Hubtare ("hoomb-tshah-ray")
Overview
Race: Isur
Clan: Vizerian
Gender: Female
Age: 37
Birthday: 39 Spring 478
Starting City: Nyka
Clan: Vizerian
Gender: Female
Age: 37
Birthday: 39 Spring 478
Starting City: Nyka
- Getting Started
- Help
- Master Lists
- Useful Links
- Features
![[Unverified]](./images/spacer.gif "[Unverified]")
Hubtare
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Hubtare
by Hubtare on February 10th, 2016, 6:01 am
Last edited by Hubtare on February 15th, 2016, 7:27 pm, edited 6 times in total.
-
Hubtare - Player
- Posts: 17
- Words: 20326
- Joined roleplay: February 9th, 2016, 6:43 pm
- Location: Nyka
- Race: Isur
- Character sheet
- Storyteller secrets
- Scrapbook
- Plotnotes
Appearance
by Hubtare on February 14th, 2016, 11:51 pm
Appearance
Hubtare is built as strongly as any other Isur. Well defined muscles are carved beneath pale skin. Silvery veins run all along her body and, like her overall blue tint, are especially noticeable in direct sunlight. While muscular, her build is still quite lean, enough that her full weight, around 180lbs, would come as a surprise to those not familiar with the overall physical density of her race.
Of course, the most glaring Isurian feature is Hubtare's arm. The whole of her right arm reflects the blood of the Vizerian clan flowing through her, bringing to mind an image of the bluest topaz. Just beneath the thick skin, the well defined muscular system provides the chiseled shape for a varying range of color - from the deepest blue shadows, to a lighter overall medium, and highlights that, at just the right angles, are nearly cyan. On the shoulder is the notable mark of Izurdin - Izentor. On Hubtare it presents itself as an intertwined pattern of thick dark lines. The pattern is symmetrical, moving out quickly at the top, and then steadily inwards, almost to a point. The shape as a whole is not unlike a blunt arrowhead, and the symmetry is broken in only one place - with one line ending in a small swirl on the inner right side. Aside from all of this, the most notable aspect of her skin is the outside of her left wrist, covered in a plainly obvious tattoo. The Arumenic word Minajim, translating to "Mine." The letters, permanently etched in black, signify her previous status as a slave, and the more recently added red line through them, signifying her freedom.
Moving up to her face, there begins to appear the slightly less refined features. On her head is a shaggy pile of straight auburn hair that, at its longest points, just reaches her chin. It's a fairly simple thing to guess that she has made a habit of cutting her hair herself, most notably in the front where a set of uneven bangs have repeatedly been shorn over time, with no rhyme or reason other than to keep hair from getting in the way of seeing. Just underneath these bangs is the characteristic ridge running underneath both eyebrows and meeting at the bridge of the nose. The eyebrows here are fairly dark thin lines matching the auburn hair color. They frame a pair of brown eyes, the color fairly dark but unsaturated enough that they are still easy to differentiate from the pupils. Her face is often set into a sort of confused but thoughtful expression. Like someone staring at something completely perplexing and foreign, but with a genuine focus on trying to understand it anyway.
Hubtare stands at right about 4 feet 10 inches. Unlike many Isur, her clothing is not terribly exposing, though this is more out of habit rather than an actual concern for modesty. Still keeping a focus on freedom of movement and functionality, her shirts are loose, with sleeves reaching to about the elbow, and equally loose pants that reach just above her ankle, with the ability to be tied up to around the upper calf.
The general looseness and cheap material of these clothes, in combination with Hubtare's short stature, can sometimes give the illusion that she is smaller in build than she is, sometimes even being mistaken as an actual child at a far distance. This is not a deliberate intention of hers, however, and the confusion is easily broken by the simple slipping up of a sleeve or the any kind of movement that would pull the cloth more tightly against her.
Last edited by Hubtare on February 15th, 2016, 3:30 pm, edited 6 times in total.
-
Hubtare - Player
- Posts: 17
- Words: 20326
- Joined roleplay: February 9th, 2016, 6:43 pm
- Location: Nyka
- Race: Isur
- Character sheet
- Storyteller secrets
- Scrapbook
- Plotnotes
Concept
by Hubtare on February 14th, 2016, 11:52 pm
Character Concept
Hubtare is almost the literal embodiment of someone coming out of a small dark cave and seeing the world for the first time. Until very recently, she has known nothing outside the life of a heavily restricted, isolated slave. The effect of this is that nearly all aspects of her personality and behavior can be traced back to two things. The first, ignorance, an almost complete lack of knowledge about the world, the people in it, or how either work. The second, a newly developed but fierce desire to learn.
Her ultimate drive right now is simply that. To find a drive. To find a purpose, a belief, a meaning - to find, for herself, that one concept so big and complicated she can only refer to it as it. She was told that "it" can come from anything or anyone, anywhere, at any time, and she has very much taken that to heart. The girl views everything around her with a quiet but determined fascination. This includes everything from simple everyday objects, to thoughts and ideas, to even people.
Of course, one of the most major topics of fascination is religion and the Gods. Most notably, the concept of devotion. As a slave, Hubtare had no exposure to any of these things, and even her own right arm and the mark it bears never held actual meaning to her, until the jarring event of her past that drove her life into changing as it now has. Now, she wants to learn all that she can about each God and what they stand for - a sign, perhaps, of a long-buried yearning from within her Vizerian blood.
Another factor, though also barrier, to her education, is language. The girl knows only how to speak Arumenic, though she has learned a very small amount of Common from the old merchant she owes her freedom to. Her very thick Arumenic accent is especially noticeable as she struggles through very broken Common sentences. She is, as of yet, unable to read or write either language. Literacy and fluency in both (as well as some day other additional) languages is one of the many things she works to gain on a daily basis. One of her favorite things regarding this is symbolism. The reason behind this is that her vocabulary is very limited, even in Arumenic (she is fluent, yes, but certainly not an eloquent scholar). The use of symbolism then allows her to communicate very big, complicated concepts and ideas, while using smaller, simple words. The only problem being that metaphors will often confuse her on first hearing them, as she tends to take them too literally or lacks the knowledge to understand their context.
One of the most difficult things there will likely be to understand is people. Hubtare is not exactly familiar with the idea of companionship or general connection with others. Slavers, slaves, owners, victims - everyone so far has simply passed in and out of her life. In fact, the girl has never actually had any emotional regard for others whatsoever. No trust or distrust, no love or hate. She simply considered all those around her, including herself, as just bodies, as sacks of meat. The newly realized significance of life, of individuals, especially as connected to the Gods, divinity, and djed, has slowly begun to change things. On meeting or simply observing another person, she now regards them as an interesting, living being with some sort of story, with their own it.
Now, as much as things are changing, as many questions are now being asked, Hubtare is still very much the subservient slave she had been for 36 years. Parts of that dark room, of forced, unquestioning obedience, of slavery itself, reside too deep within her to just disappear. Quirks and subconscious behaviors, most subtle, some almost disturbing. Many of these are only revealed under very specific circumstances, triggered by some sort of subconscious relation to events or conditions in the past, though there are those that manifest with consistency.
The more harmless behaviors, at least from an immediate-consequence perspective, are those that result from her strictly obedient nature. These range from being entirely still or silent in a way that others find discomforting, to being perhaps too quick and unquestioning when listening to those in authoritative positions.
The darker traits, those with the potential to cause actual problems when unchecked, are those resulting from the decade of gruesome service in the dark room. These, thankfully, are more obscure and far less frequent. The exception being a habit that occurs every time she sees a new face. Without even thinking, Hubtare will rapidly scan it, in a way that may be interpreted as a quick reading of expression or emotion. What she is looking for is cuts. Specifically, the vertical and horizontal cuts that made up the system by which she was instructed on how to kill the person before her. This isn't normally too worrisome a practice, as most everyday people are not walking around with a pattern of fresh horizontal and vertical cuts on their face. At the most, the behavior might be noticed, thought a bit odd, then the moment passes and things move on. However, should something register in the girl's mind as an instruction, she has to catch herself immediately before reacting regrettably.
All of these many conflicting, troublesome things considered, Hubtare has a surprisingly positive overall outlook on life. The reasoning behind this isn't simple, of course. Part of it comes from the simple fact that ignorance is indeed bliss, in that she doesn't understand that many of the things that "should" make her upset are actually upsetting things. She does recognize her own ignorance and past damage, to a point, but has come to conclude that it only means she has nowhere to go but up. The flip side of this, though, is that all the willingness to learn only means that her ignorance will gradually fade. These realizations, these looks into just how far down she really is and how far up she has to go, will sometimes leave her stuck in a deep melancholic, even depressed state.
Hubtare is almost the literal embodiment of someone coming out of a small dark cave and seeing the world for the first time. Until very recently, she has known nothing outside the life of a heavily restricted, isolated slave. The effect of this is that nearly all aspects of her personality and behavior can be traced back to two things. The first, ignorance, an almost complete lack of knowledge about the world, the people in it, or how either work. The second, a newly developed but fierce desire to learn.
Her ultimate drive right now is simply that. To find a drive. To find a purpose, a belief, a meaning - to find, for herself, that one concept so big and complicated she can only refer to it as it. She was told that "it" can come from anything or anyone, anywhere, at any time, and she has very much taken that to heart. The girl views everything around her with a quiet but determined fascination. This includes everything from simple everyday objects, to thoughts and ideas, to even people.
Of course, one of the most major topics of fascination is religion and the Gods. Most notably, the concept of devotion. As a slave, Hubtare had no exposure to any of these things, and even her own right arm and the mark it bears never held actual meaning to her, until the jarring event of her past that drove her life into changing as it now has. Now, she wants to learn all that she can about each God and what they stand for - a sign, perhaps, of a long-buried yearning from within her Vizerian blood.
