Flynn was staring emptily into nothingness, seemingly entranced, when Alsias broke into the clearing. The rank stench of bloodshed was quick to intrude into his nose, though the seasoned spearman bore with it stoically. He’d seen and smelt far worse over the years. Still, the context of the carnage was enough to steal even his breath away. The cooling corpses of nine ferocious beasts laid scattered about the clearing like discarded refuse.
Just a glance was enough to tell him that these beasts were no weak prey. They were – had been, he supposed - taken-beasts, monsters whose wills had been suborned by the spirit of the forest. They were a powerful, relentless threat, rabid and enduring until they were slain or forced to retreat. It was worrisome that they were here. They often plagued the northern domain, and less often the middle domain. Rare was their presence in the south.
They were unused to slaying such powerful creatures. It often took nothing short of a full expeditionary force to defeat so many of their ilk in the south, though he’d heard tell that the warriors to the north could handle them more easily.
And yet, here they laid dead, butchered in the south, and he knew that the battered group of warriors before him had not been responsible for such a grand victory. The arrows jutting through hide thicker than even the strongest leather armour made that fact clear enough.
Alsias swallowed thickly and returned his gaze towards the great warrior he served. The slayer of foes too terrible to even consider facing alone.
The man stood stock still, his gaze distant.
A strange bow-like being hovered above him, and Alsias was quick to ready his spear in case it proved to be some kind of threat to the master’s life. Fortunately, it turned its sight towards him for a moment, and Alsias tensed, only for it dismiss him just as quickly and return to mutely surveying the surroundings.
The spearman’s uneasiness remained but he could only assume that it was a part of his master’s tremendous magic.
“Divine Siestemi, such slaughter...” whispered Illsien as the honoured elder entered the clearing. The other honoured elders shared similar remarks, or in the case of honoured Ohstius, threatened to heave his breakfast all over the ground.
“Was the great Flynn responsible for all this?” asked honoured Lenny in a voice barely above a whisper.
Another answered before Alsias could. He turned to the warrior knelt before the master. The man was indeed of the Ozana, his affiliation made clear by the distinct style of his markings. He was in the middle of an Act of Obeisance, his spear thrust into the ground and his knees bent, and Alsias could easily surmise what had happened in the moments before his arrival.
“Yes. The victorious one and his magical bow slew all nine of the taken-beasts within a single heartbeat. It was-” The man paused; his voice stolen by the awe-inspiring memory of the battle, no doubt. Alsias could very well relate to the feeling.
“-it was beyond words.” The warrior steadied himself, nerves untensing visibly before he returned his attention to the honoured elders. “Are you of the Aziethi?”
“Formerly. We now serve the great Flynn.”
“The great Flynn. Yes. He is truly great. We too will serve him now, as is his due for his valour. It is known.”
“It is known.” all repeated.
It was then that their master seemed to return to himself. He eyed the warriors, and then Alsias and the honoured elders, before he turned back to the taken-beast corpses. The spearman saw in those colourful blue eyes a great torrent of emotion, and he felt his own heart stir at the sight. He immediately understood why his master was so troubled.
Mingled amongst the monstrous corpses were three fallen alves. They were not of his former tribe, but as a fellow alf he felt great sorrow at their loss. At the irrevocable breaking of binds.
A sorrow that the master must feel. How great was he, how deep his heart that he could feel so strongly for those he had never even known. Beings to whom he did not even owe the allegiance of blood, bind or culture. Alsias felt his breath quicken.
He truly served a great man. It was a thought no doubt shared by the honoured elders, and the master’s new slaves judging by the similar expressions they wore.
“Okay...” began master slowly. “I’m guessin’ that you guys want to serve me.” he said in his foreign drawl.
All twelve Ozana warriors declared they would, though some weren’t as loud as he’d have liked it. He forgave them their lacking voice. Anyone would be left breathless after first experiencing the master’s might. He assuredly had been. And blinded. And screaming. But that had been the price to be paid to be enlightened about how small his pond was, and large the sea beyond it.
“Nothin’ that I can say to convince ya’ll otherwise? I mean, we can all just pretend that this meeting never happened and just go about our way.”
“An alf cannot deceive the eye of Siestemi, victorious Flynn. We must serve now, as all do.”
“Sure, you do.”
The master sighed at that. It was curious. For all his power, the master was slow to accept service. Assuredly, it was because of his strange homeland – a place that supposedly knew no slavery. He found it hard to imagine such a lawless place. How were words to be trusted without binds? How were wills enforced?
Perhaps it was that lawlessness that forged such great strength.
