One unexpected benefit of being unable to leave the Oasis was that Kairen didn’t have to follow along when Zar went raiding. No matter how much useful information he might be able to learn by acting as an observer, the ghost was simply glad that he didn’t have to convince himself to go. He knew he was still affected by the attack that had cost him his family and his home, no matter how much he might try to pretend it never happened, and he was happy to distract himself from his problems for as long as he could.
When Zar and Mr. Mage came back Kairen knew they wouldn’t waste any time before enacting the ritual to control the Oasis, but at the same time Kairen didn’t really have anything he could do to prepare or prevent it from happening. Alpha and the other rats were quickly picking up the basics of guerilla warfare and were a constant thorn in the side of the slavers, but the most they could do would be to slow the ritual down by literally throwing their lives away. It was too high a price for too little gain and Kairen simply let the rats be. He had tried to explain the danger coming their way and had pleaded with them to leave while they could, but none of the desert rats had taken him up on the offer. Instead, they had gathered around him in a show of support that bolstered the boy’s spirits as he prepared for the worst. He wasn’t willing to give up without a fight and had one last trick left to play. Ever since Kairen had learned how the system forced a random option to be chosen he had tested himself against it, letting his upgrade points reach their maximum time and time again, pitting his will against that of the system and only making his choice when he felt like he couldn’t hold it back any longer.
Kairen didn’t have a timepiece to say for certain, and the discomfort involved made his own sense of time unreliable, but it felt like his ability to resist was improving. It was an untested hope, but Kairen was optimistic about his chances to endure whatever ritual the foreign mage implemented to usurp control. Instead of spending his time worrying the boy wandered around the slowly developing streets of Zaros. Ramses hadn’t had the time or the inclination to pave or otherwise harden the ground, but as the workers went to and from the building sites they were working at they steadily wore their own trails into their ground, packing the dirt and grinding away the plants growing there until only brown soil remained. Buckets of water from the pond were poured out daily to prevent too much dust from building up, and combined with Kairen’s ability to deflect outside sand from being carried in on the wind the air in the Oasis was clear and welcoming. The people arriving from Savar added another aspect of life to the place, as they slowly built their new home. Most of the laborers from Savar were hired by one noble family or another with the goal of improving their designated buildings to the point of livability, or as Kairen saw it, stupid levels of opulence. Extravagant wooden decorations and intricate painted details were the easiest improvements, requiring very little in terms of resources that needed to be moved across the desert, but Kairen had overheard talk of building entire structures out of stone or rare woods such as teak or ironwood, for no better reason than to win an arbitrary competition over the other nobles.
Of more interest to Kairen was the completed schoolhouse or academy, even though it wasn’t seeing any use yet. While some children had arrived in the Oasis, they were either the children of nobles and received private lessons, or were the children of workers and were kept busy help their parents either around the house or with their jobs. Kairen had caught both groups of children looking longingly at the pool, but to actually play in it was too unseemly for the noble children, and was cause for a beating the one time a poor boy tried. Instead, the latter kept themselves busy with all sorts of games, half of which Kairen swore they made up on the spot, but eagerly listened to the rules of and watched to pass the time. Kairen did his best to focus the efforts of the rats and their war on the slavers themselves, but rat hunting was quickly becoming a popular past-time for Oasis residents of all ages. Not only did the rats’ increased intelligence offer an interesting challenge compared to regular ratting, but Zar’s continued inability to eradicate the rodents had led to steadily increasing bounties on dead rats. Kairen did his best to be optimistic for his little friends, but it was hard when he saw gangs of children running down the streets armed for war with all manner of traps and thrown weaponry. The rats themselves were only minimally concerned with the threat and seemed to treat it as just another fact of life to be accepted and worked around, a stance that Kairen desperately tried to copy.
On one sunny afternoon one of the named rats, Tau, was keeping a group of kids busy chasing him around the place. The rat was familiar with every nook and cranny of every building and was completely confident in his ability to escape his pursuers at any time. Instead, the rat took great pleasure in leading the children on a merry chase, doing his best to encourage them to run through as many busy areas as possible, disrupting the work happening there in a way that a single rat by himself wouldn’t be able to do. Kairen was enjoying his intangibility, as it allowed him to easily move from vantage point to vantage point as he traveled along behind the procession, easily observing the most memorable of the moments of the chase.
Kairen’s entertainment was cut short by the guards raising the alarm. Zar had returned, and was bringing captives with him. Immediately all the workers broke away from their tasks to watch the spectacle, and the mercenaries who had stayed behind to guard Zaros made their way towards the approaching train of people to offer their assistance.