Another factor, though also barrier, to her education, is language. The girl knows only how to speak Arumenic, though she has learned a very small amount of Common from the old merchant she owes her freedom to. Her very thick Arumenic accent is especially noticeable as she struggles through very broken Common sentences. She is, as of yet, unable to read or write either language. Literacy and fluency in both (as well as some day other additional) languages is one of the many things she works to gain on a daily basis. One of her favorite things regarding this is symbolism. The reason behind this is that her vocabulary is very limited, even in Arumenic (she is fluent, yes, but certainly not an eloquent scholar). The use of symbolism then allows her to communicate very big, complicated concepts and ideas, while using smaller, simple words. The only problem being that metaphors will often confuse her on first hearing them, as she tends to take them too literally or lacks the knowledge to understand their context.
One of the most difficult things there will likely be to understand is people. Hubtare is not exactly familiar with the idea of companionship or general connection with others. Slavers, slaves, owners, victims - everyone so far has simply passed in and out of her life. In fact, the girl has never actually had any emotional regard for others whatsoever. No trust or distrust, no love or hate. She simply considered all those around her, including herself, as just bodies, as sacks of meat. The newly realized significance of life, of individuals, especially as connected to the Gods, divinity, and djed, has slowly begun to change things. On meeting or simply observing another person, she now regards them as an interesting, living being with some sort of story, with their own it.
Now, as much as things are changing, as many questions are now being asked, Hubtare is still very much the subservient slave she had been for 36 years. Parts of that dark room, of forced, unquestioning obedience, of slavery itself, reside too deep within her to just disappear. Quirks and subconscious behaviors, most subtle, some almost disturbing. Many of these are only revealed under very specific circumstances, triggered by some sort of subconscious relation to events or conditions in the past, though there are those that manifest with consistency.
The more harmless behaviors, at least from an immediate-consequence perspective, are those that result from her strictly obedient nature. These range from being entirely still or silent in a way that others find discomforting, to being perhaps too quick and unquestioning when listening to those in authoritative positions.
The darker traits, those with the potential to cause actual problems when unchecked, are those resulting from the decade of gruesome service in the dark room. These, thankfully, are more obscure and far less frequent. The exception being a habit that occurs every time she sees a new face. Without even thinking, Hubtare will rapidly scan it, in a way that may be interpreted as a quick reading of expression or emotion. What she is looking for is cuts. Specifically, the vertical and horizontal cuts that made up the system by which she was instructed on how to kill the person before her. This isn't normally too worrisome a practice, as most everyday people are not walking around with a pattern of fresh horizontal and vertical cuts on their face. At the most, the behavior might be noticed, thought a bit odd, then the moment passes and things move on. However, should something register in the girl's mind as an instruction, she has to catch herself immediately before reacting regrettably.
All of these many conflicting, troublesome things considered, Hubtare has a surprisingly positive overall outlook on life. The reasoning behind this isn't simple, of course. Part of it comes from the simple fact that ignorance is indeed bliss, in that she doesn't understand that many of the things that "should" make her upset are actually upsetting things. She does recognize her own ignorance and past damage, to a point, but has come to conclude that it only means she has nowhere to go but up. The flip side of this, though, is that all the willingness to learn only means that her ignorance will gradually fade. These realizations, these looks into just how far down she really is and how far up she has to go, will sometimes leave her stuck in a deep melancholic, even depressed state.
Last edited by Hubtare on February 15th, 2016, 3:01 pm, edited 5 times in total.
-
Hubtare - Player
- Posts: 17
- Words: 20326
- Joined roleplay: February 9th, 2016, 6:43 pm
- Location: Nyka
- Race: Isur
- Character sheet
- Storyteller secrets
- Scrapbook
- Plotnotes
History
by Hubtare on February 14th, 2016, 11:52 pm
Character History
A Shape
A Name
A Price
A Purpose
A Shape
Expand :
The slavers would never explain how it was that they came to "acquire" an Isur child. There were times that even they themselves seemed surprised to see it there in their tents. When asked by a potential buyer, they would nod, and go on about how you had to "get em while they're real young," before their arm had developed and before they had grown to have the fiercely proud and defensive attitude the race was known for. They would say this as if they had a ton of experience regarding such things, but there would only ever be the one Isur child there, and not one of them could admit having ever even been near the mountain region of Kalea, let alone the race's home of Sultros. This lead many to assume that they had come upon it by pure luck, rather than by any of the actual "tactics" they droned on about.
Regardless of the how, the slavers had, in their possession, a very young Isur girl. She couldn't have been more than three years of age, though her appearance was comparable to a human child of half that. The slavers themselves were a group of four human brothers. Involvement in the slave trade had long run in their family, but this particular branch of said family was especially terrible at it. Their negotiation skills were laughable, often selling too low or demanding too high, and that was if they could manage to sell at all. The would frequently fail to take adequate care of their "products," allowing them to become damaged or failing to notice glaring flaws, even managing to have a couple escape them in the past. It was for these reasons that they had come to offloading their wares solely in Ahnatep - the slave market there had guarded cells for the slaves, and a designated auctioneer did all the talking. All they needed was to manage to actually get the slaves and make the journey there with as little incident as possible.
This particular slave, though, this Isur girl, was decidedly their big break. She was in mint condition being so young, with almost no preexisting physical or behavioral flaws, no education - she was a blank slate. And being Isur, they reasoned, would surely up the potential purchase price by loads. Endless were the potential uses and advantages that could be had from owning a creature with that arm, and they had twice the lifespan of a human slave. They were sturdy things, so you didn't have to worry about them wearing or breaking down much. Yes, if they could pull this off just right, maybe this could make up for all their mistakes in the past.
So, after much drinking and arguing, they came up with a plan. They wouldn't sell the girl, not right away. They would make an investment in her. She wasn't as useful a product as she could be, not yet. After all, her arm had a long way to go before reaching its trademark density and color. No, they would keep going about their business, buying, selling, trading slaves as usual, and keep her in the back, molding and shaping her into a product of true value. With one accommodating change. While stopped in Ahnatep, they hired on two Eypharian guards. The slavers weren't so dense as to miss that, with their track record, keeping a slave for so long was a high risk, so they needed to be able to deter trouble, whether from inside or out.
The refinement of their product began with language. They decided that the Isur would speak only Arumenic, the reasoning being that this would probably attract Eypherian buyers, while also minimizing risk that would come from her knowing multiple means of communication. The slavers' knowledge of the language was rough at best, and their two Eypharian guards would often scoff and correct the poor pronunciations, until finally they stepped in and took over the teaching entirely, if only to stop their language from being butchered further.
Another refinement was strength. The slavers didn't actually know if the telltale strength and muscularity of the Isur came with age as a part of inherent biology, or from their actual lifestyles and physical exercise. So, just in case, they frequently had the girl pick up heavy things and quickly move them somewhere else, adding to the weight and size of the objects as she grew enough to actually manage to lift them. This was helpful for when they were on the move, as they essentially had another pack mule to carry their things, but more often then not it just meant big crates were getting moved from one side of camp to the other with no real purpose.
Behaviorally, the girl had not had time to develop much of a unique personality or attitude, so, of course, she was conditioned to act as the ideal slave. Obedient, quiet, unquestioning, hard working. Orders were given regularly, ranging wildly from being standard tasks of physical labor, to being increasingly difficult and absurd, to even frankly impossible. Any questions, objections, or complaints were loudly interrupted and scorned until they stopped. Punishments varied as widely as orders, forcing her to become used to and even expect anything from verbal or physical abuse, to an increase in workload, to strange or demeaning consequences. Had a "born and raised" member of her race seen the subservient thing she would become, it very well may have made them sick.
Socially, the girl received little to no contact with anyone besides the slavers barking orders and the teachings of the Eypharian guards, the former always carefully restricted to rough Arumenic and the latter providing the "correct" Arumenic accent and speech she steadily formed. When other slaves were brought in, she was kept distant from them, and forbidden to have any interaction from them. In her time she would see a variety of slaves come and go, but never had the chance to know or understand who or what they really were.
The slavers themselves changed over the years. They'd slowly grown less incompetent and business could actually be considered fairly good. Whether this was due to their new found confidence in the ace up their sleeves, or from learning from past mistakes, or from the fact that they actually had real guards with them, it was unknown.
Time would take its toll however. The brothers aged as any other human would. After about ten years the oldest brother died. Tensions grew quickly at this point, and their Isur girl's slow aging had become an aggravating factor in what had once seemed such an important investment. Heated discussions rose about whether or not they should simply "cash in" and finally get their effort's worth in payment. After all, money wasn't as tight as it used to be, and they could take the potential cut in purchase price. Still another argued that the time and effort they'd already put in was all the more reason to just wait and get the full value they deserved. This position was supported by the pointing out that the girl had actually become fairly useful. She may have only looked around six years of age, but the ten years of work they'd put into her was obvious. She worked as hard, if not harder, than the slavers themselves in keeping up their caravan and in hauling things. At this point they had conditioned her enough that she would get to work without even being told, and should a problem arise or a mistake be made, she would take it upon herself to deal out the proper punishment. They had gradually been able to turn their attentions solely to the other slaves being transported, and the effort actually required to maintain the one they had been keeping was had dwindled considerably. It was almost unsettling, but their plan had actually worked. They had, working for them, the ideal slave.
Ultimately it was decided that they would continue keeping the child. The slavers themselves supplemented their ranks by bringing in extended family members who were no longer disassociating themselves out of pure disappointment. They recognized that it was getting more difficult to keep the Isur away from exposure to other languages, and began giving her work that kept her with the Eypharian guards. The guards, having already done more than was in their initial contract by helping teach Arumenic, gave little regard to the slave. The only exception being the almost smug satisfaction in hearing her speak with a thick Arumenic accent, with pronunciation and grammatical structure that had long put the slavers to shame.
