The Princess could not stifle her yawn. The whole of yesterday and half of today was spent cleaning out her dorm room at the Royal Academy. That's where she spent the last four years, deep in training and education. Now, armed with a letter from her parents, proclaiming her to be the heir to her mother's throne, she was nervous, excited and a bit travel weary. The long line of carriages taking the recent graduates back rolled on, but something felt off.
What should have been a highway with a view of small villages and vast fields became a forest and then passage into a valley between mountains. Certainly not the route back to the capital city. Even if this was remotely a shortcut, it did not bode well, as this route would take them right through the no mans land of the rocky wastes. Nothing lived out here, save for the few mining villages and ore refineries. The land was blighted during the great war over a thousand years ago, and not even the monsters, common to this continent dare stay any longer here than they have to. Even the simple minded goblins and slime's avoid this place like the plague. But the chief reason among everything that lives on this continent to avoid it was that it was the underground Dwarven territories.
Only those who trade, and those that find favor in the stout race may enter, and from the view, the long line of carriages was heading straight to the Dwarfs sacred mountain. The final resting place of Hotten Steelrod, the first dwarf king, who died in the great war against the evil hordes by making the mountain range impassible, delaying the march of the massive evil army, which in turn whittled the huge destructive force down to where the other races could handle the fight.
The light of the late afternoon sun went dark, and echos of wheels and hoofs on rock resounded, mixed with the disturbed squeaks of the bats above cause the graduates to start to feel uneasy. Soon, the early evening sky once again shown through, and the Princess bravely looked out of the window, through the gap in the shutters to see a massive lake. From her vantage point she could see many bridges leading to the mountains and she gasped.
Smugglers Run. The only place on the continent that is well hidden, and the only place to buy forbidden things. Slaves, magic items, rare monsters and even have someone killed. All the darkest desires gathering in one spot, as the poor and rich of the hidden city came to watch the parade of nobles and royalty heading to the Slave Market. Each carriage was emptied, the luggage was tossed into a pile, where the poor and filthy were scavenging it for anything of value. The elites were separated by sex and the men sent to a different building. Soon the Princess with her friends started to take everything of value and using the secret smuggling skill taught by the graduates before them, a pocket dimension, to store everything they wanted to keep hidden. The women were forced from the carriage, moved inside the lavish looking manor, and when they thought it could not get any worse, they were stripped naked, bathed in hot water scented with herbs and given only a thin cotton robe that did nothing to hide anything. A hot collar was placed around their necks, and soon the women could not even form a spell in their minds. They were fed the bare minimum allowed and forced into a large, barred cage outside that was almost too full to accept more.
A sign saying "Kennel" was the only thing to really look at, as two dangerous looking women stood guard. The weight of their situation had finally sunk in and sobs broke up the quiet night air. One of the guards smacked the bars with her wicked looking quirt, a thing used to ride more dangerous animals that can be domesticated for travel.
"Shut the fuck up, bitches!"
This shook the women in the pen .
Not a single noise was made that night.
In the morning, the routine was being formed. Wake up. Be lead to the outhouse. Clean up. Eat and be prepared. The days went on like this, as a parade of men would look at them in their display pens, alone under the sexually heavy gazes of the most lecherous customers. A friend of the princess was selected, and taken inside the manor. Some time later she was returned to the main pen, sobbing, wounded and weary. She was a spunky girl at school, now an almost vacant look on her face, after having been with her fifth customer that day, she sat and lifelessly picked at her meager lunch of bread and honeyed milk. The others knew there was something in the milk, why else would you mask it with honey? But whatever it was wore off quickly.
The afternoon came, and so did a wave of fresh customers with a pocket full of coin. But then, an even more disgusting man arrived. He wasn't overweight, but he was rich plump. He was also a huge pervert with a reputation for the worst of the worst carnal things. Whispers from the girls who have lived in the pen for ages speaks of his moods ending the life of the whore slave he bedded that night.
This was not a man to be trifled with.
He walked by the cages, selecting five girls, around her age, and they whimpered as they had yet to even lay with a man. They were the daughters of her kingdom's minor nobles.
It would not be until the morning after that a single girl returned, on a stretcher to be dumped like a useless lump in the pen.
TBC.
This is the last story for two weeks. I am getting ready to leave. Please enjoy this, and also post any speculations as to what is going to happen.