Shiina sat brooding as she looked out the inn's window. There had to be something she could have done. She saw the stupid worm. She'd hit it! But it hadn't mattered. It pissed her off.

  A slight rustling noise turned her attention to the door. A paper had been slid under it. Shiina reached out and picked it up. On it was a simple message. "Al Jirtea. The Shimmering Mines."

  Shiina considered looking outside to see who'd dropped it off, but chances are the person would be gone already. Whatever it was couldn't be too urgent, so she left it on the dresser and went back to the window. There were still a few hours before the dawn.

  She hadn't gotten an answer to her question by the time the other women started to stir. She'd have to bug Zanya about it later. For now she waited for Delilah and Zanya to get somewhat awake and ready before grabbing the note and handing it over. "This came in."

  Zanya picked it up and gave a muttered curse. "How annoying."

  "Did someone open a dungeon again?" Delilah asked.

  "No, otherwise we'd have target names. Seems like someone's trying though." Zanya dropped the note on Ife's face, getting a growl in return. "The reason I'm annoyed is because Al Jirtea is a shithole in the middle of the desert. Getting there will be a huge pain and totally mess up our route."

  "Al Jirtea?" Ife moaned. "Fucking wonderful. It'll take a whole extra two months to get to the Webwoods."

  Zanya's eyes flickered. "We can cut it down to just an extra few weeks if we go through the lamia lands. That sound good?"

  "Yeah," Ife forced herself upright, grabbing the paper and setting it on fire. "We'll have to hurry if we want to get a caravan out though. Are you all up for that?"

  "I don't really want to stay here much longer," Delilah said simply. "Even if the destination isn't much better...."

  Shiina stayed out of the way as the others finished their morning preparations. That done they quickly headed out towards the edge of the city, looking to see if a merchant caravan was forming.

  Ife was first to point at an area. "There. Seems like three merchant groups are preparing." Sure enough several people were filling wagons and hitching them up to the desert plodders that seemed to be the beast of burden around here. The giant lizards were laying flat to get the warmth of the sun in the early morning chill.

  Shiina inspected each group as they got closer. The largest seemed to be a group of wealthy halflings with guards and porters of different races. They had extravagant wagons with silk canopies and drapes over them, and their plodders had shimmering gold barding over their dull brown scales.

  The next group seemed fairly small. Humans and dogmen with only a couple of simple wagons and a number of camels that were being stacked high with goods. They had a number of guards with them as well.

  Lastly was four wagons of dwarves that mostly seemed to be already packed up. They were currently working to get canvas covers onto the wagons to protect from the heat.

  "We want to try to get money off this trip?" Zayna asked.

  "Money can be exchanged for food," Shiina replied.

  Delilah grimaced. "We should probably try."

  "Silk isn't cheap," Ife added. "Besides the local merchants are going to fleece us for traveling supplies."

  "Okay." That settled, stepped back so Ife could go meet the middle set of merchants.

  A well dressed man with several gold rings noticed their approach and moved to meet them. He was wearing the fakest smile Shiina had ever seen, and she had an artificial face. "Well met. Are you paying travelers, or seeking employment?"

  Ife gave a deep bow that got the man's eyes wandering. "We're seeking employment, at least until Al Jirtea."

  "Ah that is unfortunate." His eyes turned hard as he shook his head. "I'm afraid we have no room for additional guards. Good luck in your search." He turned away, the conversation apparently over. Shiina forced down the urge to stick her tongue out at him.

  "Well that's the good paying option gone," Zanya muttered. "Let's see about the other one."

  Ife led them over to where the dwarves were working. One of the men noticed and gave them a wave, before finishing setting up the canopy on the wagon. As the rest of his fellows worked to tie off the ropes, he hopped off the wagon and walked over. "Morning ladies. Planning on traveling?"

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  "We're looking for work to Al Jirtea," Ife said. "We have business we need to handle there."

  "Hmph, bad luck that." The dwarf tugged his sideburns. "Well we've got supplies that need to make it to Bone Mountain fast. So we'll be heading the same way for a bit."

  Shiina perked up. "Wait, Bone Mountain is on this path? Can we go there?"

  The others looked at her in surprise. "It's along the route. But why do you want to go there?" Zanya asked.

  "It's Bone Mountain! A mountain, made of bones!" Shiina gestured with her hands. It was so obvious how cool that was. She didn't understand why the others didn't get it. She was damn sure there wasn't anything like that back home.

  The dwarf laughed at her enthusiasm. "Now there's a lass with taste! Anyway, we don't have money for guards, but if you're willing to share the watch and help out along the way, we'll share our food and fire. That a fair deal to you?"

  Ife turned to the group. "It's that or paying for travel. I think it's a good deal." she said.