Twelve more years went by. Another of the four original brothers was killed in a violent, drunken encounter at the Pillars of Dust while they had stopped in Ahnatep. A third had chosen to retire from this life of risk and constant movement, and was rumored to have settled down somewhere in the Sylira region. The fourth and youngest brother was the only remaining original founder of what had become a decently large and profitable slave caravan. They had moved many slaves in this time, and had even bought and sold another Isur - a male that had clearly entered the trade at a later age and brought a new found appreciation for what they had molded their own Isur girl into becoming.
She was 25 years of age now, still with the outwardly lagging youth that made her appear maybe 13. Discussions had begun again, about whether or not it was time they finally sold her off. The brother, the only one who'd been present for the actual original plan, was hesitant. He attempted to argue that, at this point, perhaps it would be worth it to simply keep her, that the benefits of having such a subordinate slave, something so rare, would outweigh the benefits the money might bring. After all, there was no telling if, after all this, they would even manage to get the full, deserved price for her. However, he was far outnumbered by the many other family members that had taken up positions in the caravan, family members with little grasp on the time and effort that had been put into what they considered just "another body to sell," and they had long began to suspect that he had grown emotionally attached to the girl. Interpreting his arguments as such, they accused him of going soft, of being a slave lover, and began to question his judgement and ability to lead the caravan at all.
The decision was made. Pride and the need to keep order and power won over. The next year, on their next stop in Ahnatep, the Isur girl was taken to the Slave market.
She was kept in a cell while the slaver brother discussed his merchandise with some official-looking sort of man. He was explaining features - taking the last twenty-three years of shaping, conditioning, and refining, and compressing them into a succinct list of reasons why this one would make them both more money than "the usual" stock his caravan brought in. The man wasn't exactly overly impressed, certainly not as excited as the brother was after the years of anticipation, but he was interested enough to go through a quick confirmation of some of the claims. First he had her speak some Arumenic, the thickness of her accent and accuracy of some of the more obscure pronunciations at least provoking a minor eyebrow lift. Then, he ordered her to punch the wall with her right hand until she bled. This displayed the level of obedience training, the thickness of her skin, and strength of her muscles. She managed to create a sizable hole in the wall, but the fact that she did indeed stop on having started bleeding, rather than having to be ordered to, was mildly disappointing. It was only a very minor break in skin, a the very tip of her knuckle, but it was a reminder, on top of her appearance, that she had not yet reached adulthood. Just the same, adequately satisfied, the man nodded, confirmed that she would be sold the next morning, and that he would do what he could to prod a higher price out of the bidders.
And so he did.
Early the next morning, the girl was prepared, extra dressing having been paid for by the slaver. She was thoroughly cleaned and decorated - years of dirt, sand, and labor, all washed away and covered up by experienced Undertakers. The blue of her arm, while not as fully developed as it one day would be, stood out immensely from the rest of her, and the women took care to accentuate it, along with her silvery veins and the muscular structure of each limb. Next, she stood behind a thick curtain, waiting for the man from the night previous, the auctioneer, to raise his voice above the rabble of the market, and begin her sale.
She did as she was trained and stayed motionless, quiet, and compliant, expression neutral, moving only when the guards would handle her to show off other angles. The bidding went on, many votes throughout the room competing for a purchase price, though how many of those were simply plants to raise the cost couldn't be said. Having never learned anything about the value of money, the girl would never know if the ultimate price had ended up what the four slaver brothers had originally envisioned, or if had gone below or above expectations. Such things didn't concern her, and when finally her Eypharian purchaser came to claim his prize, she didn't even think to listen to what her ransom price would be.
This was simply a transfer of goods. She was made to serve, to listen, to obey. It mattered little who was giving the orders, so long as she received them. Even after the years of servitude, she had never truly grown an emotional attachment to anything she was now about to be taken from. Not the four brothers, not their many family members who would come in and out, not the other slaves. Such notions had been beaten out of her, if they had ever been there to start with. As she was lead away from the Slave Market, she caught a glimpse of the one slaver brother. For a moment they locked eyes. He was smiling, his companions around him already counting coins, but in his face was the faintest trace of pain. The newly sold Isur slave girl did not reciprocate the emotion.
Regardless of the how, the slavers had, in their possession, a very young Isur girl. She couldn't have been more than three years of age, though her appearance was comparable to a human child of half that. The slavers themselves were a group of four human brothers. Involvement in the slave trade had long run in their family, but this particular branch of said family was especially terrible at it. Their negotiation skills were laughable, often selling too low or demanding too high, and that was if they could manage to sell at all. The would frequently fail to take adequate care of their "products," allowing them to become damaged or failing to notice glaring flaws, even managing to have a couple escape them in the past. It was for these reasons that they had come to offloading their wares solely in Ahnatep - the slave market there had guarded cells for the slaves, and a designated auctioneer did all the talking. All they needed was to manage to actually get the slaves and make the journey there with as little incident as possible.
This particular slave, though, this Isur girl, was decidedly their big break. She was in mint condition being so young, with almost no preexisting physical or behavioral flaws, no education - she was a blank slate. And being Isur, they reasoned, would surely up the potential purchase price by loads. Endless were the potential uses and advantages that could be had from owning a creature with that arm, and they had twice the lifespan of a human slave. They were sturdy things, so you didn't have to worry about them wearing or breaking down much. Yes, if they could pull this off just right, maybe this could make up for all their mistakes in the past.
So, after much drinking and arguing, they came up with a plan. They wouldn't sell the girl, not right away. They would make an investment in her. She wasn't as useful a product as she could be, not yet. After all, her arm had a long way to go before reaching its trademark density and color. No, they would keep going about their business, buying, selling, trading slaves as usual, and keep her in the back, molding and shaping her into a product of true value. With one accommodating change. While stopped in Ahnatep, they hired on two Eypharian guards. The slavers weren't so dense as to miss that, with their track record, keeping a slave for so long was a high risk, so they needed to be able to deter trouble, whether from inside or out.
The refinement of their product began with language. They decided that the Isur would speak only Arumenic, the reasoning being that this would probably attract Eypherian buyers, while also minimizing risk that would come from her knowing multiple means of communication. The slavers' knowledge of the language was rough at best, and their two Eypharian guards would often scoff and correct the poor pronunciations, until finally they stepped in and took over the teaching entirely, if only to stop their language from being butchered further.
Another refinement was strength. The slavers didn't actually know if the telltale strength and muscularity of the Isur came with age as a part of inherent biology, or from their actual lifestyles and physical exercise. So, just in case, they frequently had the girl pick up heavy things and quickly move them somewhere else, adding to the weight and size of the objects as she grew enough to actually manage to lift them. This was helpful for when they were on the move, as they essentially had another pack mule to carry their things, but more often then not it just meant big crates were getting moved from one side of camp to the other with no real purpose.
Behaviorally, the girl had not had time to develop much of a unique personality or attitude, so, of course, she was conditioned to act as the ideal slave. Obedient, quiet, unquestioning, hard working. Orders were given regularly, ranging wildly from being standard tasks of physical labor, to being increasingly difficult and absurd, to even frankly impossible. Any questions, objections, or complaints were loudly interrupted and scorned until they stopped. Punishments varied as widely as orders, forcing her to become used to and even expect anything from verbal or physical abuse, to an increase in workload, to strange or demeaning consequences. Had a "born and raised" member of her race seen the subservient thing she would become, it very well may have made them sick.
Socially, the girl received little to no contact with anyone besides the slavers barking orders and the teachings of the Eypharian guards, the former always carefully restricted to rough Arumenic and the latter providing the "correct" Arumenic accent and speech she steadily formed. When other slaves were brought in, she was kept distant from them, and forbidden to have any interaction from them. In her time she would see a variety of slaves come and go, but never had the chance to know or understand who or what they really were.
The slavers themselves changed over the years. They'd slowly grown less incompetent and business could actually be considered fairly good. Whether this was due to their new found confidence in the ace up their sleeves, or from learning from past mistakes, or from the fact that they actually had real guards with them, it was unknown.
Time would take its toll however. The brothers aged as any other human would. After about ten years the oldest brother died. Tensions grew quickly at this point, and their Isur girl's slow aging had become an aggravating factor in what had once seemed such an important investment. Heated discussions rose about whether or not they should simply "cash in" and finally get their effort's worth in payment. After all, money wasn't as tight as it used to be, and they could take the potential cut in purchase price. Still another argued that the time and effort they'd already put in was all the more reason to just wait and get the full value they deserved. This position was supported by the pointing out that the girl had actually become fairly useful. She may have only looked around six years of age, but the ten years of work they'd put into her was obvious. She worked as hard, if not harder, than the slavers themselves in keeping up their caravan and in hauling things. At this point they had conditioned her enough that she would get to work without even being told, and should a problem arise or a mistake be made, she would take it upon herself to deal out the proper punishment. They had gradually been able to turn their attentions solely to the other slaves being transported, and the effort actually required to maintain the one they had been keeping was had dwindled considerably. It was almost unsettling, but their plan had actually worked. They had, working for them, the ideal slave.
Ultimately it was decided that they would continue keeping the child. The slavers themselves supplemented their ranks by bringing in extended family members who were no longer disassociating themselves out of pure disappointment. They recognized that it was getting more difficult to keep the Isur away from exposure to other languages, and began giving her work that kept her with the Eypharian guards. The guards, having already done more than was in their initial contract by helping teach Arumenic, gave little regard to the slave. The only exception being the almost smug satisfaction in hearing her speak with a thick Arumenic accent, with pronunciation and grammatical structure that had long put the slavers to shame.
Twelve more years went by. Another of the four original brothers was killed in a violent, drunken encounter at the Pillars of Dust while they had stopped in Ahnatep. A third had chosen to retire from this life of risk and constant movement, and was rumored to have settled down somewhere in the Sylira region. The fourth and youngest brother was the only remaining original founder of what had become a decently large and profitable slave caravan. They had moved many slaves in this time, and had even bought and sold another Isur - a male that had clearly entered the trade at a later age and brought a new found appreciation for what they had molded their own Isur girl into becoming.
