Ch 05

“Are you ready for your first day as a piece of shit?”

My eyes bulged when he said that to me. After being dragged behind the carriage for hours following my purchase I was thrown down into a cellar with no windows and barely a candle for light. After all that he walks in first thing in the morning and whips a female slave before raping her mouth and then this?! “THE FUCK DID YOU SAY TO ME!?” I yelled out charging at him with my hands outstretched, ready to beat him senseless. Unfortunately, things did not go the way I had planned as the whip he still held in his hand lashed out catching me across the face viciously. As the searing pain sent me flying backwards and I hit the ground behind me I gripped my face and screamed.

Sylvan began to cackle once more, tapping the butt of his whip against his hip while he watched me writhe on the floor. “I told you that you are a piece of shit you worthless human.” He seemed to think for a moment and then broke out in a malicious grin that made me realize that I was not going to like what came next. “As a matter of fact, you need a new name now that I own you, you can go ahead and forget whatever you were called before. From now on your name is Dung!” He started laughing again and spun in a circle before walking back up the stairs again as if he had forgotten we existed but did not close or lock the door behind him as he left.

“Come on Dung, let’s go, we’ve got a full day ahead of us and if we don’t hurry to follow him up the stairs we’ll be beaten for laziness.” Beetle started talking as soon as the wretched elf was out of sight and then began moving to follow his master. Clenching my jaw shut and just telling myself to be grateful that the painful welt on my face did not seem like it would leave a lasting scar. I was beginning to get the idea that concepts like right and wrong no longer existed because of my situation in this world. I was going to have to swallow my pride and learn to be an obedient slave otherwise life was going to be very difficult and very soon.

With this in mind I began to climb the stairs behind Beetle, the other two, Minge and the man whose name I did not yet know, followed behind us. As I climbed up the stairs, I realized that it was just barely dawn and the sun had not yet fully risen. Exiting the cellar Beetle immediately turned to the side of the house where he found a pile of soiled clothes which looked and smelled like someone had pissed on them for good measure once they had been piled up outside the house. Looking around I noticed that the other two had already disappeared and was about to ask where they had gone when I heard a frustrated Beetle calling out to me. “Hurry up would you! You need to stay with me and observe everything I do closely. If you don’t pick these things us quickly then the master will beat us both and don’t you go thinking that that little love kiss he gave you this morning counts as a beating. That was just him saying hello.”

Feeling both chastised and sullen I followed Beetle to the pile of clothes which he picked up with his bare hands without flinching or making any indication that anything was out of sorts. Then he carried them over to a well that sat at the back of the property where he threw the clothes upon the ground and tossed a bucket with a rope attached down the well. After a few seconds there was a splash. “Pull it up” said Beetle tiredly. As I pulled on the rope I began to marvel that people were able to gather water this way as it required me to struggle and grunt as I hauled on the rope and two or three minutes passed before I was able to haul the bucket full of water to the top. Grasping the bucket, Beetle quickly dumped in into a nearby trough and then tossed the bucked down the well again and gestured for me to draw it up again. As I did so Beetle began to talk again. “there are easier ways to get water to one’s residence, with magick for instance water can be piped throughout the city into the houses. Master does not wish us to grow lazy however so even though it cost him some coin he had this well dug so that we could hall water directly.” I finished pulling up the second bucket and again Beetle quickly dumped it into the trough and tossed it back into the well again before gesturing for me to draw it up once more.

Breathing raggedly now and trying desperately to catch my breath as I pulled on the rope trying to get more water out of the well. As if he did not notice my struggles Beetle kept talking matter of factly. I got the impression that he was enjoying having someone to talk to and boss around. “Now this of course was bad enough that despite having water piped directly to the house he still wanted his slaves to draw water from a well to perform all of the cleaning and cooking but our master decided that this still allowed us to be too lazy when performing our chores so he went and made it harder on us.” Gasping for breath I did not have any to spare to ask him how until after I had hauled the third bucket of water over the rim of the well. As before Beetle grabbed it and quickly dumped it into the trough but then held it for a moment looking at me. “that’s enough water”

“What did he do to make things harder?” I asked once I was able to breathe normally again. “Oh that,” he said casually before lightly tossing the bucket towards the ground near my feet one handed. *BAM!* the bucket hit the ground and left a dent in the ground where it landed, sinking a full two inches deep, “He made the bucket heavier with magick.” Laughing at the shock on my face he turned towards the trough and began to apply soap and rub the clothes vigorously together with his hands. As he did so I eyed him warily, taking fresh notice of the corded muscles along his arms and legs. He may look starved, but this old man still had far more strength than I do. Wincing inside while thinking about what I was touching I stepped up to the trough next to him and began scrubbing the clothes as well.