I woke up feeling refreshed.
I felt revitalized and energized in a way I only felt after sleeping off a huge sleep deficit.
Now, if only I could actually enjoy this feeling that would be excellent. Of course that would be impossible.
Characters might forget their situations for a moment upon waking up in novels as a sort of cliche but I unfortunately didn’t get to enjoy that kind of cliche.
After all there were two very irritated holy knights who dragged me to my feet the instant they saw my eyes open.
Well so much for the wish of yesterday being a dream.
Now that I finally had some good sleep my mind was feeling much clearer and calmer. Thanks to that I realized how absolutely fucked I am, and also how much worse I had made the situation through my actions yesterday.
It might be one thing to be a heretic, but a loon who laughs as he is dragged away will get looked at with disdain no matter what faith you ascribe to. God, I was off my rocker yesterday. I get stress and sleep deprivation but that was something else, maybe I’m actually a bit crazy in the first place? Guess rough times will teach you a lot about yourself.
Judging by the rough handling as the knights practically dragged me away from… holy shit is that a stone bench? I got a good sleep on a stone bench, outside. I’m nothing if not adaptable.
Oh anyways where was I; judging by my rough handling I was about to learn a whole lot more about myself, as the rough times were likely not going to end any time soon.
I felt resigned about my treatment and the reasons for it yesterday, but with a fresh mind and clear train of thought I quickly became pissed. I’m literally going to be a slave because one individual I don’t even know hates me for some undisclosed reason. This is bull-shit! Where’s my lawyer?!
As the indignation hit me and I stopped in place for a second one of the holy knights, I realized it was the one I thought of as “nice” yesterday, pulled my arm hard. I heard a snap and felt a sudden sharp pain in the shoulder of the arm he pulled. Holy fuck that hurts! That was a snap, not a pop or a click, a snap! Something is fucking broken!
Thanks to the shot of pain I stopped again while trying to muffle the scream I wanted to release. Bad move.
The knight turned around in a rage and grabbed my shirt and lifted me up into the air before swinging me sideways, and head first, into a wall made of fitted stone.
Oh good there goes my clear head… or not? I noticed even while I was being pushed up the wall by the knight that my shoulder already felt better than it did a moment ago and my head cleared surprisingly fast.
Oh yeah, regeneration. Well at least that was a small blessing in this madness.
Not!
The knight began to pummel me with the fist not holding me up, yes he was holding me up one handed, and I had the pleasant experience of learning that the gauntlets of holy knights have nice little spikes above where the knuckles are inside.
The “kind” holy knight then “kindly” explained to me exactly why regeneration was not going to be a boon or a help to me for the foreseeable future.
“It’s nice that you recover from anything we do. The goddess wants you alive and that means no killing, but since you return to normal no matter what we give you ‘proper’ punishment for being a subhuman piece of filth that the great goddess despises.”
Joy.
At that moment the other holy knight put his hand on the shoulder of the one beating my face in and gave him a hard look.
Oh? Someone with a conscience?
“Don’t bloody him up too much before we bring him to the prince, it's bad enough he has to deal with trash without it bleeding all over his chambers.”
Everyone here is so “kind”.
The holy knight I will from now on call Spike, thanks to his oh so gentle gauntlets and the fact he never introduced himself that I could remember, put me down on the ground while Grumpy (knight #2) huffed in annoyance.
I lay there bleeding on the ground for a bit while I looked up at the sky. It looked to be some time in the mid-morning as it was bright out but the sun was not high. I guess that could also mean it is the afternoon but I doubt they would have let me sleep that long.
Funny how I now got to see the fantasy portion of this world only now that I was beaten half to death, but the sky had something besides the sun.
“How many fucking moons does one plannet need.”
I mumbled at the ridiculous sight of no less than 8 moons, fully visible in the daylight and of various colors and shapes.
“Leave it to a heretic to talk shit about the high realms”
“Hey Grumpy, what’s a high realm?”
The knight looked down at me with disdain.
“The fuck you just call me?”
“What else am I supposed to call you?”
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“I’m Lawrencieth Grandle Renceford Belmain, don’t forget it if you want to live, you slime.”
“See, there are two problems here. One is that I’m not entirely sure I ‘want’ to live, second is that your name is fucking ridiculous and I’m not using it. So fuck you Grumpy.”
At this moment I would like to present to you the pain scale. Why in the hell are you talking about it now; you might ask yourself. Well you see I have the unique perspective of someone with the ability to feel many kinds of pain rapidly and to have felt some basic one’s repeatedly, so I’m kind of an expert on pain levels. From now on I will quantify the pain in nice little numbers from 0 to 10. I think that makes the rest of this story a little easier to grasp.
So anyways, this day I got to learn a wide variety of pain levels so let me list them real quick in order of occurrence by Standar Pain Units (trademark pending).
Broken shoulder (undetermined bone): 2.7 SPU
Spikey gauntlet baptism: 4.3 SPU
Broken ribs: 3.7 SPU
Broken rib in lung: 4.2 SPU
Broken nose: 2.4 SPU (note that loss of consciousness temporarily may have affected score)
Crushed throat: 4.3 SPU
Suffocating from crushed throat: 5 SPU
I hope this gives a good baseline for the rest of my story. Anyways where were we, ah yes.
