Challenge #04746-L362: Hung in the Loophole

Wraithvine comes upon a giant farm where the owner is keeping dozens of slaves. The laws of the kingdom leave the owner’s family a loophole to keep them, but, that won’t stop Wraithvine from doing the right thing, one way or another… -- Deathshead419

There are ways to know a slaver's property before anyone could spot a person in chains. Such as the immense fields that no one family could work, overseen by a large house that no one family could maintain. And a host of humble little cottages artistically concealed by ornate shrubbery.

Lords managed the land, and looked after their vassals, to a degree. Slavers dictated everything, reaped the rewards, and punished anyone that fit their mood. There were no laws but the slaver's own, which could change on the breeze.

And there was no negotiation or appeal to the authorities.

Just the options: escape, death, or bloody revolution. Suffering in a taught helplessness ensured by a tinpot dictator who had their own rationalisations for the evils they wrought every day.

Wraithvine had spotted this one from the top of the road. It was too simple. Sweeping fields of monoculture. Ornate mansion with more architecture than necessary. Showing off to others of the same ilk. A grand facade hiding a rotten core.

This was a Human settlement, and the captive workers... Gobelliin.

Humans in this realm were forbidden from holding other Humans in chains, and various abilities prevented them from holding any stronger species... but there were those who were a lot easier to subjugate. Those that even the higher and mightier would care less about. Those who most people viewed as... vermin.

Gobelliin were almost as universally Unwelcome as Hellkin. Reviled, despised, often grouped into the same cluster of unhygenic creatures as rats and cockroaches. Few cared enough about them to campaign for their rights or their freedom.

Wraithvine was proud to count hirself as one of those few.

There was no arguing with the master, but Wraithvine could use hir mendicant status as a living legend. Either to gain run of the estate or to find hir way into the servant's hidden slum.

From there, it was just a matter of finding which justice was the most appropriate.

[Photo by Joseph Reece on Unsplash]

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