Up-sizing workforce
#7 of Business Venture in Seeds
Just some quick words before your show begins.
Time is measured not in hours and minutes but in fractions of the day, 'half' is twelve hourse, 'eighth' is three, etc.
Age of majority in the city is twenty one. The 'girl' mentioned is actually nineteen. Its just that like humans, a fur in this near their thirties will refer to anyone under say twenty five as a 'damn kid'.
There is no yiff in this one, its all story and world-crafting, sorry, if you want something to 'enjoy' browse my other stuff that is flagged adult or better or keep looking. If you want to be ready for the next chapter (lots of yiffing) then read this.
We left the bar, somewhat at a loss, too much to do and too little time to plan for it.
"Jen, can you run to the Royal Archiving Money House, they should have a promissory book for us. When you get it head to the third warehouse along in Gavlin street. We are heading to the baths first so take your time on the way there and if you see anyone following you, tell the money counters you need a porter to escort you back." Zoe told the sable, who nodded and took off at a run.
"Baths?" I asked.
Zoe nodded, "Yes, you stink like fox cum and I can't get Trish's scent out of my nose. No fooling around though, we don't have the time." I sighed but acquiesced.
We were done at the baths in record time, well, for us, and met Jen and a whole platoon of porters, a pair of heavy armoured wagons and a tall male panther with a patch over one eye. Luke, everyone knew of Trish's dirty job man, some people would have his bored looking face as the last thing they ever saw, guess he was our man too now.
"Zoe! Crester!" Jen beckoned.
I nodded to Luke, and he nodded back to Zoe and me. "Here to escort the goods ma'am, err, ma'ams, uh..." He was flustered, the coolest, calmest strong arm in the city was flustered. Maybe Trish had told him how much this was worth.
"It's fine Luke, lets get this done, your a professional, just like us, its just another job." Zoe said to settle the man.
He nodded and we opened the warehouse.
Evidence showed that someone had ransacked our wagon, badly.
"They missed the false bottom." I said, inspecting the work.
"Amateurs." Was Luke's appraisal.
"Ahem." A voice in the darkness announced it's owners presence. "Don't panic, Sirs, Madams. I am here on business, as are you. My associates were told to make sure this building wasn't touched, two of our boys didn't get the memo."
The man, a mouse, stepped forward and gestured to the rafters. A pair of swinging corpses were there, like wind chimes.
"The bodies will be removed just after you leave." He said and made to walk past us.
"Your guild is supposed to be on top of this stuff, that's why we pay you!" Luke had the mouse by the arm, talking down to the fur.
Too quickly to see, a knife was at Luke's privates, "Yes, I understand your concern, but please, don't handle my person, sir."
I stepped forward, pressing myself into both of them, hand on Luke's arm, and the knife hand of the mouse, neither hard enough a grip to stop one from killing or maiming the other, but a grip none the less. "Calm down gentlefurs. The damage was done, it can't be prevented after the fact." I glared at Luke and he backed off, releasing his grip and stepping away. The mouse followed suit, but didn't seem to be annoyed at my handling of him. "What can be discussed is recompense for damages. Good money is paid for exemptions from your, regular service, sir. I believe some level of forfeiture would be applicable under the situation."
The mouse straitened, drawing his wrist from my grasp, "That of course would be business madam, and business is always negotiable." He bowed. "You have indemnity for this one site, for your lifetimes, if any further encroachment occurs, we will start adding more of your holdings to this list. It is regrettable to have to come to this, but alas, sometimes the herd grows too large and must be, culled, to maintain the proper order. Good day." And with that he turned and left.
It was then something clicked in my head, he said 'your holdings', little bastard already knew we were in as partners in this little empire.
Closing the door once more, we opened the false floor of the building, all our cases were there, including a note.
To the owner,
All apologies for the intrusion, we wanted to make sure our erstwhile members had not harmed your property.
M
"Smart arse." I said with a grin, lifting the heavy crates out. Only Luke, Jen, Zoe and myself were inside at that time, the less who knew of this hole the better.
