I'm not feeling it, but Northgate is apparently pretty cold: There's a dusting of snow on the ground. The wall here is stacked stone, a good thirty feet high… oh, and they have a proper barbican over the gate… nice. I wave my guild ID as we pass the gate guard, my summons wave “theirs,” and we go through unmolested, just your typical everyday guild party, nothing to see here. As I ride I notice ALL of the buildings are stone. The only structures - if you can really call them that - made of anything softer are the merchant stalls… and those are just wooden poles and cloth around small carts. I guess either they have a chronic wood shortage or they had problems with fire at some point… they obviously won't now.

  I start by heading towards the guild hall, making a bag via Minor Creation which I fill with some Mithril Chain shirts, Mithril bucklers, a suit of Adamantine Full Pte, and a series of Adamantine and Mithril weapons via Create Armaments. Why? I pn on dropping them off with a broker: I want some enchanting and research supplies… and the brokers always set up close to the guildhouse, simply because that's where the people that have dungeon items to sell quickly generally go.

  Burrowing metamagic on a long distance Touchsight is insane, by the way: I can see basically everything in range. Like… I can count the coins in the purse of that woman in the carriage three blocks away. I can see that the dy inside the house next door dealing with some stomach cramps has a baby boy on the way. I can see the skeleton buried underneath the house to my left. I can see that the woman I just passed is padding her chest with some rags… and has a few lozenges in her pocket. Mind: My ability to process everything isn't there, so for practical purposes I only see things upon which I focus, things that I'm trying to find, or things that my subconscious recognizes as a threat.

  And right now, I'm seeing the inventory of a shopkeeper who is obviously a broker: She has a considerable inventory in a safe, as well as a lot of cash… the location is about right… and a sign… perfect.

  I walk up to the stone building… the door is wood, at least, with leather hinges… and walk in; it is a business, after all, and it's day. The bell over the door announces my presence, and I hear the woman calling, “just a minute…” from the back room where she was writing with quill and ink in a tome; I can't see what she's written, as the effect can't make out ink on the page… still, it's nice.

  The woman herself comes into view, long red hair, dark brown skin, red eyes… a Tiefling, clearly. She even has a leathery tail, although she's keeping that in her pants. She's pretty average looking, really.

  “Greetings,” she nods and smiles, “What can I do for you?”

  I shrug, “I have some gear to unload…”

  We go through the standard rigamarole; I get the goods out, she examines them, makes me an offer, I counteroffer, et cetera, and we settle on the usual price. I get half the guild list price from her now, she'll list it all in the Guild shop, someone will eventually buy it at guild list prices… they pay the guild full price, the guild pays her two thirds of that. I get half now, she gets two thirds ter (netting her one sixth), the guild gets a third (to cover brokerage and delivery), and the purchaser gets the desired goods: Everyone wins. I walk out, cash in hand, and go buy the supplies I want… spell research and enchantment items.

  I stock those away, and duplicate Ears of the City to find Archibald Anderson… ah, the rumor mill has him hanging out at the Bare Beaver, a tavern over on Mason Street, named in much the same way other taverns are. I walk there along with my summoned party, and… huh: It's a bordello, not a bar. The girls have a uniform: They're wearing puffy sleeves, a low neckline, a colr with a pendant, a pin ring, stockings with bows, and high heeled shoes: They're all walking around completely exposed from their waist to their knees… and the patrons are apparently allowed and expected to simply grab whatever pleases them within range… which the girls seem to accept without comment, simply letting themselves be groped, fondled, and even mounted in the main room while they serve drinks… and themselves; as I close the distance to the buisness, I see a few of the patrons take girls to some bedrooms where the girls lose everything but the colr and ring while the men continue to do whatever with them in private… I suppose that's for the patrons who don't want to expose themselves. I only ever see any money change hands at the door with the bouncers.

  Well… renting out one's body is legal in these parts. Shrugging, I approach the bouncers, my party in tow, and the two big beefy men in well-enchanted pte armor, swords sheathed, look me up and down, “It's a hundred crowns per person.”

  Eh, I have the money. I dig it out and pay up for just myself, leaving my summoned minions outside. One of the guards examines one of the coins closely, and nods, letting me through.

  Inside, the pce reeks of the musk of mating… I look around… huh, those colrs all the girls wear are bright red leather and glow with moderate Enchantment auras, the rings are iron and glow with moderate divination, and the working women themselves with moderate enchantment. True Seeing tells me only about half of them are supposed to be female… okay, individually, there's above board things that would expin those (skill enhancing spells are commonly Enchantments, for example)… so I take a moment to cast Analyze Dweomer and look… the girls are under a Dominate Person effect.

  Which tells me what this pce ACTUALLY is.

