Chloe didn't get one. I hesitated for a bit, waiting for the boys to bring out her meal, and realized it wasn't coming immediately. The others started eating. Chloe gave me a sad look, and bowed her head submissively to tell me it was okay.
"I assume proper etiquette in this world is to eat first, Tyler," Lysander pointed out, seeing my apprehension. "I presume they'll feed Chloe after an appropriate amount of time has passed."
Poor Chloe. She was probably starving too, and now she could smell our food. I felt guilty as fuck, but I picked up my stew and started eating. I was hungry, and I didn't want to piss off our hosts.
I was half done my meal when Chloe's bowl of gruel arrived. Ethan, the younger brother, placed it on the floor next to her like she was a dog. He seemed tense, as if he was ready for Chloe to pounce on him like a wild animal.
Chloe merely bowed her head to him in thanks, and he smiled back warmly. The gruel was a brownish-greyish mush, served in a wooden bowl of a much less fancy quality than our own clay bowls. She didn't have a spoon or any sort of utensil.
She carefully gathered a finger full, and put it in her mouth, taking a moment to consider its flavour.
"How is it?" I asked.
"Not as bad as it looks," she said with a slightly forced smile. "Tastes a bit like porridge mixed with cardboard. I think I could get used to it."
"Probably a mixture of things that are nutritious but don't really taste good on their own, stuff like apple cores, corn cobs, wheat chaff, probably a few legumes thrown in for protein, that kind of thing," Emi suggested. "I assume there won't be anything too bad in there, I'm sure your average slave is an investment. You wouldn't want them to die on you from poisoning or poor nutrition."
"Good to know," I said.
Chloe continued to eat with her fingers, lifting the bowl to her chin, and scooping the slop into her mouth. The thought that she would be treated like this for the rest of her life was horrifying to me. I was pretty sure I'd be having a nervous breakdown if I was in her shoes. She wasn't exactly enthusiastic about her treatment, knowing this was all a bit too real and too dangerous to be just a sexy fantasy, but she seemed to be taking it well.
Father Jordan entered the room carrying a thick, rough sheet of paper, "Ah, sorry about that. I ran out of forms and had to go to the notary and interrupt his dinner to get these."
"Thanks for doing this," I said, hiding my uncertainty about Chloe's treatment.
"Here we go," the priest said, laying down the form on the coffee table.
He explained the document to us, and it would be quite familiar to anyone who'd bought a car before. It was basically a bill of sale. It contained a description of the slave, her appraised value of one hundred gold pieces, her current level and class at the time of signing, the names of her masters and mistresses, and a liability agreement we had to sign, claiming that we were responsible for any damage resulting from the slave's misbehaviour, including punitive damages should the slave slip free of our control.
Escape for reasons of owner negligence would result in a steep fine for us, but if we were found to have deliberately set her free, we could actually be sent to jail as punishment for undermining the system. There was also a bit about how we had to dispose of her body in a hygienic way, if she died accidentally or we decided to kill her.
Well, that was fucked up. Chloe's earlier words about her being at our mercy with no limits truly sunk in. We were explicitly allowed to kill her, so long as we did it responsibly. I shuddered.
Signing it was an interesting process. For those of us with the [Mana Manipulation] skill, it was as easy as channeling mana into a magical glyph on the page, stamped with a normal looking stamp, but using a special magically reactive ink. Apparently, the glyph would carry our unique magical signature, detectible by anyone with [Sense Mana] and was impossible to forge.
For Maddie and Ash, Father Jordan had to help them channel mana into their glyphs. The priest touched them on the wrist, and placed their fingers on the glyph. He then moved the mana inside their bodies for them.
There was also a spot for Chloe to register her magical signature. Usually the priest had to force the slave's mana out, like he did for Ash and Maddie, but Chloe, being a good girl, channeled her own mana into the document willingly.
"Good," Father Jordan said, standing up and taking the document away. "I'll just file that in the morning, put a collar on your elf, and everything will be nice and official. As of now, Chloe is legally your slave rather than my prisoner. That means you now take responsibility for her actions."
Father Jordan addressed Ash specifically, "I know she used to be something of an equal, but I urge you to be firm with her and keep her in line. A slave that doesn't understand her place is a dangerous liability."
"Yes, we'll do that." Lysander nodded.
Father Jordan ignored her, and waited for Ash, the man of the group, to reply.
"Yep, we'll make sure she behaves herself," he confirmed.
"Ah, and as I mentioned before, there is a fee for slave registration: One gold, plus another five silver for each additional master designated, that's one gold, twenty silver. If you plan on hunting monsters, and collecting bounties on them, you should be able to make a very healthy living. That would be about a week's income, maybe two. So long as you use your divine gift for killing monsters, Ash, I'll consider this gold to be a good investment."
"I plan to. I already promised Vyreth to be a monster killer in exchange for my glorious dick." Ash replied.
"I… see," Father Jordan said awkwardly. "Well, I'll have one of the boys show you to your bunk room when you're done eating. I'll try to find you all some clothes by morning, and perhaps a weapon for Ash. What are you comfortable using?"
"I have a Skill for two handed swords," Ash replied.
"I'll see what I can find," Father Jordan said, walking to the threshold of the door, "For now, rest well, and I'll see you in the morning."
"Can you unlock her cuffs now?" I asked.
"That… is your decision to make, as her Masters," the priest replied hesitantly. "Just know that, without the tracking enchantment of a collar, she would be something of a flight risk, somewhat difficult to recapture should she run away. That would mean a steep fine for you should she escape."
Chloe bowed her head submissively, and raised her manacled wrists slightly, just enough to give me access should I choose to free her. She was hinting at her desire to be unbound, without doing anything as crass and disrespectful as actually speaking out of turn.
I wanted to set her free of course, even if she'd been lying about wanting to be our slave, I seriously doubted she'd want to screw over her only friends and try to survive on her own as a fugitive in a hostile rape-land. I was tempted to state my decision, but I remembered I was a lowly woman. Instead, I just nodded to Ash to let him act as our mouthpiece.
"Yeah, it's okay, we'll take the cuffs off. Chloe's a good girl, right?" he said.
"Yes, Master. I won't go anywhere," Chloe replied.
The priest shrugged and went to get the manacle key. He unlocked Chloe's wrists, we thanked him again, and he retired for the evening. As a group, we quickly finished eating, and then Ethen came and guided us upstairs to our shared bedroom for the night.