Chapter 3: The Lamb to the Slaughter

Lamb to the Slaughter, isn’t there a bunch of reclusive warlock trainers in there somewhere?

He sat in the shade aside and observed the tavern for a while, noticing that while it had its normal patrons coming in and out, it was noticeably cooler than the other tavern over by the Sorcerer’s Sanctuary.

At this time in human society, the Church and Kenrito forbade the practice of knowledge related to demons.

Despite some loosening of policy regarding this in the wake of the Orc Wars, with mages and researchers at the highest levels from Dalaran to the Sorcerer’s Sanctum beginning to conduct small-scale demonic research in an effort to be prepared in the event of another Orc invasion, the acceptance of Warlocks among the unusual is nowhere near as high as it is in the game.

However, the secret group of warlocks hidden in this tavern was not revealed until more than a decade later, enough to show that they acted with stealth and care.

So, if the path doesn’t work out on the Wizard’s Temple side, can we get a job among these warlocks?

“The Lamb to the Slaughter looks the same as it did a decade or so later, with its unassuming frontage and old interior.

There was a piece of straw paper with half of it torn off on the edge of the door, and on the remaining half, it was written vaguely, “Recruitment …… Healthy …… Treatment …… Best for Out of town ……”

Isn’t that what it says about yourself?

The cold tavern was also tended by only one bartender, a black man with a moustache and two thick braids in the savage style.

It was just one guy, but he didn’t seem too busy.

In the corner, a few male patrons who didn’t touch each other drank alone, most of them dressed simply and plainly, stocky and looking like physical workers similar to Jace.

As a store that opened in the mage district, it was surprising that there wasn’t a single mage or apprentice among the customers, so presumably this place was meant for the workers who helped repair the buildings in the mage district from the very beginning.

At that moment, the barbarian stopped wiping the cup in his hand to glare at Jace, looking more like a butcher waiting for a meat pig to plop itself onto the slab than a service provider waiting for customers.

Jace backed off a bit, but the atmosphere was already here and it seemed more unnatural to just back away.

“Honey wine, malt, dwarven wine, black wine.” The black man muttered in a low voice.

“I’m not here for a drink.” Jess stepped up to the bar and asked, “Is the store short-handed, sir? I saw the hiring outside.”

The black man narrowed his eyes, bit his lower lip, and said slowly in heavily accented Common, “Get out.”

Jace nodded and turned his afterglow to look deeper into the lobby, where there was a dark doorway behind a hallway blocked by wooden crates of wine.

If he was right, that would be the secret door to the basement, and the lowest level of the basement would be where the warlocks were hiding.

“Sorry.” He looked back at the black man, “I was told to come here and say that there was work to be done here, I looked and saw that you were the only one and it seemed like you were really busy, so I’m really sorry if anything offended you.”

With that said, Jace raised an eyebrow and headed for the door.

He improvised a non-existent introducer out of the blue, the exact motivation is not clear even to himself, it may be to deflect the responsibility, it may be because he feels that a hidden group like this would be more acceptable to have an introducer.

I didn’t think it would work.

The black man suddenly called out to him and asked, “Who called you?”

“That …… is what a lot of people say.” Jess was about to continue walking out the door when the black man relaxed his tone and asked, “You short on money, boy?”

“I do need money.”

“What’s your name?”

“Jace.”

“Come with me, Jess.”

The black man turned and headed for the dark door, and Jace followed in his footsteps, glancing in passing at his buddies in the corner who were drinking, all of whom looked as if they hadn’t seen or heard anything, and weren’t looking toward this area at all.

Hidden in the “Lamb to the Slaughter” …… is not really a cellar.

Because it’s literally a dungeon!

Not on the same scale as in the game, after a narrow, crate-strewn passageway, crossing an iron gate leads to a dark dungeon-like area.

Even if this place was exposed one day, the Stormwind patrols rushing in wouldn’t necessarily be able to find their way in, and escape would be even easier for the hiders among them.

The black man lit a torch and beckoned Jace to follow.

“Everything you see here can’t be told, boy, and once you do, we’ll know who said it …… and then you’ll find yourself in a very, very bad situation.”

The black man’s accent on the word “very” is extremely strange and breaks up the horror of the place quite a bit.

“I just need the money and don’t want any trouble.” Jess said.

