“where are you from,” says the ork chieftain. “I, uhhhh I’m from the forest, yes, the forest is my home” I say nervously. “hmm, that should be impossible, but I am not detecting any falsehood from you sooooo, since your in our village now, and you have no prior allegiances to any other village, we’ll allow you to rest here for as long as you like” says the chieftain. “if you want to live here though you will need to pass some tests” says the chieftain

The chief than calls in someone and tells them to lead me to my temporary accommodations. I decide not to tell the chief that I am a mage as of now. I look around as we walk. The scene around me is truly serene with laughing children playing all around, and the grass tumbling in the wind. After a couple minutes of walking the ork in front of me stops. I almost run into him, but I grind my feet into the ground so that I don’t. He motions to a tiny shack in front of him, leading me to assume that this is my temporary accommodations. It’s been a long time since I’ve slept with a roof over my head. Spent some time experimenting in a meadow, saw a hell beast die gruesomely, spent a day learning how the animals move so I can… eat. Oh no. I haven’t eaten at all in a long, long time. As I realize this, I start feeling a terrible hunger eating through my mind and my body. I barely stand up and stumble outside, miming with my hands for food, before I collapse.

I feel my body twist and shiver and hunger, all while feeling disconnected. Time passes, I really don’t know how long but it does pass. I can hear voices all around some urgent some not. I can still fell my body aching, but a little less then before. The voices start feeling more solid. Time passes, and my body almost doesn’t ache anymore, and I start feeling connected to it to it again. I rattle my entire body finally opening my eyes after who knows how long. The first thing I see is that girl that was leading the hunt, standing in front of me. She says something and I can actually understand it. Guess all that time sleeping listening to people combined with my fast learning ability means I learned the language without trying all that much. I start listening to what she’s saying only to realize that I actually understand only about half of what she’s saying

“papa” she shouts

“the (%^7$3) is finally awake” she says

“I am coming (^&*^^) (%^$&” yells the chieftain

Yeah, I’m still going to have to learn the language. Ugh. Also, it seems that leader of the hunting group was the daughter of the chieftain. Makes sense. I wait around as the same shaman that was in the chieftain’s hut comes in. He dances around hypnotically, making me feel a little better by the time he’s done. To think that all this was caused by me forgetting to eat. I use my fragmented understanding of their language to ask them what had happened. They then asked me how I could speak their language all of a sudden. I just said that I was a fast learner. “you seem to have not eaten in a long time, so we (**&*&%$) and asked the (&*&89) to (^%$^%&, even after that though you still didn’t wake up for another two days” says the chieftain. “two days!” I yelled. “yes, two days. And don’t yell you (#$%#) ($#%$) (%$%#)” the chieftains daughter says, and even though I don’t understand her I am decently sure she cursed. “well now you’re indebt to the (*$%^)” the chieftain says.“you’re going to have to work for the (*$%^) now” the chieftain says.

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At this point a lot has happened since I’ve woken up and my mind is not exactly in the best state to process it all, so I tell all the people present in the room that I will get to work once I’ve slept just a little bit more. Before anyone could respond to this though I immediately start feeling my consciousness slow down… and…. Stop

When I wake up again, and start opening my eyes, the first thing I see is the shaman. “hello, I hope you stay awake a bit longer this time” he says his voice a smooth baritone. “you’ve fainted twice now, don’t want to make it thrice” he says. I chuckle nervously. “It seems as if the last time you woke up your body wasn’t ready to handle it, still didn’t have enough food in you, so you fainted, again” he said. “I heard the chieftain say that I’m indebt to… something” I say, a little nervously. “oh, that. The chief said that you’re indebt to the village now, since we had to feed you, and I had to cast multiple heal spells on you. It’s no big deal really, it’s some menial labour that you can finish in two months or so tops” he says, his tone somewhat diminutive on that last line. “two months seems like a long time. I was only in your care for two to three days” I say. “yes, but I had to heal you multiple times, and as you know the expertise of a (%&^$) is expensive,” he says. It seems that even though I was subconsciously learning the language while I was unconscious due to my fast learning ability there are still some words I don’t know. I’m just going to try to give it some time and see if I get better at the language without worrying too much on it.

I have to assume that the abilities of a magic user are extremely expensive in this world since a couple of heal spells is equal to two months of labour. Two months is a really long time to be indebt, but since I’m a magic user (I’m going to say mage for short) then I might be able to get out of this by revealing that I’m a mage and doing some higher paying tasks rather than some menial labour. I have to probe him for some more information before I commit to this though. “yes, would you elaborate on exactly how expensive your abilities are and why” I say trying to sound smooth. “well, in the time I was healing you I could have done any number of other more important things, and healing you wasted some of my precious (^*%#)” he says starting to get slightly annoyed by my questioning. Well this only kind of helps, since I now know that doing magic uses… something, I don’t know what that something is, how long it takes to recover, or why I haven’t felt it, but now I know some information. Now time for a decision. Do I reveal that I’m a mage and reduce my time indebt drastically while taking the risk that they might force me to be their slave or something, or do I just take my two month labour time perfecting my grasp on the language and getting some more info on mages and this village. Decisions, decisions.