___Lumen___
Her bonds seemed to be the only thing holding her upright, as your blade liberates her, she falls to her knees with a heavy thud.
Deep red impressions and purple bruising around her wrists bely how long she'd been strapped up for and she sobbed openly as you removed her gag.
She pleaded in some foreign language with you, her eyes full of tears and anguish.
It sounded vaguely eastern european, kinda what the lads spoke like down the docks, but none of it made any more sense than their banter and bullshit did back in The Old Smoke.
The wounded fuckwit groaned Nooo, Fuck...Nooo as he reached limply for the cattle prod, somewhat aware of the retribution coming his way.
The tears and hurt in her eyes turned to malice, her sore looking wrists struggling with the heft of the tool-come-weapon. She pressed the "on" button, impressed with the spark between the prongs and drove it into his gut, relishing each spasm and convulsion before it ran out of juice.
Turning your attention to the violated woman on the lower bunk, you saw her face for the first time. A striking looking asian woman lay before you, battered, bruised and beaten though she was, something caught your eye. a subtle tattoo on her right shoulder, it pricked some far off memory as you unbound her wrists and removed her gag. She smiled a weak "thankyou" smile before rolling over onto her side, gagging and retching as the air hit her parched and irritated throat for the first time in ages.
Knowledge test please; magical threats. no -ve mods applied.
The smell of burnt flesh filled the small cabin as you turned away, the heavy door clunking back into position.
___Scawire___
The wrongness of the situation began to set in, your brain fully accepting what had gone on here. There was no way of telling if these girls had been kept aboard as live-in slaves or whether they were victims of the people trafficking trade, but you just knew they'd been in for a fucking ordeal. Knives set about loosing there bonds and removing their gags, both looked traumatised, splattered with the blood of their tormentors and captors and not quite believing the current turn of events. You were overcome by a feeling of disgust, of revulsion and you were not the only one.
Summoner, Please, unbind me from my due services; for I wish to tend to the prisoners and your team are not in immediate threat. Will you grant me this?
___Lumen___
You push past Mantis's body, half-blocking the narrow exit through the heavy door, overbalancing as the ship took a pounding from a wave and clattering your bad shoulder into the frame.
Grimacing as you pushed yourself off the doorway, you saw the corpse still laying in an awkward semi-prone ragdoll pose, blood pooling out of the entry wounds. Dunk nodded from further up the corridor, keeping vigilant watch over the corridor leading up to the deck access-hatch, the rusty old shotgun trained down the corridor you descended what seemed like weeks ago.
Mantis deliberated with his spirit in the corridor as you shut the door, wheeling it locked.
The music dimmed down with the door shut, the speakers in the roof of the small cabin piping in the tunes from further down the craft, mirroring the feed from further down the corridor.
You'd heard all sorts of stories about the smugglers who dropped their wares into the east end docklands and believed most of them. You knew the Clerkenwells had substantial dealings with a number of "operators" who ran large smuggling outfits of BTL's, novacoke and knock-off threads and other shit, but you knew Micky was never into the people market. "too much facking trouble" he'd said, "too many facking nosy cunts, sticking their oar in, wanting a facking cut o' my takings". What was for certain was that these lads never ran the 'channel without a full hold and two girls, profitable as they may be, would probably just be the start of what they had onboard
Drawing your blood soaked blades you followed your spatial recogniser, pulsing away in your AR feed.
A small hatchway on your right was labelled in french, but the AR iconography immediately told you it was a stairway to the lower decks. Ahead, the only other doorway was given away by the AR icon, a coffee cup, the universal sign for the canteen. Your spatial recogniser confirmed it as the second source of the music, crackling slightly as it was interrupted by an announcement over the tannoy in the same guttural eastern european/slavic sounding tongue as the other crew members. It lasted for no more than a couple of seconds and it sounded authoritative, like maybe it was from the captain or commanding officer.
The music resumed, pumping and drilling the same bass-line over and over before slightly mixing in another synth layer as the vocals faded out.
___Mantis___
Knives seemed riled, he pushed past you and headed out into the corridor, smacking into the doorway as the waves threw him off-balance. He swung a left out of the doorway, drawing his blades and walking menacingly down to the end of the corridor, checking out each doorway.
The tannoy system crackled to life, briefly interrupting the music before returning to a bassier, heavier sounding track.
Glancing up in Knives direction, your AR feed showed the canteen ahead and a stairway to levels 2-1. Dunk nodded back at you from the other direction, covering your rear.
