4th and 5th tiers, but it should unnerve them.

So I start using Gloaming Calls until I run out of mana. Since it’s only one body, there aren’t as many as I would have wanted to make. Citrine says that there should be enough to have a spooky effect though, so once they start appearing out of the holes, I order them to attack Canton by climbing over the walls and attacking inside, but not to kill anyone with a Brand. I watch as they rush off, flat shadows on the uneven terrain, until they get to within about 20 ft of the wall. Then they just… poof. I hear Citrine say “Damn, they must have an anti summon modification for their walls. I was wondering why you didn’t mention them using summons in their attack against Ruby’s Rest.” I sigh, since this is one of the things she said could happen, but probably wouldn’t.

Now I guess we just have to wait for everyone else to get here, and hope that it’s enough. I hear a groan from behind us and see zombies shambling out of the forest towards us. Citrine grabs my little body and flies upwards. We get shot at by a few green skills, but they all miss and we soon make it out of their range. We look down from high up in the sky, and see more and more zombies coming out of the forest. They seem to be heading towards Canton, and we were just in the way. I’m not really worried about the zombies getting into Canton, since apparently they get attacked all the time compared to us. That’s what Jessica told us that her scouts said anyway.

Maybe we’ll get lucky and the zombies will make a way for our people to get in. I am a bit worried about Ruby though. I remember some of the stuff that woman who branded me said, and I can’t help but get angry. I hope my red haired wife is okay in there.