It was a nice day on the world of Ervenica, the two suns were shining in a clear sky and the day was growing hot. Eluntor and a couple of his friends were accompanying a small group of itinerant priests of Atargis, the fish tailed patron goddess of his home city and the goddess of bounty and harvest.

Eluntor was feeling uneasy, he had no reason for his feeling, the suns were shining, the birds singing and the bees were buzzing amongst the flowers. He shook his head in amusement, not that the flowers could compete with the garish splendor of the priests in their purple striped tunics and saffron colored silk robes and befeathered turbans in assorted bright shades. Eluntor noted that his older brother Sla’tor was adorned with a bright scarlet one today.

Their party arrived in Elvacaar, a mid-sized coastal village. Elvacaar’s mud brick fortifications were somewhat run down and the place didn’t seem overly prosperous. The suns were high in the sky indicating it was shortly after the noon hour. The sea sparkled about a kilometer distant. Eluntor was feeling uneasy; it was as if some disaster was hovering in the wings. Eluntor was starting to feel as if it was too late to do anything about it.

Eluntor sought out Ras’tor the priest in charge of this excursion and did his best to persuade him to change their plans and not stop in Elvacaar, but to set out immediately to their next destination.

“Don’t be worried Eluntor, Atargis is watching over us and nothing will happen. We will stick to our plans, anyway Dullak is a full days journey from here and I’d rather not camp out under the stars.”

Then Eluntor approached his brother and tried to persuade him to accompany him.

“I can’t leave my fellow priests brother,” stated Sla’tor, then jokingly suggested, “hey brother have you reconsidered, you could still take me up on my offer and become a priest of our lady yourself. With your gifts you would have more influence when you get one of your mad starts.”

Eluntor shuddered, however fond he was of his goddess he was fonder of his manhood and had no intention of emasculating himself in order to join the priesthood.

The priests stopped in the village square, as war their usual practice. They checked their heavily made up faces and lowered the image of their goddess from the back of their donkey.

Eluntor and his friends readied their flutes; Eluntor could not help feeling helpless in the face of looming calamity.

As soon as a suitable crowd gathered, Eluntor and his friends played a wild tune on their flutes and Eluntor used his magic to amplify the sound and create the illusion of various dancing flames.

Sla’tor and his fellow priests were soon dancing wildly and shouting, whirling around with their necks bent, their long hair flying. They soon entered an ecstatic frenzy and started biting themselves and cutting their arms with their knives.

The villagers were enjoying this unexpected but welcome performance, a break in their otherwise dull lives of backbreaking toil. Unfortunately for them their lookout also became engrossed in the spectacle and thus did not see the arrival of the Tharkian pirates. They came flooding into the village clubbing or killing the stubborn and rounding up the remainder.

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The pirates grabbed Eluntor and his friends as soon as they were spotted, as the pirates knew that they would be worth more on the markets due to their skill at playing an instrument. He had the misfortune to witness the decapitation of the priests and the statue of the goddess as the pirates could collect a bounty paid by the Empire for any priests of a competing religion.

The pirates culled the able bodied, killed any children who tried to cling to their chosen merchandise, discarded babies and loaded their cargo onto their galleys. It was all over in less than an hour.

One week later the pirates unloaded their cargo of slaves for a quite modest sum per head to the official in charge of the main slave market of Lauconia, one of the provincial capitals of the Empire of Light. The flutes plus an indication of whom they had belonged to netted the pirates double the price for a dejected Eluntor and his friends.

They had the dubious luck of being considered entertainers; they were the first amongst their fellow unfortunates to be fitted with a slave collar blessed by a priest of Iustitius, the God of Justice of the Pantheon of the Gods of Light. This did mean that they weren’t tested and thus Eluntor didn’t end up with a mage’s slave collar as should have been the case.

Eluntor was one of the many sold to Fraggatus a factor of one of the big landowners on Scalsil. He was unlucky that a citizen of the Empire bought him but lucky that due to his perceived skill he was fed adequate rations. This meant that he actually arrived in Scalsil alive and healthy, a fate that was not universal amongst his fellow victims.

Eluntor was subjected to some rather arbitrarily harsh beatings and soon learnt to hate his masters with a passion that he was barely able to hide. He managed to put together an act including sleigh of hand, jokes and flute playing. He was exceedingly lucky that his masters found his antics amusing and soon he was touring the islands huge agricultural estates with a few other performers for the profit of his masters. The troop was managed by Slundar Vicarius a freedman employed by Harpax a knight of the Empire and one of the harshest landowners on Scalsil.

Over the next couple of years Eluntor polished his act, he gambled with his safety by adding boasts that he would topple the current masters and become the king of Scalsil to his act. He even promised some of the kinder and more generous members of his audience that he would spare them when the time came. He found he had to dice with disaster to maintain his sanity. The sight of how the slaves were mistreated by their owners on the estates just stoked up the flames of his hatred.

Most of the slaves on the estates suffered from malnutrition and were clad in rags or nothing but their chains. He understood that this was due to the huge influx of slaves due to the Empires wars of conquest on Auricia, in which thousands were sold into slavery, additionally the slave dealing of the Tharkian pirates whose activities were practically unchecked and if this wasn’t sufficient corrupt Empire provincial governors occasionally organized man-hunts among the lower class of country provincials. This all contributed to a constant supply of new slaves at very cheap price, which made it more profitable for their masters to wear them out by unremitting labour as they could be cheaply replaced.

Eluntor felt his goddess whisper in his dreams and with her promises and his skills in prophetic magic he knew that given the opportunity – remote as it was – of freedom from the collars then he had a chance, just a chance to make good his boasts and grind the oppressors faces in the dirt.

Tens of thousands might die, would probably die in a rebellion but thousands of slaves were already dying unnecessarily every year of toil in the fields from dawn to dusk with chains around their legs, and being locked up in suffocating subterranean pits by night.

He had faith in his goddess! He would succeed!

Then the miracle happened. The system announced the death of the Gods of the Pantheon of Light. The slave collars crafted and blessed by the priests of Iustitius broke at the moment Iustitius was slain. All slaves in the Empire of Light were freed of the collars restrictive and coercive divine magic.

He was FREE! His vengeance could begin!