Once it was all out, we resealed the floor and opened the doors again, having the porters carry it out to the secure wagons.
"That fox has rented one of the sorting houses from the Bosses main money counter, this will all just look like we are depositing and counting gold." The big male feline laughed, "If what the Boss said is right, this is worth a lot more than its weight in gold."
"It is, count on it." Zoe said.
"Well, its out of your hair now. Guess I will see you when you bring more." Luke said grinning.
I made a mock salute, "Catch you big feller."
Zoe leaned close as we, and Jen, watched him swagger off, keeping guard on the wagons, "Wouldn't you like to get into those pants." My lover said in my ear.
I grinned, "Mrrr, would I ever." Then louder, "Well dear, that is part two, four and five of our plan done, we need to get back to part three."
Zoe brightened, shouting, "Part three!"
Jen looked up at us as though we were mad, "What's part three?" she asked.
Me and Zoe looked at each other, grinning and turned back to the sable, "We need to buy some hookers!" we yelled together, leaving the girl, jaw open and stunned.
"Come on, lets go shopping!" Zoe said, grabbing her hand and leading her off.
I laughed and followed her.
"NEXT PEN IS AS INDIVIDUAL OR GROUPED, THESE ARE MODS SO MAY NEED SOME TRAINING. DO I HAVE A FIRST BID!" The voice was loud and obnoxious, kind of sums up slavers in two words.
I looked at the dozen women, well they were women now, but as he said 'mod' it meant they had been magicked like that.
"Nothing like you babe, half of them will never be as accepting of their fate on their deathbed as much as you were when you told that wizard to go ahead. Plus you had a choice. It would be nice to 'save them', but as we discussed, its not going to be worthwhile, and we have the money for better." Zoe said to me, reading my feelings like a book.
I nodded to her.
Then I saw them, two females in a different pen, they had collars with a dab of pink paint on them, non mods, and they looked scared as shit. I pointed them out to Zoe.
"Yeah babe, that's what we are looking for." She confirmed my assessment.
"OK WE HAVE TWO FINE SPECIMENS, FULLY JOB TRAINED, NON MODS, WE START AT FIFTY GOLD!" the man yelled, holding the two female dogs forward. Their breed was quite literally 'mutt', but if the word was true and they were both trained, this could get pricey.
"Eighty!"
"Eighty five!"
"Bullshit they ain't trained, I sold em to you last week Bill!" A voice yelled from the benches.
The hound dog auctioneer reddened and I could see him mouth some pretty dire words.
"OK OK, BUT THEY HAVE TO BE WORTH A HUNDRED IF THEY ARE A WORTH A GOLD!" He tried to recover, but most of the bidders had faded, including the poor bastard who had won the bid.
I reached out to him, "Boss, You don't want them, and they will sell badly, how about I give you seventy for em?" I told him.
He paused, "You got it." The guy handed me fifteen gold in a bag and shouted, raising my hand to get the auctioneers attention, "This lady has my bid!" I nodded to the auctioneer's glare.
"SOLD, EIGHTY FIVE FOR THE TWO FINE SPECIMENS!"
"You, you just brought slaves!" Jen said beside me.
"Yes Jen, we did, and we will buy a few more. One less if your interested in getting a lot of money quickly." She made huge eyes at me.
"What... what would I have to do?" She asked.
"Keep your mouth shut around the slaves for a start" I softened it with a grin, "But it will be some... intimate stuff, but not with another person..." I finished lamely, not sure how to explain it to her without giving it all away.
"I, I haven't 'worked' for Trish like that yet. Wait, you said its intimate but not with someone else, is it a 'watching' kind of thing?" She asked, seeking more details.
"Yeah, kind of like watching." I said.
She nodded, "If the pays right, count me in."
I grinned, only two more needed to buy then.
Scanning around I saw Zoe talking to the cashiers, explaining our payment method to them, it would be fine of course, the bonds we carried could buy all their stock if we were of a mind to deal in flesh. Which we were most definitely not.
