It was dawn as they flew towards the Pirate and slaver coastal town at the southern edge of the continent. The hangover sucked, extra so for Maro as he was flying these useless shits by himself. Holding Gnarlo like a baby and a big girthy dwarf bear on his back, both who were napping… ingrates.
There were no gates or walls to the town… it made sense… no trees and it was desert for hundreds of kilometers in every direction… Why would they build one?
Maro dropped the two on the sand and they walked the last little bit to the town. It was bigger than expected, a bunch of large buildings, some of the buildings were shipwrecked boats that were pulled onto the land somehow… The pier was even larger than the town and there were multiple ships docked.
They went up to the guard who was laying down, not paying attention to anything coming from the desert.
"Hello" Maro greeted him
The human guard jumped, surprised… Gnarlo slipped into the town unnoticed by just casually walking by the guard.
"We are looking for an inn, we are tired and thirsty…"
The guard quickly looked at Kadrin and then Maro, "you guys check out, go on, the Inn is in the clearing facing the pier"
Confused for a second, but not wanting to risk anything, they walked right on by.
It took them a couple moments but everyone walking around was from the order races… they immediately felt more at ease, despite them being pirates.
As they neared the Inn, Gnarlo popped out… "This town is safe, and it seems like our type of town… all order and the only slaves they deal with are all of those demon fucks… mainly orcs though from what I saw"
"Hmmm you think we can get a cat beast person sex slave??" Maro said as he was reminiscing of when he first met his Druid Lady friends…
"Eww, if you're going to fuck anything that's not a dwarf Atleast get a sheep women, perfect soft fluffy hair all over" Kadrin drooled a little
"You guys are both stupid… it's all about the cow ladies, giant cow teats and human breasts… you maximize the tits to money ratio that way" Gnarlo and his math…
They walked into the bar and saw kinship… It was late morning but the Pirates were drinking and having a blast… Humans, Dwarves and Gnomes just having fun and drinking.
Within an hour the Trio was right at home, drinking with the best of the pirates… laughing and telling racist jokes… they had a drunken debate on what beast person would make the best sex slave… They argued, had a fist fight and went back to drinking happily.
This was the place to be… the fun lasted until afternoon when a new shipment of slaves came in, so a bunch of them went out to help offload the cargo. If the pirates hadn't lined up buyers in advance, you could buy them here before they were shipped to Island nations or some of the smaller kingdoms.
The trio followed everyone to the docks to see how the operation worked, in chains Orcs of all sizes marched in single file line to one of the Larger buildings where they were to be held until the Captain of the boat set sail again.
There were some goblins too and then finally the beastmen walked by… Mostly male and mainly of the Crocodile tribe. They were fearsome to say the least, their large jaws looked like they could crush Kadrin's giant dwarven head in one snap and their hides were impressive, not bothered at all by the intense heat.
A goblin started causing a commotion only to be immediately stabbed and killed by a sailor… the rest of the slaves had to drag the chained dead body.
Ha Ha, finally this is how the world should be.
They were enjoying the parade until a couple of Male Elves were pulled by… that got a jeer from the dwarves in the crowd. Even Kadrin spat on them as they walked by, the Elves ignored the jeering and then the lead Elf jumped on the orc ahead of him to choke him out.
The Elf was blind with rage, yelling "I'll kill them all!, every last green fuck will be dead!"
The Elf was strong, he pulled the chain so tight it cut through the Orcs neck… Meanwhile the pirates were cheering, even the Dwarves… The elves were a horrible and lazy ally, but they ultimately weren't an outright enemy like the Orcs.
And this Elf was different, he emanated rage… He was like them… He knew the truth.
After the first Orc died, he jumped on the second one… killing him too
He was finally knocked out and the procession of slaves kept going…
"I like his energy" Maro said outloud
"Best Elf I've ever seen, he actually didn't wait till until everyone died from old age before he made a move" Kadrin approved
"You can buy him if you want, Elf slavery is a grey area for us anyway… Not many people buy them because they look normal and even less can afford them… We got lucky tracking down this tribe of Orcs."
A Dwarf with a fancy Captain's hat spoke up from beside them.
"The Orcs ended up killing his entire tribe, wife and kids too, they did terrible things while he was tied up… and now he broke the other way… the other elves are defeated with no hope, obedient, easy to sell… this one I can't even sell to a fighting pit, he attacks anything that looks green without mercy… as you saw"
He continued "I'll give you a good price"
Kadrin was going to shake his head not out of habit, but this was a unique elf… he'd never seen an elf express anger that immediately before, it was a nice change of pace. He looked at Maro and Gnarlo…
"How much?" Maro Asked
Expecting a monetary figure, they raised their eyebrows when the Captain said "100 goblin slaves, 20 Orc slaves and depending on the Tribe of Beastmen I may end up owing you"
They weren't conflicted at taking slaves to pay for it, they had some cash now.. Why couldn't they use that?
The captain looked around, "where am I going to spend coin here? I can take the slaves you trade me and make way more on one of the islands… a lot larger markets."
"Well where are we going to find slaves to capture in the desert" Maro asked
The Captain pondered, "Around here… there's a dumb tribe of pacifist orcs deep in the desert..the trek is too long to go on foot but they are the easiest to catch slaves I have ever seen…"
The boys took turns coughing at that one
"There are also many smaller tribes of reptilian beastmen around here, but they know how to camouflage really well with the sand… hmmm I know if you catch a young Dew Beast, a lot of captains would pay well for it… makes the quality of life a lot better"
The boys were still looking at each other, they didn't have an easy answer, they were too lazy to go running around the desert again
The Captain continued "The last possible place that is known around here is a mountain on the east, cut off from the rest of the mountain range, it stands alone amidst the desert… that place is a termite hill of Goblins… hundreds of thousands of them crawl in and out of that mountain all day and night, I have no idea how they even sustain themselves"
Kadrin looked quizzingly, the Dwarf captain noticed
"Yes, it's rumoured to be The Mountain, the last stand the Dwarves took after being chased away by the Demon Lord… Solitude"
Solitude used to be a small settlement during the prime of the Dwarves, yet grew rapidly as it was the last place standing when the Dwarven empire fell… the Southern most mountain…
Kadrin the Reclaimer had come out, who was now a Mithril Guard, blessed again by his ancestors, he could not say no to this adventure… it called to him. This was not only a known settlement but it was also defiled by Goblins.
However this time they did not have an army to help clear it out.
Maro and Gnarlo literally became full on Kings last time… they were not going to miss out on the possible loot. But they couldn't do it themselves.
They went back to the Inn to drink and ponder, ponder and drink…
After discussing it for a while… they didn't have an option… they already forgot about the Elf they wanted to buy. Instead hyper focusing on the possible loot and treasure.
They couldn't go back to bring their army down… they couldn't hire enough pirates to help and they couldn't do it by themselves… they would have to go to the Amazons… Fucking Gnarlo didn't have to kill the Crone
At the end… it was Maro who took most of the abuse so they let it be his decision… He was over it… "lets go back and negotiate"...
The two looked at Maro… "No, you go back and negotiate, we aren't walking weeks in the sand, you can fly there and back in one day… we'll drink here, drink your last drink, sober up and fly… hurry it also" Gnarlo snapped
Maro was angry, fucking ingrate Gnome… but the plan made logistical sense… Maro agreed and then chugged Gnarlo's drink in revenge.