Comic for June 7th, 2017: Paying The Price

[DragnMastralex]

[Cyon]

Is the Estate a checkpoint? It looks like we have entered a big calm.

Meanwhile, a battle is likely going on at the wolfpens as Edimire's soldiers try to recapture the escaped wolves.
I'd say this scene is the calm before the storm, when Team A will get trapped between the conflict and Team B's arrival which will speed up the pace of the story. Not to forget Clovis who will surely make an appearance at some point in the near future. Probably a good thing to have a slowdown in the story now.

The towel says "LT", what could it mean? Legacy, Trace?

It appears to actually say "TL", since it appears to read top-bottom

So just "Trace Legacy". Very nice design work on the logo.

[Aurora]

Mike looks floored. Bet he's thinking he's never had his own money before, much less however much they were paid. And it's a nice gesture
on Eric's part to pay them, as if they had been regular employees.

He sure looks different without his glasses and his hair down in that one panel. You'd never recognize him ...

And it's nice that Evals can part company with his former master on such good terms.

[Darekun]

Mike is going to have a big crisis though. Odds are he's going to want to continue to work for Eric, if that's possible.

Wow, Eric does have a heart in there somewhere. I always pictured him being way more selfish than this. Its odd to see he even pays them. Then again, he does say this trip has opened his eyes and all that. I guess its changed him for the better.

I think it'd be great for Eric if Mike hires on as a paid employee. Currently, Eric seems to feel squeezed between two conflicting forces; the drive to continue selfishly benefiting from the system cuts against the drive to do what's right. Well, he's already been providing Mike room and board, and look at the growing shock on Mike's face — he's not going to demand hefty disposable pay. If the difference is just A) Eric doesn't pay up-front but instead pays maybe double the ROI ongoingly, and B) employees have more rights but still are basically there to do what the employer needs, then I think pressure from the first drive will let up :J

(Evals I see going back to his tribe. That might not work out, but when he was planning a slave revolt, that was his plan.)

and the lighting Tom managed here is fairly dark and a step up in quality as of late,

Wow, you're right! I chronically ignore lighting — my own attempts range from "What lighting?" to "Oh just turn on radiosity and stick in a sun and let the raytracer deal with it.". But now my attention's been drawn to it, and I'm impressed O:J

Eric may feel he has been bad taking advantage of her and showing a romantic interest would be exploiting her as he was her master, not that different a situation than a male teacher in high school with an attractive 18 year old female student.

I think it's worse than that… Remember, Eric was little when his family got Kat. If he was young enough(like 6 or younger), then he would've reverse sexually imprinted on her. It's possible he feels it'd be incest, as bad as if she were his sister, because as far as his instincts are concerned she is.

But yeah, if she just told him then they could go from there, she's got a good share of the guilt.

[Balance]

I think it'd be great for Eric if Mike hires on as a paid employee. Currently, Eric seems to feel squeezed between two conflicting forces; the drive to continue selfishly benefiting from the system cuts against the drive to do what's right. Well, he's already been providing Mike room and board, and look at the growing shock on Mike's face — he's not going to demand hefty disposable pay. If the difference is just A) Eric doesn't pay up-front but instead pays maybe double the ROI ongoingly, and B) employees have more rights but still are basically there to do what the employer needs, then I think pressure from the first drive will let up :J

There's a practical issue with Mike staying on as Eric's employee. Courtesy of (Dark) Trace, it's illegal to free a slave. Mike is presumably known to be one of Eric's slaves in the area around Eric's base of operations. Eric will need to return there at some point, but If he does so with Mike as a paid employee, rather than a slave, it's likely to get them both in legal trouble. Currently, Eric has the fig leaf of having sold Mike to Trace, thus shifting the legal consequences of freeing him to someone else, but that's not likely to hold up if he keeps Mike around.

It's not an insurmountable problem, but the workarounds that occur to me offhand have flaws. Mike could pretend to be a slave while in Eric's home town, but I think that would be bad for him. Eric could assign him to work elsewhere, but anyone he's assigned to work under will almost certainly realize that he's an illegally freed slave, and Mike may not be prepared to work independently. (Indeed, the fact that Mike seems unready to be on his own is one reason we're having this discussion.)

Ultimately, Mike is caught between worlds. He wants to live in human society, because it's all he knows, but human society as we've seen it is inherently dangerous to him. He is likely to be seen as a slave (or potential slave) anywhere he goes. On the other hand, as he himself has pointed out, he doesn't have the background to survive if he tries to join canine society. As matters stand, the best answer for him may well be the same as for Trace and Flora: Lyn'knoll.

I suspect that the world is going to undergo considerable change before any of our friends see the Orchard Valley, though.

[Warrl]

Courtesy of (Dark) Trace, it's illegal to free a slave.

That has not been said.

What has been said is that it's illegal for a licensed slave-trader to free a slave, or to sell a slave to someone who (to the trader's knowledge) intends to free that slave. And even with that, there are exceptions so Eric legally can free Katherine.

[Nova]

@Warrl: Um, that's exactly what was said. Eric is a "licensed slave trader" as far as we know, so he is not allowed to free them. I don't know of any exceptions to that. Eric even said that he is willing to risk it selling the slaves to Trace.

[Warrl]

@Warrl: Um, that's exactly what was said.

No it wasn't. Not in the post I was replying to.

Eric is a "licensed slave trader" as far as we know, so he is not allowed to free them.

