Born A Monster, Chapter 71 - Trench Slave

Born A Monster

Chapter 71

Trench Slave

I may have implied that the trenches were complete; if so, I apologize.

It will come as no surprise that as night fell I was securely in my cage. Nor that as nocturnal creatures, the goblins and orcs holding me captive would think of that as time to have the slaves do a work shift.

So even as I was settling in for a good night's rest, content that my cell was showing scuffs and scratches, my captors were waking up for a night of work.

There were four of them; two were uruk with spear and axe. When told, I emerged from my cage. I waited patiently as a manacle was secured around my neck, and then to a chain of other slaves.

I was given a shovel suited to my size, and we were marched off for a cold breakfast. As I've said before, goblins employ cold cooking methods. Breakfast was fungus soup with an uneven sprinkling of grain seed.

It was enough to keep a normal slave alive and starving for weeks. For me, it was death by Biomass Loan. I'd need to find something else to eat.

Most of those on my chain were goblins, so I didn't expect star treatment. We were taken to the head of one of the inward trenches, and told to dig.

Uruk warriors dug the high portions of the trench, and we dug the low. There was a lot of dropped, or spilled, or just collapsing earth. Whenever one of my fellows was buried beyond their ability to free themselves, we had to pull on the chains to get them loose.

Even with my shattered hand, I was doing better work than my fellows. Not faster, just better. There was a clear line of level floor where I had been working.

It didn't go un-noticed. I was attached to the end of a shorter chain, and let to an area of trench already completed.

"We need this floor leveled."

"May I please have more food?"

"Only if you do good work."

I did good work, if not to the speed my captors desired. I was rewarded with the crowns of some wilted carrots. I devoured them like they were a gourmet dish.

As I was moved from site to site, this became a contest of sorts, to see if I would turn away from food. Just before dawn, they took me by a kitchen pit to let me go through the garbage.

Fruit rinds, excess fat and grease, vegetables going to rot – there were a lot of things I could eat that the soldiers themselves couldn't.

I didn't get enough to put off starvation, but I avoided the hammer of the Maternal Biomass Loan.

They put me into a different cell, one closer to the area of trench I was working. Whenever I wasn't sleeping, I gnawed upon the bars.

#

The next night, they had irregular pieces of rock, sliced through to provide a level side. I was part of a crew that had to place them into a puzzle, welded together with mortar. We often had to swap pieces, and I had some very creative puzzle-mates to work with.

I hadn't realized the Uruk trenches were such a complicated affair. At the edges were narrow channels for runoff. At the lower points, where the fluids accumulated, wooden planks were laid down, and in some cases, bridges had taken their place.

Once, they took me to a particularly vile sump (a sump is a repository for liquid garbage), and asked if I was thirsty. Yes, I was foolish, and no, I didn't drink.

"Water, element of my birth, heed my call, grant my request. Nourish and revitalize the plantlife on the surface. Move Water!"

Ick. You'd be amazed at the kind of crap, some of it literal, that will move with any body of water. I couldn't empty the sump, but by fueling the spell with both River and Ocean mana, I made a sizeable dent.

The stench was horrible, like the worst of kitchens had taken a greasy diarrhetic dump. Which, in retrospect, wasn't that far from what had happened.

One of my guards roughly grabbed my collar, fastening it quickly to the end of my chain. "I knew there was something off with you." He said.

They dragged me off to the nearest smith, had me form my hands into fists, and had her hammer curved copper plates around them so that I could not open them. A metal muzzle was affixed around my head, and a blindfold over my eyes.

Only then did their courage start to return. "F*cking mage." I was given a swift kick for daring to know useful magic.

I was dragged to a new area. Scents of sage and salt and burning yarrow filled the air. I was sat roughly down, and lashed to a pole in the ground. Only then was the manacle around my neck removed.

Sigh.

"Sacrifice?" asked a female Uruk.

"Sacrifice." My former handler confirmed.

Sacrifice? Maybe that was an intimidation method?

But no, within my hearing, they pulled a struggling human somewhere to my right. They used him for Blood Tap, Dark Omen, several castings of Infuse Skull, harvested his bones and threw the un-needed meaty bits to some things that slobbered them down.

Okay, so time to prove Morven Oriestes-son right, and somehow survive this.

Oddly, it was the Biomass Loan that provided me with my means of escape.

Necromantic sacrifices are often not fed; it is said that having the sacrifices be close to death made the rituals easier. Of course, it also rendered less life to convert to necromantic energies.

Rather than let my System choose something to undo for biomass, I selected the layer of blubber I'd been saving since last winter. I only got back half of my biomass investment, but that was plenty to meet my daily requirement.

And, added bonus – while not loose, my ropes weren't exactly still tight, either. Now, all I needed to do was wait until dawn.

<What did you just DO?> came the mind-speech.

Crap. I was caught.

