When Bjorn came to, he was disoriented for a second. There was a tugging sensation on his arms and he could feel a warm furry thing wrapped around his wrists, and a dragging sensation on his rear end. Opening his eyes Bjorn looked around, he was in the middle of a contingent of gnolls, there were seven of them in total, four ahead and three behind him. Bjorn’s wrists were tied together by a rope and the one directly in front of him was dragging him along like a parent does to their unruly toddler. Bjorn allowed himself to be drug along behind the gnoll until his rear was drug across a rather sharp rock. He tried to get his feet under him, but had no luck. He was facing the back of the group so he was being drug backwards, and he wasn’t able to get any purchase with his feet, as soon as he almost got some the gnoll would pull him off of his feet and just keep walking forward.
After a minute of being drug the gnoll let go of his wrists and the group all turned towards Bjorn. Turning around Bjorn got into a low crouch, there was one gnoll bigger than the rest it had Bjorn’s pack slung across its back. Looking around each of the gnolls had various weapons, some had swords, others clubs, one even had a spear. The larger gnoll didn’t have any apparent weapon, but the back of its hands had small three quarters of an inch spikes protruding from them. Four of the gnolls had small blades at their waists.
Lunging forward at the smallest of the gnolls Bjorn made a grab at the knife on its waist. With a laugh the gnoll closed its fist and struck Bjorn in the face. He went down hard. All of the gnolls laughed, as the small gnoll kicked Bjorn in the stomach. Crippling over he lay there waiting for another blow which never came. Instead the gnoll roughly picked him up from where he lay and set him on his feet, then turned him around and pushed him roughly from behind.
“Alright, I get it, I can’t get away, and you are taking me somewhere.” Said Bjorn in common.
One of the gnolls spoke back in common, the words sounded like a dog growling them out as it spoke. “Shut up and walk, slave.”
Thinking better than to retort, Bjorn fell into silence. If the gnolls viewed him as a slave then they would have some sort of use for him, and wouldn’t likely kill him. At least for now, there was no guarantee that his usefulness would run out and they would kill him, or worse eat him alive. So instead of convincing them that he wasn’t worth the effort to keep alive he stayed quiet and prodded along.
They traveled for two days through tunnels, as they moved they ran into two other parties of gnolls, both times the gnolls made what seemed like jeering comments directed towards Bjorn. Each time the comments were in their harsh language. Over the two days Bjorn had plenty of time to check his prompts.
You have drank a truly pitiful health potion, made by a pathetic alchemist. You will regain 10 hp over the next 12 hours.
You have drank a truly pitiful health potion, made by a pathetic alchemist. You will regain 10 hp over the next 12 hours.
By drinking a second healing potion before your body has fully recovered from the effects of the first potion. unLuckily for you, the alchemist who made the potions is so pathetic that the likelihood of you having any negative side effects is significantly increased. Your maximum health will still be decreased by 10%, and the likelihood of your maximum health remaining decreased is so increased that I would just already assume that the effect will become permanent.
You have ingested the honey of the Asigi bee's, you have gained 1 point in dexterity and 1 point in agility.
You have ingested an ability bead, you have gained the ability, WAILA.
Ability bead… What was that? And what is this new ability WAILA? It took entirely way too long from Bjorn to process the fact that he most likely just got a new ability. Once he did do so he pulled up his character sheet. Sure enough in the section where it said abilities there was a new entry right after skilling prodigy. Focusing on it pulled up an explanation as to what the ability did.
WAILA: Shorthand for “What am I looking at?” When looking at an item or person for a few seconds if you mentally command so, you will have a brief description as to what you are looking at.
WAILA, wasn’t that the name of a mod from minecraft? Regardless, now having a way to view the world around him without a need for someone else to tell him what is going on around him. This is a real game changer. Immediately he used it on the gnoll that was walking in front of him.
Name: Rret Farears
Race: Deep Gnoll
Age: 9
Level: 7
Deep gnolls are pack driven creatures, and are vicious creatures to anything not of their pack, packs can range from 3 gnolls to thousands. Deep gnolls gain 1 point in constitution and 1 point in endurance per level with 3 free points to distribute.