That's what I said. The same rule wouldn't apply to other people who aren't licensed slave traders. Or if it did, Eric wouldn't have made a point of qualifying the restriction in that way.

I don't know of any exceptions to that.

Eric said that because he got Kat basically through family, he CAN free her. Based on what was said in various places I'm guessing she was supposed to go to his brother but he and his brother cut a deal that got incorporated in the settlement of their parents' estate so she's legally considered part of his inheritance rather than a slave he purchased.

Eric even said that he is willing to risk it selling the slaves to Trace.

To free them, their current owner probably has to put his name on some legal documents. So if Eric were to free them, it would be easy to prove. However, proving that Eric knew Trace was buying them for the purpose of freeing them would be hard.

[Nova]

I did search for the corresponding pages and now understand what you mean, ok.
(Page 658, "Trade Negotiations", 2012/04/18,
Page 660, "Wrong choice of words", 2012/05/02)

[Darekun]

There's a practical issue with Mike staying on as Eric's employee. Courtesy of (Dark) Trace, it's illegal to free a slave. Mike is presumably known to be one of Eric's slaves in the area around Eric's base of operations. Eric will need to return there at some point, but If he does so with Mike as a paid employee, rather than a slave, it's likely to get them both in legal trouble. Currently, Eric has the fig leaf of having sold Mike to Trace, thus shifting the legal consequences of freeing him to someone else, but that's not likely to hold up if he keeps Mike around.

I was thinking more… What's Eric going to do? Is he just going to go back to the same place, where everybody knows him as a slave trader? His world is shaken, his life called into doubt. I'm not confident where Eric will be, and presumably if Mike hires on that instructs where he in turn will be. It's thus unfortunate that Eric lost his ship, but that suggests to me that Tom has a plan, which I haven't guessed.

But yes, the issue is certainly real.

I suspect that the world is going to undergo considerable change before any of our friends see the Orchard Valley, though.

Definitely.

[Cyon]

There's a practical issue with Mike staying on as Eric's employee. Courtesy of (Dark) Trace, it's illegal to free a slave. Mike is presumably known to be one of Eric's slaves in the area around Eric's base of operations. Eric will need to return there at some point, but If he does so with Mike as a paid employee, rather than a slave, it's likely to get them both in legal trouble. Currently, Eric has the fig leaf of having sold Mike to Trace, thus shifting the legal consequences of freeing him to someone else, but that's not likely to hold up if he keeps Mike around.

I was thinking more… What's Eric going to do? Is he just going to go back to the same place, where everybody knows him as a slave trader? His world is shaken, his life called into doubt. I'm not confident where Eric will be, and presumably if Mike hires on that instructs where he in turn will be. It's thus unfortunate that Eric lost his ship, but that suggests to me that Tom has a plan, which I haven't guessed.

But yes, the issue is certainly real.

Without a ship and with most of his goods now at the bottom of the ocean, I'm doubtful that Eric will decide to return to being a slave trader, out at sea at least. He has enough possessions to buy his way back to the port town where they first met but even after that I don't think that there's any point in their separation. He's better off keeping with Trace for protection especially if he's wanted by the new Templar order which may capture him for information and imprison him for releasing Mike and Evals.

[GaySailors]

There's a practical issue with Mike staying on as Eric's employee. Courtesy of (Dark) Trace, it's illegal to free a slave. Mike is presumably known to be one of Eric's slaves in the area around Eric's base of operations. Eric will need to return there at some point, but If he does so with Mike as a paid employee, rather than a slave, it's likely to get them both in legal trouble. Currently, Eric has the fig leaf of having sold Mike to Trace, thus shifting the legal consequences of freeing him to someone else, but that's not likely to hold up if he keeps Mike around.

I was thinking more… What's Eric going to do? Is he just going to go back to the same place, where everybody knows him as a slave trader? His world is shaken, his life called into doubt. I'm not confident where Eric will be, and presumably if Mike hires on that instructs where he in turn will be. It's thus unfortunate that Eric lost his ship, but that suggests to me that Tom has a plan, which I haven't guessed.

But yes, the issue is certainly real.

Without a ship and with most of his goods now at the bottom of the ocean, I'm doubtful that Eric will decide to return to being a slave trader, out at sea at least. He has enough possessions to buy his way back to the port town where they first met but even after that I don't think that there's any point in their separation. He's better off keeping with Trace for protection especially if he's wanted by the new Templar order which may capture him for information and imprison him for releasing Mike and Evals.

I don't know. Like Kat said, he's extremely rich. I doubt all his goods were on that ship, hell, I doubt that was his only ship.

[Lordadmiral Drake]

Yea, during the confrontation with the Edinmire guard he stated that Mike and Evals are property of the "Vaughan Trading Company", implying that he owns more than just this one ship and a lot of money. The Na'rella seemed to be just his personal ship

[tony1695]

Yea, during the confrontation with the Edinmire guard he stated that Mike and Evals are property of the "Vaughan Trading Company", implying that he owns more than just this one ship and a lot of money. The Na'rella seemed to be just his personal ship

But does he actually own the company? Or is he just employed under his parents, with Mike, Evals and Kat belonging to him personally?

[Warrl]

Yea, during the confrontation with the Edinmire guard he stated that Mike and Evals are property of the "Vaughan Trading Company", implying that he owns more than just this one ship and a lot of money. The Na'rella seemed to be just his personal ship

He has more ships.

I think I could arrange one of my own ships.