Chapter 235

"Where is everyone?" I asked. My friends and I led the large group of former slaves through the hallways to where the female slaves were presumably kept.

"I think they're above us," Silva said. "I hear fighting coming from above. I think we're under the bazaar right now."

I was going to say something when we heard a scream carry down the hall. "Callik, keep everyone from panicking, we're going to look ahead."

"Ma'am," the bearkin responded. He gave me his name after he helped us calm everyone down when we left the cellblock. I was skeptical at first but he was good at convincing everyone to stay together. Even the elves and humans were happy to work with the seemingly experienced bearkin.

We ran down the hall and I felt it before I saw it. Demons. We turned a corner and saw a monster with red leathery skin pulled tight over its skeleton. It had longer than normal arms and legs that swayed when it turned to face me. Blood dripped from its long claws over the guard it had ripped in half and started to eat. It tossed its meal to the side and began to run right for us, the demon seemingly didn't make any sound as it bolted in our direction. Not even its feet on the surface of the floor.

The first to react to it was Morrigan, a ball of fire shot out from our backline and collided with the demon midstride. It silently gestured as if it howled in pain as if it were reacting like a mime. It shook off the pain and continued running at us barely perturbed, ignoring its charred and blackened skin. Silva dashed forward and thrust her spear right into the monster's ribcage. The monster's chest was tough and the spear barely penetrated shallowly. Fortunately, the hit did give Silva enough leverage to knock the monster back and force it to engage with her, rather than at Morrigan who was already collecting mana for another fire spell.

Purple motes swirled around Bella before a spray of acid splashed across the demon's skin. The attack was pretty visibly effective even if we couldn't hear its cries of pain. Its red skin bubbled up and staggered, giving Silva an opening to sweep its feet out from under it. No noise traveled even as the monster heavily landed on its back.

"Blackjack incoming," I warned. I drew two cards and threw them, they were a nine and five of spades. Not a whole lot of damage but it was something. The moment the attack cleared Silva did some kind of spinning leap before slamming the blade of her spear into the monster's chest and successfully caving it in. Before the monster died completely, Mimi came in and... ate the thing. In a gruesome display, her chest opened up vertically and swallowed the monster whole while it was still stunned by Silva's devastating attack.

[Your party has defeated a blood thresher demon]

"If there are demons down here, that's a bad sign," Torien said while examining the corpse of the guard. "That thing was drinking this guy's blood." She pulled the guard's keyring off and hooked it to her belt.

"No doubt the Cult of Amphores is at work," I said.

"The demons might explain the lack of people down here," Silva said. "If there are demons in the bazaar, we should avoid that place. I'm sure we would do fine but it'll be hard to get so many low levels through there if there are demons running loose."

"That thing was pretty hard to kill as well, it looked like its skin was resistant to being stabbed. They would take a while to kill, especially if there was more than one of them," I said.

Morrigan looked around the hallway. "I don't really feel any more miasma in the air after this one was killed. It seems like this is the only one that's made it down here so far."

"We should regroup with everyone else," Bella suggested. "It'll be easier unlocking all of the cells with their help and we should be together if another demon shows up."

I looked down at the body torn into two pieces. "Let me drag the body around the corner first, this might freak everyone out if they see it."

"I'll handle it," Silva said before picking up each half of the body one-handed before carrying it around the corner. There wasn't much we could do about the blood. Afterward we returned to the group of escaped slaves waiting for us.

"Trouble?" Callik asked.

"Some." I pulled him aside and snapped up a quick [Zone of Silence]. "We ran into a demon over there, most of our group are demon hunters so we were able to take care of it, but there might be others."

The man looked shocked. "Why are there demons? And demon hunters? Just who are you guys?"

"There's a demon cult attacking the city and we took advantage of the timing to raid the slaver's guild. They're trying to start a slave rebellion here but I don't think they're actually interested in freeing anyone. They're trying to cause mass chaos in the city and push the country into civil war."

He frowned. "Well, if you're on our side I won't complain. You are here to help us escape right?" he asked while focusing intently on my face.

"I swear by Sorsette," I replied.

He studied my face for a moment longer before nodding. "Fine, I'll believe you. What do we need to do?"

"Mostly the same, we should organize a system to make sure no one goes missing once we collect the first group of women. I'd also rather not have to deal with any of the men doing anything inappropriate, none of us have time for that and I'm not going to be very forgiving of that kind of thing."

He nodded. "Of course, it goes without saying that I won't let any of them act like monsters."

"Good, let's go. We're almost there."

I dropped the [Zone of Silence] and Callik got everyone moving again. Quinn hadn't seen this part of the building yet so we had Silva in the front guiding us. I hoped she would be able to help us avoid guards too, but it seems that all of them are missing.

-- "Silva, if the cult is using demons to target the guards here, do you think there's a chance the records room is unguarded?" -- I asked her through the bond.

Silva perked up and glanced at me for a moment before turning back and continuing forward.