By the end of the second day they came upon a camp. The caves leading up to the camp grew in frequency, and size. Getting closer to the camp the tunnels intersected each other became more and more common. More and more groups of gnolls started to pass by their contingent. Each group they passed changed in size, some were as small as two or three, and others were as large as 40 to 50. The groups also weren’t always just gnolls, other races of creatures were often seen chained together in the middle of the groups being pushed along by the gnolls, whipping, hitting, or even in one case stabbing them with their weapons. He saw humans, dwarves, elves, gnomes, hobgoblins, goblins, and there was even a single nagpa tied up and paraded through the cavern.
In the tunnel leading into the cave that the camp was situated in, the gnolls had built a large defensive structure. As they got closer to the structure the tunnel grew in size, going from something Bjorn almost had to crouch in to a tunnel well over 30 feet in diameter. The large structure was made from cut stone and covered most of the tunnel entrance. On top of the structure there were parapets where gnolls could be seen standing keeping an eye on the tunnel. As they drew closer to the entrance one of the gnolls on top of the wall called out. The largest gnoll, who was in the lead, called back in reply.
The sound of stone grating on stone echoed throughout the tunnel, in the enclosed space the sound was unnecessarily loud. A hole in the wall ahead of him could be seen as the stone door slid upwards. Marveling at the gnolls stoneworking abilities Bjorn walked forwards mouth agape. They passed through the opening in the wall and they came upon the camp. To call it a camp wasn’t entirely fair to the collection in front of Bjorn. It would be better to call it a small city. The gate that they entered through was situated in a tunnel a good 70 feet above the rest of the cave; a wide ramp had been built leading up to the gatehouse. Hundreds of buildings were arrayed in the large cavern. Two other large tunnels out of the large cave could be seen both with equally impressive stone; other smaller tunnels could be seen leading out of this cave. In the center of the cavern a stone keep could be seen jutting out of the ground, from where he stood he could also see gnolls standing on top of the walls of the keep. Off to one side of the town there was a large area surrounded by a wooden wall. And in the middle of all of this cave there was a large hole in the ceiling, leading up and letting natural light down into the entire cave lighting the whole settlement.
Bjorn stopped and gaped at the intense view before him. Again marveling at the gnoll's ability to work with stone he just stood there until he was hit in the back of the head by the small gnoll again. Pushing him forward and making him stumble as stars danced in his vision. For the hundredth time in the last two days Bjorn swore silently that he would kill Rret Farears. Over the two days he had learned how to actually use his WAILA ability, and had learned that the name of the smallest gnoll was Rret. As it turned out Rret was actually the cruelest of all the gnolls. There was an obvious hierarchy to the gnolls party and Rret was at the bottom of the totem pole. So whenever one of the other gnolls picked on Rret it would turn around and do worse to Bjorn. Its frustration at its position was translated into physical violence it would do upon Bjorn.
And for his part Bjorn took it all with a smoldering anger deep in his gut. One day when one of the other gnolls hit Rret when they stopped to eat, Rret in turn turned and took a swing at Bjorn. Not wanting to let the hit land, Bjorn dodged out of the way. Barking laughter exploded laughing at Rret’s situation, it had landed on Bjorn throwing punches and kicks, and scratching at him. Bjorn fought back, and started to win. When he was in a winning position the other gnolls pulled him off of Rret and beat him into unconsciousness again. When he next awoke he had been drug by his arms again this time face first into the dirt. He let them drag him for a while like this until one of the gnolls dropped him and kicked him to wake him up.
Another shove pushed Bjorn off of his feet and he fell to his knees, two hands on either side of him grabbed him by the armpits and drug him back to his feet. “Go.” Said the only gnoll that spoke common leading him down into the town. Obediently following they started to head down into the streets of the town, as they were making their way through town Bjorn caught a brief glance into gnoll society.
All of the gnolls that he passed were dressed in some form of battle garb, they all had at least one weapon at their hips, often even two, that included the children. The small gnoll children all sported a knife of some kind at their hips, even as they ran through the streets playing games. Bjorn thought that the gnolls society was one of violence based on how they acted to the other races, but walking through the streets the gnolls were actually quite peaceful. He saw gnolls walking through the streets hand in hand, a mother walking with her 7 kids all the same size as they crawled all over her, there was even a young gnoll helping an old hunchback and decrepit gnoll eat.