She was 25 years of age now, still with the outwardly lagging youth that made her appear maybe 13. Discussions had begun again, about whether or not it was time they finally sold her off. The brother, the only one who'd been present for the actual original plan, was hesitant. He attempted to argue that, at this point, perhaps it would be worth it to simply keep her, that the benefits of having such a subordinate slave, something so rare, would outweigh the benefits the money might bring. After all, there was no telling if, after all this, they would even manage to get the full, deserved price for her. However, he was far outnumbered by the many other family members that had taken up positions in the caravan, family members with little grasp on the time and effort that had been put into what they considered just "another body to sell," and they had long began to suspect that he had grown emotionally attached to the girl. Interpreting his arguments as such, they accused him of going soft, of being a slave lover, and began to question his judgement and ability to lead the caravan at all.
The decision was made. Pride and the need to keep order and power won over. The next year, on their next stop in Ahnatep, the Isur girl was taken to the Slave market.
She was kept in a cell while the slaver brother discussed his merchandise with some official-looking sort of man. He was explaining features - taking the last twenty-three years of shaping, conditioning, and refining, and compressing them into a succinct list of reasons why this one would make them both more money than "the usual" stock his caravan brought in. The man wasn't exactly overly impressed, certainly not as excited as the brother was after the years of anticipation, but he was interested enough to go through a quick confirmation of some of the claims. First he had her speak some Arumenic, the thickness of her accent and accuracy of some of the more obscure pronunciations at least provoking a minor eyebrow lift. Then, he ordered her to punch the wall with her right hand until she bled. This displayed the level of obedience training, the thickness of her skin, and strength of her muscles. She managed to create a sizable hole in the wall, but the fact that she did indeed stop on having started bleeding, rather than having to be ordered to, was mildly disappointing. It was only a very minor break in skin, a the very tip of her knuckle, but it was a reminder, on top of her appearance, that she had not yet reached adulthood. Just the same, adequately satisfied, the man nodded, confirmed that she would be sold the next morning, and that he would do what he could to prod a higher price out of the bidders.
And so he did.
Early the next morning, the girl was prepared, extra dressing having been paid for by the slaver. She was thoroughly cleaned and decorated - years of dirt, sand, and labor, all washed away and covered up by experienced Undertakers. The blue of her arm, while not as fully developed as it one day would be, stood out immensely from the rest of her, and the women took care to accentuate it, along with her silvery veins and the muscular structure of each limb. Next, she stood behind a thick curtain, waiting for the man from the night previous, the auctioneer, to raise his voice above the rabble of the market, and begin her sale.
She did as she was trained and stayed motionless, quiet, and compliant, expression neutral, moving only when the guards would handle her to show off other angles. The bidding went on, many votes throughout the room competing for a purchase price, though how many of those were simply plants to raise the cost couldn't be said. Having never learned anything about the value of money, the girl would never know if the ultimate price had ended up what the four slaver brothers had originally envisioned, or if had gone below or above expectations. Such things didn't concern her, and when finally her Eypharian purchaser came to claim his prize, she didn't even think to listen to what her ransom price would be.
This was simply a transfer of goods. She was made to serve, to listen, to obey. It mattered little who was giving the orders, so long as she received them. Even after the years of servitude, she had never truly grown an emotional attachment to anything she was now about to be taken from. Not the four brothers, not their many family members who would come in and out, not the other slaves. Such notions had been beaten out of her, if they had ever been there to start with. As she was lead away from the Slave Market, she caught a glimpse of the one slaver brother. For a moment they locked eyes. He was smiling, his companions around him already counting coins, but in his face was the faintest trace of pain. The newly sold Isur slave girl did not reciprocate the emotion.
A Name
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"Hoomb-tshah-ray."
After a lifetime of being some combination of "slave," "girl," "Isur," and "you," she was given an Arumenic name by the Eypherian woman her purchaser brought her to. To some there might have been significance in that moment. The concept of lacking, gaining, or losing an identity. To this girl, to Hubtare, it was an assigning of just another word to indicate who was meant to carry out a particular set of orders. To her new mistress, it was the first step in ownership - a custom of changing a purchased slave's name. This was nothing new, she owned several slaves and had been through this process before. And the next step was the tattoo.
Due to the obvious constraints her right arm presented, the tattoo was done on Hubtare's left wrist. Minajim. Mine.
After the formalities were through, Hubtare was taken to a dark room, located somewhere near the back of the house. It seemed to have previously just served as storage space - it was small, with only one entrance, and let in no light aside from what the opening of the door might let in. In the back corner there were still a few crates, stacked and gathering dust. Hubtare was not to be residing with the other slaves, but here. As she was told, she was not to leave this room, but would be given her meals and work to do there, and after completing either, was required to knock twice on the door, and promptly return to back wall of the room.
It was a vague arrangement, but no more odd than the many asinine tasks she was tested with growing up. The first few days went by without incident, and without work. Twice a day, bland meals were left on the single step that led down into the room. She ate, returned the plate and any utensils to the position in which they were given, knocked, and returned to the back of the wall as instructed. But no work, no tasks, no assignments had been given. Years ago, in the slaver caravan, a long period of inactivity would have been frustrating, even painful, but complete and utter compliance meant that that too had long since been beaten out of her. So she waited, silently, for several more days. One night, the silence was finally broken, as the first body was thrown into the room.
The door was only open for a moment, and once it was pulled shut the room was pitch black once again. If it weren't for the special nature of her Isurian eyes, Hubtare would never have been able to make out what was now laying on the stone floor in front of her. A boy. A boy wearing rags, dirt, fresh bruises, and cuts still dripping blood. The state of disarray conveyed his status as a slave, and the new injuries, his status as having done something very wrong. He tried to look up, to look around at what was, to him, a totally dark and empty room, but in his weakness, did little other than turn so he was fully laying on his back.
Suddenly the door was open again, and this time an Eypherian man stood in the doorway, holding it open. Hubtare immediately recognized him as the man who had purchased her from the Slave Market - not her owner, but someone working with or for her mistress. The man spit at the boy on the ground, and shouted something at him in some foreign language. Then he pointed at Hubtare, who until then had been standing silently at her place on the back wall. In a firm voice, now speaking Arumenic, he ordered her: "Kill it."
The slave boy, who hadn't realized her presence, now turned and stared at the girl in complete horror, his eyes darting between her face and her now illuminated blue arm. Caught off guard, she hesitated, confused. Kill it? Of all of the things she had been tasked to do in the past, the only violent ones were self-targeted punishments. She wasn't allowed near other slaves, she wasn't trusted to perform guard duties or to go off and hunt. So she stood there, unmoving, not because she didn't want to follow the order, but because she frankly didn't know how.
The boy, now taking her hesitation as perhaps a chance to plead for his life, began babbling through tears, shaking his hands and begging at Hubtare with words she couldn't understand. The man, already furious at whatever events brought them here, became more angry and repeated himself, more slowly and with more force. "Kill. It."
Hubtare, obedience unwavering despite her confusion and the abruptness of the whole situation, nodded, her face and voice portraying nothing but neutral subordination. "Please, direct me how, and it will be done."
The Eypharian smirked. "Make him stop breathing."
Without another word, the girl stepped forward and moved herself over the boy. He was much taller than she, but much weaker too, and she had him pinned easily despite the fight he put up between the continued screams and sobs. In only a moment, her right hand was around his throat in as tight a squeeze as she could manage, his cries reduced to desperate choking gasps. A moment more, and all was quiet. Hubtare knew better than to let go just yet. Not all of her "sit still" commands of the past had allowed breathing, and she had experienced first hand that one wouldn't die without air, not right away, but would simply pass out and wake back up if allowed. So she continued, squeezing harder, dense fingertips now not merely digging against the skin, but piercing it.
Eventually the Eypharian, still at the door observing, broke the morbid silence. "Enough," he barked, and the girl promptly removed her grip and began to stand. She stepped back, and lifted her hand to her eyes. The blood of the dead slave dripped down her arm, creating a fascinating contrast on the blue of her skin. The man laughed, "You will see plenty of that," and left the door way, returning moments later with a pale of water and a rough old cloth, both set on the step. "Now clean." The door was closed, and Hubtare was left in the dark again, though not quite as alone as she once had been.
The girl wasn't sure what she was meant to clean, so she cleaned both the body and the floor around it. Blood was wiped from skin, and any wounds that were, for the moment, still bleeding, were covered in cloth she tore from the slave's already ragged clothing. With some effort she moved it all over against the wall, so that she could set to work getting the blood out of the stone floor. Some direct splashes of water and some scrubbing, and it was as clean as she could tell through the dark. Once done, she hesitated for a moment, but remembering her initial instructions, knocked twice on the door, and stood against the back wall. It wasn't long before the Eypharian came back, now holding a cloth bag, and without a word or even slight acknowledgment of the girl, he lifted the body into the bag and left her in the dark once more.
So ended Hubtare's first task under her new masters. Her first killing. First body. First cleaning.
Her first of many.
Every time thereafter would follow the same general process. Someone thrown into her dark room, someone with a death sentence decided by factors unknown. Obviously this city must have its own system of justice and execution, but it was not in her place to ever question why this task was placed upon her. What mattered was that the someones thrown at her feet died, that girl cleaned the aftermath, and the body was removed.
The details of the whole thing were largely inconsistent. Sometimes the person was a male, sometimes a female. Races were varied, though humans, their subraces, and Kelvics seemed the most common, and there were markedly never Eypharians or Dhani. Most were obviously slaves of the lowest sort, Kefasha, but there were some who's clothes were higher quality, who's complexion and general mild cleanliness hinted that they were victims of some higher stature. They all varied, too, on how roughed up they had been just before being thrown through the door. Plenty were beaten like the first, weakened and with a myriad of injuries. As time went on though Hubtare noticed that just how incapacitated there were seemed to lessen, though it was always just enough that she could handle the fight that would inevitably be put up. She came to assume that this was a sign that she was being given either more trust or responsibility.
