Chapter Text
This was not entirely how he anticipated coming to Corus for the first time.
Farmer Cape blinked large, dozy blue eyes as he strolled along. He was clad in a cityman's tunic and breeches instead of his uniform,and various mage charms, a heavy pack slung over one broad shoulder as he ambled along Temple Way, through the Lower City with all the wonder of a lad born and bred in the country. The city was big, as was to be expected, and bustling with even more people than Blue Harbor. Maybe more than Port Caynn, but he hadn't yet decided on that part. It seemed Corus had more people, but Port Caynn had more diversity in it’s way. Blue Harbor was the same - there were more kinds of people there, travelers and merchants from all different countries, where the capital seemed to have very few outsiders. It was interesting, but a little boring at the same time. He liked all the different colors and musics and food that came from the mixing of cultures.
But, then, he wasn’t there to enjoy himself, was he?
He was a Dog on a scent, after all.
Farmer paused at a baker’s stall in the Daymarket, grinning winningly at the mot doing the selling, flicking a coin seemingly out of no where with a flourish to pay for his lunch, and then continued along, munching on a pasty. The blue of his Gift was unguarded, open for anyone who was looking to see. He didn’t attempt to hide it in the slightest. If anything, he was showing it off a little.
By the time he found himself a nice little inn and paid for his room, he assumed he had garnered enough attention for himself.
Which was exactly what he wanted.
Mages being taken and sold away was hardly new. People with money would do a lot of things to get a decent mage in their employ, and few people cared how their slaves came to be slaves. It was a common, if disturbing, thing, and part of the reason Farmer had often hidden his power in the past. If it was just that, the Provost's Dogs would never have gotten involved. No, lately, mages of skill were going missing - and not showing up again.
Farmer took a quick meal at an eating house, then settled into his room at the Lower City inn, accepting a nightcap drink from the innkeeper. He dipped a finger into it subtly. The faintest trace of a smile curled the corners of his mouth as he drank it, thanked the innkeep, and headed back to his room, already feeling the drug he'd sensed in it pulling at him, making his eyelids heavy. He'd barely stumbled into his bed before he was out.
He woke in chains.