The Three Letter Club had no official name. It met at seemingly normal places.
At least, that's the impression I got when I reached the place Ted had scribbled on the piece of paper he gave me. It was in a rich neighborhood, which in this city translated to a rich lithos block, near the far wall by the river where the beast tides struggled to reach.
As always, moving between the blocks meant that the whole environment changed. It had been hard to get used to at first, but now it was becoming easier and easier. We crossed the threshold, and what greeted us was not the usual stale air filled with smoke, darkness, and a sea of people everywhere. There was no dirt and grime on the ground, and the houses were not so closely packed together that it was impossible to see between them.
What greeted us was a large, open plaza. Green gardens, manicured grass, and flowers. There was a fountain spewing crystal clear water and making pleasant bubbling sounds. Above, some sort of magic crystals created the illusion of sunlight.
This was different from the rest of the city, and by a good margin.
I wasn't the only one surprised by the sights. The girls were too, each with their peculiar way of ogling things, but ogling all the same.
"Pretty sure this is the right place," Vespera said with a chuckle. "I feel so broke right now."
"Truth be told," I replied. "We are broke."
Another thing I noticed was that not all the slaves were bound by chains here. A few were, but it was mostly the beasts and more… monstrous monsters. The humanoid sentients were free, and they even spoke with their masters, if I could call them that. Their relationship was much more similar to what I shared with the girls, and it made me wonder if perhaps what I had wasn't so unique after all.
The thought lingered in my mind like a bad smell. It upset me more than I thought it would.
Elyra sensed my unease and sent a wave of affection through the bond. It was such a clumsy attempt at making me feel better that I ended up smiling, and without even noticing, I started actually feeling better.
◈◈◈
The lights above were dimming by the time we reached our destination, giving the illusion of sunset. It was beautiful in its own way, and I appreciated the fact that the designers didn't try too hard to imitate the real thing but rather leaned into the unique properties of the crystals to create a completely new experience.
The location was a walled garden with a large three-story villa. Tables were set up on the soft grass, near bushes filled with flowers, under trees with small glow-crystals, and in small gazebos.
A tall, muscular guy stood at the entrance. Despite his mean looks, his face was relaxed and welcoming as he checked each guest's identification. Some gave their guild tokens; others gave little slips of paper or trinkets. They must have been enchanted or something to prevent forgery.
I wondered if my guild token was going to be enough, but I needn't have worried. The man simply glanced at me, touched my token, nodded, and that was that. We were in.
It wasn't long, however, before we were approached by another person.
She too wore a gentle smile, but something about her made me tense up.
"Hello," she said. "You must be Ted's guest. Come with me, please?"
She framed it as a question, but it was anything but. Before I could even reply, she had spun on her heels and was power-walking towards a small tent near the garden's wall in a secluded corner. Mostly open, it was spartan inside, with a table and a small stack of little red monster cores.
"You see," the woman said, as if only now remembering that she was supposed to tell me what was going on. "It is your first time here, and you're not a full member of the club, so I am going to need you to swear a simple secrecy oath." Then, almost as an afterthought: "If that's alright with you?"
The implications were clear. Swear the oath or else. I felt Vespera's thoughts, and of course the demon was thinking about how the 'else' scenario might play out should we choose to go down that path. Elyra was trying her best not to deliver a stern comment about it.
"Of course," I said. I was amused by the girls, and by the whole situation in general.
I admit, I was a little bit curious about what might have happened had I refused to swear the oath, although not in an amused sort of way. The amusement ended well short of any oaths, but I chose to tust Ted.
"Very well," the woman said. "Touch a core, please, and say: 'In this Oath I swear, not to reveal the location, contents, people and affairs conducted in this meeting.'"
I did.
The System tried to cough up its usual lack-of-energy error message, but then the core glowed, turned to dust, and the Oath snapped into place.
As soon as I was done, the woman's face warmed up. The fake, cold mask she was wearing turned to an actual smile. Once again, it almost caught me off guard. I might have been a hauler in my old life, and even though I tried to avoid them, I was in a lot of shady places and meetings. But I never once had been a part of these strange, high-society meetings, where you can't tell what is fake and what is not.
This was uncharted territory.
"Welcome to your world," Vespera whispered to me. "Where you don't have a single clue what's going on. Now we are in this together; how fun!"
She actually got close and spoke with her real voice. Despite her hushed tone, I almost panicked, but then realized that everyone was doing the same here. While out in the lithos block, there were still a few sentients being treated as actual slaves, here I saw no trace of collars and chains, and slaves chatted with their masters without a care in the world, telling jokes and laughing.
There was something about their laughs and faces, though. I couldn't quite put my finger on it at first, but then I remembered Buck's words back when we first met.
I was balls deep in my water elemental, is what he had said—or something like it. These people were fucking their humanoid slaves, all of them, weren't they?
