“Good point,” Talbot said. Chloe was surprised to see that the chubby man had already stripped out of his black robes, which were now puddled around his feet.

  “You don’t need to hang around,” Chloe said.

  “I’m so over this,” he said, tears brimming his eyes. “I’m not brave. I’m not built for danger. I’m not built for conspiracy.” He fell to his knees. “Please, brave warrior woman and man, let me go.”

  Yuri rolled his eyes.

  Chloe looked at Ben for a sign about what to do. Once again, he shrugged, neither of them having come across this situation before.

  “Very well.” Chloe nodded. “But if we get wind that this is some kind of trick, we will hunt you down and...well, we don’t need to say the rest. We are blessed. Death will not stop us from returning and haunting your asses until the day you die.”

  A glimmer of understanding crossed Talbot’s face before he thanked them with fervid desperation and then turned to leave. His fat backside wobbled as he sprinted down the alley and disappeared.

  Chloe looked at the pile of material on the ground. “Well, that’s one ticket into the show.” She turned her attention to Yuri. “I suppose you’re our second.”

  They left Yuri unconscious and tied up in the alley, picking up the men’s torches and strolling over to the building. The door opened silently, and they managed to sneak into the back of what they now saw as an amphitheater-style room with raised seating. Everyone was focused on a central point at the far side of the room.

  They found seats at the edge, not wanting to disturb the man currently talking on the stage. His rich garb was decorated by a series of gold chains that ringed his neck. He held the leashes of three of the fiercest-looking dogs Chloe had ever seen, their mouths frothing, teeth bared at the crowd.

  “So, tell me again how much power the bitches hold in the arena? When the dogs are sent into the colosseum, do the bitches survive? Do the bitches have the strength and the power these dogs hold?” The man held out his free hand to the crowd. “Well?”

  There was a resounding chorus of “No.”

  “No! That’s absolutely right. The dogs are the leaders of the pack. The alphas are the males. Do the wolves bow and let the females take the lead over their dominion?”

  “No!”

  “I can’t hear you!”

  “No!”

  Chloe and Ben looked at each other, uneasy at being surrounded by the gaggle of angry men. She couldn’t fathom what the problem was. Since they had arrived, the men of this town had clearly had sticks up their asses. But why?

  “No, that’s right,” the man continued, pacing the stage. He let go of the dogs’ leads, and the audience gasped as the dogs ran to the front row and began sniffing the crowd. “So, imagine my surprise when the beings in their high seats at the top of Gallen Hollows decided to change the law. To mess with the ways of old, and throw a rock into our pool of stillness and calm? A she-devil with a whore’s mind and fancy-pants ideas taken from the new world.”

  “Burn her!” a voice called from the crowd, eliciting a series of chuckles from around him.

  “Slice her open!”

  “Nothing messes with our ways!”

  The man held up both hands to calm the audience, a smug smile on his face. “Eventually, friends. If that’s what it takes.”

  Chloe leaned over and whispered to Ben, “Is it just me, or does that dude totally have an erection right now?”

  Ben caught his laugh behind his hand. “I can tell where your mind has been wandering.”

  “But let me ask you a question: does a person suffer when a hand deals them a final blow? Do they learn from their mistakes, understanding what it is that they did wrong, and how they can help heal the world?”

  Several heads shook. The dogs reached the third row, weaving between people’s legs and sniffing the floor. Chloe wondered what they were searching for.

  “No. That’s right. Death is too sudden a punishment. You can only kill a woman once. But if she’s alive, you can play with her all you want. Play until the days are done and the woman is used and spent. Only then should you discard her into the final abyss.”

  There were several cheers at that, and a few fists pumping into the air.

  “I don’t like where this is heading,” Chloe whispered.

  “Really? I think I’m getting on board.” He winked.

  Chloe elbowed him, her smile fading as one of the dogs erupted into a series of angry barks.

