Drek was having a good day. He was alive. His hunger had been minimal- he had found a rodent this morning, and had eaten it before others had noticed he even had it. The masters had not hit him today – at least not yet. He had labored all day, and moved rocks and dug holes and crawled through tunnels like he was supposed to, and the masters didn’t stop him once. He was proud of himself, and the masters must be proud of him too.
But the masters had been very distracted lately. He belonged to the Tartooth, a pack of noble Bugbears that rule south of the Wolfpeak Mountains. Drek was born to them, a gift from the banished gods as far as he could tell. Some babies born to captivity were devoured, he was told because they were weak. He may only be a Gnome, but he understands the rocks better than most. And his skill with moving the soil has kept him alive. Drek gets punished all the time, but this is just to remind him who is master and who is slave.
Drek knows the soil. Drek knows to use a wet cloth to cover his face when digging in the soil, and another to cover his head while sleeping. Those that don’t get the Red Venom. Many think the Red Venom is a poison from deep within The Land – but Drek knows the truth. The Red Venom is the dried blood of The Land itself, which enters a slave’s body through the nose and mouth. If someone breathes it too much, it starts to wear them down. Eventually their body starts dripping with Red Venom – their sweat turns red, their excrement turns red, even their tears turn red. When they cough, they cough up the venom. And then they die. Drek has seen it many times. Someone once called this place the “Red Venom Plains”. But Drek told them, it’s not venom, it’s dried blood. And Drek is still alive, so he is right.
Lately, others have been brought into the camps, and they aren’t faring so well. One looked like a Gnome, just like Drek, but this one was not like any Gnome Drek had ever seen. He didn’t know how to talk or act like a Gnome, and he was so slow! You would think he was a Human trapped in a Gnome’s body. And one day there was a weird Elf, one type that Drek had never seen before. And the Elf tried to escape but the masters killed him and ate him. And two days later, the same Elf was back! What type of magic did the masters have?
Whatever was going on, it let Drek do his job without being scalded by the masters. Drek did not want to hear about cities to the north where there was food and comfort. Or creatures that could eat souls. Drek didn’t even have a soul, probably. Drek just wanted to move rocks for the masters, like he was born to do.
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