  "It should do," Zanya replied. Shiina and Delilah nodded.

  "Glad to have you with us! A more interesting crew than the usual greasy merchant for sure. I'm Terasil. Can do full introductions when we hit the road." He motioned towards the last cart. "Let's get the last canopy up on that cart so we don't all fry, then we can tell the bastards up front we're ready to go."

  As Shiina slid behind the group she decided it'd be a good time to ask the question that had been burning in her mind for a while. "Why does everyone seem to hate Al Jirtea so much? I haven't seen much about it in my books."

  "They're slavers," Delilah said dismissively.

  "Eh?" Shiina turned her attention to the first caravan. Sure enough she noticed that the people actually doing work all had metal collars on. "But isn't slavery illegal here? How can they have slaves in town?"

  Terasil shook his head. "Not illegal here. Iron Eye Continent's unique, and good on them. Only a small chunk of lands have actually banned slavery. It's not common, but still legal. Course those ribless bastards in Al Jirtea are worse than anyone else I know of."

  They reached the wagon and Shiina stretched her arm to grab and pull one of the poles upright. As the others started lashing it to the wagon she asked, "So what makes this place extra bad? I figure being owned by someone's pretty shitty." Delilah nodded in agreement.

  "There's a wide range of rules depending on where you are," Ife said with a shrug. "I was sold as a temple slave myself when I was a child. But I do admit I'd rather be a temple slave than a mining slave."

  Zanya gave an eye to Delilah. "You also have debt prisons. Which are a lot like slavery to my mind."

  "The rich city merchants have those," Delilah said with heavy scorn. "Us commoners don't think much of them."

  "Fair," Zanya replied, finishing off the first pole and moving to the next. Shiina helped pull it up again. "The big difference between Al Jirtea and the rest of the world is related. Almost every country has some kind of Jubilee or Day of Forgiveness. All debts cleared, all prisoners pardoned, and usually all slaves freed."

  Ife nodded, tail swishing. "In my home you have to be freed within ten years, and offered a gift for your services. Which is how I made it into the clergy myself."

  "Meanwhile in Al Jirtea, if you're a slave you're a slave for life. And so are your children." Terasil spat on the ground. "Hell, I hear the little bastards will enslave their own kids, if the other parent is a slave. Won't even let people buy and free the poor souls."

  Shiina nodded slowly. "Okaaay. So they're jerks. Why hasn't their city been burnt to the ground yet?"

  "They're jerks with five gold and gem producing dungeons," Ife replied. "So they're incredibly rich and can buy off any merchant and mercenary who cares more about gold than morals to keep them safe. So long as they don't totally ignore diplomacy that will get more cities pretty far."

  Zanya's inner eyelid flickered. "They also live in the middle of the desert, so it's really hard to get an army to them. And while everyone wants their stuff, not many people want to live there."

  "Oh." Shiina wondered if maybe letting someone pop open a dungeon and burn the place to the ground was a good plan.

  Apparently her thoughts were apparent. Or Delilah had the same idea, because the half elf whispered to her, "It'd probably hurt the slaves more than the rich people. And then there's all the travelers like us who'd have to deal with the monster hordes."

  Shiina sighed. Delilah was right. Human politics was so confusing. Still she kinda wanted to do something. Maybe she'd get to assassinate someone as a treat. She'd ask Zanya on the way. Along with a few other questions....

  For my fellow mimics, a quick primer on slavery : You know how humanoids treat inanimate objects that annoy them? Well imagine a humanoid thinks they own you and expects you to do all the work for them? Yeah.

  As for why the Iron Eye continent banned slavery, here's the short form on the Grim Crusade.

  About six hundred years ago there was a particularly nasty city called Yurklie. They not only were huge on slavery, they added magical compulsions to their slaves that forced compliance to every whim. Yeah apparently some places are so messed up they added mind control on top of the 'don't stab you boss' restrictions. The other cities didn't pay much attention though. They just ransomed their citizens like normal, and assumed the mind control was removed with the slave status.

  It turned out that Yurklie didn't do that.

  So one day Yurklie's king decided they wanted to expand, and reactivated the mind control on all the slaves that had been ransomed. They forced those people to open the city gates and lead suicidal charges against resisting troops.

  As you can imagine, none of the other cities were happy about this revelation.

  Short version, is when the surviving prince of Javergrund went full dark lord and unleashed an army of the dead, the rest of the cities didn't help. They just grabbed picnic lunches and watched as he burned Yurklie to the ground, salted the earth, and enslaved the souls of its inhabitants.

  Afterwards slavery was banned continent wide, and in return the undead would stick to their city. The pact was tested once. The armies of the dead didn't even make it halfway there before the other cities removed the people responsible.