  One of the dogs had reached the end of the fourth row, and now bit the robes of one of the people sitting there. It tugged and jerked its head back and forth, growling as the other two dogs came to join it.

  “Aha!” The man addressed the crowd. “It seems we have a spy in our midst.”

  Chloe watched as the person stood up, hands in the air, trying to kick the dogs away. The man watched darkly for a moment before putting his fingers to his lips and whistling. The dogs quieted, reluctantly releasing their prey.

  The men around the victim of the dogs’ attack now grabbed the person and led them onto the stage, a rather feminine voice protesting rather animatedly through the mask.

  “Welcome to our humble gathering,” the man said, thanking the others and holding the victim by the back of the neck. “Let’s see who we have here, shall we?”

  He grabbed the hood and ripped it off, revealing the disheveled face of a rather pretty woman. She wore dark paint around her eyes that dripped down to her upper lip.

  “Oi,” Ben muttered.

  Chloe elbowed his side. “Keep it in your pants, will you?”

  The man smiled darkly, grabbing a fistful of her hair and tilting her head back. “You see? The stupidity of women knows no bounds. How can we say we are on equal footing with a subservient gender when they feel they can sneak into our gathering without getting caught? When they feel we men are stupid enough to just let them join our gathering and not even notice that they’re spying on us?”

  He gestured with his free arm, addressing the crowd once more. “Tell me, how many others of you are there? Be honest, now. We treat the honest ones with much more kindness than this bitch is going to see.”

  There was a moment of pregnant silence before a person stood, then another. Before long, there were another four women being led toward the front, their hoods whipped off to reveal more females with strange paint on their faces.

  “Well, well, well. How noble and bold of you all. I admire your honesty. Tell me, what will Lady Gwent think when she discovers you’ve been foiled?” He leaned close to the nearest woman, and her nostrils flare and her teeth clenched. She looked determinedly ahead, refusing to meet his gaze.

  “I see. Shame you won’t be able to contact her for some time.” He clicked his fingers. “Take them away.”

  Several men rose and dragged the women away, binding their mouths to muffle their screaming refusals.

  “Now, before we move on, why don’t we do a final scan of the auditorium, eh? Discover who among you all is a coward and liar and wasn’t able to gather the guts to reveal herself when asked.” Another whistle and the dogs began their hunt again.

  The man continued to talk, his subject the degradation of women and the dominance of men. The crowd was pleased and excited, brought to raucousness as the dogs continued their search, discovering one more woman in their midst. She was a lean woman with a gaunt face, no paint to be seen.

  One of the dogs kept sniffing around the upper rows, but by the time its nose snuffled Chloe’s seat curiously, the pair of them were gone.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “Jessie! What are you doing?”

  Chloe couldn’t hold back the laugh as she entered the bedchamber and saw Jessie quickly scrambling back beneath her sheets.

  “N-n-nothing…” Jessie said, just her head poking out of the covers.

  “Were you…” Chloe started, unable to form a coherent sentence through her laughter. “With… Doing… On top of him?”

  To her surprise, Tag sat up in bed, an annoyed expression on his face. “For your information, yes, we were. I logged back in not too long ago, saw you guys were gone and that Gid was still out of it, and thought, ‘Y’know what? Ben can get some in-game action, so why can’t Tag?’”

  Ben slow-clapped, beaming. “I’m so proud of you. Even if you do address yourself in the third person.”

  Tag blushed. “Well, don’t be. We didn’t get very far before you guys barged in.”

  Chloe looked at Gideon’s bed. “Lucky Gid was logged out, then, eh? Guess your timing was just perfect.” She winked at Jessie.

  “Er, guys?” Gid said, finger raising in the air as he rolled uncomfortably onto his other side. “I don’t mean to make this awkward, but I actually logged in a little while ago. I’ve just been going through my menus and sorting out my notifications from the past day or so.”

  Tag’s and Jessie’s faces fell. “You what?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Gideon said, blushing. “I heard everything. You guys are not subtle. I’d bet that even if I hadn’t been logged out for the start of it, I’d have heard it all through my headphones.”

