Deep within the primal forests, Dragonroot, also known as the Widow's Mercy, is harvested under the watchful eye of the giant Jaderock bees. These monstrously large bees, according to the observations of the researchers of Quas, require the poison produced by the flowers to crown a new queen among their number. Such is the importance of Dragonroot that alchemists from far and wide seek it out for use in their elixirs and concoctions. Legends even tell of the dragon slayers of old who coated their weapons with a deadly paste made from the root, granting them the power to vanquish their scaly foes.
- The Fanciful Travels by Beron de Laney 376 AC.
When my shifts were finally over, the exhaustion I felt could still not quite dampen my good spirits. I made sure to hide my smile from the guards who looked at me as if I was deranged, and I made sure to smile at each slave who met my eyes too. Some of the poor slaves even hesitantly smiled back.
“You look to be in good spirits boy, did something good happen in those godforsaken mines? Maybe you poked about in a different shaft!” Adita jibed jovially, laughing at her own crude joke.
“No, no, Madam Adita. Nothing of that nature, but I see that this evening’s meal looks as delicious as ever,” I replied adroitly, my good spirits lighting my eyes.
“Told you I’m not a madam, not one of those high-nobility types, and flattery will get you nowhere!” she cackled as she dolloped an extra portion into my bowl. “Old Monta caught himself a little delicious Rockcrab by the Latifundium, threw that in today.”
You have gained 1 Charisma.
I smiled knowingly, taking my bowl filled to the brim with the questionable stew. The gain in Charisma was extraneous to my current dire circumstances. My mind was more focused on the fact that the game's internal logic had translated Adita's words into the ancient Roman word for slave quarters, an oddity that puzzled me as I began eating my evening meal. Soon, a familiar hulking manacled shape hobbled over. I rose and clasped his arm at the elbow, which he returned in greeting.
“Welcome, Kidu the Raider,” I grinned up at him, my neck having to tilt upwards to meet his cold blue eyes.
“And you, Gilgamesh of Uruk,” he chortled, settling his bulk down cross-legged on the hard-packed earth.
“I have questions…” I began hesitantly.
"Of course, you do, god-touched. As long as we do not debate Quassian philosophy, I welcome them. Perhaps through answering of them, you will gain some insight into your past," he said sympathetically, his voice colored with compassion as we both sat down.
We talked for a while. Kidu confirmed that he had no knowledge of the strange mental script which I dubbed the "UI" or "User Interface," a script that apparently only I could see. He viewed my interpretation of the UI's messages as some form of communication from the divine.
I also learned from Kidu that the language of the Children of the Tides was simply called "Trade" and that the guttural language was almost the lingua franca for this region. He considered my pronunciation of Trade to be above average, indicating that my grasp of the spoken language had clearly improved by leaps and bounds. The singsong language that I had some experience with was called "High Quassian," and was also spoken by the desert people of the south.
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In time, the large man shared his tale with me. I found out that Kidu was from the far frozen north. His tribe was a nomadic people who hunted a massive creature called the Cronir. The Cronir traveled across the tundra in vast herds, like caribou, and were sometimes preyed upon by vicious Ice Drakes. His tribe had lost several skirmishes, and the allocation of hunting rights to rival tribes had further weakened them. The Windspeakers of his tribe, a group of elderly and wise individuals who kept the oral traditions of the Three Bears, advised the chief to send a raiding party to the South.
The chief had sent Kidu, who even then had a reputation for being a belligerent troublemaker, along with a few other fractious youths to form a party and travel south as raiders. The leader had planned for them to bring exotic riches from the warm verdant lands back home so that they could trade for favors and hunting rights from other the tribes.
However, in a frontier town near the frozen wastes, they had been duped by shady characters in the local drinking den promising them the location of a rich caravan that was scheduled to pass through. Instead of a profitable raid, they were assaulted in the night while in their drunken stupor, stripped of their weapons, and sold into slavery to the said caravan.
Due to his fractious and violent nature, Kidu had been sold and traded from master to master many times. Eventually, he had changed hands so many times that he had finally made it to Ansan, the jewel of the grass sea of the Grieving Lands, and a gateway to the Wilds.
Spying Durhit with a group of tired-looking men, I called him over. His face at a distance looked like he had just swallowed a sour plum as he made his way to us. Suspicion warred with a need to make a connection across his bearded face. In the end, despite initial reluctance, the need to find some form of solace won.
“Be a little quieter, manling. The guards here are sensitive to those with loud tongues,” grumbled the dwarf.
I held my hands up in mock acquiescence, still grinning.
“I’ve never seen a human, plenty of dwarves, but never a human so happy pounding away at rock. I swear he is a little queer in the head,” he grumbled again.
"Then you have probably never heard of the gold rush," I replied. The dwarf's eyes almost comically widened at my mention of gold. "Men would cross oceans, plains, and deserts in their search for gold," I tried to intone as wisely as possible.
"Aye, that is well-known, that man's greed for gold can rival even a dwarven Deeptaker's," Durhit nodded sagely into his bowl, his long beard almost brushing into the stew.
"I know you are god-touched, but at times you sound like my tribe's Windspeakers, Gilgamesh of Uruk. Are you a scholar?" interjected the wild man, his voice surprisingly serious in its earnestness.
A bittersweet smile formed on my face, shaking my head as the lie found its way to my lips, "No, Kidu of the Three Bears, though I have heard a few things here and there." Already treading on dangerous ground with my mention of the California gold rush, I grew wary that continuing this line of conversation would lead me to share more about my origins.
"Your tribe will enjoy many good years with their offering, to give not only a god-touched but also a man wiser than his years to the Chooser of the Slain," he nodded, accepting my lie completely.
“How about you, mysterious manling, what brought you here to the great Ansan?” the dwarf inquired, bushy eyebrows raising a fraction in interest.
Thankfully, Kidu interjected, eager to tell my story to the dwarf, with just a little bit of joy in the telling. He embellished little, except for my fight in the arena. According to the savage-looking man, instead of killing a green and untested youth, I had slain a scarred seasoned warrior, his blade pitted with the clash of many battles.
“...And what brings a stone-eater so far from your mountain halls?” the wildman finished with a question.