Turn off before you get there

Rising above the street level about 60 yards ahead you see the East Canal bridge, and it looks like some sort of barricade has been built across the highest point.

"Turn off here." You tell Calyce, pulling her into a narrow ally that runs behind a walled estate. The left hand side of the alley is the back of the estate, high walls and an occasional heavily reinforced portal are all that you see. The other side of the alley is completely different, you see a series of tenement housing, a few cramped courtyards and many buildings packed with the poor of the city. The doors are closed and barred, but high above you dozens of faces are peering down at you from the many windows. Most are the grimy faces of the city’s children staring wide eyed at the conquerors striding past their houses. But among the faces of the youngsters quite a few fearful adults look down on you as you walk by.

"Hurray!" Yells one matron, "Down with the High Council!" A few of the children join the cheering and before long the entire row of apartments echoes with cheers for the United Armies and calls for the overthrow of the Regent and the High Council. Few of the inhabitants of these cramped apartments have ever been given any reason to honor the Regent or the Council, so it does not surprise you to see them cheering for anyone who might bring them change. No doubt they believe things could not get any worse. You have your doubts. Some of these women will surely be sold as slaves, and with war comes famine and disease and both of those hit hardest at the poor.

"Down with Slavery!" Yells a young woman, pretty enough you think, to find herself in chains and sold into the same fate as the women she is yelling about. "Send the sluts back to where they came from." You and Leotonis exchange bemused looks. If it was an end to slavery they wanted, they have been overrun by the wrong army. At first pleased that you will not have to fight these slum dwellers, you do not notice a new development in time to stop it before it grows into a concern.

As you pass the doors several dozen people carrying an assortment of makeshift weapons leave their houses and start following you. They stay well behind you and are still chanting praises to the United Armies and threats to many of the established powers of Athenapolis including the Council, the Nobility, the Temples and the Slavers. By the time you reached the end of the row there are over thirty men, women and teens marching behind you like your own private army.

They could be very useful as a diversion, but if they follow you into the slavers training school they will expect a share of the loot. You have no intention of sharing any of the plunder, be it gold or enslaved women with this rabble. You hope to find a dozen of the most beautiful slaves in the city - women chosen for their good looks and trained to please men in many different ways. This mob could either set them free on the streets or **** them three or four men to one girl.

You need some way to separate from this mob following you. You could turn on them and drive them back, but killing them seems both harsh and dangerous. These people know every back street and shortcut in this part of the city. Angering a crowd of thirty plus individuals is not a good way to start to pillage a city.

How can you use this mob to your advantage?