#Lore24 – Entry #130 – Muckenmyre Month #9 – The Many Labors in Grimbridge

From the journal of Takara, Slave Inquisitor of the Stellae Illustris.

I threw myself into my labors during the following weeks, for with them, I was given purpose.  The mayor and Satella heartily approved, though she was adamant that I not overwork myself.  We would still find time, usually in the evenings, to share our practice sessions, and she would begin offering her services as a priestess to the town at large, though she would earn far more serving as cook at the Grimbridge Inn, for few were willing to suffer her healing unless it was truly a dire situation; I had found her healing quite pleasant, but I suppose I am one of the rare few that would.

I started humbly enough, with recommendations from the mayor to various other businesses within the town, hauling loads of cargo at the docks, or performing other simple jobs, such as cleaning and delivering messages.  Though the funds were meager, the coppers, and the occasional silver coins, I received were the most money I had ever personally owned.  I must admit a certain…excitement at having things to call my own, though for every such thought, I have many more screaming in my head that what I do is wrong, that I am a slave, that I should be handing such things to my master, for it is their money by right…and yet, I have no master but myself for the time being.  I still keep my broken collar and cuffs in immaculate shape, however, and think often of my Emperor but…but I must also admit that those thoughts are coming with greater difficulty each day. 

I wonder if perhaps I will one day forget to have them at all?  It’s a possibility that I find at once terrifying and yet feel a growing sense of elation at the prospect of it actually happening.  Can I be trusted with such freedoms?  Apparently kerryn are free in this land, and, as I’ve learned, many groups of them roam the countryside at their leisure, a wandering, nomadic lifestyle.  It seems so strange to me that such a thing is possible…my kind allowed to roam as they will, free of collars and leashes and those who they would call master.  I would call it madness, certainly, were I not beginning to understand what freedom was.  It is a dangerous time for my slave mind.

I would suddenly find my labors changing after a couple of weeks interacting with the townsfolk.  Though I had done simple work initially, it was discovered one day quite by chance that I am not only able to speak several languages, but I am also able to read and write them, and that I am able to handle basic mathematics.  As fate would have it, I found myself cleaning within Osmin Grassmane’s curiosity shop when a group of adventurers who had just arrived from the docks came in and began browsing his wares.  I remained as unobtrusive as I could, of course, as was proper, though I kept my ears open, for the adventurers were elves, and they were speaking their own language.  This wasn’t particularly abnormal, of course, but I caught on quickly to the derisive comments they made while seeming to look upon the goods approvingly.  I then heard one of them make a bet with the other that he could get Osmin to pay handsomely for an old, useless journal they’d plucked out of some ruin or another.  As I was his employee at the time, I took it upon myself to defend the store.  So, I moved quietly behind the counter, as if my cleaning were done, and stood behind Osmin as one of the elves approached, producing a battered, old leatherbound book.  He then proceeded to try and sell it as a great elvish wizard’s spellbook, sprinkling in many elvish words whose meanings were not what he passed them off as, and pointing to passages that spoke of mundane affairs of a merchant as if they were describing potent magical rituals.  Osmin obviously couldn’t read or understand the elvish speech and was being drawn into the lies.  Before talk of money could be started, I spoke up, pointing out the true nature of the book and the nature of the elves’ words and earlier comments.  As I displayed my familiarity with their language by speaking it and offering a translation of one of the passages, the adventurer grew angry with me, though Osmin was quite convinced and promptly expelled them from the store.  I would spend the rest of the day looking over various other documents and items he had collected over the years, identifying most of the text upon them, and for my aid in this, he was quite grateful, paying me the coppers for not only for my earlier cleaning, which I hadn’t actually finished, but a couple of silver coins as well.

I did not think such language skills were that uncommon, especially for merchants, as these were things taught to most kerryn slaves in the Empire, for we were expected to assist our masters in many aspects of life.  It is common that we are tasked with running their businesses or aiding in translations of documents and speech, singing songs from the various races in their native tongues, or any other number of tasks that require basic education in languages.  It is a burden we bear so that our masters do not have to, so it was quite startling to learn that many of the townsfolk here were not trained as I was, even merchants such as Osmin, who had taken over the business after his father had been killed in a pirate raid some years ago, and had simply been too trusting in the nature of adventurers. 

Word spreads fast in Grimbridge, for the next day I had multiple people seeking me for assistance in translating various documents they had obtained at some time or another, whether it was simple receipts or longer documents.  Most were true to their believed contents, which seemed to please their owners, while I did discover some that were either honest mistakes or willful deceptions in phrasing.  I would also discover some errors in the calculations on other documents, though I wasn’t tasked with doing so, I felt obligated to mention it, and so the day after that I was requested to begin reviewing various ledgers and such for the town’s council and other merchants.  Apparently, it had been some time since a proper barrister, sage, or scribe had been in town, and so it was a very odd series of days that I would spend in such roles, though I was sometimes called upon to provide my translation services when certain travelers came to town who did not deign to speak the common tongue.

I would find myself involved in such a translation one evening at the docks, near sunset, translating for a kobold merchant who had just arrived in port, trying to offload a shipment of finely crafted glassware more fit for a big city than the small town she found herself in, her first time at this particular port, apparently.  Certainly, there was no lack of enthusiasm from the kobold, though the mayor and merchant council were growing tired of her efforts.  The negotiation would be interrupted when a disturbance broke out at the Bloated Floater, and I would find myself revealing even more of myself than I had intended.