It was the exact type of thing that he expected to see in a human settlement. Then he got hit on the back stumbling and falling once again. The couple glanced over and just kept walking, the mother and kids just stood there and watched as the gnolls treated Bjorn roughly, and the elderly made a rather loud comment to the young one, the inflection and the way it looked at Bjorn left little doubt that it was a rude comment about Bjorn. That was how it was going through the crowd in their town, not once did he see any sympathy.
They pushed him all the way through town and towards the wooden wall. There was a crude wall made out of wood with wooden lookout towers built surrounding the rundown town. Outside many Gnolls were patrolling around the outside of the fence. In the wall there was a wooden gate which is where they were heading. Opening up the gate the gnolls pushed Bjorn inside and closed the gate behind him.
Stumbling forward Bjorn took in his surroundings. Every part of what surrounded him was nasty. Hundreds of people were huddled together in their own filth. They were slaves, most of the people here were men and women of a healthy age. There were no children, and no elderly people. Many of the people barely had any clothes at all, and those who did didn’t look overly cared for. Off to one side of the area there was a large pit dug in the ground. Looking around no one made eye contact with Bjorn. There were all sorts of races trapped in here, Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Gnomes, the goblinoid looking creatures, Orcs, There were even small fairy looking people. Using his new WAILA skill he found out that the fairy looking people were Sprites. Moving over towards the pit he looked down, it was their latrine, but there were also dead bodies laying in the bottom of the pit. Stepping back Bjorn looked around in disgust. Most of the people here were in advanced stages of starvation, their bodies were lean with little muscle to them. The dead bodies in the pit looked to have died from starvation.
There were a few notable exceptions to the sorry state each of the prisoners were in. There was a single building inside the walls, it wasn’t big by any means. As Bjorn was looking at it a flap was pulled back and 2 mostly clothed and healthy looking men stepped out of the house. They drug a naked elf lady out of the house by her legs, as she lay there letting them drag her. They threw her onto the ground and turned around walking back inside.
Walking over to the elf lady he knelt down and put a hand to her neck, there was still a pulse, but there wasn’t a reaction to his touch, her eyes just stared off into the distance. Picking her up he started to walk her to one side near all the other people who were huddled. As he approached the other people parted around him, they all gave a 5 foot birth around him. He tried to ask a few people questions, no and one one replied. Setting her down he didn’t know what to do so he just sat next to the elf woman, he took off his shirt to try and cover her nakedness.
After a while the flap opened again and another one of the goblinoids came strutting out of the building, he started to strut up to the group. As he was approaching all of the people slunk back and tried to avoid his notice. So Bjorn used his Identify ability on him.
Name: Olvog
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Race: Hobgoblin
Age: 43
Level: 19
Hobgoblins are bigger, stronger and meaner than their goblin counterparts. That doesn’t mean they are dumber, hobgoblins tend to have more cunning too. Their only downfall is they are less prolific breeders as their goblin counterparts. Hobgoblins gain 1 point in strength, 1 point in constitution, 1 point in endurance and 2 free points to distribute per level.
The hobgoblin stood there, eyes sweeping over the group in front of him, his eyes fell on the elf girl and lingered for a minute, then they moved to Bjorn. He looked Bjorn up and down and a slight smile touched his lips, then his gaze moved on. It came to rest on a young mostly clean pretty human woman and the smile turned evil. He moved over to the girl, as he did the group of people parted as he waded through them. The human girl just sat there eyes hollow. The hobgoblin grabbed her by her hair and started to drag her back to the building. No one, not even Bjorn, moved to stop him. Soon a rhythmic slapping sound could be heard coming from the building.
As the day went on the sound started and stopped multiple times, over the course of a few hours. There were a few times Bjorn talked himself into doing something about what was happening not 100 feet away from him. Each time he had convinced himself he was going to be the hero and save the human woman something overtook him and he lost all of his will.
Eventually the gate opened and a group of a hundred or so slowly limped into the camp, they were all covered in dirt and grim, many of them sported open sores on their bodies. Once the group finished shuffling in 15 gnolls entered the enclosure.
There was one gnoll bigger and meaner looking than the rest it stepped forwards and said in a surprisingly high pitched voice. “Alright maggots, if you want to eat we need another 100 of you for the mines, we want volunteers, but if you don’t volunteer we will get 100 of you one way or another.”
