Take the school

It doesn't take long for you and the other three Galatians to take over the buildings. You have a pleasant surprise early in your search. Only one of the downstairs doors is locked, and you can hear the voices of men when you press your ear to the heavy door. A large marble statue of a naked man serves as an excellent battering ram to smash the only locked door on the ground floor.

The room looks like an office three very surprised well dressed men look at you in horror as you move into the room. The men have been packing coins, jewelry and small flasks of liquids into small heavy boxes. The tables is laden with various objects, but only the smallest and most valuable are selected. There are no guards around, sent away no doubt so they could not see the wealth that they would be carrying, or hiding from the coming looters.

'Bad move' you think as you wonder again at how the greed of the merchants in this city costs them. If Nicator accepted that the city would fall and used the wealth that was being packed in haste to buy the cooperation of his guards he may have been able to escape from Athenapolis with at least some of his treasure. Instead, he waited until the very last chance, and sent his men away just when he needed them the most.

The three merchants surrender without a fight, after binding them quickly, you move to the stairs and the upper levels of the house. You can hear the cries of women from many of the rooms as you walk by and look forward to returning to investigate more thoroughly once the sweep of the house is complete. As you suspect, you find several other guards on the upper level of the house watching the fighting on the bridge below with alarm. Two of them are quickly killed, and the other three surrender, hoping that you will not kill them in cold blood.

It is a risky gamble on their part, often you've seen men who lay down their weapons slaughtered without mercy, but Galatians fight in enough campaigns that the rules of warfare are not disregarded lightly. It could (and has been before) you on the losing end of a siege or advance. Killing prisoners who have surrendered is for the zealots you work for, not common men like you. Leaving the guards their short swords, but taking their armor and heavy weapons, you escort them to the front of the school and tell them their contract has ended.

Surprised but happy to avoid **** or slavery at your hands the three men take off at a run, hopefully never to return. You take the opportunity to hang the sheild on the gate and let Horris know that is any Galatians come to the gate that they should be asked to wait outside, and that you are to be summoned.

You find a few male servants in the kitchens. The slaves in training no doubt are used to serve food and clean as well as please their trainers in the bed, so there is no need for Demeter Nicator to hire any serving maids.

The whole operation took less than twenty minutes, you have control of a very defensible building complete with a large courtyard and gated walls. Better yet you have a table piled high with wealth conveniently gathered together for you by the owners of the establishment. Perhaps best of all there are more than a dozen luscious pleasure slaves in training waiting for you upstairs. Although you should probably deal with the three bound merchants before you start relaxing.