Whether it was trust or a dwindling lack of care for her well being, things did change as time went on. At the very start, the Eypharian man would be there for it all, as he was for the first, and would give the girl the simple direction in how she was to kill the person before her. Sometimes it was as straightforward and quick as stopping their breathing, or breaking their neck, or a single violent blow to their head (those were the worst to clean up). Sometimes his fury with the victim was almost palpable, and the instruction was simply to "make this one hurt." Many of the most difficult deaths were those she was told to make slow.
Eventually, whether due to time constraints or because he had simply become bored, the man came up with a system that meant he could leave her to the task and only return when all was finished and cleaned. He would make a series of cuts on the persons face that indicated what was desired, though it was on a higher level than before, leaving the girl to choose the precise method of execution - something like "make it gruesome" was conveyed rather than "rip their heart out". One vertical cut was akin to a simple death. Additional horizontal slashes across would indicate additional time or care should be taken, usually meant to ensure the person died panicked and afraid, but not necessarily in immense pain. A second vertical cut is what indicated pain, the level of which was modified, again, by horizontal slashes. Any other number of vertical slashes simply communicated that the death was to be as violent, cruel, and stretched out as long as possible. Luckily enough, these special extreme cases didn't come up often, but when they did, the victim was badly beaten enough that there was little fight against what would turn out to be an easy, albeit messy, task.
Throughout the entirety of Hubtare's service in her room, the timings between all of these killings would vary as wildly as the killings themselves. Sometimes one body was removed only for a new live one to take its place. Sometimes weeks went by without a single instance. Once there went two entire seasons without her door being opened for more than just her usual rations. The room had almost lost the scent of death that had seeped into the very walls and floor before another bruised slave broke the spell.
Years of this twisted cycle passed. Hubtare became accustomed, even good at taking lives. Sometimes she did have to beat down a victim before their killing, or physically discourage attempts at fight or flight. But when it came down to it, she was just finishing off someone's dirty work. Allowing whatever forces were beyond the door to keep their hands just a little bit cleaner. There was nothing honorable about what she did or how it was done. Much of the advantage she had over the victims was that they couldn't see her in the first place, and if they did, her dark figure was often mistaken for a harmless child. No. She was no assassin, no trained killer or fighter. She was a trained slave with a good arm and an entirely empty moral background to keep her from ever questioning the unspeakable things she did.
After a lifetime of being some combination of "slave," "girl," "Isur," and "you," she was given an Arumenic name by the Eypherian woman her purchaser brought her to. To some there might have been significance in that moment. The concept of lacking, gaining, or losing an identity. To this girl, to Hubtare, it was an assigning of just another word to indicate who was meant to carry out a particular set of orders. To her new mistress, it was the first step in ownership - a custom of changing a purchased slave's name. This was nothing new, she owned several slaves and had been through this process before. And the next step was the tattoo.
Due to the obvious constraints her right arm presented, the tattoo was done on Hubtare's left wrist. Minajim. Mine.
After the formalities were through, Hubtare was taken to a dark room, located somewhere near the back of the house. It seemed to have previously just served as storage space - it was small, with only one entrance, and let in no light aside from what the opening of the door might let in. In the back corner there were still a few crates, stacked and gathering dust. Hubtare was not to be residing with the other slaves, but here. As she was told, she was not to leave this room, but would be given her meals and work to do there, and after completing either, was required to knock twice on the door, and promptly return to back wall of the room.
It was a vague arrangement, but no more odd than the many asinine tasks she was tested with growing up. The first few days went by without incident, and without work. Twice a day, bland meals were left on the single step that led down into the room. She ate, returned the plate and any utensils to the position in which they were given, knocked, and returned to the back of the wall as instructed. But no work, no tasks, no assignments had been given. Years ago, in the slaver caravan, a long period of inactivity would have been frustrating, even painful, but complete and utter compliance meant that that too had long since been beaten out of her. So she waited, silently, for several more days. One night, the silence was finally broken, as the first body was thrown into the room.
The door was only open for a moment, and once it was pulled shut the room was pitch black once again. If it weren't for the special nature of her Isurian eyes, Hubtare would never have been able to make out what was now laying on the stone floor in front of her. A boy. A boy wearing rags, dirt, fresh bruises, and cuts still dripping blood. The state of disarray conveyed his status as a slave, and the new injuries, his status as having done something very wrong. He tried to look up, to look around at what was, to him, a totally dark and empty room, but in his weakness, did little other than turn so he was fully laying on his back.
Suddenly the door was open again, and this time an Eypherian man stood in the doorway, holding it open. Hubtare immediately recognized him as the man who had purchased her from the Slave Market - not her owner, but someone working with or for her mistress. The man spit at the boy on the ground, and shouted something at him in some foreign language. Then he pointed at Hubtare, who until then had been standing silently at her place on the back wall. In a firm voice, now speaking Arumenic, he ordered her: "Kill it."
The slave boy, who hadn't realized her presence, now turned and stared at the girl in complete horror, his eyes darting between her face and her now illuminated blue arm. Caught off guard, she hesitated, confused. Kill it? Of all of the things she had been tasked to do in the past, the only violent ones were self-targeted punishments. She wasn't allowed near other slaves, she wasn't trusted to perform guard duties or to go off and hunt. So she stood there, unmoving, not because she didn't want to follow the order, but because she frankly didn't know how.
The boy, now taking her hesitation as perhaps a chance to plead for his life, began babbling through tears, shaking his hands and begging at Hubtare with words she couldn't understand. The man, already furious at whatever events brought them here, became more angry and repeated himself, more slowly and with more force. "Kill. It."
Hubtare, obedience unwavering despite her confusion and the abruptness of the whole situation, nodded, her face and voice portraying nothing but neutral subordination. "Please, direct me how, and it will be done."
The Eypharian smirked. "Make him stop breathing."
Without another word, the girl stepped forward and moved herself over the boy. He was much taller than she, but much weaker too, and she had him pinned easily despite the fight he put up between the continued screams and sobs. In only a moment, her right hand was around his throat in as tight a squeeze as she could manage, his cries reduced to desperate choking gasps. A moment more, and all was quiet. Hubtare knew better than to let go just yet. Not all of her "sit still" commands of the past had allowed breathing, and she had experienced first hand that one wouldn't die without air, not right away, but would simply pass out and wake back up if allowed. So she continued, squeezing harder, dense fingertips now not merely digging against the skin, but piercing it.
Eventually the Eypharian, still at the door observing, broke the morbid silence. "Enough," he barked, and the girl promptly removed her grip and began to stand. She stepped back, and lifted her hand to her eyes. The blood of the dead slave dripped down her arm, creating a fascinating contrast on the blue of her skin. The man laughed, "You will see plenty of that," and left the door way, returning moments later with a pale of water and a rough old cloth, both set on the step. "Now clean." The door was closed, and Hubtare was left in the dark again, though not quite as alone as she once had been.
The girl wasn't sure what she was meant to clean, so she cleaned both the body and the floor around it. Blood was wiped from skin, and any wounds that were, for the moment, still bleeding, were covered in cloth she tore from the slave's already ragged clothing. With some effort she moved it all over against the wall, so that she could set to work getting the blood out of the stone floor. Some direct splashes of water and some scrubbing, and it was as clean as she could tell through the dark. Once done, she hesitated for a moment, but remembering her initial instructions, knocked twice on the door, and stood against the back wall. It wasn't long before the Eypharian came back, now holding a cloth bag, and without a word or even slight acknowledgment of the girl, he lifted the body into the bag and left her in the dark once more.
So ended Hubtare's first task under her new masters. Her first killing. First body. First cleaning.
Her first of many.
Every time thereafter would follow the same general process. Someone thrown into her dark room, someone with a death sentence decided by factors unknown. Obviously this city must have its own system of justice and execution, but it was not in her place to ever question why this task was placed upon her. What mattered was that the someones thrown at her feet died, that girl cleaned the aftermath, and the body was removed.
The details of the whole thing were largely inconsistent. Sometimes the person was a male, sometimes a female. Races were varied, though humans, their subraces, and Kelvics seemed the most common, and there were markedly never Eypharians or Dhani. Most were obviously slaves of the lowest sort, Kefasha, but there were some who's clothes were higher quality, who's complexion and general mild cleanliness hinted that they were victims of some higher stature. They all varied, too, on how roughed up they had been just before being thrown through the door. Plenty were beaten like the first, weakened and with a myriad of injuries. As time went on though Hubtare noticed that just how incapacitated there were seemed to lessen, though it was always just enough that she could handle the fight that would inevitably be put up. She came to assume that this was a sign that she was being given either more trust or responsibility.
Whether it was trust or a dwindling lack of care for her well being, things did change as time went on. At the very start, the Eypharian man would be there for it all, as he was for the first, and would give the girl the simple direction in how she was to kill the person before her. Sometimes it was as straightforward and quick as stopping their breathing, or breaking their neck, or a single violent blow to their head (those were the worst to clean up). Sometimes his fury with the victim was almost palpable, and the instruction was simply to "make this one hurt." Many of the most difficult deaths were those she was told to make slow.
Eventually, whether due to time constraints or because he had simply become bored, the man came up with a system that meant he could leave her to the task and only return when all was finished and cleaned. He would make a series of cuts on the persons face that indicated what was desired, though it was on a higher level than before, leaving the girl to choose the precise method of execution - something like "make it gruesome" was conveyed rather than "rip their heart out". One vertical cut was akin to a simple death. Additional horizontal slashes across would indicate additional time or care should be taken, usually meant to ensure the person died panicked and afraid, but not necessarily in immense pain. A second vertical cut is what indicated pain, the level of which was modified, again, by horizontal slashes. Any other number of vertical slashes simply communicated that the death was to be as violent, cruel, and stretched out as long as possible. Luckily enough, these special extreme cases didn't come up often, but when they did, the victim was badly beaten enough that there was little fight against what would turn out to be an easy, albeit messy, task.