Kairen found himself lagging behind the crowd, unable to stay away but not possessing the eagerness of the living. None of the Savards had been slaves themselves, but they had grown up with the institution and had a casual attitude to it that Kairen found alien. They simply didn’t have a problem with seeing slaves or in fact anyone not from Savar as lesser, whereas Kairen had been in shackles himself not that long ago, even if he had technically avoided becoming a slave. Despite his reluctance, Kairen still made his way to an elevated spot where he could see the caravan coming in, where he could see the captives and remember their faces, the sole person present who could even possibly act as their advocate. It didn’t take long for Kairen to realize that the prisoners were indeed captives, and not yet slaves. Zar’s attack on Kairen’s village had been brutal and bloody enough to break the spirit of all the survivors, or at least temporarily quell it, but whatever had caused these people to stop fighting hadn’t left the same impact. The way their gazes looked defiantly around told Kairen that it was only their chains and the imminent threat of violence that stopped them from starting something right then and there.
With plenty of threats and a few applications of the whip the slaves were herded into the arena that had been set up, where they were forced to sit down and wait. Kairen took the time to walk amongst them, looking at their faces on the off chance he recognized someone. All the captives were too light skinned to be part of the nomad tribe, a fact that Kairen was quietly grateful for. The longer the prisoners were forced to wait the more on edge they became, but before anyone could start some trouble Zar made his way to the front of the gathered crowd.
The slaver had taken the time to change from his travelling clothes into something more opulent. Instead of sturdy dull clothes to protect from the elements covered with select pieces of armor the fighter had all his wealth on display, with chains and rings covering every inch he could fit them on and with his glittering sword once again at his waist, replacing his more utilitarian axe. His change in dress didn’t stop the captured villagers from recognizing him as the person responsible for their current situation, and the braver ones began to toss insults, only to be beaten back into silence so that Zar could speak his piece.
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“You are my slaves now.” The slaver began simply. “It might take you some time to accept this fact of life, but there is no escaping it. In the Sands, only strength matters, and my fighters and I were stronger than the pathetic resistance your village tried to mount. I’m sure all of you have heard the horrors of slavery, but the truth of the matter is that it all depends on how obedient you are. Follow orders and work hard, and you might find your new life to be better than your old one, with access to foods and comforts you never would have had before. Try and resist, or fight back, and all you will accomplish is a personal introduction to all the ways your life can be made a living hell. Not because we want to, but because you leave us with no other option.”
Kairen couldn’t help but snort at the apologetic tone Zar had adopted. It was such a joke to think that the slaver was sad or sorry about inflicting pain on others. The slaver was almost as much of a sadist as he was an avaricious bastard, and the only reason he wasn’t torturing the villagers right now was because he cared more about his bottom line than he did drawing blood. The ghost wasn’t the only one who came to that conclusion.
“Pull the other one, you cocksucking devil!” A brave if foolish young man called out. “I’m amazed you haven’t passed out from all the shit you’ve been snorting!”
A cruel smile gleamed on Zar’s face. “Excellent, a volunteer. It’s so difficult to demonstrate the punishments you should all be striving to avoid without a deserving, upstart who thinks he knows better than me.” A quick gesture to the guards had them forcing their way through the crowd to the heckler, who was soon unlocked and brought to the front.
Zar stared at him until the young man looked away, cowed by the raw cruelty that the slaver freely displayed in his malicious gaze. Satisfied at winning the minor display of dominance, Zar ignored his chosen victim, addressing the remaining slaves-to-be. “I’m sure some of you think you're strong, capable of handling any punishments we might throw at you, able to wait until just the right moment to try and escape. You are wrong. There are only two paths forwards for you from here. Obedience, or painful death.”
Zar gestured to the side as he spoke those last words, and Kairen had an awful premonition as to what was coming. Mr. Mage hadn’t made an appearance since the raiders had returned, and Kairen just knew that everyone was about to see what the ritualist had been busy with.
Part of the arena was covered in a tent, which usually served as a resting area and a storage location for spare weapons, bandages and other items useful for training fighters. While Zar had been busy working on his appearance Mr. Mage had repurposed the tent for his own usage. Everything that normally took up space inside had been pushed towards the walls of the tent, and the floor in the center was covered in an intricate array of channels that had been carved into the ground, varying in depth between a half an inch and two inches. Out of morbid curiosity Kairen moved closer, getting a better angle where he could see the arcane runes carved into the ground, symbols the boy had never seen before and would quite happily never see again. The centerpiece of the array was a large rock, a slab of stone that had been acquired from the builders and was covered in tiny red symbols that seemed to move of their own accord. At the four corners of the slab were four pitons that had been driven into the ground, and at Zar’s signal the poor prisoner was slowly dragged towards the tent, struggling the whole way.
