Chapter 231

Feylaria's aide pulled a crate onto the stone table and pulled out seven carefully wrapped potion bottles. "These shimmerscale potions will alter your appearance to look like canine beastfolk for an entire day. The changes to your body will be real but temporary, it might be odd to have differently shaped ears and such but your identities will be safe for the duration. The potions won't affect things like your height and proportions though. Any questions?"

"Is there a way to reverse it early?" I asked.

The elf shook his head. "No, once you drink it, you'll stay like that for a full day."

"We'll stay the same genders right?" Bella asked with the smallest hint of worry in her voice.

"Yes, nothing to worry about there. All it will do is give you fur if you don't already have any, change your fur color, and change the shape of your faces and tails."

After a short silence it was clear no one else had any more questions so he pulled a smaller box onto the table. He clicked open the latches and opened it up to reveal three silver bracelets. "These are what you'll need to remove collars. They work by inhibiting the specific kind of magic the collars use to operate, these were created after significant study into the way that the collars function. It's possible you may run into collars these do not work on, but most of the collars worn by slaves in the slaver's guild are produced in large quantities using the same technique, so this should work on all of them. They have a limited mana capacity but once they are exhausted you can refill them with mana again later. You may keep these after this mission but tell no one where you got them."

I picked up the bracelet and examined it more closely. It was pretty plain with only enough engraving and ornamentation to make it not look odd as a regular jewelry piece. It looked like real silver to me but I didn't know enough about metals to be sure about that. After a moment I slipped it onto my wrist.

"How do we use them?" I asked while looking at it on my wrist

"While wearing one, touch someone's collar with the same hand and push your mana through the bracelet. It will cause the collar to become temporarily disenchanted and unlatch itself. If it doesn't unlatch, you may need additional tools to remove the collar. The enchantments on the collar will reassert themselves after a bell or two if you haven't managed to remove it by then, but it shouldn't be an issue."

I passed an additional bracelet to Silva and I was about to hand one to Morrigan before she shook her head. "I don't have any personal mana, I can't power this. You should give it to Bella." Frowning, I handed it to Bella instead. She took it without any argument and slipped it onto her wrist.

"Do you have any more preparations to make before my colleague transports you into the slaver's guild?" the elf asked.

I looked over the elven man. "Feylaria told me that you wouldn't be able to get me back out of the city after..."

"Yes, we're leaving right after we send you on your way. You're not the only one who needs access to our gate magic today."

I nodded before turning back to Cecilia. "Cecilia, while we're gone, you're in charge of the carriage and the others. Make sure you protect Tenna and Kino. If we're not back by tomorrow at this time head to Goldenhearth without us and have Raya and Sibyl lead you to the Brothel. There's someone there who will be able to tell you about our status and if we need some kind of rescuing. Obviously, I hope it doesn't come to that." I turned to the rest of the group, "Is there anything else before we need to go?"

"Good luck, Lilith! Take care of everyone in there! We'll help protect Tenna and Kino, don't worry about us!" Raya's enthusiastic reply was a bit amusing because of everyone, including Tenna herself, Raya was actually the least experienced of the bunch, but it made me happy that she was trying to take the weight off of my shoulders.

"You better make it back here," Cecilia added. "There's still a lot to do. Stay safe."

"Thanks, guys. We'll be back here before tomorrow. You can count on that," I said with a grin.

I started handing out the potions but stopped when I got to Mimi. I looked her up and down before saying something to her through the bond. -- "Mimi, can you try to mimic our shape without drinking the potion? I'm not sure if it will work on you properly." --

-- "Sure, I'll try. It will be a little more costly to maintain a different humanoid form but I have plenty of reserve magic right now." --

-- "Good, stand in the back and just store the potion instead of drinking it." --

I finished handing out the potions and examined the last one left for me. It was a goopy dark purple that looked thick and viscous. It did not look like it would be pleasant to get down. I pulled out the cork and looked at my friends, everyone was waiting for me to take the lead with amusement on their faces. Ugh, this was probably going to taste horrible.

After psyching myself up for it, I started swallowing the potion down and it tasted like... water with herbs in it. It had an unpleasant texture to swallow, a bit like thick snot or something, but it didn't taste nearly as horrible as I thought it would. "By your reactions, I thought this was going to taste awful," I told them accusingly.

Torien laughed. "You were so obviously worried about it that none of us wanted to tip you off that it wasn't going to be a big deal. Some potions taste bad sure, but most tasted like... herbal water." She then put the bottle up to her lips and started to drink from her own.

I didn't know if I was imagining it or not at first, but I started to feel tingly all over my body. A shiver went down my spine and then I felt a prickle across every hair on my furry body. Then there was a slight pinching behind my eyes before everything blurred for a moment before coming back into focus. As soon as my vision came back I looked at my friends who seemed to have gone through the same thing, each of them started taking on the matching shape of dogs with pointy ears and a color pattern that looked reminiscent of a dobermann to me. I pulled off one of my gloves and saw that my fur had also turned to the familiar glossy black and brown. Out of curiosity, I tested to see if [Succubus Shifting] would work, and it did, though right now my unaltered shape looked like this at the moment. Any shape I didn't hold would return to this shape and color pattern now. If I had to say there was any flaw in the potion, it was that all of us looked nearly identical now and the only way I would be able to tell any of them apart would be through their clothes and the bond.