And yet, I could tell that while I was onto something, this wasn't it.
Elyra's voice came through the telepathy bond. "They know they are on borrowed time, Sol."
Ah. That was it. They were keeping up pretenses, keeping their masters happy, trying to live a good life. But in the end…
"We are standing out," the angel told me before my face could darken even more.
I snapped my fingers, and the chains and collars around my girls evaporated into motes of magic.
"How sexy, you think about us as your girls," Vespera whispered again, close to my ear, making me shiver.
She pretended to be heedless of my thoughts, having way too much fun, but I knew she knew full well what troubled me. At the same time, I knew she was also having way too much much.
"You're so tense, Sol, loosen up. What's got into you?"
I looked at her. "I'm in a new situation, that's what got into me."
There was more, of course. She smiled mischievously. "No hauler persona to channel in here, am I right? Good. I don't like it when you pretend to be someone you are not. Someone you once were, but that's now behind you."
At the same time, I didn't feel like this was all that different. In the end, it's like that old ass song from a few centuries before my time. People = shit. I used to blast it before going to cryo-sleep, cranking the custom speakers I installed in my ship to the max.
People really were shit, were they not? No matter where you went, the stench just followed. At least my girls were not like them. They were my safe haven, my little bubble of happiness.
Corny thoughts. I'd only known the two for a few weeks, but the bond made us feel like we'd known each other all our lives.
I felt Elyra take my hand. She was still trailing behind me, but the touch carried all the heat of her presence. "We are here with you, Sol. It is going to be alright."
Right on cue, Ted approached us, emerging from a small crowd that had gathered near the central gazebo. He smiled when his eyes met mine and welcomed us with a big grin on his face.
"Sol, lad! I'm so glad you chose to come! Here, let's get you something to eat. There be a huge buffet, you see, the best that Perseverance's End has to offer."
A buffet? Now that was something I could use to loosen up. Besides, I got the impression that unless I headed for the buffet within the next five seconds, Vespera was going to run there on her own.
She was hungry.
Seeing her antics, Ted laughed. "Good stuff, isn't it?"
She stopped and stared at us, mouth half full. She had piled stuff on her plate until it was filled to bursting, with food of all kinds making a sort of pyramid that hung in precarious balance. She chewed once, swallowed, and pointed a finger at herself.
Ted chuckled again. "Yes, I'm talking to you, Vespera. As you might have noticed, there be no need to keep up the farce in here. You are among friends."
A shadow passed on his face as he said that. I thought I had imagined it, but then he motioned to get down on his level so that he could whisper something to me.
"Or, depends on how you see it; here you have to keep up a whole other kind of pretense. You'll learn, and you are not a full member yet so I can't tell you nothing, but for now do keep the guard up, lad. Remember what I told you back when we met? You gotta prove you can back what you claim when you make grand statements."
"I haven't made any statements, though?"
"That you haven't," the dwarf nodded. "But actions and behaviors are statements of their own. Observe the others. They treat their slaves not as equals but…?"
"Oh, I know," I said. "I know."
He smiled, darkly. "You know, and yet you don't know half of it. The races are rotten, all of them. That's what consuming monsters does to you. It rots you on the inside. So they pretend. Double and triple layers. The cleaner they look on the outside, the more rotten they be on the inside."
Then his face cleared, and he went back to the buffet for more food. I looked around at the people here. Humans, dwarves, and occasional elves. The elves were everything that dwarves and humans were not. Perfect, slim, toned, their skin was smooth and uniform. Their clothes were impeccable. They exuded an aura of nobility just by existing.
Other than the three races, there were the slaves. Most of them humanoid, they came in all shapes, sizes, and colors, and occupied every single slot in the strangeness spectrum. They made Elyra and Vespera look normal by comparison, although I had to say that none of the others came even remotely close to how cute and hot my girls were.
"Focus, Sol," Elyra said telepathically.
I blinked, clearing my head before I could get sidetracked. I swear it had been Vespera's fault. Anyway, the others.
"Yep," I said through the bond. "Just like I thought. People = shit. They might not be slaves, but they are not equals either. They are something in between. Servants, maybe?"
"And the girls, Sol," the angel said.
"Objects," the demon spat. Luckily, she was controlling her face despite the venom in her voice through the bond. "I'm all for objectification and free use kinks, Sol, but only when it's consensual."
"This is not a kink, Vespera," Elyra said. She was blushing despite herself. "This is their whole identity."
The demon growled. "I know. I tried to make a joke but this ain't funny. This place might be worse than the guild."
Ted returned soon after. His plate was fuller than Vespera's had been. "Eat as much as you want! It's all included in the membership fees. Which, you don't have to pay yet! Better make use of this freebie, right? But don't eat too much just yet," he said conspiratorially. "This is just the appetizer. The actual dinner is five courses!"