A Record of Ash & Ruin: The Grieving Lands

Book 1: Chapter 11: Arbitrary Justice

After many years the great horde started their journey across the vast Untouched seas, unmolested by the scaled leviathans of the deep. The dragons had negotiated their safe passage, securing it in the ancient way of their kind. The serpents of the sky and sea were to be bound together once more.

- On the Cataclysm by an unknown Quassian Scholar circa 103 AC

I wasn’t in any immediate danger, but the monotony of life stuck behind bars, unable to enjoy the wider world, was taking its toll. I wanted to be free, but for the time being, I had to content myself with a little experimentation and training. It seemed that magical healing, as testing with robust exercise indicated, relieved the body of muscle fatigue when cast at full Health. As long as I had the Stamina, the Mana, and the will, I could engage in a torturous loop of self-improvement. But it seemed that fate would have other designs in store for me.

On the third day of my incarceration, instead of one of the guards, a boy just on the cusp of adulthood appeared to deliver my first meal. Exhausted after a strenuous bout of exercise, I was sitting cross-legged in the corner of my cell when the sound of the meal tray disturbed me. As I stirred from my meditations on the nature of the state’s responsibility to the people, my eyes met his and he suddenly backed away from the bars of my cell. Short cropped hair between a dark brown and true black, a button nose slightly set in a round face with a weak jaw, and panicked brown eyes that had opened in surprise like wide saucers. He wore a brown ill-fitting woolen tunic two sizes too big for him with large buttons made of horn, and dark linen trousers of a coarse design. The overall impression was like a startled mouse that had been surprised by a cat.

Feigning calm, I cast Identify on the boy.

Jongshoi Aigiam - Trainee Warrior (Human lvl.12) Health 48/48 Stamina 22/22

Mana 6/6

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My Identify spell failed to reveal his primary attributes. However, I could discern that he likely had little in the way of Constitution despite being at a higher level than me due to his comparatively low Stamina. Perhaps he was a ‘glass cannon’ with a ridiculous amount of Strength, but I doubted it. Furthermore, having such a low amount of Mana would indicate to me that he was possibly not the sharpest tool in the shed.

In an attempt to appear approachable, I smiled to greet him, my voice unsteady and hesitant. “Jongshoi,” I called out in a halting voice, likely butchering the language.

His eyes only opened wider, changing from surprise to fear. He cried out words of alarm, scrabbling to get as far away from me as possible. Two of the guards promptly marched to my cell. Armored in a mixture of half-plate and sturdy leathers, with mean eyes and meaner weaponry, one of them rapped loudly on the bars with an unsheathed dagger. The meaning was clear with implied violence; I was to be silent and not cause trouble. I glared at the guards as they turned their backs to leave, realizing why Jongshoi had panicked. Never had I asked him for his name, and I cursed my mistake. I did not know how this culture viewed magic; perhaps he thought I was a witch that had cursed him. My cell was no longer a safe haven from the world. Suddenly the idea of trying to make a daring escape became more appealing instead of waiting passively for circumstances to change.

It seemed that my unlucky encounter with Jongshoi was an omen for further misfortune. Henceforth, despite almost bursting a blood vessel with my efforts in training, I gained no bonuses to my attributes. Perhaps this was due to the game becoming exponentially difficult as you progressed? I berated myself, I couldn’t think of this as a game. This was a world filled with all too real suffering and pain.

Pulling myself up the barred window ledge, I resumed my quest to learn their alien language. By the end of my session, between my magical assistance and increased language, I could probably understand seven in ten words in spoken conversation. I was now demonstrating feats that would have wowed the most talented of linguists in my other life.

The city’s name was Ansan, a frontier mining town of sorts, famous for two things. One was for the mammoth ship at its city center; according to legend, the ship had been placed there as the waters had receded after a cataclysmic event known as the 'breaking' or 'scouring.' How or when this event occurred remained shrouded in mystery to me. The ship now served as the seat of local governance for the people who were known in their language as the ‘Children of the Tides,’ originally a maritime people before the breaking.

The second was for the city’s burgeoning slave trade. Ansan’s flesh markets, slave pits, and fighting dens were famous among the trade caravans that frequented the city. The Children of the Tides were a martial people whose economy revolved around a constant state of war and slavery.

Outside the city, near the forest, were mines rich with ore, worked on by slaves who were brought in by the Children’s never-ending wars. Marketplace rumors had hinted that there had recently been movement in the Sainba, the tree song forest which was to the east of the city. Strange chittering creatures had been sighted along its borders by charcoal burners who made their living at its borders, disrupting the supply of precious fuel for the mines. This led to a visible increase in military patrols in the area. There was strained tension in the air, taut as a tight bowstring ready to be released. Straining my ears, I had also heard hushed cryptic rumors that a local place of some religious significance had been desecrated, leading to some consternation among the warrior classes.

I found it odd that there was no mention of levels, attributes, experience, or magic. Were any of these subjects a local taboo?

