Prize: Soul Plasma

Drizzling ice rain fell over the historic city-state of Hippo Ancient City, adding several degrees of bleak chill to this winter season and bringing a brief lull to the booming slave trade.

This counted as peak season, yet slaves were not easy to catch. Once winter arrived, the Ice Plains grew even harsher. Nearly every tribe curled up underground for the winter, leaving few traces to be found.

The Slave-Catching Groups that made their living on the Ice Plains entered their hardest time of the year. Without additional slave income, they would go hungry.

Fortunately, this bitter winter did not last long. At most a month later, the scorching Elemental Tide on the Wasteland would once again seize the initiative, crossing Hippo Ancient City and affecting the Ice Plains.

Though it was still winter, it was at least barely suitable for living creatures to move about.

The cycle repeated itself, year after year.

But the Ice Plains slave catchers had long since adapted to everything.

Yet adaptation was adaptation; hardship was still hardship.

This brief month of winter could determine the fates of many slave catchers, especially those at the bottom.

A month without slaves meant a month without income. Large Slave-Catching Groups could weather it on the strength of their foundations, but for smaller groups, streamlining and dismissing people was an absolutely indispensable measure. After all, once spring came, there would still be plenty of creatures waiting to be recruited.

As a result, large numbers of slave catchers were left idle. They gathered on the streets of Hippo Ancient City, waiting bitterly for winter to pass while searching for odd jobs to make a living.

Though these odd jobs were tedious and fragmented, nowhere near as profitable as slave catching, they could keep them alive.

"Business at the Slave