# The Slave King.. please say yea or nay



## Eboe (Nov 5, 2005)

*The Slave King*

                                                                Chapter 1
                                                                 Birthing
     Loriass Yematt, the supreme highmage for the Elvynn studied the body of the pregnant human female in his breeding program and her swollen extended stomach.  Carefully he examined her for any sort of flaws or defects.  He knew from countless previous other inspections that there weren’t any but he did so just the same.  Originally, there had been two parent slaves but this female was the only one left out of the pair.  The two were or had been the best two breeding slaves that he had ever designed.  Generations of human subjects had gone into creating this one child that the female on the table was about to bear.  The baby growing in the womb of the female should be exceptional for only being a mere human.  It should, if his calculations were correct, be one of the best bred humans that he had ever conceived.

     Its gene stock derived from highest quality of human slaves over the course of almost three hundred years.

     “It had better be,” he thought to himself. “With the death of the parent father for having been rebellious in his last days, there would not be any more breeding stock of his quality until at least this infant about to be born came of age.”

     Maldrith Renali, his second in command in the Tua-latin conclave came striding purposefully into the room.  Her black and silver robes hissed softly like a snakes scales as they were pulled across the floor.  Carefully studying the woman lying on the bed with the swollen belly, she stated as much as said, “She still hasn’t had it yet?  Are you sure that there are no complications Loriass?”

     “There is nothing wrong with her,” responded the archmage as he too watched the panting woman in the throes of labor, rather critically. “The baby is just uncommonly strong for a newborn and it struggles to see the light of day.  That is all.”  

     At that exact moment the woman lying on the bed gave an ear piercing scream and a torrent of blood erupted out from between her legs in a bright red stream.  Loriass saw the blood flow and cursed heavily, knowing now that as well as losing the prime breeding father he was going to lose the prime mother too and possibly the baby as well if he didn’t act quickly.  He had no plans of allowing that to happen.  This baby was the culmination of a life’s worth of work.  Seizing the forces of creational magic that flowed like rivers throughout the palace of Talathandria, he quickly cast a stasis spell.  He wrapped it completely around the human woman making her immobile.  The beautiful slave looked sort of awkward in the position that her body was captured.  Her head thrown back so far that the muscles of her neck were exposed like taut ropes stretched tight under a thin cloth.  Her eyes had turned inward into her head showing only their whites and her back arched almost as far backwards as it could go without actually snapping in two.  As fast as he had reacted, Maldrith acted even faster where the baby was concerned.  She was also almost caught in herself in his stasis spell as she slid her hands between the almost dead female slave’s bloody thighs and clutched at the newborn baby’s head and neck sticking out.  Her hands and fingers were preventing it from being choked and dying.  The human woman she was sure was done for but she would save this human child who was the epitome of their breeding program and a lifetimes worth of work.

     Calling upon on her own magic Maldrith cast a spell onto the newborn baby that made it as slippery as an oiled eel and pulled as gently as she could.  With another burst of hemorrhaging blood shooting out of the almost dead female scribe slaves body, she pulled the baby free. Taking it out of the almost coffin that had served as its bed a moment before.  Grabbing at the silver magical dagger that hung at her side, she quickly sliced away the tether of the newborn baby to its dying mother.  Then the female Elvynn archmage checked to see whether it was still alive as the female slaves body shuddered despite the stasis spell in its death throes.

     A loud wailing cry filled the room as the struggling human baby fought against her too tight grip.  As she held it in her hands she felt her own innate powers flare up inside of her.  She swooned as her ability to forecast the future surged to life.  Just barely in time she managed to set the child down before she found herself overwhelmed.

     A blinding flash of insight split the inside of her minds eye and a vision of war filled her sight.  First she saw a broken chain then thousands of dead bodies of all races surrounding a tall man with long curly dark hair wielding a magical sword that glowed with silvery light.  His other hand was filled with a gigantic ball of crackling purefire.  The sight of this amazed Maldrith.  None of the other races were allowed to learn creational magic much less wield it.  Yet here was this human figure in her vision working the most powerful aspect of it.  A few tall figures stepped through the bodies gathered around the man and they bowed their heads in deference and Maldrith knew without having to be told that these beings were actually gods acknowledging this mere human.

     As fast as the vision had come into her head it faded, but with its passing it left her reeling.  It took her a moment to recover but when she did she knew one thing for certain.  Somehow she knew that this human baby lying on the table before her would be the man in the vision.  The one who would break the chain, this babe was one who brought much war and destruction into the world with him.

     Turning, with her eyes filled with dread, she rounded back on Loriass and in a fear filled voice that shuttered she said, “This child should be put to death immediately, it cannot be allowed to live a moment longer.  He will be the death of us all. I have seen it and it shall be so.”  With that she spun back around to the still wailing newborn baby and raised her glittering silver and red magical knife high into the air over her head.

     Loriass heard her damming words and saw her thin arms raise high.  In those two actions he saw the results of his generations of human breeding about to be destroyed, screamed out, “No!”