A few hours later I would have another visitor. I heard the clank of armored feet, and the scream of tortured hinges as my cell door opened. Without any ceremony, a new group entered my prison; a veritable hag of an old woman, flanked by two burly guards who I didn’t recognize. The crone was a small hunched thing, clothed in dark brown robes the color of fresh-turned earth. Animal necklaces and fetishes made of bones, teeth, and claws of unidentified beasts were hung around her neck. In her left hand was a walking stick made of gnarled wood, black feathers placed along its tip. Her hair was a lank light grey that dribbled down across her face and shoulders. A hawk-like nose, thin narrow lips, and black piercing eyes gave the overall impression of a shriveled mystic raptor.

Her burly guards, clad in a mixture of workmanlike plate, chainmail, and riding leathers, funneled past her. One of them was carrying a thick orange cloth rug of some sort which he lay across the middle of my cell. She indicated her guards to position themselves behind her, standing to her left and right. The guard to her right, who had a porcine face with a large bulbous nose, idly explored the depths of one of his nasal cavities through his open-faced helm. Finding no treasure, he wiped his hand on his leather tassets before fixing me with a menacing glare. As he was shooting daggers at me, the woman hitched up the hem of her robe and with a small cough sat cross-legged on the rug.

I started to half-heartedly offer a word of greeting before she cut me off with a held hand and gestured for me to sit. Timidly, I sat down on the rug across from her. She smiled at me in the way of a snake eyeing up a rabbit. Looking me full in the eyes, she tried to greet me in a language that resembled Latin but was heavily accented. The confusion must have shown on my face as she went back to her native language.

“Outlander,” accused the old crone in a clear lilting soprano voice that was surprisingly firm and strong, belying her advanced age. She noticed the dawn of understanding writ across my features.

“Do you know why you are here?” she continued, couched more as a statement than an actual question.

I began to mouth a reply before she plowed on, “I am Navigator Olai of the second fleet. You have caused quite a stir and no end of trouble. Jongshoi accuses you of witchcraft, but from his tale, I deduced that you probably gleaned his name from one of his inane conversations with one of his father’s friends here. They gossip like little unmarried girls! Did you know the foolish boy begged and skipped one of his duties to view the strange outlander? We must move up the schedule for his blooding, put a little bit of spine into the lad.”

As I was just ruminating about my failure at handling that situation, one of her scrawny arms shot like a snake and grabbed my face just under my chin with surprising strength. The guards moved their hands to the weapons at their hips as she tilted my head at a slight angle, examining me with cool calculating eyes.

“Too pale to be a Qisnian, and too short to be an Imperial,” looking now to my soft uncallused hands, “perhaps a runaway house slave or some noble’s get then? What in the fields of Hell possessed you to desecrate the shrine, break the Spear of the First Ancestor, and burn the words of the Covenant? And to provoke further, killing the sacred rain-bringers and partake of their flesh?” Her fingers tapped my chest with each accusation.

“I didn’t...” I started, but the hag didn’t let me finish.

“You would deny this? Each of these crimes alone warrants death.” My face grew flushed and one of her thin eyebrows arched as she continued.

“You were the only intelligent being, and I use this term very loosely, in a day’s ride of the shrine. The Sea Council has come to a conclusion, despite your mysterious origins, to dispose of you...”

I cut her off as my annoyance came to a head and I interrupted her, “I didn’t desecrate your shrine, and I didn’t break the spear. They were like that when I found them. Please, you have to understand!” I begged as I reached out to her.

The guards began to draw their weapons, but she raised her hand stopping them in mid-motion.

“Your pronunciation is lamentable. Like an Imperial dog farting out what it thinks is speech,” I directly translated her harsh response in my mind.

“Even if this was true,” she said now in a softer voice, “what of your other crimes?”

My mind scrambled to make a plausible excuse in those precious few moments and drew a solid blank at the trap she had made with her framing.

“I would have had you killed mercifully, by sharp blade or poison. We are not savages after all. But the Commodore and her captains are loath to waste resources and they wish to make an example of you,” she sighed in tired resignation. “What is your name, young man, that we may announce your sentence on the sands?”

I felt pins and needles in my brain in response to her innocent question. I wracked my mind, trying to remember my name. No matter how I reached, it eluded my grasp, like trying to grasp motes of light. Panic was just beginning before I recalled that this must be the part where my character got to choose their name. I quickly settled on one from my other world. His legend was that of the first hero, to which all others were but pale copies. His name would become legend in this world too.

“Gilgamesh,” I spoke with a confidence that I hope hid the little quiver in my voice and the trembling of my hands.

Out of one of the folds, she drew a many-knotted cord of crimson, like the color of freshly spilled blood on snow. Running her hand along its length, as if reading, a lump formed in my throat as she pronounced my sentence in a distant authoritative voice.

“Gilgamesh. You have been judged of crimes against the people. Their eyes have been turned from you. Still, you have been granted a chance to redeem yourself of these vile deeds. When Sahel is at her highest tomorrow you will be brought to the sands of the winnowing. Your death will blood our next generation of warriors. Should you find the favor of the gods, you will be allowed to live the life of a slave. May the gods watch over you.”

I was still trying to parse her words as she rose swiftly on creaky joints, waving off her guards’ offers to help her. As quickly as they came they left, leaving the carpet on the floor. I made to remind them, modern-day politeness ingrained in my being, before the bars of my cell closed with a sound like a judge’s hammer.