A Record of Ash & Ruin: The Grieving Lands

Book 1: Chapter 20: A Time to Heal

But the spies and scouts of the unknown kingdom had not been idle, and they discovered horrifying facts that only hardened the resolve of the people to resist. Many of those who were brought across the ocean were in fact slaves. Men and women who had pulled at the great oars, who had cleaned and scrubbed the decks, tended the fires, and cooked the meals that fed the armies and a thousand more labors were chattel with the hateful mark of slavery inscribed upon their bodies.

- On the Cataclysm by an unknown Quassian Scholar circa 103 AC

I found myself being woken the next morning by Durhit, concern etched across his features as he shook me roughly. I cleared the sleepy cobwebs from my mind as I rose to my daily grind. All of my Status points had regenerated as expected. Looking around, I was pleased to note that the manacles on some slaves were full of rust spots. Slow and steady wins the race, I thought to myself.

Once I had gathered myself, I fell into line and received the daily speech from the Overseer, before we filed out to the mines. However, I was suddenly accosted by Degei, and our whole line was forced to stop with me.

“How are you in such good spirits this morning, bilge-rat? Triple shifts across a few days would test even a stunty stone-eater dwarf! Yet I have talked to your watchers and they say you work like a demon-possessed. There is something about you and I don’t like it. Know that I am watching you…and lower your eyes slave!” He shouted the last as he backhanded me across the face with a wooden cudgel, drawing blood.

I was taken more by surprise than actual pain. Since I was at full Health, I felt nothing due to my skill Pain Nullification. The strike had only reduced my Health by eight points, but I lowered my eyes not wishing to antagonize the cruel man further, remembering to grit my teeth in feigned pain.

The Overseer, assuaged now that I looked thoroughly cowed, shrilled with smug superiority, “At least we will get some good labor out of you. Do work your little heart out bilge-rat.”

He motioned for the line to move off, and we continued back to our daily grind. I noticed that the guards were now keenly watching me, hands gripping weapons just a little tighter, as we passed on our way to the mines. Half in defiance and half in just pure curiosity, I pictured one of the guards we had just passed, now out of my direct line of sight. I cast Rust at him, remembering his pockmarked face and lazy left eye. I felt the buildup of dark energy growing steadily more painful as dark things writhed at the periphery of my vision. Panicked now, I mentally targeted his metal breastplate. My heart beating in my chest, I felt the familiar sense of wrongness leave me as I finished the cast. Black lightning rushed from hands behind me in the guard’s direction, and my Mana dropped by a single point.

Pausing in relief, I almost tripped over my own sandaled feet as I was suddenly pulled by the worker in front of me. I realized that no one could see the visual effects of my Rust spell. However, it looked to have no effect when cast directly against living creatures, as opposed to objects which contained or were made from iron. In a strange logical way, I supposed that it made sense. Girding my loins mentally, I determined to spend this day as I had the others by working on my Strength and grinding up some experience.

My first shift passed without incident. As the workers along my line made their way out of the mine, I made sure to cast Rust a further four times; delaying each cast to measure the maximum distance of the spell. At the fourth cast, as I targeted a slave with a game leg about sixty meters away, I was struck by a familiar painful buildup. The spell had failed to take hold. I quickly released the pent-up magic into the leg manacles of a miner closer to me, who was two places down the line from those who had replaced the first shift. I concluded that the spell, at level one at least, possessed a range between forty and fifty meters at a rough educated guess. I kept five points in reserve in case I suffered any ‘accidents’ while working to cast Heal, with one point as a buffer against Mana Sickness.

I encountered neither Durhit nor Kidu for the rest of the day. Perhaps the guards had singled them out too for extra monitoring? The day ended with my usual exhaustion, my Health in the low seventies. I had pushed my body to the extreme, even using Power Strike once against the rock when I felt that our minders were not looking, with somewhat impressive results. The wicked blow had carved a great gouge through the rock. Though it burned through my precious Stamina, I didn’t regret the action as it allowed me to vent a little of my frustrations. I imagined smashing the pickaxe against Degei’s smug face.

At the evening meal, the other slaves still looked at me with some fear in their eyes. No doubt the tales had grown about my encounter with the Nord man-mountain Harun the Iron and my successful showing at the winnowing. Still, I was never the most popular person in a group in my old life, so it did not bother me too much. Better to be feared than live in fear, a rather Machiavellian line of thinking, I considered to myself.

Despite all of this, however, I did have some companions, if not friends; the dwarf and wildman. In the manner of those at the bottom rung of a society’s ladder, we had bonded. Clinging perhaps subconsciously to a false sense of superiority. The wildman with his unbroken spirit, the dwarf with his diligent pride, and myself knowing that I had come from a more civilized world. A certain glumness came over me then, as I had no gains in Strength from my time in the mines, though I had still gained a small amount of experience.

Kidu and Durhit were not so talkative this evening. The reason for their reticence I ascribed to the general rigor of a slave’s lot. After the evening meal, and just before it was time for sleep, I washed off the dirt and grime from a day’s hard work as best I could. Before sleeping, I cast Heal on myself and knotted muscles relaxed, small wounds I had never noticed healing across my body. A tiny stony fragment that had embedded into my flesh, perhaps from my overenthusiastic strikes against the rock, clattered to the earthen ground, pushed out by regenerating flesh. A warm balm washed over me, more soothing than any song, and lulled me to sleep as it took away the aches and pain of the day.