-- "It might be worth checking out. I don't think we could win against the kind of guards they would leave there but if they were tired from fighting off demons..." --

I nodded. -- "We'll consider it after we get everyone else out." --

Silva let her agreement be felt through the bond.

We finally reached the closest women's cellblock. The most noticeable thing immediately was that it was significantly larger than the ones for the males. The difference was almost two to one in size. The cells were also doubled up on each side of the hallway meaning there wouldn't be a lot of room to stand around in the cellblock this time, we would have to funnel everyone out into the hallway with everyone else.

I gestured to Bella and Silva. "You two should help me check the slaves and unlock the collars. No one under negative fifteen-hundred karma." They both nodded. "Grab some of the higher-level people to help back you up."

I turned to Callik. "You keep everyone organized in the hallway and set up the group system I talked about. We need to keep tabs on everyone with us so we can tell if something is happening."

"What do you want me to do boss?" Quinn asked.

I frowned. "Can you use your skill to scout out the other female cellblocks? Don't go alone take... that guy and that guy." I pointed to one of the stronger elves and a strong looking ox beastfolk. "Would you three mind going with them?" I asked Torien, Morrigan, and Mimi.

Torien shook her head. "No, that's fine. I'll make sure we don't run into anything." The twins also have the [Demon Hunter] title so they'll be able to detect any nearby demon miasma. And Mimi could read karma if necessary.

"Okay everyone, let's get started," I said. The three of us split into different teams with some of the higher-level people so that we could check everyone out before releasing them. This first block was all female beastfolk with decent levels so many of the women were just as strong as the men we had saved. Not all of them looked... mentally okay, but there weren't any fights or issues with most of them. Thankfully none of the women we ran into were lower than that negative fifteen-hundred threshold but some of them made it close, especially some of the ones wearing crime slave collars. I already knew that some of them might not be the best people, but I didn't think they would be as dangerous as that guy who had negative four-thousand karma. Either way, none of them caused any problems as we made our way through the much larger female cellblock.

The bigger problem was that our group had more than doubled after releasing all of the leveled beastfolk. It was becoming more and more challenging to manage the entire group of people even with the help of some of the higher-leveled women helping. Our large group made it down the hallway and met back up with Torien and her group who had already started releasing the beastfolk women level ten and under. Mimi had been screening them but most of these women were simple villagers and young craftspeople so none of them were particularly dangerous in the first place. To my relief, that horsekin that had been bothering me earlier was reunited with his wife so I wouldn't need to worry about more of his grumbling. It also turned out that many of the higher leveled slaves were relatives of these girls so little family units started forming among the groups. While we were working through this cellblock, the entire building shook again. It had been a while but whatever was happening upstairs wasn't over.

Once we left this area the group was almost entirely unmanageable. I couldn't even see the people in the back of the crowd anymore. We needed to get out of here soon, but I still didn't know if the bazaar would be a safe area to flee to. I decided to pull Quinn aside and ask for his help. "Quinn, are you able to check the area above us and see if the bazaar is clear? There might be... monsters up there right now."

"I'll look," he said before leaning against the wall and closing his eyes. While he did that I put up another small [Zone of Silence] around us so that no one else would freak out if he confirmed what I thought he might see there.

Quinn's brow became damp with sweat. "I'm almost there, it's harder to move through such thick walls. Okay, I can see the surface... There's something big out there. Is that?... It's a demon! We can't go that way!" He opened his eyes and staggered a little bit but I caught him before he fell over.

"Our group is made up of demon hunters. I'm mostly worried about everyone we're freeing. If the bazaar isn't safe then we just need to find a different way out."

Quinn gave me an uncertain nod.

I dropped the silence spell and regrouped with my friends. "We can't go through the bazaar. I didn't see it myself but Quinn says that it isn't safe. We'll need to find a different way out. Maybe blow a hole through a wall into a different part of town. Then we need to figure out where to go from there."

"What about the library?" Bella asked. "Sorsette gives people sanctuary, actually any of the temples may take them."

I scratched the base of my horn. "I don't know about other temples, not all of the gods are against slavery and I don't know which ones. That wasn't something the brief I read covered. Sorsette's tower looked large enough to shelter this many people but they might refuse if they knew everyone here are runaway slaves."

"If Sorsette's library refuses them, we can take them back to the elven embassy. It isn't much farther," Lorriene cut in. "I'd bet most of the elves following us would rather escape that way anyway. With everything going on, I'm sure the embassy would be happy to ferry people out. Whatever is happening up in the bazaar, it means that there is a full blown emergency. No one would be able to tell the difference between slaves and normal citizens escaping, except for the clothes..." she said glancing at one of the skimpy outfits the women were wearing.

"Good enough for me," I said. "Between the elves and the library we should be able to get everyone somewhere safe. I'm sure a lot of them will run off once we're in the city anyway. There's just the human and elf women left to release and then we can find an escape route."

The entire building rocked again, and cracks suddenly formed in some of the walls nearby. The explosions seemed to be getting bigger.