“Master Sean? Do you have a minute?” I turned from my breakfast the next morning to see the group of slaves behind me, with a very nervous gnome scratching absentmindedly at his neck. “Hey, sorry to bother. But. We need. Do you still have the collars? We need our collars back.”

I slowly reached out and held his hand, pulling it away from a neck that he had scratched raw. “What happened to your neck?” I asked, shocked. He was actually bleeding from a few of those scratches.

“Oh, just the itch. Can’t get the itch with the collar though. You still have our collars, right? That’s the only way to stop the itch.” His speech was getting a bit more manic, and almost all the slaves were doing the same thing.

“Yeah.” I answered slowly. “I still have the collars. Anyone feeling the itch, step forward and I’ll put your collar back on. Anyone who doesn’t feel the itch, would you stay and answer a few of my questions?” With several sighs of relief, nearly all the slaves stepped forward. The look of bliss on their faces when the collar was put back on sickened me. In the end, it was only the two demons and a gnome who didn’t get their collars back on.

“I really only have the one question, how long have you three been enslaved?”

“Just over a week for us.” One of the demons answered.

“Three days.” The gnome responded. “Some of the others have been slaves for years.”

“Thanks.” I said, dismissing them. As they walked away, I started thinking just how terrible this world could be. Those collars had to have some sort of addictive component, making the slaves want to keep their collars on. I wondered how close I was when I was enslaved. I took a deep breath and stared at the remains of my now unappealing breakfast. I would have to keep a close eye on Elendria, but she hadn’t shown any signs of addiction so far so maybe it was the type of collar. I was also cursing myself for not watching with mage sight when they undid my own slave title. How could I have been so dumb as to take the word of slavers about how to undo it? Lying bastard had to be either casting or removing a spell implanted by the collar.

What else was I missing in this world? I had been lucky. Lucky that all the knowledge I was dropping while learning magic hadn’t come back to bite me. Especially since dropping unknown knowledge at such a prodigious rate screams that I’m not from this world. That had to change. But there would have to be subtle things too. Slaves all inadvertently slump their shoulders, as if they were carrying the weight of the world on them. Bribis and his brother walked with their backs straight and seemed relaxed, but they were the only ones. Even when they weren’t on duty, the guards seemed tense. It was a small sample size, but I needed to figure out where I wanted to fit in.

I forced myself to eat, as I would need energy throughout the day. Mechanically chewing the once tasty breakfast, it now was a mindless task to be finished. Each swallow landed in my stomach like a small brick. I made it three fourths of the way through before I had to call it quits. I cleaned my plate off and headed to our wagon, sitting down and resting before everyone else arrived.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

“Alright, enough of that.” Bribis growled in frustration three hours later. I had been trying, but my mind just wasn’t in it. Distracted by thoughts of how horrible humanity could be, my magic suffered. Sometimes the apple turned partially to stone. Some parts looked like the spell took hold properly. Some parts warped and twisted into stomach churning shapes. “What’s going on?”

“Sorry.” I said with a sigh, leaning back. I stared above us for a few seconds, trying to collect my thoughts. “Will you guys answer a question honestly? Please don’t hold back the truth.”

“Sure.” Dramitian answered, concerned.

“How do the other races view humans?”

“Not sure what brought this on, but it’s obvious it is weighing on you.” Dramitian replied. “Like everything else, humans have a lot of potential. Some of it gets wasted, some of it is used in horrendous ways. But that’s what you get when you have choices in life. Some people are going to make terrible choices. Oh, they’ll have their reasons. Some of them may even be altruistic, but it doesn’t ever excuse the horrors they are capable of.”

“Do humans seem to be the darkest of the races?”

“There isn’t any comparison.” Bribis was quick to cut in. “All races have their dark parts. You’ve just been getting a skewed view of humanity. You started out enslaved, and since then have only dealt with a corrupt town. While humans are the only ones who endorse slavery using collars, don’t think you are unique in atrocities.”

“That’s right.” Dramitian added. “The beast men have used captured slaves for generations. They just use a whip instead of a collar. Gnomes and dwarves used to fight and never offer any quarter.”