“Very well, that’s good.” The negro went to the iron door of one of the cells and knocked gently.

The movement of knuckles lightly smashing against metal carried locally throughout the underground, and Jace looked deeper into the complete darkness of the gallery, feeling as if a million eyes were staring at him from the direction from which the sound had reverberated.

“Erland, are you still there?” The black man asked into the door.

“Can’t you wait a moment, Zare?” The man in the door gasped in displeasure.

“Sulenna’s in there too?” The black man frowned and said, “I got you guys a helper, pretty sturdy guy.”

“Fuck off, Zare!” A couple of women’s tirades came from inside the door.

It wasn’t long before a burly, bare-chested man pulled the door open a crack, his hand still lifting the waist of his pants, and a strong odor of sweat wafted out of the door.

“That’s the guy, what’s your name?”

“Jace.”

“My name is Erland, hello Jace.” The man named Erland held out his hand, Jace glanced at the hand and didn’t shake it, Erland seemed to think something was odd as well and withdrew his hand and wiped it on his pants.

“Soon, we’ll be out in a minute to show our guest to the practice room.” With that, he slammed the door shut.

“It’s noon, these assholes.” The black man cursed, glanced at Jace, and said, “I’m Zare, by the way, Zare Moore.”

Jace nodded, having absolutely no idea what he was in for. But as of right now, his life shouldn’t be in any danger.

The interior of the slaughtered lamb completely lacked the aura of solemnity that came later, perhaps during this period, the black magic practitioners hiding here were not yet as powerful as they were later, just a group of novices practicing on their own with reference to the power of the orc warlocks.

Zare said, “I have to watch the store, Jace, you can just go by yourself, just walk down that way to the head, the biggest room with a lot of barrels in it is the one.”

“Remember to pick up your paycheck at the bar when you leave.”

“Day-end, how much per visit?”

Zare compared two fingers, wagged them back and forth, and said, “Two silver coins.”

Two silver dollars?

After Zare left, Jace did as he was told and went to this so-called practice room, which was devoid of any practice weapons, such as wooden swords, and completely empty except for the barrels, which he didn’t know if they had any alcohol in them or not.

At that moment, an unsettling scent of decay seeped into his nostrils a little bit, the smell tasted completely different from the smell of rotting wood, or fermenting fruit, but it was not so bad that it could be described as stinky, in any case, it made him feel very uncomfortable.

It took a long time of sniffing back and forth in the basement to notice what seemed to be emanating from around the base of one of the wooden support columns, but it was still impossible to say exactly what it was.

Jace was a little hesitant to continue, but it was a rare opportunity, considering that the job came with two silver coins for doing it once.

Roughly speaking, two visits a month would take care of the rent, and 30 visits a month would save up a gold coin in two months, so that you could almost buy a toilet in the old town in a whole year.

So why can’t we have one trip in the morning and one in the evening for 4 silver coins a day?

Thinking of this, he suddenly had a bad feeling.

Yeah, why not twice a day?

Why do you make two silver coins at a time? What kind of job is this?

Hundreds of jumbled possibilities instantly passed through Jace s mind, and the more he thought about it, the more he felt as if he should move to leave, but two silver coins …… that s two silver coins!

That’s when Erland walked in, slamming Jace’s frantically spinning brain off.

He was followed by a black woman, presumably the Sulunna that Zare had just mentioned, both of them almost in their 20s, not much older than Jace.

Jace remembered Sulenna a little bit, but couldn’t remember who this person really was, in any case, not a good character, she had darker skin than Zare, and wore a dark gray robe, which couldn’t be seen clearly at all in the gloomy room, only two eyes were dangling around.

On the contrary, Erland’s skin was frighteningly white, like he hadn’t been out of the house in months.

Seemingly sensing Jace’s concern, Erland smiled and said, “Don’t be afraid, Jace old boy, we’re just going to conduct a simple little test, conducted by Ms. Sulenna, who always knows how to take things lightly.”

“Are you ready?” Sulenna asked coldly.

“Who prepares, Mr. Erland or me?” Jess asked, “If it’s me, what preparations should I make?”

Before the words were out of his mouth, Erlend had come over and bound Jace to a wooden post five ways.

Erlend is ridiculously strong and doesn’t look like a normal person at all.

