From Slavery

[Jaffool]

Volume I
by Faelar Lurycia, penned shortly after arriving to Baldur's Gate

. The story of life as a slave is most often an untold one, though it is prevalent in many parts of the world. Being born to Thay slaves is a common tragedy. For as long as I can remember, life has been uninteresting, gruesome, woefully void of love, and entrenched in all types of pain. The Red Wizards of Thay are predictably poor guardians for young slave boys.
. Life tore into me quick. I was provided just enough to live, though I surmise there are many who would refute this claim, as such a base life is more akin to cattle than a person. I was born to common slaves, whose name I no longer share, on a then newly-found state-run mining encampment. The ones responsible for my birth (I dare not give them the honor of calling them my parents) were too afflicted with the pains of slavery to know love. They watched over me only insofar as to assure my continued existence, but would not speak up to spare me from pain for fear of being caught on the receiving end themselves. I was perhaps more a pawn to them than to the Red Wizards we served, whom I grew to despise even more than my birth-givers.
. As a result of the relatively recent creation of the encampment and mine in which we resided, we were treated with regular visits from foreign Red Wizards. Perhaps it is yet true that not all Red Wizards support the rampant destruction of personhood so ingrained in the hearts of Thay. Indeed, for a brief period of my life, I thought I had found kindness in one of their ilk. Even at a young age, I knew much about the struggles for power that encompassed the lives of Red Wizards, but my naivety led me to have hope that at least one knew more kindness than powerlust. This was seemingly realized, when a Wizard witnessed a ploy I made to acquire extra rations, where I smuggled a bit of raw ore from the mine and directly traded it to a local Rashemi blacksmith for table scraps. This was no gracious act on the part of the smithy, merely a business deal.
. The Wizard offered to purchase me, as he recognized in that deed a sign of greater intelligence that he wanted to possess and hone. I was to be his pupil and assistant, an honor unheard of for a slave. I should have accepted the most rare honor to grant myself a reprieve from my wretched fate, but as my demeanor was shaped by my torment, I was wary. I decided to inquire of the Wizard, asking him why he desired to free me from my chains. His reply echoed in my mind, bringing even more troubles to my already weary soul: "Your success will be my success. I will invest in you, that I may reap great rewards when, on account of my tutoring, you rake in fortunes on my behalf."
. I grew furious. I wanted to be a pawn no longer, let alone be used to fuel the crusades of the selfish and merciless tyrants of Thay. I grabbed a nearby red-hot poker (we had met in the smithy's workshop, where the Wizard saw it fitting to hold our first proper conversation) and jabbed at him, catching him by surprise in his shoulder. His flesh seared, but how I wished that his blood would pour out the wound before me. His anger grew as mine had, his wrath far more potent, and shortly after uttering an incantation I no longer remember, my vision faded.
. Another stroke of luck I beheld as I awakened a few days later, not in the Fugue plane, but in my birth-givers new residence — the dirt outside our previous living quarters. They were black and blue, in worse shape than I, and were prompt in informing me that they had received the beatings in my stead as our owners saw little fun in beating the unconscious. My first friend in Baldur's Gate, perhaps in life, would later praise me as having the heart of a lion for such a bold act of defiance against evil. Sir Anthem, paladin of Torm, you did not know the wickedness that filled my heart that day. I wished plagues and murder on all who lived when it was realized that my silver lining was but a string on the instrument of the most wicked cult I had ever met and the reason for all my pain.
. My birth-givers disowned me and sought never to speak to me again, while simultaneously, I vowed that I would escape the hell that I had lived. When I was 16, or thereabouts, I struck out, shaved my head (it was illegal for slaves to cut their hair and the commonfolk nearly all had their body hair removed to distinguish themselves), burned away the tattoo on my face marking me as a slave, and fought for a new life. I had no purpose, only a vague destination: anywhere but Thay.