“Elves would create a natural haven for fairies, adding in plants that we knew would get them into a drunken state. Then we would capture them for their dust, and use it in enchanting.” Elendria added. “As royalty, we had to read the old texts to make sure we understood the horrors we put things though. With proper technique, a fairy could be harvested for dust once every full and new moon, or on the waxing and waning quarters if your stock was large enough that you needed four harvest nights per month. Cheap daffodils would produce a low quality dust, but if you needed enhanced enchantments you would raise the fairy for at least three months on moonflowers. So long as their cages allowed them to hover to stretch their wings, they could be kept alive for up to six years with this method.”

We all stared at her, while she never looked up from the floor of the cart during her monotone explanation. When she was done, she looked right at me. “All have a bit of darkness in them, and some will always succumb to the dark. Don’t judge an entire race based on the actions of a few, or even the actions of their leaders. Otherwise you will never see the light in this world.”

“Thanks Elendria. Bribis. Dramitian.” I said, feeling a knot between my shoulders loosen. “You are all absolutely right. I. I just found out that the slave collars contain something addictive in them. If you take it off of someone who has been wearing it for a while, they will go through withdrawal symptoms.”

“You tried it?” Bribis asked. “I hope you didn’t take the profession! We have tried in the past, and could have warned you about the addictive properties. When we get to Shineheart, they have facilities that will help slowly wean them from the collar.”

“Sorry. All the collars are back on as of right now, except for the three that didn’t feel any withdrawal symptoms. It just hit me as a massively cruel thing to do. Not only are they enslaved, but if they don’t wear the collar then they get hit with withdrawal symptoms. Craving the symbol of their enslavement.”

“It’s meant for those who don’t want broken slaves.” Elendria spoke softly. “The fiercest fighters, they fetched a far higher price for the sadistic masters. Two months is when it really starts kicking in. Once a week or so, the collar would be removed. Then you could satisfy your twisted desires, watching your slave beg and plead for the collar they so detested. They would force the slaves to do such depraved things. And the slaves. They would do it with such a smile on their face when they got their collar.”

“Bribis, I don’t think I’m in the mood to train on how to protect things.” I said, practically growling.

“I understand. Good luck.” He said, wiping a tear from his eye. I sat back and focused my thoughts on what I wanted while I waited for my mana to regenerate. Part of me really wanted to make a spell that would cause people to suffer, but I refused to stoop to that level. Instead, I went with the opposite of what Bribis was trying to teach. If earth magic could boost an allies defense, why couldn’t it cripple enemies? Imagine a wave of energy that imbued enemy armor with the brittleness of graphite. Sheets of hexagons with the corners as carbon atoms. A simple structure to imitate.

But just the shape wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted the slipperiness. Two sheets that would effortlessly slide over each other. That’s what I needed to impart. I glared at the apple, infusing a mana spike with earth mana. Then I got to thinking, why do this to an apple? It doesn’t have a high defense. “Bribis, could you summon up a bit of stone please?” I asked, concentrating on holding my mana spike back.

“Huh? I suppose I could. Here.” He made a copy of the apple from stone, and in the blink of an eye I blasted it with the earth mana. Mage sight revealed that the spike penetrated about a quarter of an inch before it started spreading out, exactly how I wanted it. I didn’t want to just weaken the outer layers. I needed to weaken the core of the armor to really break it down effectively. Once the mana had infused, I grabbed the stone and applied pressure. It did just fine on a direct application of force, though I felt it giving just a bit. But if you alter the direction just a bit, so that it was a shearing force….

The skin split easily and sloughed off, much to Bribis’ shock. “What did you do?”

“I did the opposite of what you wanted me to try. Instead of giving the apple the strength of stone, I gave it the brittleness of graphite. It’s similar to charcoal, but it has a glaring weakness. If you give it a sideways force, it shatters easily. Imagine if you did that to an enemy army, only managed to imbue it into enemy armor.”

“That. Why am I not surprised that you managed to come up with a ridiculous adaptation of a common spell?”

“Eh, there are plenty of weaken armor spells out there.” Dramitian commented. “Though most rely on the metal element, a combination of earth and fire. Using pure earth? That would work on the unsuspecting, but remember. If they are guarded against metal element, earth will be guarded against too.”