  Chloe and Ben exploded into laughter.

  Gid turned to the pair by the door. “Hey, what’s with your clothes?”

  “Oh, these?” Chloe said, shutting the door behind them as they stripped out of their borrowed black cloaks and masks. “Long story.”

  Chloe and Ben allowed Jessie and Tag to get their clothes back on and waited for the color to return to their faces before telling them about the people in black they had followed through the night. Tag, Jessie, and Gideon listened intently, Gid’s eyebrows raising at the mention of the dogs and their sniffing out of the female gender.

  “Something stinks, I tell you,” Gideon said, now sitting at the edge of his bed. “There’s something bigger going on here; I can smell it.”

  “Well, that’s what we need to figure out.” Chloe crossed the room, sat next to Gid, and placed a hand on his shoulder. “They’ve got their bloodhounds, we’ve got ours.” She winked, chuckling at his sudden discomfort.

  “But where do we start?” Ben asked.

  “Following the people in black, I guess?” Tag said. “Did you see where they went after the rally?”

  “We had to leave and fast.” Chloe sighed. “If we could have only stayed until the end, we might have gotten more information from them all.”

  “You’ve got all the information you need,” Jessie said. “Didn’t you hear what you told us? Lady Gwent is somehow tied up in all this. We should find her. If she’s the one changing the laws or sending in spies, then that’s where we need to start our search.”

  “She’s right,” Tag said fondly. “Let’s start there.”

  Tag and Gid kept Chloe company while Ben took a short hiatus and logged out. Between the remaining four adventurers, there was plenty of talk about possibilities of what they’d find on the hunt for Lady Gwent. They discussed how, with a large chunk of the town involved in some dark conspiracy, they would have to be careful. Keep low. Do their best to blend in.

  “We might have to face the fact that you ladies need to play subservient.” Gid blushed. “Y’know, if we’re going to be as inconspicuous as possible.”

  “Is that really what you want?” Chloe breathed, advancing on Gid as she spoke in a husky voice. “For the ladies to bend to your will? For you to dominate us and take us however you like?”

  Gideon’s mouth flapped open and closed, his cheeks glowing bright red. “No, I… Erm…”

  Chloe and Jessie exploded with laughter. “Aw, you’re too easy! You might be right, though. As long as those men are out there, there’s no telling who will be keeping an eye on us.”

  Ben finally logged back in around sunrise. They packed up their things and headed downstairs, beating anyone else into the quiet tavern bar. Ben, Gideon, and Tag thanked the barkeep, then lowered their heads and went outside.

  “Did you see him?” Jessie asked. “It was as though he was just waiting for us to speak so he could throw something.”

  “Guess who’s going to be getting a 1-star review on Yelp?” Chloe scoffed.

  The town was quiet at this time of the morning. Various shades of pink were cast across the sky as the birds sang their morning songs. They passed a few early risers carrying pails and boxes of miscellaneous fruits and pastries as they headed to the center of town. Shop owners were milling around, setting up for the day, and bakers sent the sweet smells of various kinds of warm dough into the air.

  “Reminds me of home,” Ben said.

  Lucky you, Chloe thought, since she had never experienced anything like this in her life. Even on her private vacations to the country, she’d never seen (or smelled) anything like this in her life.

  “They’re just small businesses,” Chloe muttered, her brain working overtime. “They’re not chains or corporations. They sell their items, make more, and do the same the next day.”

  “What did you expect?” Gideon asked, his sensitive ears picking up Chloe’s musings. “This isn’t the real world. Chain stores and conglomerates don’t play here. It’s only the modest and humble who make a living, and they do it well.”

  Chloe spied the baker through the window, a great smile on his pudgy face. A smile of genuine happiness, something she had never seen associated with work in her life. All the smiles she had ever seen were fake, lasting only until the next milestone needed to be hit.