  I check mentally with my sponsor as I survey the room, Bluffing to make it look like I'm picking a girl, “Hey Uncle C, do you consider it murder if I take out a bunch of folks profiteering illegally off of svery?”

  My uncle replies in kind, “If you wish to colpse the building, I won't say a word against it.”

  A bit more than I was pnning… “wouldn't that also kill the sve girls?”

  “Over half of the servers here have silently asked me, under my various aliases, for release… if I only count today,” Uncle C replies, sounding surprisingly calm, considering how my blood is beginning to boil. “If I go back even a week, every single one of those serving girls has asked me to take them. If you send all the patrons, all the staff, all the sves, and the owner my way, I am not going to object in the slightest to passing them over to my brother Judgement… even though that would mean I would end up delivering Archibald Anderson the message in person.”

  Which makes me wonder why the request to give it in the first pce, if Uncle C doesn't mind if I murder the intended recipient and all that's going to happen if I don't deliver is Archibald dying… did he know I'd react this way? “Good to know I have a free hand in the matter,” I consider, “...but I think I'm going to at least try for a better outcome than that. Thank you.”

  “I'm fine with ‘Kill them all’ being a fallback pn… but do please keep an open mind about it. Be seeing you…” the voice of Death fades from my head as I settle on my pn.

  I start by grabbing one of the girls at random and taking her to one of the private rooms… which I confirm actually IS private, in that there are no Scrying sensors and nobody is observing through any hidden holes. As she takes off her clothing very mechanically, I make use of an esoteric metamagic feat I found while going through my library: Essence-Linked Spell. It's a fun little metamagic feat, and let's me target someone through a magical effect they left lying around… a scrying sensor, a non-instant Wall spell, a summoned monster, anything… like the Dominate Person effect on this woman. It's a Spheres feat, so it's rgely limited to Spheres effects… but I have basically all of those, so that's not a serious limitation. I start with the Mind Control advanced talent; it is a delicious irony that I'm using the caster's own Dominate effect to in turn do the same to the caster. It takes two tries to make it stick, surprisingly. Still… I have as many as I like as my rey just stands there naked, waiting for me to abuse her, and I don't need to worry about maybe hitting the wrong person. I follow it up with the Warp sphere, specifically Ranged Warp, to bring the evil person to me; after the second spell, the man is standing in front of me, kidnapped from from whatever he was doing… looks like eating, based on the silver fork in his hand.

  I take a bit to look him over; he is a tall elf with a long face, bck hair and grey eyes. He wears tailored clothing and an amulet of luminous crystal. It goes well with the headband he's wearing, and the gold ring on his hand.

  “Stand there doing nothing but breathing until I give more instructions,” I order my temporary sve as I examine his victim in more detail under Analyze Dweomer. I know she's Dominated, but the gear…

  Okay, so the colr is a Colr of Obedience. It has a legitimate use on animals, because it makes them… well, more obedient: They respond more easily to commands from the Handle Animal skill from the person who put it on the animal, as well as make it easier for that person to nd mind-affecting spells on the creature. At the same time, it makes those harder for anyone else. This one has been cursed heavily… drawbacks to make it cheaper (it slowly erodes the wearer’s willpower and blocks the use of magic), but also has a few items specifically for this use: It's cursed to be difficult to get rid of, and to make the wearer a female regardless of what they were before.

  The iron ring is a Prisoner's Dungeon Ring. It's a cheap item, tuned to a Jailer’s Dungeon Ring somewhere, and informs the wearer of the Jailer’s Ring where the prisoner is and what shape she's in. This one is cursed, but it slowly erodes intelligence rather than willpower… I’m guessing the sver didn't want his victims ending up in a coma, and so spread it out such that the victim’s natural recovery will keep them healthy enough to work.

  Of course, now that I have the controller under my control, it's safe enough to free the victim. Remove Curse let's me extract her from both, and Break Enchantment gets rId of the Dominate Person spell; Divine Providence let's me ace the checks for both, trivially.

  “I'm free!” She screams, as she dives for the bed, grabs a sheet, and starts twisting it into….

  “Stop,” I grab her hand, “No noose is good noose. Yes, you've been through a nightmare… but that's OVER. I can get you far, far away from here, and set you up with a respectable job where you don't need to sell your body.” I pause, “In fact, I'd like to send you there now; I was seen coming up here with one girl, I want to be seen leaving with one girl…” I smile wickedly as I conjure some clothes for the woman.

  “...thanks, I guess…” she seems really depressed… understandable… as she gets dressed, “but if I'm gone…”

  I shrug, “That colr and ring need to go somewhere, and look who's right here.”

  That gives her pause, “...can I watch?”

  I smile, “Sure.” I turn to the sver, “What's your name? Answer me.”

  “Archibald Anderson,” the elf Intones.

  Ah. Well, that's convenient….