The master spoke a little more with his new slaves before, in his benevolence, he granted them a reprieve. They would be allowed to return to their tribe and inform their elders of their service. Their dead would also need to be buried, their wounded healed and the proper ceremonies followed.
The formerly-Ozana warrior asked for an hour to fully put the matters of him and his men to rest before they leave. The master was silent for a second, but he approved. However, he declared that he would not enter the tribe’s burrow. The warrior seemed to understand.
The march to the Ozana burrow took the better part of thirty minutes at a sedate pace. The honoured elders were quick to speak to the warriors, and they did so with comfortable ease. No doubt, as once rulers of the Aziethi, they had often dealt with the Ozana and were happy to welcome them under the master’s wing. Alsias too had dealt with their warriors before, but he could only view them in the spirit of rivalry. Especially the Ozana hunt-leader.
He recognized a man of skill when he saw one, as surely as he knew that he too was a creature of ambition. He was measured for now, but in time he would try to claw his way into the master’s good graces. A trusted advisory position with one’s owner was useful, especially if one had no slaves that could themselves exert an influence on said owner.
Master was enslaved to no one. He was one of the rare few to bind but not be bound. His outsider origins played a large role in that, no doubt, but his strength was without question. Alsias could not imagine any who could bind him and the Ozana clearly saw the same.
Pity, he would find his path hard-fought. Alsias had the honour of being the first to be bound by the master, and that meant something. After years, he had found a master worth serving. He would not let his good fortune slip from his fingers for anything.
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The hour in the Ozana tribe’s territory was a peaceful one. No monster attacks. No annoying pages telling him things he didn’t want to know. Just calm and practice.
He’d met with the Ozana leader to explain his side of things, and though the alf had seemed concerned by the loss of a dozen warriors, it had said that Siestemi’s will could not be denied. And that was that.
He let loose his arrow and split the makeshift target into two. Flynn grinned. His shooting right then was better than he'd been during his height as a tournament-level competitor. It was the boosted stats at work obviously, but it was also the life-or-death battles refining his skills.
Nothing like a blood-thirsty monster gunning for your throat to incentivize you to land your arrows.
Another arrow hit, followed soon by a shot from Cheek. He smiled and was about to make a remark when he felt someone approach. He could tell from his Monster Sense that it was an alf – he'd gotten better at distinguishing presences with it lately. A large one too. Probably Alsias.
As predicted, the warrior showed up, spear in hand.
“Master.” he called out, his stance the picture of reverent respect.
Lvl. 5 Alf
Monster
He eyed the alf. “What’d I say about calling me master?”
“Apologies... master. It would be too disrespectful to address you as anything else.”
“Well, I could command you to not call me that but that’d kind of be against my point.” Flynn sighed. “What is it?”
“I wish to spar with you, master.”
“Spar, huh.” Flynn considered it. He could blow off some steam. They still had time until his latest ‘acquisitions’ returned, and the elders were busy speaking with the Ozana leadership. “Sure. Do you know any hand-to-hand fighting techniques?”
“Of course, master.”
“Good. Teach me that, then.”
“Teach you? I do not believe I could possibly have anything to teach a warrior of your might.”
“Nah, you have plenty. All I know is how to shoot a bow. It’ll be useful to diversify my skillset a bit.” He couldn’t trust that he’d always have a bow in hand after all, or even access to his spells at all. Flexibility was the lifeblood of... well, he couldn’t remember the phrase but flexibility was important for sure.
The warrior looked nervous but he acquiesced, nonetheless. “As you wish.” He plunged his spear into the ground before taking up a ready stance. Flynn mimicked the alf.
“Correct me whenever I do something wrong, alright. Don’t hold back either.”
“I would never dare, master.”
Flynn nodded.
The two circled each other for a short while before the alf took the first strike.
Flynn saw through it easily, but that was his stat advantage talking, and the alf expected as much, so he switched things up. Using feints to fake him out, or dizzying techniques to try and out-think him. It was a good effort, but Flynn was carried by his greater size, strength, speed and endurance, and as much raw talent as the alf could boast of, a pebble still couldn’t beat a boulder.
Not that it mattered. Victory had never been the point of the spar, and Alsias proved himself a good and able teacher. Keen-eyed and articulate, he knew exactly how to pick apart the mistakes he made and explain it in a way that made sense to an amateur like him.
Flynn was impressed. Most of the man’s tips had been small changes. Where to place his feet when he moved. How to best shift his weight. How to not give away his intentions. Foundational things. Flynn tried to commit to memory as much as he could. He didn’t expect to become an MMA star overnight but overtime the building blocks would pile up. A few days from then? A week? A month? If he survived that long. With some actual fighting skill to back him up, he hoped to.
