Besides your distaste for slavery, Warts' plan sounds a lot simpler to implement and you figure Vera won't be occasionally trying flirt with you for favors (or whatever) if you side with him and hence removing temptation.

Vera's right about someone potentially "going rogue" and just fucking off to do their own thing so you'll have to really lay down the punishment implications to everyone about doing such a thing. Which is exactly what you do. You also tell everyone to not create a bloodbath and if they do, they need to take steps in covering their tracks. Last thing you want is to create too much attention.

Warts is mildly smug about you choosing his plan over Vera who in turn is obviously perturbed. She makes no pretenses about not wanting to be one of those stumbling about in the woods. You reassure her she can focus on her city activities since reassigning her would just cause unnecessary conflict in the long term anyway.

A few months pass and you're making a fair amount on this venture. You weren't sure about it at first, but Warts had a good idea.

Surprisingly he has another one.

"Hey boss, I got some hobs from da Spider Fangs dat wanna join wit us." Warts says.
"Really? Thought you told me the Spider Fangs shun human civilization centers." You say.
"Eh, ever since dey got their asses kicked hard by da elves and lost a good portion of the tribe, there's been sum serious re-thinkin' on how things are gonna work now. Anyway, just wunderin' if they can join."
"I'm guessing you had something in mind for them to specifically do?"
"I figured dey can take part in robbin' da merchants gig we got going now."
"Yeah, and I figured that's what you'd suggest. Probably would be the best use of their skills I imagine. I suppose that would free up some of the folks who still aren't exactly thrilled about their new assignment. They can come back to the city and the hobs can take their place. Now do I have to talk to these hobs about how I want things done or are you taking care of it?"
"I'll take care of it. Most of dem are teenagers so be better if I speak to dem. I know what ta say."

Before you can say anything else, a small ugly green child wanders in behind Warts. You don't know how old it is, but it can't be older than a toddler.

"Wargh! blag! Graaah!" it shouts causing Warts to turn around.
"Damnit, Gubbins! I told ya ta wait in da corridor!" Warts reprimands the child.
"Warts, I'll admit I'm not completely familiar with the growth size of hobgoblins, but I know damn well that's no teenager."
"Wut? No! Dis one ain't robbin' merchants, well at least not for another few years anyway. Dis iz my son."

Now you're just confused.

"Your son? When the hell did you have a kid?" you ask.
"Two years ago I guess. Didn't know for an entire year either since I hadn't been back ta visit Snuffit in awhile. Boy wuz she pissed at me when I returned. Anyway, he's sort of with me for awhile since Snuffit says I should be spendin' time him. She's probably right. It's hard growin' up with no father." Warts says with a bit of an introspective look down.
"Hm, I suppose you would know about that. You never told me all this about having a family and shit."
"Didn't think you'd be interested given how youz got yer mind on other things. Got a daughter too, Zuggins. Twins actually. That's another reason why Snuffit wuz so pissed at me. Hey, didn't youz say you were a twin?"
"Yeah. So about these other hobs, you sure they're going to listen to you? Last time I remember you weren't accepted as a true hob with the Spider Fangs."
"I told ya, things are different now. Most of da assholes I didn't get along with are dead in dat tribe and it's takin' a new look on things as it were. Most of da young hobs I'm suggestin, are orphans now anyway and like I said, I kinda know what it's like not growin' up with at least one parent so I think dey gonna…I dunno identify wit me more an' youz don't have ta waste yer time."

You think about this a few moments.

"Alright, you seem to have come up with one good idea that's gone over well, so I'm trusting you on this Warts. Go make the preparations."

Warts nods and leaves with his spawn who sticks his tongue at you.

You snicker a bit at the thought of Warts having a couple kids, but you suppose he seems happy with them. You're just glad you aren't saddled with any; you've got enough complications in your life.

Then again with the curse you have, that isn't likely to ever be a problem.

In any case when Vera hears about what you've allowed she doesn't do much but shake her head.

"What?" you ask.
"Nothing, you're the boss." She says.
"But obviously you have issues with this."
"Look, if you want to hire more hobs on the payroll fine. I can see them being an asset in a menial manner, and working outside Holgard on the road robbery jobs is probably the best place for them mainly because I won't have to deal with the filthy greenskins."
"But?"
"But, my issue is you placing so much fucking trust in Warts. I thought you were smarter than that. Mark my words, that little halfbreed is going to get drunk with power and try to betray you."
"Warts? I…mean I'd never rule anything out, but Warts really isn't the leader type. I'm surprised he's taken on as much responsibility as he has honestly."
"Yeah, well maybe his new family man role is urging the halfbreed to start thinking about his future. Maybe his ugly hob bitch is nagging him to earn more for their equally foul hob spawn."
"Sheesh Vera, I didn't know you hated hobs so much."
"Yeah well they're a bunch of savages, and I'd watch Warts if I were you. Nothing worse than a mildly intelligent savage with delusions of grandeur."

Well Vera's made it quite clear how she feels at any rate.

A few more months pass and so far there haven't been any issues with your arrangement and business is doing fine. The religious faction war is still going on, but you're still keeping out of that one.

The only thing that's starting to bother you a bit is that Warts has apparently restructured the "bandit parties" outside Holgard without your knowledge. While you replaced some of your less "outdoors" folks with hobs, Warts has been completely segregating the groups so that the hobs are all in one and all the humans are in another.

When confronted by this, Warts explains that the hobs just work better together since they all grew up in the same tribe. He also says there's less potential for infighting during slow periods. He then points to how much success they've had with this arrangement.