Another likely, a girl, a fox, in with a pack of mods of mixed race, evidently someone had mixed up her collar, this could be good. Mod groups weren't actually paraded around, they were sold as 'lots' where the winning bid would say how many they wanted, then the second bid, and so on, until they were all sold. The order of purchase was what decided who had first pick.
"... WE ARE STARTING AT FIFTEEN! DO I HEAR FIFTEEN!"
I casually raised my hand, and taking a quick glance at the cashiers the auctioneer yelled...
"I HAVE FIFTEEN!"
The bidding made it to twenty seven pieces of gold each, and I indicated I wanted one, next bid down was twenty five.
I wandered over to the cashiers, "Gimme the one in the middle, yeah, pink collar." I told them.
"Sorry, there is a restriction on that one, you can't have that without... the one with the orange dab." I was told. Orange meant the other had committed a crime. Being linked like that meant that the the mod was a sole parent of the other, a child, and still a child. Once the minor reached majority they could be split.
I sighed, I didn't want a mod, but I had committed to buying one, and if I had to get a mod I would want the damn girl as well. I turned to the next guy, mr 'twentyfive', who had asked for six.
"Give you thirty for one of your choices." I told him.
He laughed, "Thirty five and you can have one."
I spat in my paw and held it out, twentyfive did the same.
I turned back to the cashier, "Ok, I want pink and the attached mod, I am paying for mine and thirty five of this pirate's bill." I said, jerking my thumb at the grinning mr twentyfive.
"That all you buying today?" The man asked as Zoe turned up with the notes.
I wrapped a paw around my little kitten, "Yeah, chain em up. We be back in a quarter to pick em up."
The cashier made some notes and stamped the note that Zoe handed him, "Done and done, thanks for shopping. NEXT!"
"I thought you said no mods babe?" Zoe asked as we were leaving.
I sighed, "Yeah, but, fuck it, I couldn't leave that kid in there like that." I was at a loss, kids were my weak point, I would spend every gold we had to save a pair of big eyes and a trembling lip.
"It's ok, we can deal with it, if the orange is linked like that they will be more likely to want to hang around and protect their charge." She noted.
We spent the intervening time shopping, supplies, two carts and horses to suit, lumber. It was a spree, but it was all according to mental lists Zoe and myself had made up and refined so many times.
"I don't get it, why slaves?" Jen asked and, finally sick of hearing it, I replied.
"Look, just trust us ok? Its necessary that we do it this way, we are taking a big risk taking you and not another slave, but I think we can trust you." I told her.
"Ok, but I still don't like it. It's a horrible thing to do to people." She put in, wanting the last word.
I sighed and put an arm around her, "For what its worth, I agree and who knows, maybe if we can get enough control with Trish's leadership we can abolish it once and for all. But for the moment... just trust me that I don't mean them harm and intend to release them unhurt."
She looked up at me, "Ok..."
"That's it!" Zoe said, trotting back up to us, her book of slips much thinner. "We have everything and its being loaded into the wagons AND we are a sixteenth early to go and pick up the workers."
We made good time, it was a shame Jen had never driven horses before, but I could handle one cart and Zoe the other. We pulled past the slave pens and caught the attention of one of the handlers.
"You to pick up this four?" The grubby wolverine asked.
"Yeah, that's our stuff." I said nonchalantly.
The man turned and yelled to someone else and, getting confirmation that it was us who owned them, released the big heavy chain to us. "Watch the orange, he tried to escape once or twice and may be limping." He grinned, obviously remembering delivering the beating. "Oh, and its another gold for all the chains to-" At my look he stopped.
"Your charging me extra to haul goods I was not told were damaged?" I all but shouted at him.
He stammered a bit and ended up saying "Just take them damn it, get em out of here.".
It would look bad letting slaves ride, so I attached the chains to Zoe's cart so I could keep an eye on them.
We led our little carts out, leaving the city was never a problem and the guards were happy to wave us through.
We got out of sight of the city wall and I called for Zoe to stop her cart.
I looked at Jen, "This is why I said to trust me, ok?"
She just watched, intently.
