1 Chapter 1 The Beginning

Our story starts with a strange creature who has yet to move from the ground he's laying on or even open his eyes. But from our first view of him, he appears to be a fox-like creature with ears and a tail, the fur on his tail being a bright orange color and the hair on his head being a dark brown color. The creature appears to be wearing a purple jacket and a pair of black sweatpants with a hole for the tail. After a few moments, the creature opened his eyes and revealed that he had two separate eye colors, with his left eye being blue and his right eye being orange. The creature stared into the sky for a short while and then rose its hand above its face, observing itself for a short while. The creature lowered its hand back to its side and then sat up to view its surroundings, as it looked around it found itself in an open field with other strange creatures around it. There were only three varieties of creatures around him, one of the creatures looked like a rabbit with a small horn that produced small amounts of electricity every now and then, the second of the creatures resembled a boar, however, the creature has bushes on its back and has tusks that look like they'd tear through a person with ease, the bushes had red berries on them and whether or not they were safe to eat or not was anyone's guess, and lastly the third type of creature was a strange balloon like creature with an oddly happy looking face that cheerfully drifted through the field, the balloon like creatures didn't seem to have a single color palette and varied in color greatly from one another.

The fox-like creature sat there for another short while and then stood up, as it stood there it noticed that a strange box was being pulled by a horse. The strange box caught the creature's attention, and before it knew it, he began to walk towards the strange moving box and horse. Once the creature was close enough to the cart, it noticed a path that the box was moving on. The creature stood on the path and began to wait as the box slowly but surely made its way towards him. Once the box was a few yards away from him, it completely stopped moving, and by this point, the creature noticed that there were a few men in the back of the cart and a man holding something connected to the horse. The man seemed half asleep as held on to whatever it was he was holding and then mumbled, "Damn horse, why'd you stop? We're all tired, so hurry up and get us home." The man sat there quietly for another moment and then realized that the cart he was in still wasn't moving, after a short while he stood up furiously and pulled on the reins while he shouted, "Hurry up and move you damned horse!" As the man shouted, the other men woke up and one of them asked "What's the problem?" The man stood there for a moment and stared at the creature for a short while before saying, "A demi-human?" The man glanced at the three other men in the back and said, "Yeah, it's a lone demi-human just standing out here." One of the men stared at the creature for a moment and said, "Do you think this could be our lucky break?" One of the other men smiled as he said, "Well our last job ended pretty roughly, but if we catch and sell him I'm sure we'll be able to make up for our loses and then some."

The men continued to talk amongst themselves as they said things like "He's at least a foot shorter than us, he shouldn't be too strong either, demi-humans are known for being weak too." The creature continued to stand there for another short moment and then climbed into the cart without so much as making a sound. The four men all watched as he did this and then one of them asked "Is it stupid?" The creature sat beside the driver looking satisfied as one of the other men said, "I don't think it can understand us." The driver shrugged as he said, "Well that's not exactly our problem, in fact, it works out for us." The man smiled as he happily said, "He basically handed himself over to us, it'll be a piece of cake to sell him now." As the cart continued the creature continued looking as if he had just conquered the whole world, all the while the men began to discuss his odd clothes. The man driving the cart glanced at the creature and asked, "Do you know what's going to happen to you?" The creature stared at the man with little to no reaction as the man asked, "You do realize we're going to sell you and turn you into a slave… right?" The creature continued to stare at him without saying a word as the man mumbled "Ah never mind… I just hope they don't pay less because you can't talk." Once the man gave up completely on talking to the creature, it began to move its body back and forth swaying happily for some unknown reason.

After a few hours had passed, they arrived at a port city with massive walls surrounding it. As some guards approached the cart, the man driving it asked "Is this really necessary every time?" The guard ignored his comment and then said, "You wouldn't happen to be carrying any illegal merchandise would you?" The creature stared at the tall walls with a great interest in its eyes, and then glanced at the guard. The guard stared at the creature and then said, "A demi-human?" Where'd you pick it up at?" The man glanced at the creature and said, "It was just standing there in the middle of the road, it doesn't understand a word we say, but that doesn't really matter so long as he sells for a good price." The guard nodded and then said, "Well, I wish you luck on getting a good price, now hurry along." The creature watched as the guard did a quick gesture and then saw that the gate had begun to open. The creature stared at the gate in amazement and then stared at the guard. The creature quickly stood up and began to mimic the gesture, causing the four men to panic as they all shouted things like "Watch out! He's making a run for it." Just as they were all about to try and grab him, he began to mimic the gesture the guard did to signal someone to open the gate. The men stared at him for a moment and then all relaxed as one of them said, "Never mind… he just saw something and wanted to copy it." The four men glanced at each other in embarrassment for misunderstanding the situation and then back at the creature who was still mimicking the guard.