Both knights beat me senseless while I remained on the ground, giving me plenty of time to ruminate at exactly how effective being a smart-ass was at making my life worse than it already was.
After they got tired of pummeling me they decided I was in no condition to go see Altru. I was painted red and it seemed like that would be hard to clean out of Altru’s drapes should I touch them. So Spike had the wonderful idea to cast a spell called ‘swash’ at me. It’s a nice little cleaning spell that fires a jet of water that is highly concentrated and pressurized, like a larger version of a power washer jet. It’s strong enough to ‘clean’ aways some flesh with the dirt. Also it’s not a cleaning spell, gotta appreciate Spike’s sense of humor.
SPU 4.2
After I was nice and clean, and crying an appropriate amount, they then brought me into the castle and from the courtyard we had been in and through the halls to Altru’s chambers.
The wonderful rested energy was basically gone already and I was left feeling, well considering how the day was going, surprisingly normal. Thanks to the standard state of mind I could appreciate Altru’s room.
The ceiling was at least 20 feet away from the floor. There was a grand fireplace in a white stone that looked like polished marble. His bed was a monstrous thing with all the drapes and ornamentation a bed would allow before losing its function. Thanks to my bare feet (I lost my shoes at some point but can’t really point out when) I could feel the plush carpet beneath my feet. It was softer than anything I had ever touched, softer than the softest puppy you have ever held. The walls held what looked to be war memorabilia like weapons, shields, and a very large stuffed head of what looked to be a minotaur (which I would later find out was a correct assumption).
Altru himself was seated behind a large work desk piled high with documents on both side but clear in the middle save the one piece of paper he was currently reading. He was also wearing glasses which somehow looked wrong on his chiseled face. As I was dragged in he continued reading the document for a minute before moving it to the stack on his right and looking across the desk at me.
Spike then proceeded to grab my head and slam it into the oh so soft carpet while growling.
“Kneel before the king you swine.”
SPU 0.2
This carpet is really nice. Also very red, I don’t think my blood would have changed the color anyways.
“Spike let him get up. I need to speak to him and I can’t see below the desk.”
“Wait, his name is actually Spike?”
Wow I thought my nick-name was creative but I guess I win the grand prize.
Spike grabbed my hair and toted me back to an upright position.
“Spike Minch, at your service.”
This man had an incredible ability to speak in a perfectly dead-pan voice, he must practice. Spike turned my head towards Altru with his gauntlet still gripping my hair before letting go.
Altru leaned back in his chair and looked me up and down with an appraising look.
“Tony, I must ask before we start; do you understand exactly what position you’re in?”
His voice held a slight edge to it, like there was a wrong answer to this question. Since I had had my fill of being beaten today I decided to give a real answer instead of a sarcastic one.
“I’m a heretic of the state religion of this empire. I’ve been stripped of all rights and you are to administer punishment to me for the goddess however you see fit. The only punishment you are NOT allowed to give is killing me to end my suffering or simply locking me up. I am, essentially, a slave that you now own.”
Altru nodded his head once before correcting one thing I had said.
“Mostly right Tony. However, it is not fair to compare you to slaves. After all, slaves have more rights than you do.”
Oh. How nice.
I kept my mouth shut and just waited for him to hand down my fate.
Altru sighed and ran his hand down his face before looking up again at me tiredly.
“Tony, I am a devout follower of the goddess. She has blessed this land more than you could ever understand to the point where when someone mentions her they say ‘the’ goddess and not ‘a’ goddess. As such I am going to follow the goddesses' will to the letter, despite what the church wants.”
I couldn’t help but ask.
“What does the church want?”
“They want to flay your skin off and pin it down so it doesn’t regenerate before nailing you to the walls of the castle to serve as an example of what happens to the enemies of the goddess.”
I turned to look at Spike and he gave me a very large, very ‘kind’ smile.
I decided to just look at Altru.
“So what does ‘to the letter’ imply.”
“I’m going to put you to work for the empire’s benefit.”
I knew better than to think that would be better.
“Tony what is your blood type?”
“What?”
Ok now I’m lost but still afraid.
“Just answer Tony.”
“Uhm… I’m O negative.”
“Wonderful”
Altru’s face actually lit up for the first time today.
“Can I ask why that is wonderful?”
“Well Tony that means that your blood is a universal donor.”
Ahhhhhh, now I think I know where this is going.
“Tony, your first task for the empire will be to save lives. Especially soldier lives. We are going to test the limits of your regeneration by taking blood from you to use in the field hospitals on the front line of the war against the demons. Be grateful you get to do something of value.”
“Yayyyyyyyyy”
Sarcasm mode is back on.
Notes for the day:
1. I’m confused about the level of tech (specifically medical) in this world after they talked about universal donors.
2. I have become a blood factory.
3. I have a feeling the SPU will be used a lot starting today.