A weak woman’s voice called back. “Have you guys found out what’s killing us down there?”
“No.”
The no was met with a low susurrus that went through the crowd. Still around 20 of the group stood up and made their way over to where the gnolls were standing. Looking around Bjorn also stood up and made his way over to the group.
“We still need more, any takers? No? Alright Trexat get the rest.” Said the large gnoll as it turned on its heels and walked out of the camp. The rest of the gnolls slowly made their way through the group grabbing whichever person met their fancy. There didn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason as to how they picked. Some looked stronger, some looked weaker, some male, some female, and with no particular race. One thing that Bjorn noticed was that they didn’t go for the building in the camp, and none of the occupants inside came out. The last person that got picked was the elf girl that Bjorn pulled over there.
After they all were picked the gnolls pushed them out of the camp and towards one of the tunnels not far from where the slave camp was built. At the tunnel entrance there was an offloading station for minecarts, there were already a bunch of carts up here loaded with ores. A small group of people were left up there as the rest made their way underground. The tunnel entrance loomed over the group as it swallowed them with its darkness. Passing into the dark the tunnel traveled downwards, next to them on the ground was a track for minecarts. They traveled for the better part of an hour downwards further into the mine. Once the ground began to flatten out there were offshoots branching off of the main tunnel for the trip forward. At the bottom were more minecarts full of ore. The gnolls further broke the group apart as they left a group at the carts to start pushing the carts back up the way they had come. Finally the gnolls herded the remaining people, around 80 in total further down the tunnel. They came upon a pile of pickaxes and a few more empty carts. There was another track in the tunnel heading further down the tunnel. Most of the group trudged over and picked up pickaxes and then headed off down different tunnels.
One of the gnolls looked over at Bjorn and said. “Ah your new first time, you get to eat if you bring ores back to go to the surface. Each piece only counts if it's the size of my fist.” As the gnoll said that it made a fist out of its hand. “For each piece this size you get some food.” It gestured to another gnoll standing there with a book in its hand. “We make note of who brings what, and you get fed at the end for what you bring.”
“What about the people who have the hauling duties?” Asked Bjorn.
The gnoll looked back at him. “Who said you could ask questions?” It said in an angry voice. It turned towards Bjorn and started walking towards him all menacingly. For his part he stood his ground. The gnoll walked up to him and kicked him square in the chest. Bjorn fell backwards and into the minecart, getting pinned between the gnolls foot at the metal of the cart behind him. It held him there for a long moment before it said. “They get fed a fixed amount at the end of the shift.” It removed its foot and turned back around. “Work or don’t work, I don’t care, but if you want to eat you better get to work.”
Taking his que he picked up a pickaxe off of the pile and turned to head down a tunnel to work. As he turned around he saw the elf girl still just standing there staring off into space with a blank expression on her face. Looking back around the gnolls were standing there watching the elf, one of them licked its lips. Using his identify on her he got her name, Meira.
“Meira, can you hear me?” Bjorn asked her, to no response. She still just stood there. So Bjorn picked up one of the pickaxes and put it in her hands, she gripped it but made no motion at understanding or moving. Standing behind her he pushed her from behind and she walked forward. Turning back around, the gnolls were watching them intently. Still they walked down the tunnel together. Once reaching the end of the tunnel Bjorn walked around to Meira’s front and looked her up and down. She was still naked except for the shirt that Bjorn had given her that she was wearing. She was tall, slender, and beautiful for being covered from head to toe in dirt and grim. Still through it all he could see that she would have been stunning if she was clean. His eyes lingered on her bare legs for a second. That was when he noticed a sticky liquid dripping from between her legs. Curious he walked closer, being careful not to touch her he touched the liquid. Bringing it up to his eye to see what it was closer. It was thick, stringy, and surprisingly slippery. Using identify on it his blood began to boil. It was sperm.
He finally put two and two together, and had to admit what he didn’t want to admit while he was in camp. Whoever it was inside of the building had raped her, and based on her disheveled appearance and her vacant expression, it had been happening for quite some time. Bjorn looked at her and he felt pity, who knows what she has been subjected to, it is no surprise that she had broken. Taking her by her hand he walked her back halfway up the tunnel and sat her down on the ground. When she sat she curled up into a ball and lay there.