  Imagine if that baker took his son and set up shop in Hobblesville, or Nauriel. He could keep the business in his family, teach the attitude and customer service of a small-town business, and really make a killing selling pastries to the masses.

  Chloe let the idea bounce around in her brain, thinking about the untapped potential this game had to offer. If Gid was right, and there were only one-offs and small businesses, what was to stop someone from blowing the game wide open and creating something that’d never been done before?

  They passed into a market square filled with dozens of stalls setting up for the day. Already there were people gathering around, waiting for the stalls to open. Some haggling over items that had barely touched the cloth.

  “Two copper,” one toothless woman in a shawl crowed.

  A large man with button eyes half-turned his head, seeing the small jewel she held between her fingers. He snatched it back and shoved it in his pocket. “We’ve been through this before. That’s at least three silver, lady. Now, get out of here before I call the guards to take you away for harassment.”

  The woman grumbled and turned away, but not before sneaking a small red amulet into her pocket.

  She disappeared before the man had even lifted his head again.

  “We should ask for directions or information,” Chloe said, storming toward the fat man.

  Ben blocked her way with his arm, smugly looking down into her eyes. “Remember our situation. You don’t have to do anything. Leave it to the big boys.”

  Chloe glared at Ben, leaving him laughing as he crossed to the fat man.

  “Excuse me, sir?” Ben asked, pausing near the fat man, whose head was once again buried in a box of goods.

  “Hmm?”

  Ben looked back at the others and shrugged.

  Tag gave a thumbs-up.

  Ben rolled his eyes and continued, “Do you need a hand?”

  The fat man lifted himself up with a grunt, hands full of a selection of strange and questionable jewelry. “What do you want? Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  “I apologize. I’m just looking for someone, and I’m not sure where to start.”

  “Oh, big news.” The man finished arranging his display, threw his arms in the air, and returned to the box. “Everyone’s looking for someone these days. What makes you think I know any of the miserable bleeders in this damn town?”

  “Oh, come on. Everyone knows someone.”

  The man grunted again, accidentally knocking his leg into his table. The perfectly arranged jewelry mingled in scrambled chaos.

  “Here,” Ben said, offering a hand. He moved all the jewelry around, placing each in a better position than it had been originally. “That’ll sell better.”

  The man looked up suspiciously, hands filled once again with jewelry. “That’s not how I had them.”

  “Excuse me, sir?” A man with a thick beard paused and fingered one of the items. “This is beautiful. How much?”

  The fat man thought for a second, then said, “For you? Five silver pieces.”

  The bearded man nodded in appreciation, reached into his pocket, and drew out 5 coins. “Here.”

  The fat man held out his hand, eyes wide with surprise. The bearded man took the item and left. A second later, there were three more people asking for items.

  When they had all gone, the fat man looked Ben up and down. “I don’t know what you did, but never before have I had three sales in which I haven’t had the townsfolk trying to haggle.”

  “You just have to make the display beautiful so people will value the items more highly. If they think they’re worth more than they are, they’ll pay more than they’re worth. They probably thought you were giving it to them at a bargain price.”

  The man nodded, his stony face cracking into a smile for the first time. “You’re all right, kid. Fancy helping me with the rest of my display? Then maybe I’ll see what I can do to help you.”

  Ben agreed, sticking his hands into the merch and helping arrange the table. The man had a whole host of items, half of which Ben was almost certain were fakes or not the caliber the man said they were. One “diamond,” for instance, didn’t even scratch the floor when it was knocked off the table and rolled a short distance away.

  Chloe and the others looked busy, talking among themselves as they waited patiently for Ben to finish. He hardly looked up as he moved items around, crouching at eye level to make sure the display was as perfect as it could be.

  By the time they were finished, the rest of the stallholders were set up, and people had begun to file in from around the town.

  The fat man finished up with another early sale, a great smile on his face as the customer walked away, pleased. “Thank you so much for your help. If you want the answer to your question, you best ask quick. I see more people heading over now.”