Throughout the entirety of Hubtare's service in her room, the timings between all of these killings would vary as wildly as the killings themselves. Sometimes one body was removed only for a new live one to take its place. Sometimes weeks went by without a single instance. Once there went two entire seasons without her door being opened for more than just her usual rations. The room had almost lost the scent of death that had seeped into the very walls and floor before another bruised slave broke the spell.
Years of this twisted cycle passed. Hubtare became accustomed, even good at taking lives. Sometimes she did have to beat down a victim before their killing, or physically discourage attempts at fight or flight. But when it came down to it, she was just finishing off someone's dirty work. Allowing whatever forces were beyond the door to keep their hands just a little bit cleaner. There was nothing honorable about what she did or how it was done. Much of the advantage she had over the victims was that they couldn't see her in the first place, and if they did, her dark figure was often mistaken for a harmless child. No. She was no assassin, no trained killer or fighter. She was a trained slave with a good arm and an entirely empty moral background to keep her from ever questioning the unspeakable things she did.
A Price
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Without really realizing how much time had passed, Hubtare turned 36. Ten years, 40 seasons since being sold. She was stronger, now. Arm denser, bluer. Though, still not much taller. Little else had changed. She was still given the usual gruesome task. Her feelings regarding it were much the same, though she had gradually become even more coldly indifferent towards those that came through. They weren't people anymore. They were bodies. Meat. That they made noise or moved was an inconvenience. Slaves, criminals, they could have even been royalty, the girl had long stopped noticing such pointless details. What mattered was the efficiency of their death.
There came a day that broke the chain of events, if only for a short moment. There was shouting outside the thick door to her room, usually meaning that a body was soon to come stumbling in. As expected, it flung open, but no frail soul was shoved through. Instead, it was the man, the Eypharian who had long ago stopped showing up at the door at all, the bagging of bodies being done by some other slave. Behind him was a woman, another Eypharian, someone Hubtare hadn't seen since she was first given her name. Her actual owner.
The man, presumably continuing the loud discussion from before, indicated the girl sitting in the back of the room. "You see?! Look at it. All of these years and you know nothing of the value of your own purchase." The woman rolled her eyes with a sneer and walk away. With a harsh sigh, the man closed the door once more.
The effect of the strange, short-lived interruption wouldn't come for several more weeks. The door was opened, and this time all was normal. A heap of a person was thrown in, and the door was loudly shut. Hubtare rose from her spot and went to find the telltale cuts to indicate what needed doing. She didn't even make it near the heap on the ground before becoming abruptly and entirely paralyzed.
Something was wrong. Something was so very, very wrong. It wasn't something that she could see or that she could sense. It was something inside her, down beneath her skin and muscles, deeper still than her very bones, something eating at the very fabric of her being. She had never felt this. Such a pure, unfiltered sense of fear, of dread, anxiety, disgust. So many bodies had come in and out of this room and not one of her made her feel like this. Even the idea of her own death, of a killing turned against her, gave her little to no emotional response. But this. This feeling made her want to die. It made her want to destroy the body in front of her, to find the source of such an awful thing and push it from existence.
"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?!" Hubtare's voice was cracked and hoarse from disuse, and gave away more emotion in its scream than she had intended.
For a moment there was nothing but silence, but then, the shape started to move. The being slowly and shakily lifted up, and, holding itself up by an arm, turned to look at the girl. And laughed. Slowly and weakly at first, then growing to something sick and hysterical.
The girl stared at the figure, mortified and confused. It was a man. Beaten badly. He wore the rags of a slave but he was much stronger looking than one, with muscles thicker than the entire body of many she had seen. But he had been overpowered. There were visible bruises, cuts, gashes. He held himself up on his right arm because his left had been torn right off, a recent wound by the amount of blood that still flowed from it. And yet he laughed.
Hubtare screamed for him to stop. She tried as hard as she could to shout firmly, to stand intimidatingly, but the feeling was still there, and the man's unsettling behavior was only making it worse. He did stop, but the smile was still there as he said something to her, the language unrecognizable as it was anything but Arumenic. After a moment with no visible response from the girl, the man laughed again.
"So, you Isur slave in cage," he repeated finally, this time in somewhat broken Arumenic. "Not even speak own language." She tried to speak up, to repeat her question, but he interrupted, continuing. "No. No, what wrong, you. No Isur, animal. No mind. No thought. Animal in cage, feed scraps. No deserve our arm." The man accented his insults by finally spitting at her. Hubtare flinched but his words meant little to her. Every word but one. "Our."
She saw it, finally. Having never taken her own appearance into much consideration, it hadn't hit her right away, the similarities. Short, muscular stature. The ridge on his forehead. Everything except...
Immediately her left hand was on her right shoulder, and her right hand stifled a gag. His arm. The arm, the symbol of their race, all but invulnerable... Had been removed entirely. But it was more than that, the wound, this man, the feeling that had overwhelmed the room. It wasn't just his arm that was taken. It was something bigger, more important, some fundamental part of him was gone now, had just now been taken and left a fresh, gaping, invisible wound, and she could feel that, feel a pain more engulfing than any ordinary missing limb could cause.
The man glared at her, his eyes holding all the more hate now that she clearly understood what had been done. "Your masters, replacing you. Find Isur male. Old, strong" He shook his head, "I refuse. Not animal, not dark cage, like animal, like you. Insult owner. She say beating until agree. They beat. I spit her face. She beat. I beat her. She fall, beat head. Not move. They..." He struggled with his next words, his gaze turning to the floor. "They take." Looking back up to meet the girl's eyes, he continued, a malicious smile growing. "Your master dead, animal. And you? Animal no cage? No use. No serve."
The man might have kept on speaking, but Hubtare could listen to it no longer
She beat him. She ripped him apart. He was thick, dense, with bones that would not simply shatter, skin that wouldn't simply break. But the man put up no fight. His will to live was long gone. It was impossible to say when he finally died, as the girl couldn't stop. The ideas of requirements and efficiency, all of that was thrown away. Only after every foot of the room had been covered in his remains did she give pause.
It was over. The vile feeling was gone. The man who dared bring it to her, who dared speak, was gone. Obliterated. Her composure returned. Her task complete, she walked up to the door, knocked twice, and returned to her place at the back wall.
She waited patiently. Sometimes there were long delays like this in someone coming to take the bodies away. An unfortunate waste of time that they hadn't given her the cleaning supplies, but sometimes that would come late too.
No one came. There was silence in the house. A day passed, and not even her rations had been brought through the door. But she remained in her place. Obedient. Unmoving.
Three days passed in total before an Eypharian woman opened the door, froze, and screamed.
There was a small investigation going on about some suspect occurrences at the house. The place was already well known to be involved in shady dealings of some sort, but just recently, there was a lot of loud commotion, followed by the apparent vacating of its occupants. A small group was going through the home, and had found no one, slave or resident, had remained. Until an inconspicuous door was opened, and they were greeted by a small woman with a blue arm, staring expressionless at them from a room covered floor to ceiling in various pieces of rotting, drying remains.
There came a day that broke the chain of events, if only for a short moment. There was shouting outside the thick door to her room, usually meaning that a body was soon to come stumbling in. As expected, it flung open, but no frail soul was shoved through. Instead, it was the man, the Eypharian who had long ago stopped showing up at the door at all, the bagging of bodies being done by some other slave. Behind him was a woman, another Eypharian, someone Hubtare hadn't seen since she was first given her name. Her actual owner.
The man, presumably continuing the loud discussion from before, indicated the girl sitting in the back of the room. "You see?! Look at it. All of these years and you know nothing of the value of your own purchase." The woman rolled her eyes with a sneer and walk away. With a harsh sigh, the man closed the door once more.
The effect of the strange, short-lived interruption wouldn't come for several more weeks. The door was opened, and this time all was normal. A heap of a person was thrown in, and the door was loudly shut. Hubtare rose from her spot and went to find the telltale cuts to indicate what needed doing. She didn't even make it near the heap on the ground before becoming abruptly and entirely paralyzed.
Something was wrong. Something was so very, very wrong. It wasn't something that she could see or that she could sense. It was something inside her, down beneath her skin and muscles, deeper still than her very bones, something eating at the very fabric of her being. She had never felt this. Such a pure, unfiltered sense of fear, of dread, anxiety, disgust. So many bodies had come in and out of this room and not one of her made her feel like this. Even the idea of her own death, of a killing turned against her, gave her little to no emotional response. But this. This feeling made her want to die. It made her want to destroy the body in front of her, to find the source of such an awful thing and push it from existence.
"WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?!" Hubtare's voice was cracked and hoarse from disuse, and gave away more emotion in its scream than she had intended.
For a moment there was nothing but silence, but then, the shape started to move. The being slowly and shakily lifted up, and, holding itself up by an arm, turned to look at the girl. And laughed. Slowly and weakly at first, then growing to something sick and hysterical.
The girl stared at the figure, mortified and confused. It was a man. Beaten badly. He wore the rags of a slave but he was much stronger looking than one, with muscles thicker than the entire body of many she had seen. But he had been overpowered. There were visible bruises, cuts, gashes. He held himself up on his right arm because his left had been torn right off, a recent wound by the amount of blood that still flowed from it. And yet he laughed.
Hubtare screamed for him to stop. She tried as hard as she could to shout firmly, to stand intimidatingly, but the feeling was still there, and the man's unsettling behavior was only making it worse. He did stop, but the smile was still there as he said something to her, the language unrecognizable as it was anything but Arumenic. After a moment with no visible response from the girl, the man laughed again.
"So, you Isur slave in cage," he repeated finally, this time in somewhat broken Arumenic. "Not even speak own language." She tried to speak up, to repeat her question, but he interrupted, continuing. "No. No, what wrong, you. No Isur, animal. No mind. No thought. Animal in cage, feed scraps. No deserve our arm." The man accented his insults by finally spitting at her. Hubtare flinched but his words meant little to her. Every word but one. "Our."
