[Assessors] are a [Job] of pure, undiluted evil. Their most notable [Skill], [Assess Person], when raised to high enough levels, allows them to see everything about you. Your [Name], [Age], [Attributes], [Jobs], [Skills], [Titles], [Traits], everything. An [Assessor] hired by the brothels once told me how many men had used me. I wanted flay him alive and sew his skin back on inside-out.

I was under constant scrutiny. My owners always kept close track of what [Skills] I knew and what their levels were. I think I was assessed more than any other person ever born. It’s a horrible sensation, being assessed. You can feel it if you’re paying attention. Most people don’t. It’s common practice for [Assessors] to level by using [Assess Person] on random people in the street.

I always feel it. It’s like having someone pawing at you everywhere all at once, like being forced to lie there while a man runs his hands over your soul. I think I preferred spending time in the brothels to being assessed. At least there I only had to watch.

It was eight months into my enslavement when I learned that [Assess Person] can be resisted. I was enduring another in an endless string of assessments when I got the notification.

[Assess Person resisted!]

[Your Willpower has increased by 1!]

That night I received the worst beating of my life. The slaver beat me until I couldn’t resist. Then he beat me for wasting his time. Then he beat me for making the [Assessor] wait. I think he abused me from dusk until noon the next day, impressing upon me my error.

That night I gained a second point in willpower. I can only assume it was for surviving.

It wasn’t until after he sold me off that I tried again. My next owner wasn’t inventive, just brutal. He’d just whip me, over and over, without variation. My back started to go numb, the whip barely leaving an impression until the flesh was broken. I wasn’t deterred.

As soon as I saw that first resist message a thought took root in my mind, one that wouldn’t leave me be. The problem was that I couldn’t hope to gain anything by simply protecting myself from being assessed. That wouldn’t work; they would just keep abusing me until I didn’t resist. No, I had to believe I could partially resist and do it in such a way I wouldn’t get caught doing it. I had to learn to hide a [Skill].

From then on, every time I was assessed, I focused on a single [Skill], any [Skill], and imagined hiding just that [Skill] from the assessors. I lost count of the beatings as I resisted more and more often. I gained so many scars that whole areas of my body became numb. My back, my hands, my feet, my breasts - they all felt distant, layered in thick cotton. The madam of my final brothel mutilated my face and breasts with a knife before she sold me on as too ugly to keep. By then I thought it a fair trade if it meant leaving the brothels. I’d left bits of flesh in plenty of other places. This one was no different.

It took seven years. Seven years before I succeeded the first time.

[Assess Person partially resisted!]

[Your Willpower has increased by 1!]

I sobbed when I saw the message. Sobbed for a dying hope, sobbed for proof that escape was possible. When the [Assessor] documented my [Skills] that night, he only documented 39.

One success wasn’t enough. I had to manage it every time. Once I started if I slipped I might give away the game. It took another two years of practice before I could consistently hide a single [Skill], regardless of the [Assessor].

I remember it well. My Willpower was 34.

I’ve often been asked how I managed to break through the ‘wall’ at 30. Well, here it is - set your whole mind on something, then keep it there no matter what you’re doing. Build a wall of resolve that lasts through torture and rape; fixate on it until a part of your mind does nothing else. When your mind wanders, get punished. Every time the wall cracks, endure pain. Then keep going, keep rebuilding that wall, keep shoring up those cracks. Every fucking time. Thousands upon thousands of times.

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Oh, I failed. I failed often. In my 10th year I started leveling a [Skill] that I thought would see me free me when I was assessed in my sleep. I rate that as the second worst beating of my life. After they finished, they had to wait three days for me to be coherent. Then they offered me a choice - lose the [Skill] or die. They made sure too. They had me learn a new [Skill] to overwrite it and assessed me to make sure I possessed exactly 40. That’s how I lost [One with Shadows].

From then on I was never completely asleep, part of my mind always on keeping a [Skill] hidden. I never passed out, no matter how they beat me after that night. No matter how badly they ran me down, exhausted, starved, or abused me, part of me was always awake, a little part of me was always manning that wall.

My second chance came when I was 25.

I almost missed it. They had me watching fights in the arena, picking out the unique [Skills] of the fighters. It wasn’t particularly interesting, but I needed to focus to pick anything out. I was so zoned into the fight inside the arena that I didn’t notice when a woman stepped out of thin air in the box across from me. It wasn’t until the sunlight framed her standing behind the Duke that I paid attention. I focused on her, sensing an opportunity.

The woman carried nothing on her, had no weapons, no armor, nothing. Instead she pointed her fingers at the back of the Duke’s head and struck, lightning fast. There was no blood, visible trauma, nothing to show she had attacked him. But I could tell, without a single doubt, that the Duke was dead.

The woman never looked at me. Never knew I saw. Even if she did, I doubted she would have cared. I certainly didn’t. Me, I focused, all of my will on trying to pick out what [Skills] she was using.

Whatever she did to kill the Duke, I never found out, and certainly never had the chance to pick up with [Manifest Skill]. It didn’t matter. The [Skill] she used next was far, far better. Better than anything I could hope for.

[Discorporate].

Congratulations! You may learn a new skill!

[Discorporate]

Through your will alone you release the bonds your body has to the material world, allowing it to pass through any object, no matter how solid. To maintain this state, your will must be focused. Any lapse in concentration will cause the skill to fail. Warning: It is not possible to carry objects in this state! USE EXTREME CAUTION: It is possible to leave this state while the body is passing through a physical object. Doing so will cause the object to fuse with your body, with catastrophic results.

Requirements: Willpower 25. Other requirements overwritten.

Cost: Hidden.

Advancement: Increased [Skill Levels] improve proficiency with multiple aspects of this skill.

You already have 40 skills. To learn this skill you must unlearn another. Do you want to remove a skill? [Y/N]

I nearly screamed with joy when I saw the description. I accepted, abandoning [Swift Swordplay], and learning [Discorporate]. I held myself calm and still, comforting myself by doing the mental exercises that hid my [Skills]. If the guards were paying attention, they might have seen me twitch. I waited hours, watching the fights, learning what [Skills] I thought my owner would like, pretending I wasn’t jumping up and down inside. Then, when I had a good selection of unique and rare one, I left to practice them.

That night, when my guards were more interested in trying to stay awake than in watching me, I took off my clothes, set them aside, and curled up in the corner. I activated [Discorporate]. It fought me. I was doing something that the world was trying to tell me was wrong. With only a single [Skill Level] my body made it crystal clear that I was using my mind to tear it into tiny shreds. I flailed. I floundered. I failed.

Every moment of next two years was spent doing one of three things - appeasing my owners, hiding my new [Skill], or practicing it. It took me two years of practicing whenever I could be sure I was alone to figure out how to use the [Skill]. I had to manage intense feelings of wrongness, pain, and panic. During that time, I gathered the willpower to try escaping, for good and real. Once I’d tried escaping from every new owner at least once, but the beatings hadn’t been worth it.

It took thirteen years. By the end I was so scarred that my owners insisted I wear a mask at all times. I was whipped so many times that I couldn’t feel anything on my back or butt unless you cut. I was raped so many times that I long since lost any notion that sex was an act of intimacy or pleasure. It was just one more torture. By the end I was so disfigured that they wouldn’t even do that anymore.