Four wizards sit by four scrying mirrors in their Absalom office-tower-fortress. (In a city of adventurers, this is an well-established segment of the real estate market.)

Absalom is a bit less than twelve hundred miles to the east of Westcrown; it is already approaching lunchtime for them, and they have been scrying for hours, collecting price information, and sharing it when they can. 

Coro has the Westcrown scry; he's the strongest wizard of them, slightly more able to manage a stable enough link for Message, and for the last week it's been their most important city. He quickly scans the decree.

"It's over," he says simply. The Message takes, and he starts sharing prices with their Westcrown agent.

Andreu is the weakest of them, but that's not that surprising for being the youngest as well. His scry is more fragile, and he can only collect the prices from Caliphas.

They had agreed to work every day until the price situation in Cheliax stabilized, one way or the other, and he's now thinking about visiting Jalmeray.

Montserrat has the Ostenso scry, a temporary replacement for the Almas one. Her agent also had a copy of the decree, and her Message went through as well. They discuss details, then she turns to the others.

"The decree has been widely announced, but there are still some holdouts desperate to sell--"

"No," he interrupts quickly, having read the decree Coro wrote down. "We bought a product that was legal to buy and we sold a product that was legal to sell, and are not going to break the laws of Cheliax."

The Firm was his idea, and so he is technically the senior partner, even if both Coro and Montserrat are older. 

He sighs heavily. "Which means our other plan may be interrupted as well."

"What?" Andreu quickly scans the copy of the decree.

"You don't still consider yourself a Chelish subject, do you?" All of them bear scars from their time there, and Hell may still hold their souls, but Andreu is making the most of the escape they've managed. 

"Some of us are not so eager to cast aside our loyalties. Besides, I think I have figured out how to get around it."

The wizards of the Firm have spent the last week in slave markets; buying halflings in Chelish ones for about twenty gold and selling them in foreign ones for often triple the price. Even as the prices dropped abroad with the influx of halflings, the prices in Cheliax cratered more, with the ports closed and the sellers growing more desperate. Add to that more Bags of Holding available on the market as their voyages proved profitable, and they were making more money each day than the last.

Cheliax has made more use of Detect Thoughts than anywhere else, and even it neglected its halflings. They scanned them on exiting the bags; they strolled through the markets, picking up the quick-witted whenever they could find them. The hit rate is not good, but you make it up on volume, and once it got underway they started hiring Chelish wizards to pre-select sufficiently clever slaves for them. The first day, there were a few dozen; then they rapidly improved on methods and coverage, and now there are hundreds, packed in a little too tightly and tasked with cleaning this long-disused section of the fortress. If it had continued, they would have had to expand, and their Absalom agent was already hunting for a suitable property. Roughly a third of them are Chelish halflings, there are a handful of Chelish humans, and the rest are slaves from Thuvia to Kelesh, from Taldor to Katapesh.

The guards, masked and armored, gather the slaves who can speak Taldane in the courtyard. Above them fly four wizards.

This project was Coro's idea, so he gets to start the speech.

"All of you have the potential to become wizards," he says. "And not mere dabblers, but masters of the art. Your potential was wasted, in your previous life. We will teach you to read, how to do the necessary mathematics, and then how to cast spells, and feed and house you while you train."

They alter their formation, scanning the crowd.

"Once you are a wizard, we will not be able to keep you by force, and so we will not train any student who is not willing to serve. You are in Absalom, the city at the center of the world. Walk out that gate and find a job, or beg for passage back home at the docks. Remember me in your prayers to Milani, or not; it will make no difference to me, as we will have forgotten you."

"Absalom is a city of wizards, and there are other schools that could teach you, for a tuition out of the reach of most, and you would leave here with nothing but your clothes and your wits."

"Before you is a choice: cast your manumission papers into the fire and stay, or take them and go. You will be offered it again, whenever you pass through one of the gates of wizardry."

The guards have placed a large brazier near the gate, and one of the wizards sets it alight from the air. The first is one they chose ahead of time, who casts his paper into the fire without a moment's consideration, and is given an Arcane Mark on his face in the place where wizards often mark their slaves, and he walks to the back of the courtyard to watch the rest. Other guards distribute papers to the slaves, and one by one they approach the brazier.