Chapter 17: Chapter 16 – Discipline & Punishment

When the ever creeping ice drifts further to the south there is often called the ‘Time of Trials’ by the people of the North. The greater cold would force these fearsome tribes to become more bellicose, raiding their neighbors in a bid to maintain their power and prosperity. When a tribe succeeds on a raid the barbarians would sell their broken enemies into bondage, if they fail their ‘excess’ children are sold in their stead.

- The Fanciful Travels by Beron de Laney 376 A.C

A shockingly cold splash hit me across my bruised and battered body, waking me from exhausted slumber. My eyes were heavy and refused to open until a slap stung me across my left cheek. A large iron collar was fitted around my neck, and through lidded eyes, I saw Degei the Overseer looking down his nose at me like I was some sort of irritant. Two tall guards carrying cudgels flanked him, adding to his aura of authority. Sighing, the weedy man explained my new situation.

“You are the most troublesome bilge-rat of an outlander. That Nord you killed was a good worker, and it will reflect poorly on our quotas. Good slaves are hard to replace!” Degei punctuated by slapping me lightly like an owner disciplining a dog, “still he was a bit of a troublemaker, but I digress. A survivor of the winnowing, I knew you would be net full of troubles, but on your first day!” he cried, exasperated. He took my silence for acknowledgment and continued in his educated voice, “This is a witchbound slave collar. You cause trouble you will feel pain. You become lazy you will feel greater pain. You escape you will feel agony until our Waveriders collect you. You cause violence to a free man you die.”

With this, he tilted my head and forced a red liquid down my throat from a thin glass vial. The taste was somewhere between old socks and rotten cheese, with a surprisingly sweet undertone of cherry. I half gagged down the foul concoction. My Health, which had been hovering around fourteen, rose by twenty points as I felt a different yet somehow familiar warmth diffuse through my body. I realized I was being force-fed a healing potion. If this world was a game then it really was the work of a truly sick creator. Degei raised the rest of the vial to my lips and I unconsciously moved my face away from it.

He slapped me again before explaining slowly in a voice as cold and uncaring as a winter day, “These are valuable. Spill a single drop and I will have you beaten to within an inch of your life.” He pronounced each syllable with the finality of a prophet’s last words. My eyes grew wide in fear and I forced myself to acquiesce, nodding now in understanding. The taste was of course horrible, and I almost coughed and gagged, but this time I welcomed the warmth that straightened my limbs and healed broken muscles and bones. But it did nothing for my broken soul.

“Good little bilge-rat,” he remarked, patting me across the cheek in some form of twisted affection. A smile almost unconsciously formed across my face, such was my reaction to any show of positive emotion in this new world however distorted. Something was definitely wrong with me, and I fought down the burgeoning feeling of gratitude. The rebellious part of me, that part that had always hated the skewed system, refused to give in to the seeds of a pernicious newly forming Stockholm Syndrome. While looking down to avoid meeting his eyes, wishing to hide the glimmer of rebellion they held, I quickly looked over my Status and character sheet.

STATUS

---