I climbed down and approached the 'sub fur's. "Ok, you're slaves, you know this, I know this. Each owner has their own rules, listen well, here are ours." I began, their complete attention on me. "Yes we are just a pair of girls, you might be able to overpower us if you weren't tied up, don't, in the long run it will be better for you."
The orange collar spat on the ground, couldn't blame the poor bastard.
"The first and best rule is, do what we say, when we say to do it, second rule is you don't run and we won't have to get a hunter to chase you down and kill you..." I continued, laying out just the basics. "Ok, now onto why we brought you. We are business women, we are out here to make a lot of money doing something that no one else knows how to do. It can be a fun job, its particularly rewarding when you factor in how much you get paid at the end. Why I tell you this is that after your first month of work, which will pay us for your purchase and upkeep, you will become free, yes I will get the paperwork done to cover that, at my cost. After that point you can either leave or stay and keep earning money. Does anyone not want to go along with this? If you want I will take you back to the city and put you back on the auction block." I looked around at the four shocked faces. "Talk, you can talk, that was a rule, you can always ask me something, remember?"
The girl, the linked girl, looked first to her parent, then opened her mouth, "You mean really free?" She asked.
"Yes, really free, that would include paying the excess on your, father, if one still applies for his crime." I told her.
They all started asking, "What's the work?" "How much pay?" "Is it illegal?"
I held my hands up, "Ok, yes, its a bit illegal, but we have a lot of influence in the city and I will make sure you are not with us when we carry the goods back through the city gates, so you wont be caught. It pays" and I waited till I had their complete attention, as well as Jen's, "two hundred gold a month."
Jaws hit the ground, "I see I have your attention most fully now." I said with a grin, a few of the slaves even chuckled at that, "Yes that's a lot of money, no its not what the goods are really worth, that's because Zoe and myself will be taking most of the heat if we are caught. Risk and reward. The work itself? It's a little uncomfortable, a little enjoyable, but nothing you are not all qualified to do." I told them.
The mod, thinking quickly indeed, asked, "Is it prostitution?"
I shook my head, "Ok, I will lay it to you flat, since in another five days we will be there anyway. The drug that's starting to circulate the city, its called 'bliss', it makes people horny as all fuck while it affects them. Over time its not addictive, but people enjoy it because it makes things a lot more fun. No one but myself and Zoe know how its made. It comes from a crushed up plant seed, about yay big" I held up my paws to show them how big, "you break it open, take out the little bit inside, crush it, grind it and sell it for more than its weight in gold. The only problem is, the plant that makes these seeds implants them, forcibly, in females, using chemicals to trigger them to spasm them out every so often. It does this to spread them. We 'harvest' them by making ourselves available to the plant and catch them as they come out. Any questions?"
They looked confused, but the youngest asked, "So the plant rapes us, stuffs its seeds inside us and we pop them out and make drugs from them?"
I smiled, "About right, although its not really rape, its actually quite fun once you get into it." I said, getting a smile from Zoe, "Now, you have to understand its not quite that cut and dry, there are precautions that need to be taken at each step in the process, but we have had a fair bit of practice and it is all manageable now."
The orange, arm around her daughter spoke up, "I, I don't know if I can ask this of my girl, but if I-" she began.
I cut her off though, "You are not asking it of her, I brought you all, you will do it for a month, if you want to stay on, great, if not I will have to buy more slaves."
The girl in question looked resolute, it wasn't her that was going to be the problem, obviously.
"Ok then, speeches are over for the day, we have some hard miles to make and your useless moving at that pace." I said, walking up to them and unlocking the chain from each, coiling it up in the wagon. "Climb up, we can make better time this way."
They looked almost stunned but followed the command out of habit.
It would be an interesting trip, that was for sure.
Yes, slavery, it sucks (we can all agree on that, despite any kinks, the real thing is not nice), if you came here looking for that kind of thing, sorry, you didn't read the third thing at the top.
Note, this story is over forty pages now, this is getting serious *runs to get more earl grey to calm down*
And yes, I broke my rule, a ton of chapters in, and seven pages long, and only seven tags.