They kept going until the other’s return signalled the end. Alsias was a sweat-drenched mess by then, whilst Flynn had just worked up a light burn in his limbs.
Lvl. 6 Alf
Monster
Lvl. 4 Alf
Monster
Lvl. 5 Alf
Monster
Lvl. 4 Alf
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Lvl. 5 Alf
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“Ah, enjoying a spar, great Flynn?” asked Illsien cheerily. Flynn nodded with a smile.
“Just learning a little bit here and there. Never hurts to keep training yourself.”
It’d been an interesting discovery that Illsien, of all his groupies, was the highest levelled, though after a moment’s thought he’d found that to be entirely understandable. The elder had once been a warrior himself after all, and he’d had a much longer time to accumulate his strength.
The others all hovered between three and four, excepting the leader of the Ozana bunch who matched Alsien at level five.
He found it strange how they were all so low-levelled. He’d gotten to level ten in the span of a single day. Granted, there’d been a massacre of shitlings involved, and a suicidal boss along the way, but still. A warrior as old as Illsien should’ve been well above his level range.
When he asked them why, they’d asked him in turn what a level was, which was answer enough. Whatever the cause, the alfs and maybe all the creatures of this world operated on a different set of rules than he did.
“Are we ready to go now?” he asked his fully assembled group. They answered in unison.
The group set a good pace as they set off, and if his new warriors were concerned when he revealed that they were headed towards The Mouth, then they kept that to themselves. The hours passed uneventfully, and half the day had come and gone before Flynn called for a break. Not for his own sake, but the elders had started to look shaky.
They dined with Alsias on their rations, Flynn had his own food, and the warriors had been gifted with supplies of their own as a parting gift by their clan. Lunch had started as a quiet affair, though Flynn was quick to use the opportunity to learn the name of his twelve new minions.
They were many, and Flynn was sure he wouldn’t remember them all at once. He chose to memorize the leader’s name first and foremost – Silthius – and pushed the rest to be learnt as he went along. Afterwards, the elders, and Illsien especially, had been happy enough to take over the reins of conversation, allowing it to venture from one topic to the other. Flynn would pipe up whenever necessary, but largely kept his silence until partway through an assuredly interesting discussion about the merits of certain shrooms over the other that he decided to voice a doubt that'd been plaguing him a while.
“I have a question.” he declared. The conversation immediately died, and all eyes turned to him with startling focus. He scrunched his nose slightly at the sudden weight of seventeen pairs of eyes trawling all over his face. Ignoring it as best he could, he turned to Silthius and his men. “You guys became my slaves because I saved you, right?”
The warrior shared a glance with the others before he nodded slowly.
Flynn hmm’d. “Seems like a dangerous thing, losing twelve warriors to an event like this.”
“It is.” admitted the warrior. “The tribe will need to replenish our loss. It will take long, but it is no crippling blow, at least.”
“And doubtless they will receive aid from the Aziethi if needed. Our tribes have a long history of mutual assistance.” added Illsien with a smile that the grizzled warrior returned respectfully.
“That’s nice, but something about the whole system feels off to me. Like, what's stopping a rival tribe from manufacturing a situation where they can swoop in and save your lives? They could just claim all your warriors piece by piece, couldn’t they? Turn them against you like that, or at least rob you of your protectors.”
It was unsurprisingly Lenny who spoke up at the question. His face was serene, the look of a priest absolutely in his element, and all the others metaphorically gave way as he took center stage.
“It is a reasonable question from an outsider’s perspective, great Flynn. I believe that it stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of how our society functions. Tell me, are you aware of what keeps one alf enslaved to another? What is it that ensures that a master’s will is upheld by his slave?”
Flynn shrugged. “Societal pressure?”
“Ah, no. Nothing so flimsy.” The elder raised a finger upwards, pointing straight towards the blue-white sky above. “It is the divine itself, great Flynn. Siestemi’s all-encompassing will is the glue that holds our society together. A binding between master and slave is not merely words spoken, or scrawled onto a parchment, great Flynn.”
“It is a divine power that binds us to our owner. We feel it the moment it occurs and thus know it then to be true. Siestemi would never allow a binding borne of deceit, as would be in the scenario you describe. Thus, no alf can ever be made a slave through trickery. Only honourable victory, or a true act of power can earn one a bound slave. It is known.”
“It is known.”
Flynn frowned. A feeling that they knew to be true the moment it happened? His eyes widened. Was that what the tingle had been? First after the fight with Alsias, and then after he’d rescued the Ozana warriors? The tingle of enslavement?
He turned his gaze upwards to where a monstrous goddess supposedly resided. One that had gifted seventeen souls to his service. That... was a lot to take in.
He said nothing for the rest of the meal.