     Maldrith ignored him and he saw that she wasn’t going to lower the knife or stop her actions, so he did the only thing that he could do.   He threw a magical force bolt across the room at the other Tua-latin wizard as the knife started to fall.
     The force bolt hammered into the other Tua-latin wizard with the force of a large battering ram and blew her across the entire room.  Caught completely unprotected and unprepared Maldrith crashed heavily into one of the walls with a sickening thud then she collapsed down onto the floor in a heap of black and silver robes.  Loriass had seen the look in the other woman’s pale green eyes and knew without a doubt that there was no way that that she would ever allow the infant child lying on the table to survive any longer than it would take her to kill it.  Quickly before she could recover enough to gather her own magical powers and become a threat, the Highmage of the Tua-latin cast another stasis spell.  This one froze her crumpled form in place unable to move.  Knowing that he didn’t have too long before she would work her way out of the spell, he quickly stepped over to a large man sized rune inscribed wall cabinet and waved his hand.  Quickly he said the needed words to release the glyphs and wards that unlocked the magical cabinet.  Several white hot lights flared to life then they were gone, fading quickly away.

    Now the magical cabinet that would have killed even him a moment before was safe to open and Loriass pulled on its large doors.  Rows upon rows of magical items, everything from form cloaks, wands, staffs, scrolls to all sorts of weapons and armor was stored on shelves or hooks that lined both sides of the interior walls in levels that were higher than he was tall.  It was plain to see that the case was a lot larger on the inside than what it appeared on the outside.  A small walkway appeared between the rows of shelves and the high war wizard of the Tua-latin stepped inside.  He strode with purpose past the shelves of items, paying them no attention whatsoever.  He was headed towards only one particular object in the cabinet.  A large sheathed sword stood at its far end, propped almost carelessly against its wall as if it had just been thrown there to lie in a heap.

     Loriass snatched the sheathed blade up and quickly stepped back out of the cabinet.  As his fingers closed tight around the ancient dragon bone hilt of the creational Talisman sword known as spellbreaker, he immediately felt the tingle of the powerful swords magic fill his hand.  Without caring about the consequences of his actions he drew out the long silver blade in a whistle of steel and at exiting the simple sheath that held it the runes along the length of the swords blade flared to life causing it to almost glow with silver.  This sword was the most powerful artifact of talisman magic ever created.

  Its hilt and its guards were made out of the bones of a guardian dragon mounted on a blade of pure molded mythryll that was dwelven forged and crafted and had been cured in dwelven blood as well.  The endstone was a glittering gem of dragonseye held in place by a magical wrought filament of gold that enhanced its magical abilities and the swords hilt was wrapped in the same skin of the dragon that had given up its bones to make it.  Spellbreaker was the only weapon ever made that could create purefire, the purest form of creational magic.  Purefire can be used to render all other aspects of magic vulnerable.  The magical sword had been designed to both protect its user from magic and to shatter spells in order to kill war wizards.  Its use was only allowed to one person.  Only the Highmage of the Tua-latin was allowed to wield the powerful weapon of destruction.

     Loriass cast the sheath aside and spun the perfectly balanced glittering sword deftly in his hands end over end for a moment before he went over and stood over the crumpled form of Maldrith.  Despite the strength of the spell that he had cast on the powerful female war wizard she was already starting to move and had turned her head just enough to face him, got her knees up under her and had almost managed to get her hands up in front of her.  Loriass met her fear filled stare when she saw the weapon in his hands head on with one of his one and without a word raised the glittering glowing blade high over his head just like she had done a few moments earlier with her dagger.

    Unlike her blade, this one fell.  Arcing through the air, the now blazing sword crackled with white hot purefire as it plunged downward into the chest of the female war wizard.  The blade pierced all of her defensive spells as easily as a knife cuts through hot butter and ran completely through her body.

     For a moment there was nothing then the white hot fire exploded out of the hole where the blade had entered, where her eyes had been, and out of her mouth and ears as it consumed her in an explosion of white hot energy.  The whole event lasted only as few moments and then it was over.  Maldrith’s burnt out husk collapsed again back onto the floor where it crumbled to nothing but grey dust, leaving nothing remaining or her but her smoldering black and silver robes.  The powerful sword fell clattering out of Loriass’ drained and quivering fingers.  He wished with all of his heart that he hadn’t had to do what he had just done, but he had seen the look in her eyes and knew that there would have been no other way.

  It didn’t really matter to him that he had killed her but it did matter that she wouldn’t be around to work with him any longer.  She had been the best assistant he had ever had and they had spent generations working together and knew each others habits so well that at times you could hardly tell them apart when working.  But there was no way that he could let her destroy the fruits of his labor, the human child lying on the table.  Generations of human breeding and design had gone into this being and he was not going to allow that to happen.

     Finally he regained enough of his strength that the sword that had drawn from him to move and turned his white haired head towards the crying baby still lying on the birthing table.  Staggering a little he made his way towards it but as he approached he knew somehow before his eyes even saw it that something was wrong with the child.  It wasn’t moving correctly.  Then his eyes fell on what lay there and they went first wide with disgust then sank with anguish and despair.  For all of his vaunted actions, for all of his years of sacrifice what lay on the table in front of him was beyond belief and what was even worse was that both of the parent slaves had died and there couldn’t be anymore children to make up for this one.

     What was supposed to be the perfect human slave was nothing more than a worthless slave with a twisted pitiful leg that was deformed.


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## pogre (Nov 16, 2005)

This has promise, although the narrative rambles in places. You might wish to place a header warning about the graphic depictions. Some more sensitive ENWorlders might be offended.

If this is the background to a real campaign - I'm interested. If this is merely fiction for a tale you are writing - less so. The gaming aspect is part of what draws me into a story hour. The best ones though, like Sepulchrave's efforts, read like a novel.

Get rid of the Yea or Nay in your title. Your count of views should be the guide. It takes time to build an audience of readers.


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