Morrigan giggled as she touched her new dobermann snout. "This feels really weird. At least I'm not going to have to re-learn how to speak like this, I was a little worried about that." She opened and closed her mouth a few times trying to get used to the changes.

"Ow!" I turned to look at Torien whose eyes were watering. She looked back at me with an... odd-looking frown. "I bith my tongue..." Torien whined. Morrigan laughed at her, much to her irritation.

Lorriene shifted awkwardly after drinking her potion. "I'm going to have to rewrap my tail. It changed shape and now it feels weird." She was wearing that outfit she had worn when we moved to the embassy again. It obscured all of her features but I guess that was detrimental where her tail was involved. Silva was recognizable despite the change in apparent species. There was something intriguing and attractive about seeing a large dobermann girl with her proportions and muscles though. Mimi had managed to copy the transformation and fur pattern without actually drinking the potion successfully. The only thing she hadn't changed was her red eyes, but that was minor enough that it wasn't worth mentioning.

While Lorriene was still rewrapping her tail, a quick dart of mana came flying into the canyon before perching on the elven man's arm. It was a bird construct made of mana that unfolded into a letter. "The riot has started," he said after quickly skimming it. "We can transport you in as soon as everyone is ready to go."

Once Lorriene finished up, our group of dobermann girls gathered in front of him. When the elven man noticed that we were ready and prepared to leave, he had the other elf who hadn't spoken this entire time come stand next to him. "If everyone is ready, we can begin. This is a one-way trip, as you know, so you'll have to find your way back here on your own."

I nodded. "We're ready."

The other elf started gathering mana and with an audible crack, a rippling doorway split open in front of us. Through the portal or 'gate' we could see a storage room with walls made from plain magically created stone. The room was unassuming and dimly lit but it was devoid of people and big enough for all of us to enter comfortably. Our group of seven walked through the portal without hesitation and once we were through, the gate vanished behind us. The oddest part to me was how abrupt the split in the bond felt as it snapped away after the sudden leap in range.

I immediately cracked open my book of recollections and began to cast [Light Scribing] to test out my improved detect hostiles ritual circle. I closed my eyes and steadied my breath as a familiar headache started to form behind my eyes while the information bombarded me. The ritual was still a work in progress, but the best solution so far had been to mix the ritual with a modified detect life ritual. This version was stable but not very ideal. It was very uncomfortable to cast and I wouldn't be able to use it if I was in a threatening situation. I couldn't even keep my eyes open while using it. But it gave me valuable information that might mean the difference between life and death or getting caught.

"We're near the outer edge of the complex," I whispered to everyone. "The hostile detection works, I can sense a patrol going by, we should wait until they pass. I can see the first group of slaves we should talk to once they move on." Everyone was tense and silent as I struggled to maintain the ritual spell until the patrol passed. The area of this spell was wide enough to be useful but it didn't cover as much of the complex as I would like. To make it more efficient I restricted the detection to a horizontal slice at my waist. I wouldn't be able to see up and down floors or detect if someone was crawling or shorter than my waist, but it still worked pretty well for what it was.

"Okay, they're clear. We should get moving," I said after releasing the spell. I sighed in relief as the headache faded away. I knew that if I used it too frequently the headache it gave me would only get worse, creating a kind of time limit when I used it.

"We're underground, probably on a basement level," Silva whispered to me.

Lorriene cracked open the door silently and peeked around the corner. "Clear," she whispered and waved. She had insisted on going first since she could get out of most encounters with her shadowleap if she needed to. I went through second since I would be leading them to avoid running into people we didn't choose to. The twins, Bella, and Mimi were after me and Silva was watching our backs from behind.

The walls of this place were brightly lit with shining white magical sconces every six or so feet apart. This meant that our crowd wouldn't exactly be able to hide if we did come across any guards, so all of us were ready to fight at a moment's notice. The hallways were large, I had been worried that it would be difficult for the large groups of people we were freeing to maneuver once we let them out but now I didn't think that would be an issue.

"Do you know what kind of slaves are going to be in the room you're leading us to?" Lorriene whispered so quietly that I could barely hear her.

"No. The ritual only gives me basic information, I just know there are a lot of people packed tightly together in this area," I whispered back.

She nodded and led us to the door I indicated. Lorriene tried it and it was locked as expected. Without a word, Torien slipped her lockpicks from a belt pouch and began to pick the lock. I closed my eyes and quickly cast the detection ritual again. The magic rhythmically pulsed but I couldn't feel any hostile signatures among the sea of people nearby.

The lock clicked. "Finished," Torien whispered before sliding back behind us. Lorriene opened the door slowly before waving us in and shutting it behind us. Rather than the open room I had been expecting, we were in a room with dozens of closed cells, undoubtedly also locked. We wouldn't even be able to tell who was in each cell until we opened them. I frowned, when I designed the ritual I took out the component that would help me map out the walls in my mind because it was already too much information slamming into me all at once. Now that I was here, it would have been nice to know about these walls sooner.

"I'm not going to be able to hold the detection spell long enough for us to open all these doors," I whispered to the group.

"Don't. I'll hold the door shut and warn you if someone tries to open it," Silva said before bracing herself against the door.

With a sigh, Torien slipped her lockpicking tools back out. "It's going to be a long day," she half-heartedly grumbled.