She saw it, finally. Having never taken her own appearance into much consideration, it hadn't hit her right away, the similarities. Short, muscular stature. The ridge on his forehead. Everything except...
Immediately her left hand was on her right shoulder, and her right hand stifled a gag. His arm. The arm, the symbol of their race, all but invulnerable... Had been removed entirely. But it was more than that, the wound, this man, the feeling that had overwhelmed the room. It wasn't just his arm that was taken. It was something bigger, more important, some fundamental part of him was gone now, had just now been taken and left a fresh, gaping, invisible wound, and she could feel that, feel a pain more engulfing than any ordinary missing limb could cause.
The man glared at her, his eyes holding all the more hate now that she clearly understood what had been done. "Your masters, replacing you. Find Isur male. Old, strong" He shook his head, "I refuse. Not animal, not dark cage, like animal, like you. Insult owner. She say beating until agree. They beat. I spit her face. She beat. I beat her. She fall, beat head. Not move. They..." He struggled with his next words, his gaze turning to the floor. "They take." Looking back up to meet the girl's eyes, he continued, a malicious smile growing. "Your master dead, animal. And you? Animal no cage? No use. No serve."
The man might have kept on speaking, but Hubtare could listen to it no longer
She beat him. She ripped him apart. He was thick, dense, with bones that would not simply shatter, skin that wouldn't simply break. But the man put up no fight. His will to live was long gone. It was impossible to say when he finally died, as the girl couldn't stop. The ideas of requirements and efficiency, all of that was thrown away. Only after every foot of the room had been covered in his remains did she give pause.
It was over. The vile feeling was gone. The man who dared bring it to her, who dared speak, was gone. Obliterated. Her composure returned. Her task complete, she walked up to the door, knocked twice, and returned to her place at the back wall.
She waited patiently. Sometimes there were long delays like this in someone coming to take the bodies away. An unfortunate waste of time that they hadn't given her the cleaning supplies, but sometimes that would come late too.
No one came. There was silence in the house. A day passed, and not even her rations had been brought through the door. But she remained in her place. Obedient. Unmoving.
Three days passed in total before an Eypharian woman opened the door, froze, and screamed.
There was a small investigation going on about some suspect occurrences at the house. The place was already well known to be involved in shady dealings of some sort, but just recently, there was a lot of loud commotion, followed by the apparent vacating of its occupants. A small group was going through the home, and had found no one, slave or resident, had remained. Until an inconspicuous door was opened, and they were greeted by a small woman with a blue arm, staring expressionless at them from a room covered floor to ceiling in various pieces of rotting, drying remains.
A Purpose
Expand :
Hubtare was taken to the dungeons underneath The Courtyard of Jackals.
Cooperative as always, she had answered every question asked of her promptly and truthfully. She was a slave. Her name was Hubtare. The remains belonged to a male Isur slave. Yes, she had killed him. Because she was instructed to. No, not directly, she was instructed to kill all those who were put into her room with her. No, she was not told why. No, she did not know who they were. No, she did not know where the bodies went, only that they were taken in cloth bags. Yes, she knew who her owner was - an Eypharian female. No, she did not know her name, or any other detail about her, save for the recent fact that the Isurian man claimed to have killed her. Yes, there were other slaves, but no, she never spoke to them, though she may well have killed several.
Her answers were concerning, but the willing, neutral, matter-of-fact way in which she gave them conveyed her honesty well enough. All the same, it left her interrogators with even more questions than answers, and she was taken to be held in the dungeons until something could be sorted from it all.
The cell wasn't entirely terrible, being a sizable upgrade from the dark room she'd just spent a decade inside. It was larger, more spacious, better lit, and distinctly less blood-stained. In fact, it was almost discomforting to the girl, having grown so used to the previous space.
She shared the cell with another prisoner, a much visibly older and presumably human man. He looked rather odd in this setting - his clothes were obviously rather expensive, his complexion, while aged, was smooth and clean. He was nearly always sitting in a chair at a table covered in books - an entire setup that seemed to have come to the dungeon with him. He passed the hours reading, only breaking to receive food (another thing of higher quality than what was offered the slave girl) and to sleep. Every so often he would finish the books he had with him and seemed to call for someone on the outside to exchange them for more.
Hubtare and the man didn't gave much regard to the other, save for a polite nod of acknowledgement, if minor resentment, when she was first brought in. The girl spent her time in silence, sitting or standing against the back wall of the cell out of the ingrained years of habit. Truly, the first few days were much like her accustomed routine. Sit in the back, come forward to receive a bland meal, and return again. The thought wouldn't cross her mind until years later, but it was probably a very, very good thing that a third cell mate was never thrown in, as she might have been compelled to try and kill them without thinking.
After a time, something began to tug at her mind, something she had been working very hard in vain to wall way and forget. The Isur male. The arm. That feeling. As much as she willed it not to, it bothered her. Most of all, her reaction to it bothered her. Logically, there was nothing she could fathom about the situation that should have caused her to act the way she did, so afraid, so rash, so out of control.
She had no sense of self-preservation. She had no concept regarding the value of life, be it her own, or another's. She had no attachment to those that might own her at a given time or what sort of work they put her to. Logically then, it couldn't have been the thought of losing her own arm or her current servitude, or at losing her mistress. An absence of pride or dignity, or general sense of self rendered all of the man's insults and belittling pointless. And clearly, she couldn't have cared for the man himself or been sorry at his loss or pain. He was a stranger, a body to be disposed of like any other.
Hubtare had never been one for introspection. Such a thing was not a habit fit for a slave. But even that idea itself, of what a "slave" was meant to do and to avoid, only lead her further into confusion. These ideas, these concepts. The girl was thinking for herself, and she didn't like it, but she also couldn't stop. For the first time, she truly began to get agitated, restless. Her composure was interrupted by pacing, her neutral expression tainted by a constantly furrowed brow.
She needed work to do. She needed to be kept busy. She needed to tell someone of the thoughts she was having so that she could be properly punished and put back in her place. She needed to be let out of this dungeon so she could return to a proper cage, to a proper leash.
She needed to know why it was that she needed those things.
Eventually the old man in the cell grew far too annoyed at the constant pacing and looked up from his books to shout at his cell mate. The girl, not understanding his words, simply stopped and stared at him blankly. With a sigh, the man repeated himself, in another tongue. Then another, and finally the girl recognized what he was yelling at her with increased frustration. "Sit down!"
She still remained paused, and the man looking ready to snap at what he took for her complete lack of communication skills. Just before he could raise his voice again, Hubtare finally responded.
"Why?"
With a scoff the man explained that the pacing was annoying, and that he was obviously trying to read. The girl responded by asking why it was that he was reading, then what the books were about, and why read that specifically...
And that was how it began. For long stretches of time over the following days the man answered the strange questions, and the girl simply followed with another, taking apart each seemingly unimportant or obvious detail. It was exasperating, and the man was tempted to tell her to shut up and leave him alone several times, but there was something interesting about the way she asked each question. She wasn't being deliberately annoying or prying, she was genuinely interested and listened intently to every answer. It was strange, he thought, how little she knew about anything at all, even for a slave. His explanations weren't always the best or most detailed, but she seemed to readily accept each of them with focused nod, even those things had to be left at a simple "I don't know" or "it's too complicated to explain." The man, after all, was no scholar.
Over time, the girl would come to learn that he was, in fact, a successful merchant. While not a native, he had resided in Ahnatep for many years, hence his fluency in Arumenic. He had backed out of a deal and upset some very important people, landing him this non-too-serious punishment in the dungeons. Up top, his business and money were still being handled by a more than apt assistant, and he was simply waiting out the days until his "business partners" would end what he considered a childish tantrum of a prison sentence.
These details, the politics and negotiation of money, went right over the head of Hubtare, as did many of the bigger, complicated things they would discuss. The biggest concept however, the one that so many chains of questions seemed to come back to, was what the girl would come to simply to refer to as it. And to her, it was the most important, yet most elusive thing of all.
As she came to understand, every person had it. What it was, however, varied wildly from person, to culture, to race, to region. It was the driving force that made people do the things they did. Their motivation, their reasoning, their logic, their beliefs - the thing that defined their every action and who they were. Only it wasn't a thing. It was much more complicated than that. It could be made of many, many complicated things, and could shift and change over the passing of years, days, even minutes. It was something that was built up, learned and defined, then refined again and again. It could come from anything, anywhere, at any time.
It was the answer. The thing Hubtare was missing, the thing that would answer all the questions she had started with. Now, all she needed to do, was find it.
Over the course of two seasons in that cell the old merchant grew fond of the curious Isurian slave girl. Eventually, after coming to recognize the depth of what she was really looking for, he made her a deal.
Far away there was a city called Nyka. The man had grown up there and it was where he first found his passion for trade and dealing. It was a rough place, to be sure, but one of deep faith and a colorful variety of people. On being released from the dungeons, he told the girl, he would pay her ransom, have her released, and freed from servitude. In return, she was to promise that she would immediately make for Nyka. That she would make all of their talks, all of those questions, mean something, and seek out answers for herself. He would help with this, pull whatever strings were needed to get her aboard a trade ship. But from there, it was on her to ensure she remained on board, stick with the travel and unknown potential number of stops, until she reached the proper destination. It would be her final task. Her final order as a slave. Just get there. Get to Nyka. And find her answer.
Cooperative as always, she had answered every question asked of her promptly and truthfully. She was a slave. Her name was Hubtare. The remains belonged to a male Isur slave. Yes, she had killed him. Because she was instructed to. No, not directly, she was instructed to kill all those who were put into her room with her. No, she was not told why. No, she did not know who they were. No, she did not know where the bodies went, only that they were taken in cloth bags. Yes, she knew who her owner was - an Eypharian female. No, she did not know her name, or any other detail about her, save for the recent fact that the Isurian man claimed to have killed her. Yes, there were other slaves, but no, she never spoke to them, though she may well have killed several.