“Thanks Dramitian. I’m going to try this a few more times, then I have a question. You wouldn’t happen to have a mild poison, would you?” As Dramitian gave Bribis a questioning look, I practiced my spell a few more times. For some reason it took five attempts, but I finally got the skill I was looking for.

Brittlefy

Novice (4/5) (earth)

Imbuing enemy armor with the brittleness of graphite, you greatly weaken their defenses.

“Not bad, but not perfect yet. Bribis, could you make a stone wall? I think I know just what I need to push it to the next level.”

“Sure, but what about the poison?” He asked, concerned.

“Oh, I think I know a way to neutralize a lesser poison in some things. Could you poison a cup of water for me?” He shrugged his shoulders, apparently happy with my explanation. He summoned the small stone wall for me, and I plotted how the spell would work. First, let’s make it so that it always seeks out the two closest edges. With that, and a portion of the spell designed to cut all the way through, I could at least break off a portion of the armor. Deliberately targeting off center, I smiled as I saw the mana snaking shooting through the wall. Two lines immediately branched off from the central point, and everything widened until it ran out of mana. Deliberately striking in a portion that wasn’t weakened, I chuckled as the corner clipped off with ease, and I got a notification that Brittlefy was mastered.

“Alright, here you go. One poisoned cup of water.” He said. “Don’t worry, we have the antidote and a way to check if the water is still poisoned.”

“Perfect. Would you be so kind as to make another stone, small enough to fit in the cup but with a handle that I could remove it with?” The gnome grumbled, but I could tell he was intrigued. He made me a spoon shaped stone, which was absolutely perfect.

This time, I was again copying carbon. One of my favorite experiments in school was determining just how big of a surface area charcoal had. Turns out, because it is shaped like a sponge, a single gram of carbon can have the surface area of a tennis court! And that was what I was going to abuse. Let it grab on to all that poison, and keep it stuck in the rock. The mana this time oddly had a few tints of green, but it slipped into the spoon end of the stone easily. I had it set up so that there were several funnels leading into the core of the stone. That way if the spell faded, or was allowed to fade as I found out that it could be a channeled spell, the poison would be locked inside the rock.

“Here goes nothing.” I said, dipping the spoon in and stirring it around. After about a minute, I pulled the spoon out and let the spell fade. “Care to test it?”

“Sure.” He chuckled, holding a wand over the rim of the cup. The tip of the wand glowed green, and Bribis’ eyes widened. “I don’t believe it, you actually got it. Did you get the skill?”

“Yeah, I did. First time. Lesser detoxify. Uses material methods to remove low level organic poisons. I got it maxed, but it won’t evolve. I guess I’ll have to come up with the next level myself.” I said. “Before that, I’m going to work on something a bit more offensive in nature.”

The rest of the afternoon I spent working on earth missiles. Copying the magic missile I already had was simple, but I wanted a different option for the homing missile. Earth just didn’t have the right responses. It was either an incredibly slow response, or a fast jerk that would overcompensate. So I opted for stopping power. By tripling the mana cost, I could actually summon a physical projectile. I couldn’t test it on something like dragonscale, but there wasn’t an armor made that could stop a six-ounce slug of titanium moving at a high percentage of the speed of sound. Why not boost the speed to supersonic? Because it was silent. A slight whistling as the bullet passed was all that you could hear, and there was absolutely no forewarning. By the time I had finished the alterations, I was quite happy. Precision shots were possible within 30 or so yards, while I could consistently hit a torso sized object at nearly a hundred yards.

But while it was powerful against a human, it wouldn’t do much against even a monster bear. I needed something to do massive damage. I needed a hollow point. Well, maybe not exactly a hollow point. Instead, I made a slight alteration to my bullets. I kept a solid circular core straight through the bullet. Five lines were cut from the central core to the edges, but didn’t go completely through the bullet. This let my bullets flower open on penetration. The last quarter inch of the bullets would hold the opened leaflets to the core. The internal damage would change from an inch diameter hole to one that was nearly three inches. That was enough to ruin the day of almost everything. In order to boost that bullet’s penetration, I gave it a hardened nose that came to a more noticeable point. All these changes boosted it to journeyman status, but I was still slightly off of maximizing the spell when we broke to camp for the night.