After a few more minutes the cart came to a stop and one of the men put a rope around the creature's neck and then pulled on it lightly as he said, "Come on, we don't have all day." The creature seemed to understand this somewhat as it got off of the cart with the man. The man stared at him in surprise as he mumbled, "I thought for sure I'd have to be at least a little more forceful." The man glanced at the other three and said, "You guys go on without me, I'll catch up once I sell him." Once the cart began to move again the creature tried following it, but the man with the rope gave it a light tug again and said, "No, we're not riding the cart anymore, come on, we have to go to the slave merchant." The creature began to follow the man with relative ease as it walked past all sorts of things that seemed to catch its attention. After walking for a few moments the man turned down a shady-looking alleyway and said, "Pretty soon you'll be cash in my pocket and someone's property." The man pushed a door open and had the creature follow him in as he shouted, "Hey! Old man, you here?" After waiting a few moments an old man walked into the room shouting "Yes, what is it?" The man stared at him for a moment and then said, "I brought a slave, how much do you think I can get for him?" The old man stared at the creature for a moment and then said, "A demi-human? Is it intelligent, can it do anything special?" The man glanced at it for a moment and said, "I'm not certain, but it doesn't talk any, and I don't think it can understand us." The old man sighed as he said, "So it's not intelligent, and you have no idea if it has any special talent?"

The old man thought for a moment and then said, "I suppose I can give you a few silver for it, although it may be completely useless I'm sure someone wouldn't mind buying it as bait or something." The old man lifted the demi-humans chin and said, "You know what… I'll give you a gold for it… some rich old hag might fancy him." The old man smiled and then said, "Yeah I'm sure I could make a profit off of him, I just have to find the right buyer." The man seemed pretty excited and shocked as he said "Wait, really? That's way more than I thought you would've given me for him." The old man took the rope from the man and pulled a gold coin from his pocket and handed it to the man as he said, "Pleasure doing business with you." The man quickly put the gold coin in his pocket and then quickly left while saying "Thanks a lot, old man." Once the man was gone, the old man turned back to the creature with a massive smile as he said, "Now then… let's see if I can make a profit off of you." The man began to walk towards a back room holding the rope as he continued to smile and said, "Right this way." The creature seemed to understand that whomever held the rope was to be followed and after seeing the old man holding it he quickly followed the old man into the back room without any sort of resistance. Once in the room, the creature saw hundreds of other cages with hundreds of other kinds of creatures in them. Hundreds upon hundreds of strange creatures, and yet, he couldn't hear them from the other room. The old man glanced at him as he said, "I bet you're wondering why you didn't hear it before entering this room." The man opened a small cage that looked incredibly cramped for the creature and then said, "This entire place has a magic barrier surrounding it, no matter how loud it gets no one will hear you back here… now get in the cage."

The creature stared at the end of the rope for a moment and then crouched down into the small cage with his knees pressed up against his chest. After sitting there for a moment, the man muttered "This creature really is stupid." The man then slammed the cage shut, startling the creature as he knelt down locking the cage while saying "Now that's more of a natural reaction." Once the cage was locked, the man began to walk away as he said, "You'll get a meal per day, so sit tight and don't get any ideas." The man continued to walk until he reached the door, as he stood at the door he grabbed the doorknob and then said, "Also you won't be getting any bathroom breaks." Once the man left, the creature began to look around the foul-smelling and poorly lit room and noticed that many of the cages had cloths over them and that the creatures in the room were much larger and seemed a lot more dangerous than the ones in the field. The creature continued to sit there in the dark without moving in the slightest until the door opened back up, revealing a group of three men. The three men who had entered the room seemed curious at first, but then their attention was drawn to the creature huddled up in a ball on the ground in the small cage. The three men all stood around him for a short while, whispering amongst themselves as they asked "Is this the one the old man was talking about?" One of the men glanced at the other creatures as he said, "This looks like the only new one to me."

One of the men started kicking the cage as he said, "So we're supposed to torture it until we figure out if it really can't talk, and if it does speak we're supposed to torture it until we can figure out why it was over here and why it came here so willingly." One of the other men pulled out a knife as he asked, "So we're just going to torture it? Well, whatever, … it pays well." Once the other man stopped kicking the cage, the man with the knife crouched down with a crooked smile and said, "So you gonna speak? Or are we gonna have to do this the hard way?" The creature stared at him blankly without moving or showing any signs of fear towards the knife; however, the creature did seem a bit shocked to see three people face to face with him. The man with a knife reaches into his pocket and pulls out a key as he said, "You know, … the old man said we're allowed to take you out of this cage and rough you up a bit." The man put the knife away and then opened the cage as he smiled and said, "Come on out… so we can play a little." As soon as the creature stepped out of the cage the man punched the creature in the jaw knocking it to the ground and into some empty cages, as the creature laid beneath them the man smiled and said, "I hope you'll have fun playing with us until the old man is satisfied."