Her answers were concerning, but the willing, neutral, matter-of-fact way in which she gave them conveyed her honesty well enough. All the same, it left her interrogators with even more questions than answers, and she was taken to be held in the dungeons until something could be sorted from it all.
The cell wasn't entirely terrible, being a sizable upgrade from the dark room she'd just spent a decade inside. It was larger, more spacious, better lit, and distinctly less blood-stained. In fact, it was almost discomforting to the girl, having grown so used to the previous space.
She shared the cell with another prisoner, a much visibly older and presumably human man. He looked rather odd in this setting - his clothes were obviously rather expensive, his complexion, while aged, was smooth and clean. He was nearly always sitting in a chair at a table covered in books - an entire setup that seemed to have come to the dungeon with him. He passed the hours reading, only breaking to receive food (another thing of higher quality than what was offered the slave girl) and to sleep. Every so often he would finish the books he had with him and seemed to call for someone on the outside to exchange them for more.
Hubtare and the man didn't gave much regard to the other, save for a polite nod of acknowledgement, if minor resentment, when she was first brought in. The girl spent her time in silence, sitting or standing against the back wall of the cell out of the ingrained years of habit. Truly, the first few days were much like her accustomed routine. Sit in the back, come forward to receive a bland meal, and return again. The thought wouldn't cross her mind until years later, but it was probably a very, very good thing that a third cell mate was never thrown in, as she might have been compelled to try and kill them without thinking.
After a time, something began to tug at her mind, something she had been working very hard in vain to wall way and forget. The Isur male. The arm. That feeling. As much as she willed it not to, it bothered her. Most of all, her reaction to it bothered her. Logically, there was nothing she could fathom about the situation that should have caused her to act the way she did, so afraid, so rash, so out of control.
She had no sense of self-preservation. She had no concept regarding the value of life, be it her own, or another's. She had no attachment to those that might own her at a given time or what sort of work they put her to. Logically then, it couldn't have been the thought of losing her own arm or her current servitude, or at losing her mistress. An absence of pride or dignity, or general sense of self rendered all of the man's insults and belittling pointless. And clearly, she couldn't have cared for the man himself or been sorry at his loss or pain. He was a stranger, a body to be disposed of like any other.
Hubtare had never been one for introspection. Such a thing was not a habit fit for a slave. But even that idea itself, of what a "slave" was meant to do and to avoid, only lead her further into confusion. These ideas, these concepts. The girl was thinking for herself, and she didn't like it, but she also couldn't stop. For the first time, she truly began to get agitated, restless. Her composure was interrupted by pacing, her neutral expression tainted by a constantly furrowed brow.
She needed work to do. She needed to be kept busy. She needed to tell someone of the thoughts she was having so that she could be properly punished and put back in her place. She needed to be let out of this dungeon so she could return to a proper cage, to a proper leash.
She needed to know why it was that she needed those things.
Eventually the old man in the cell grew far too annoyed at the constant pacing and looked up from his books to shout at his cell mate. The girl, not understanding his words, simply stopped and stared at him blankly. With a sigh, the man repeated himself, in another tongue. Then another, and finally the girl recognized what he was yelling at her with increased frustration. "Sit down!"
She still remained paused, and the man looking ready to snap at what he took for her complete lack of communication skills. Just before he could raise his voice again, Hubtare finally responded.
"Why?"
With a scoff the man explained that the pacing was annoying, and that he was obviously trying to read. The girl responded by asking why it was that he was reading, then what the books were about, and why read that specifically...
And that was how it began. For long stretches of time over the following days the man answered the strange questions, and the girl simply followed with another, taking apart each seemingly unimportant or obvious detail. It was exasperating, and the man was tempted to tell her to shut up and leave him alone several times, but there was something interesting about the way she asked each question. She wasn't being deliberately annoying or prying, she was genuinely interested and listened intently to every answer. It was strange, he thought, how little she knew about anything at all, even for a slave. His explanations weren't always the best or most detailed, but she seemed to readily accept each of them with focused nod, even those things had to be left at a simple "I don't know" or "it's too complicated to explain." The man, after all, was no scholar.
Over time, the girl would come to learn that he was, in fact, a successful merchant. While not a native, he had resided in Ahnatep for many years, hence his fluency in Arumenic. He had backed out of a deal and upset some very important people, landing him this non-too-serious punishment in the dungeons. Up top, his business and money were still being handled by a more than apt assistant, and he was simply waiting out the days until his "business partners" would end what he considered a childish tantrum of a prison sentence.
These details, the politics and negotiation of money, went right over the head of Hubtare, as did many of the bigger, complicated things they would discuss. The biggest concept however, the one that so many chains of questions seemed to come back to, was what the girl would come to simply to refer to as it. And to her, it was the most important, yet most elusive thing of all.
As she came to understand, every person had it. What it was, however, varied wildly from person, to culture, to race, to region. It was the driving force that made people do the things they did. Their motivation, their reasoning, their logic, their beliefs - the thing that defined their every action and who they were. Only it wasn't a thing. It was much more complicated than that. It could be made of many, many complicated things, and could shift and change over the passing of years, days, even minutes. It was something that was built up, learned and defined, then refined again and again. It could come from anything, anywhere, at any time.
It was the answer. The thing Hubtare was missing, the thing that would answer all the questions she had started with. Now, all she needed to do, was find it.
Over the course of two seasons in that cell the old merchant grew fond of the curious Isurian slave girl. Eventually, after coming to recognize the depth of what she was really looking for, he made her a deal.
Far away there was a city called Nyka. The man had grown up there and it was where he first found his passion for trade and dealing. It was a rough place, to be sure, but one of deep faith and a colorful variety of people. On being released from the dungeons, he told the girl, he would pay her ransom, have her released, and freed from servitude. In return, she was to promise that she would immediately make for Nyka. That she would make all of their talks, all of those questions, mean something, and seek out answers for herself. He would help with this, pull whatever strings were needed to get her aboard a trade ship. But from there, it was on her to ensure she remained on board, stick with the travel and unknown potential number of stops, until she reached the proper destination. It would be her final task. Her final order as a slave. Just get there. Get to Nyka. And find her answer.
Last edited by Hubtare on March 1st, 2016, 4:52 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Hubtare - Player
- Posts: 17
- Words: 20326
- Joined roleplay: February 9th, 2016, 6:43 pm
- Location: Nyka
- Race: Isur
- Character sheet
- Storyteller secrets
- Scrapbook
- Plotnotes
Knowledge
by Hubtare on February 14th, 2016, 11:53 pm
Knowledge
Gnosis
Izentor - First Mark
As are all Isur, Hubtare was born with the mark of Izurdin. It presents itself as a tattoo on her right shoulder.
Language
Fluent Language: Arumenic
Poor Language: Common
Skills
Lores
Lore - How to Clean Up Blood
Lore - Slavery in Ahnatep
Gnosis
Izentor - First Mark
As are all Isur, Hubtare was born with the mark of Izurdin. It presents itself as a tattoo on her right shoulder.
Language
Fluent Language: Arumenic
Poor Language: Common
Skills
| Skill | Total | Proficiency | Exp |
| Endurance | 30 | Competent | 30sp |
| Running | 10 | Novice | 10sp |
| Unarmed Combat | 5 | Novice | 5sp |
| Cleaning | 5 | Novice | 5sp |
| Investigation | 10 | Novice | 10rb |
Lores
Lore - How to Clean Up Blood
Lore - Slavery in Ahnatep
Last edited by Hubtare on March 1st, 2016, 4:50 am, edited 2 times in total.
-
Hubtare - Player
- Posts: 17
- Words: 20326
- Joined roleplay: February 9th, 2016, 6:43 pm
- Location: Nyka
- Race: Isur
- Character sheet
- Storyteller secrets
- Scrapbook
- Plotnotes
Possessions
by Hubtare on February 15th, 2016, 6:09 pm
Possessions
1 Set of Clothing
-Flaxen Shirt
-Flaxen Pants
-Simple Undergarments
-Flaxen Cloak
-Simple Boots
1 Waterskin
1 Backpack which contains:
-Comb (Wood)
-Brush (Wood)
-Soap
-Razor
-Food is given out daily
-1 eating knife
-Flint & Steel
100 Gold Mizas
Heirloom:
A blank book bound in leather. A parting gift from the old merchant received the day Hubtare left Ahnatep that she will gradually learn to fill.
Housing
Location: Nyka
Current Living Quarters: Renting a single room for the season at the Safehaven Hostel
Ledger
1 Set of Clothing
-Flaxen Shirt
-Flaxen Pants
-Simple Undergarments
-Flaxen Cloak
-Simple Boots
1 Waterskin
1 Backpack which contains:
-Comb (Wood)
-Brush (Wood)
-Soap
-Razor
-Food is given out daily
-1 eating knife
-Flint & Steel
100 Gold Mizas
Heirloom:
A blank book bound in leather. A parting gift from the old merchant received the day Hubtare left Ahnatep that she will gradually learn to fill.
Housing
Location: Nyka
Current Living Quarters: Renting a single room for the season at the Safehaven Hostel
Ledger
| Purchase | Cost | Total |
| Starting | +100 GM | 100 GM |
| No Starting Shelter | +500 GM | 600 GM |
| Single Room, One Season | -45 GM | 555 GM |
Last edited by Hubtare on February 24th, 2016, 4:44 am, edited 1 time in total.
-
Hubtare - Player
- Posts: 17
- Words: 20326
- Joined roleplay: February 9th, 2016, 6:43 pm
- Location: Nyka
- Race: Isur
- Character sheet
- Storyteller secrets
- Scrapbook
- Plotnotes
-
Hubtare - Player
- Posts: 17
- Words: 20326
- Joined roleplay: February 9th, 2016, 6:43 pm
- Location: Nyka
- Race: Isur
- Character sheet
- Storyteller secrets
- Scrapbook
- Plotnotes
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