Mr. Mage made his appearance then, a butcher’s apron covering his usually bare chest, with two wicked knives lightly held in his hands. He didn’t speak, but he didn’t need to. The spectacle spoke for itself, as his victim began screaming soon after the ritualist started and stopped only when he breathed his last breath.
“Remember this.” Was Zar’s closing words to the prisoners, who were forced to stand up and were herded towards the slave pens for holding, too shocked to offer much resistance. Zar meanwhile, made his way into the tent, closing the opening behind him. Kairen took a deep breath. He wanted so badly to go elsewhere, to leave and ignore what had happened like he ignored so many other terrible moments. But he couldn’t. Even if they didn’t know it, there were people counting on him and for them he would go into the tent, to learn what he could and to fight against the ritual to keep control of the Oasis.
The ghost was relieved to see that with the torturous execution completed most of the viscera had been cleaned up, the only remainder was the blood that covered the slab and filled the channels in the ground. It was oversized, but Kairen now realized that the slab was Zar’s crude substitute for a judgement stone, powered by death and blood instead of a simple spell, and that provided far less information in return. The giant mage and Zar were studying the small screen that had appeared, reading over words that Kairen wished he understood. Fortunately for the illiterate ghost Mr. Mage was more than willing to provide narration about what he was doing.
“As you can see, there are multiple developmental paths possible for all Oases. Some are simple and straightforward, while others are narrower in scope and will require a larger investment of time and resources before you begin to see the benefits of your choice.” The mage demonstrated some of the different options, pushing and pulling the screen to make the words change.
Zar quickly picked up on the motion and took his own turn. “Resort, trade center, army training facility, collegium, magical research… What are all these options? Why are they there? I thought Oases were natural, you know?”
“Zar. You know so little, and it is only your unusual circumstances that afford you this opportunity to learn of secrets most would prefer lost to time. After all, what would the masses do if they knew just how much their rulers were keeping hidden from them. Or in some cases, how much their rulers don’t even know themselves, fumbling their way through with half remembered rituals and procedures with no understanding of their deeper meanings.”
The mage paused for a deep breath, before fixing Zar with his eyeless gaze. “The knowledge I am sharing with you has cost me much, and it is only thanks to my master’s grace that this bounty is shared with you. Remember that as you proceed with this venture. Now, if my memory serves me correctly, there are a couple options that might fit your needs, but the most broadly applicable is likely this one.” Mr. Mage quickly paged through a dozen pages of text before stopping on one that was longer than the rest.
“Slave plantation.” Zar read aloud, before continuing through the description, speaking the highlights to ingrain them in his mind. “Large area, bountiful crops, plenty of water. Slaves work longer, that’s good. Increased loyalty to overseer is excellent. And an enchantment that makes it impossible to leave the Oasis except through designated exits? The sooner the better!”
Zar reached forward to confirm his selection, and Kairen watched as the screen in front of the slaver vanished, only to be suddenly set upon by his own screen. The horror of the spectacle had distracted him at the time, but the public execution of a prisoner was a significant event, more so considering the watching crowd and all the effort that Mr. Mage had put into his ritual. Kairen should have gained upgrade points from that immediately, but somehow the ritual had held it back, at least until Zar had made his choice.
Now those points poured into Kairen’s limited pool, filling him to the point of overflowing. As usual the system immediately appeared, but instead of randomly rotating between all purchasable upgrades it was only cycling between a few, and it didn’t take long for Kairen to realize the connection between those few and the benefits that Zar had listed. To be examined later were the ghostly upgrades that had appeared in the fourth tier, with lines connecting them to various parts of Kairen’s existing upgrades. The ghost only had a moment to take it all in before the pressure to choose began to eat away at him, and if he hadn’t used every previous upgrade as a chance to prepare for this, knowingly or not, he would have buckled beneath the strain. Somehow he managed to stay alert. Pushing back against the pressure to choose, his finger slowly rose, before making contact with an upgrade that wasn’t one of the ones suggested.
The mental pressure doubled, but Kairen remained firm. This was his system, his choice of upgrade, and he wasn’t about to let anyone else come in and tell him what to do. That defiant thought was the tipping point needed, and Kairen felt the screen vanish through half closed eyes. Barely conscious, the boy pulled up the sheet just long enough to confirm that the Skill blessing had been purchased before letting the pain carry him away.