Trusting her not to go anywhere Bjorn got to work mining at the stone wall hoping to find some sort of ore vein. It was hard, and grueling. That doesn’t actually give it justice. Every time he struck the rock face with the pickaxe it barely dug into the stone. Newtons Third law of motion was a real bitch. He struck the rock face with the pickaxe and it dug into the rock a little, but for every bit of strength that went into the rock an equal amount of force reverberated down the wooden shaft of the pickaxe and straight into Bjorn’s arms. After 5 minutes his arms were going numb. After 20 minutes his arms started to hurt. After an hour of swinging his stamina was starting to bottom out and he was starting to get dizzy. As for his progress, he had barely made any progress in the rock face. Four watermelon sized rocks had broken away from the rock face and not wanting to leave anything up to chance he broke the rocks down even further, all for nothing, he didn’t even get anything from the rocks that looked different from all the rock surrounding him.
Taking a break he left the pickaxe where it was and headed back to Meira. She hadn’t moved at all, she still lay where Bjorn had left her, staring off into the distance. Checking her neck, she still had a pulse. Letting out a sigh of relief Bjorn sat down next to her, Looking over her face there were faint signs on the corners of her eyes that she was crying. As he watched a single tear formed and slid down her cheek, to drop off and hit the ground.
Standing Bjorn headed back to where the minecarts were. The gnolls had moved to the end of the tunnel and were sitting around a table, talking to each other in their own language. Looking around the tunnel Bjorn found what he was looking for, off on the far side of the tunnel there were empty burlap sacks. Walking over to the pile of sacks Bjorn bent down to pick one up. As he was doing so another one of the slaves walked into the room with one of the sacks over one of his shoulders. Walking up to the minecarts going further down and upended his sack. Rocks spilled out of his sack, the sound of stone hitting stone filled the air for a few seconds. Before he turned around and walked back down his tunnel carrying his sack.
Removing his rocks he got back to digging. His entire time down there was wasted. Over the 14 hours they spent down in the mines Bjorn had moved the tunnel he was digging in further down by a good 2 feet but had not gotten any luck with finding any ores. What he had gained though was a new skill, and a few levels.
You have gained the skill: Mining. There are few things in this world that are as important to progressing society as metal. Metal isn’t always at the surface, oftentimes you have to go through the rock to get to that driver of industry. Today you have started learning how rock falls apart to get access to that metal.
You have advanced your skill level in Mining, reaching skill level 3. Rocks are 15% more likely to break from a solid strike. Your stamina drain while mining is decreased by 6%.
After their shift the party recollected and started to head back up out of the mines. Bjorn made sure that Meira was not all that far from him the entire time they were heading up. Her stare was the same stare she had the entire time they were down there. She seemed to not react to anything around them, as normal. That day Bjorn didn’t get anything for food. Obviously neither did Meira.
Once they made it back up to the surface they started back towards camp. Stopping at a station on the edge of the gnoll town they all had to stand there and watch as the gnolls passed out food to the miners who were successful and the haulers. They were also forced to eat all of the food that they collected there, if they wanted they could share their food, but none of the slaves did so. Making their way back to camp a new group of gnolls were there, they traded off the slaves and the gnolls who stood guard wandered off into the gnoll town. Pushing the slaves back into camp they started the entire process over again, they got 100 more slaves and sent them off, leaving the Bjorn’s group in camp. Most of the miners joined the larger group and squatted down, or huddled in to preserve body heat. Inside this cavern even though it got natural light it was cold. The cold of the stone sapped much of the heat from the bodies, so to combat this the slaves who barely had any clothes themselves had to huddle together in their nakedness to keep warm.
Leading Meira over to the edge of the group they sat down against the wooden wall as far away from the latrine as they could. Not 20 minutes after they settled in, one of the large well fed humans in the building came out, looked around and locked eyes on where Bjorn and Meira were sitting, and started to walk over to where they were sitting. The entire time he walked over he had a litigious smile on his face. Once he got to the two of them without warning or saying anything he grabbed Meira by her ankle and turned walking back towards the building again. Meira just let herself be drug behind the man without any reaction.