Still, you've got enough to manage and until you see signs of treachery on Warts' part, you'll continue to let him handle the outside operations. You're fairly confident you'll be savvy enough to realize if something is going wrong and even if you don't catch it, Vera's suspicious enough of Warts that she'll probably tell you.

Year 26

"I told you this was going to happen!" Vera shouts, as she's running along side you.
"Damn it! Don't fucking follow us! Spread out! Spread out! Everyone spread out!" you shout at the various members also running in your direction.

You never saw this coming. And despite Vera's comments, she didn't either, or at least not what she assumed. She was so busy worrying that Warts and the hobs were going to fuck you over that she didn't take into consideration that their recklessness and stupidity is what drew more attention by the government, though you think you played a large part in that same stupidity by NOT keeping a better eye on things and just leaving it all to Warts.

Now it's everyone for themselves as you're stomping through the sewers trying to evade the Holgard Watch who apparently took a step back from keeping the religious factions from destroying small parts of the city, to focus on the assholes who were severely disrupting trade in the city.

It's one thing to rob the odd merchant here and there, but when enough of them were going missing, the Baroness had no choice but to step in. And she stepped hard.

Ideally, you could have separated yourself and just placed all the blame on the hobs and claiming that they weren't part of the Nocturnal League, but Ludmilla was unfortunately a little smarter than just sending her troops into the woods and had a series of spies (Some of who you think were probably Felians, since you know she had ties to the church at one point).

Hobs, never being the subtlest ended up unwittingly showing the Baroness where the hell your secret tunnels to the city were and practically to your front fucking doorstep as they were dragging goods back.

It's actually amazing you managed to fight your way out of this surprise attack like you did. Your headquarters is gone though and you can't imagine that your businesses in the city are going to be around much longer.

Eventually you finally evade the law and it's just you and Vera panting heavily ankle deep in shit water. She immediately starts bitching at you about your bad choices while you're attempting to figure out your next move.

"Will stop fucking being a massive bitch right now? I know everything's fucked up! I just need a minute to think for a moment!" you say, trying not to shout and possibly alert attention.

"Think? You should have been doing that before! This is a fucking disaster! Y'know I actually thought you were someone worth following. I even had a little crush on you even though you kept turning me down, but shit, I can see now that you're a damn jinx at best and a complete fucking idiot at worst and I'm not hanging around you any longer! Have a nice fucking life!" Vera snaps.

As Vera starts walking away from you, you realize that you have no more organization and no more followers of any kind and oddly that's what feels more like a loss to you than the massive amount of coin. You were actually stating to just get into your role as an underworld boss and now its over already!

Ironically, the only thing you might have left are your people outside of Holgard unless Ludmilla caught up with them too, but given how many of her people came to wipe you out just now, you have to think she focused her forces on the inside of the city rather than the outside. You imagine Warts might be out there somewhere, it's just a matter of tracking him down.

Then again, Warts and the hobs are what caused this mess in the first place; maybe you need to just start over somewhere else. Still, you don't want to start completely over. This is a lot easier with help and Vera would still be pretty useful in that regard.

She's pretty pissed at you though so you don't know if that ship has sailed.

You find Warts

Vera's made her point clear and quite frankly you don't really think its worth it to convince her if she's got that much bad feelings toward you. You'd be better off starting from scratch.

Hopefully, you won't have to though since again there's a chance some of your people might be still in the woods somewhere.

After skulking about in the sewers for an unfortunate length of time, you finally manage to sneak out and away from the city entirely. You think about going to your private stash you have buried, but decide if you really need monetary incentive to convince anyone to still follow you, then it probably won't be worth it or you can do it as a last resort.

You try to go to the last known places where your people had camps, but you have to spend most of your time avoiding the Holgard Watch who are patrolling the nearby area a lot more.

After having to kill a few of them, you find remnants of one of the League's camps which display signs of battle what with the bloody bodies of your people lying around. It's apparent that the Watch isn't bothering to take prisoners.

Doesn't look like they took out the League hob camp though since you don't find them among the dead (you do find some of the Watch dead though). Given that they're probably a lot more experienced outdoors they probably retreated further into the forest. While you're not exactly some wilderness tracker, hobs aren't exactly the cleanest and tend to leave trash around. You begin to follow the trail as best you can.

You continue your search, but it's been awhile since you've been stomping about in the wilderness and it's soon apparent that you're not exactly prepared since you get turned around several times.

You spend the next few days in the forest getting yourself more lost despite the fact that you thought you were logically following a trail. You imagine they headed to Spiderfang territory but its not like you even know if you're close to there or not.

You're tired, dirty, hungry, thirsty and just all around miserable. Eventually you decide to just give up and try to make your way back. You THINK you might know how to get back to the main road and from there you're going to go back to dig up your stash and make your way elsewhere entirely because this has been a complete disaster. You're starting to wonder if you should have just tried to convince Vera to join you.

In your haste to try to get your bearings, you're slightly less observant of the little things and unfortunately for you that results in worse than just being lost.

You step into a pit trap and fall directly onto several sharpened branches. The pain is excruciating since you weren't lucky enough for the wooden spikes to kill you right away. You howl out in agony for hours, but nobody comes.

Eventually the blood loss and organ damage takes enough of a toll on you that you begin to lose consciousness. You're dying and at this point you don't even care anymore.

Your last thoughts are how it's an ignoble death to die like some animal out in the middle of the woods, but it's a lot better than continuing to be in pain. You wish you had done a lot of things differently in your life, but it's too late for that now.

A day later your body is found by some hobs who were in the League and Warts soon learns of your demise when they bring your body to the hobgoblin village for food where he and the rest retreated to. Apparently you had stumbled into Spiderfang territory after all.

Out of respect, Warts insists that you be properly buried rather than eaten.

At least there was a little dignity after all.