#

I let my IRRITATION and FRUSTRATION leak out, much to my captor's AMUSEMENT.

<I had been trying to escape, for obvious reasons.>

<Of course. But – what EXACTLY did you just do?>

<I sold back an evolution that makes my body resistant to cold damage.>

Don't ask what I need that biomass for. Don't ask-

<To whom, exactly?>

Er.

<I don't know; just to my System, I think.>

<No. I think not. What use does an incorporeal System have for biomass or nutrition?>

"Pawdra! Come take a look at this one!"

She came. "Ugh, those bonds could be tighter." She began correcting the oversight.

"They were." He said. "This creative little being sold back his fat cells to loosen them."

"Sold. Back. To whom?"

"I think that might be worth looking into."

"I think," she tugged on my bonds, "that you are too enamored of the rare and strange."

She patted me on my head. "You are tomorrow's first sacrifice, little one. Get what you need from him today."

<Sorry, I thought that would go better.> he sent.

<I was beginning to get high hopes myself.>

"So, tell me about this System of yours, and how it reacts to biomass."

And we conversed, mind to mouth, into the early hours of the day. I set the System for a day of missed rest.

An hour after he had gone to bed, I sold back the bulk of my muscle mass, flexibility, and even some more recent combat reflexes. In effect, I had to reduce my Might, Agility, and Valor all back to two in order to slip my ropes.

The blindfold was easy to remove, and the muzzle was held in place by buckles.

I blinked, my entire body suffering from its sudden emaciation. I gasped, and it was several minutes before I could stand. But – I was free.

As I adjusted to my new – or old, depending on one's point of view – body, I took in my surroundings. There were ghouls chained near our posts, which were surrounded by circles of salt to contain our magics. There was a goblin guard, but he was asleep.

Along the ridge above us, bloodthorn plants grew, reaching down with their vines to drain us of our blood.

Well, they weren't animals, but they were necromantic. In theory, I could make a Deathly Slumber spell, to put them to sleep – in a week or two.

Maybe… Maybe I had enough blood?

I climbed, as quietly as possible. I hissed when the thorny tendril wrapped around the fingers of my left hand.

[You have taken four points of piercing damage. After armor, no damage has been taken.]

That's right! I still had level two scales!

With confidence, I climbed the lip of the trench, and navigated the patch of grasping, bloodthirsty plants.

#

My senses were blurred, my breath rapid and heavy… Wait, what was my fatigue meter?

Oh, with my health as low as it was, my fatigue was also reduced. Crap.

[You lack the health to survive Goblin Transformation. Ability use aborted.]

DOUBLE CRAP!

Well, I loped around on all fours, putting distance between myself and the necromancers.

"You fool! What are you doing above the lip of the trench! You'll be killed."

"We're well beyond arrow range, even from the city walls." I said.

"There's a group with some kind of marksmen up in the hills."

"Oh." I said, and lowered myself into the trench. "Thank you."

"What unit are you attached to?"

Crap. "I don't think I am attached, but can you tell me where to find the village with a black bird, green on this side, as seen by you, and yellow on the other?"

It took a few other Uruk, but continued asking eventually got me pointed toward Latla, which was, thankfully, away from the necromancers.

My skin was starting to wrinkle, having less to cover. I told the System to just absorb the spare mass.

There were times when I had up to twenty feet of trench to myself, and others where I had to press myself against the wall to let others past.

There were caves dug into the trench walls, supported with sections of tree trunk, and holding barracks in which Uruk and piles of goblins slept. There were cook pits, and dog kennels, and one watchtower even hosted an aviary where white birds came and went, something tied to their legs.

It was like sections of underground village, I realized. The Uruk weren't just encamped here, they were setting up for a siege that could last months.

As long as they had food. The same river that supplied Narrow Valley supplied them.

Most camps guarded their food; I took no more than a single serving, usually a vegetable, from those camps that did not.

I walked right past the guardians of the Latla camp without being challenged. Had I changed that much in just the time since I'd visited them?

But then, I guess that Gustavian and his family had been the focus of attention. Had my scales still been green at that time?

So. Tired.

I found a bench that provided a hint of shade, set against the trench wall. It was broken, probably doomed to become firewood.

I mean… just a few minutes… I crawled underneath for a fifteen minute nap that lasted until the noises of dusk woke me.

[Your damage meters: Health 6/20, Sanity 19/30, Serenity 10/10.]

Dang it, lowering my Might lowered all the sub-stats. That meant fewer actual health points.

Whatever, still better than zero. I guess I'd need to keep a watchful eye on when I could escape.

It was so easy it might have been planned. I just followed a hunting party out beyond the perimeter, and wandered around.

It's easy to pretend you're foraging when you actually are.

Philecto wasn't asleep that midnight, so I found a lake and fell asleep in the shallows.

Amphibian lungs, after all.

#