Shame fell over Bjorn as his memory of what happened earlier, and his inaction to stop it. Barrelling to his feet he threw himself at the back of the man walking off with Meira. Both of them came crashing to the ground, with Bjorn landing on top. There was a puff from the man under Bjorn as the air rushed out of his lungs. Not wasting the opportunity he straddled the guy and started hitting him over and over with his fists until the guy went limp. The sound of fist striking flesh continued to sound through the camp well after the man went limp.
Blinded by his rage he didn’t notice the orc and a purple skinned elf came up to him and grabbed him by the arms lifting him off of the unconscious man. Bjorn fought back but their combined strength was more than enough to restrain him. So he just dangled there, a human grabbed the unconscious man and drug him back to the building. Olvog came out a few seconds later. When he saw his men restraining Bjorn a chilly smile crossed his lips. He started to walk casually over to Bjorn. Bjorn noticed that all of the other slaves had moved as far away from him and Meira as they could. Before they only gave them a foot or two birth.
“So, I figured you’d have to be taught a lesson eventually.” Olvog said. “I could see it in your eyes, and in your posture. You're a proud one. This here is my camp, and if you don’t interfere with my men, and my doing we will get along just fine. As long as you accept who is really in charge here.”
Bjorn spit at the feet of Olvog. “You can do what you want and I won't stop you, but Meira is now off limits. She has been broken with what you and your men have done to her, if you won’t comply we will have issues.”
Olvog’s chilly smile turned savage. “I don’t think you understand your position here, you have no power, you are in no position to stop us. We will do what we want and you aren’t able to stop us.” He brought his hand to Bjorn’s head and laid it on his forehead. Cold sprouted down his entire body from where Olvog’s hand touched his head. Bjorn felt his resolve starting to crumble, still not giving up he pulled his head back and using his teeth bit down hard on Olvog’s hand. The taste of iron filled his mouth as blood filled it from where he bit down on the hand. A hand came crashing down on Bjorn’s head and his world went dark.
When he came to next he was covered with bruises and his entire body ached. Olvog and his men must have kept beating him while he was unconscious. Sitting up and looking around the slaves must have pulled him towards where the latrine was because they were back in their normal place. Slowly coming to his feet Bjorn surveyed his surroundings, no Meira. His white hot anger earlier at what they were doing to her was no longer there. The anger he felt was just a pale shadow to the fury he felt. Instead of the anger being at Olvog and his men his own anger was directed at himself, at his helplessness, how he wasn’t able to stop them from doing whatever they wanted.
Moving back over to the group of slaves he went to join them, but they didn’t let him get close at all. He was like a leper moving through the crowd, every single one of the slaves stayed at least 2 feet away from him. Finding he was thirsty he looked around the enclosure, off in one corner was a trough. Moving over to it, it contained water, but looking at all the growth on the sides of the trough there was no way the water was potable. But still a slave slowly scrambled over and took long drinks directly from the water. A shiver ran down Bjorn’s spine at the sight. After the slave moved away Bjorn grabbed a handful of water and started to cast his purify water spell. Small bubbles started to form and drift out of the water, after less than half a second no more small bubbles formed and drifted up from the water. The bubbles continued to float up to eye level where they floated for a second and then popped. Before they popped Bjorn could just barely see small objects floating inside the bubbles. Letting his spell fade he put the water in his mouth, it tasted of clean purified water, the type of water he hadn’t tasted sense coming to this new world. The water he drank wasn’t even close to enough to satiate his thirst. So Bjorn decided to cast his purify water spell at the trough itself. He picked a spot in the water and cast. Bubbles began to form starting at the point and moving outwards from the casting point. Once the bubbles stopped forming right over where he cast the spell his mana was getting dangerously low, letting his spell drop he bent down and quickly drank as much of the water as he could.
With his thirst satiated he went back to waiting. By the time the gnolls came to gather more slaves for the next shift, mining Meira still wasn’t out of the building in camp. With nothing else to do Bjorn joined the mining expedition. It ran pretty much the same as last shift. Halfway through Bjorn dislodged a chunk of rock and underneath instead of gray rock there was a small patch of rust colored rock. Bjorn spent the better part of an hour retrieving the piece of rock. It was the size of an orange, using his identify skill on it he found that it was Iron ore. With excitement he started back up the tunnel. That was when the screams started.