He was definitely a veteran, or some kind of trained warrior, or one of those workaholics from the Brotherhood of Stonemasons, and Jace was tied up solidly without much resistance at all.

“Slow down, wait a minute.” Jace forced down his inner panic and asked, “What are you doing?”

“Okay, it’s time to begin.” Erland stepped aside and looked over at Sulenna with a smile.

Sulenna slowly closed her yellow eyes, now completely hidden in the darkness.

She chanted a few words of some unintelligible language, and suddenly a burst of lavender light lit up from between her slender black fingers, and the entire room was illuminated in an eerie purple color.

Jace was instantly caught by the strange dark aura, is this …… Shadow Magic?

In Lordaeron, although arcane magic is not everywhere, as long as it is near the arcane academy it can be seen often, from time to time there will be some male students of the academy showing off their skills outside, using some simple small magic such as shifting and light magic to attract the attention of girls.

Naturally, Jace had seen a few releases of arcane magic, and was already sort of familiar with those mysterious light blue or white magic auras.

But shadow magic, it was the first time he had seen it.

The novelty died a quick death when a sharp ringing in his ears suddenly choked out all his powers of perception.

Jace felt a fierce, sharp pain start to crawl from the ends of his limbs up his little arms, then his upper arms, his thighs all the way up to his chest and stomach, and he felt like a bunch of little monsters with sharp teeth and claws were frantically climbing and clawing their way up his body.

The pain quickly transformed into a dull ache swelling unceasingly in those crawling places, so intense that he could not even speak, only dizziness and a sudden wave of retching that came up!

Erland came closer and whispered, “Look at his veins …… It’s working, Sulenna!”

Jace barely opened his eyes to glance at his hand and realized that dense purple lines had appeared on it.

“Do you want to kill me?!”

“You can’t die, we don’t want to be murderers.” Erland blinked and said, “It’s just the Curse of Pain …… The purpose of this spell is to cause pain, not to kill people.”

“Very good, Sulunna, I feel that your curse power has been practiced to a new level, both the speed of onset and the effect have improved from last time …… Not to mention that this old brother Jace is quite a forceful fellow, just now I almost didn’t hold him down, too much stronger than that beggar last time up.”

The sound of Erlend’s words became clearer and clearer, and the pain blurred and lessened a little as Jace felt his body grow cold around him, and he broke out in a sweat.

There was a big wet patch on his chest that he didn’t know what was going on, and it turned out to be all the stomach juices he’d just vomited up, and he hadn’t eaten anything today.

With his own sweat, and vomit filled with that all-consuming smell of decay, Jace understood where the strange odor in this house came from.

He was called here to be a stake in the ground for someone to work on his dps, and he’s clearly not the first.

Erland quickly untied Jace, moved him a chair for him to sit down and rest for a while, and turned to talk to Sulenna about something.

What they were talking about, Jace no longer had the energy to hear, now his mind was a mess and all he wanted to do was lay down in this chair and sleep.

It’s best to sleep through it and forget everything you’ve just experienced.

But he couldn’t sleep, he had to get out of this place of trouble, get his money and go.

Stumbling in a trance, he arrived on the grass outside the Wizard’s Sanctuary, clutching three silver coins in his hand, three for some reason.

He tilted his head back to look at the sky, the sun had reached overhead storming everything on the ground, the aroma of cookies wafted through the garden and Jace’s stomach rumbled.

Three silver coins …… don’t have to worry too much about rent this month anymore.

Thinking about it that way, it was as if all the experiences I had just had paid off.

At noon he washed his clothes by the canal, took a bath to restore his spirits, bought some bread on the way, and returned home in the afternoon.

Most of the warlocks hiding out in human cities today are also learning dark magic to fight orcs or other evils, not really wanting to worship any demons or even the Burning Legion.

Their ultimate goal was still to integrate into human society, so they didn’t dare to really victimize people to attract a stricter ban.

But what if it was an orc inside? Jace was willing to take a gamble on the basis of his knowledge of the group’s later development, and couldn’t afford to mess around so much if he didn’t have a clue where it was.

So thinking he had come to the trade district, where in the evening there were many more workers lying at the base of the wall resting. A familiar figure was waiting for him in front of the rented building where his own house was located.

“Where have you been, Jace Sesso.”

Jace squinted his eyes as he nibbled on his bread, and it turned out to be Grid.