Twice a year, they keep sending young virgins to my cave. I have never attacked them, or ever threatened them. They just started doing this ever since they learned I'm here. I ended up building a special school so these youngsters can get proper care, a good education, and learn how to be free. -- The New Guy
Stereotypes are a terrible thing, especially for Unwelcome People. There's word pairs that everyone knows automatically. Beautiful Elf. Heroic Human. Clever Gnome. Wicked Hellkin. Sneaky Kobold. Brutal Ogre.
Lies, for the most part, but it's how the rest of the world sees those they call 'monsters'. My name is Pondermoore, I'm an Ogre, and I'm a mycologist.
I didn't mean for it to happen that way. I found this cave with all its interesting fungi and properties thereof, and got... involved. The magical properties they had. The alchemical properties. The medicinal... You get the idea. I didn't even know Wraithvine had moved on with hir current companions until a fortnight had gone by. It was another season before the first virgin sacrifice turned up.
She was dressed up in a bleached gown and had flowers in her hair. And she had the sullen expression of a girl who knew that she was unloved and unwanted by her home town.
She'd been crying.
She was long past tears by the time she found me, and she still had the trembles as she recited, "Hail, Ogre of the Mountain Cliffs. Take me, this sacrifice... to sate your hunger and therefore spare... the good citizens below." Gulp. "From your wrath."
She was maybe eighteen, and some variety of pox had left a significant mark on her face. As an Ogre, I could crush her head in one hand. I don't need to tell you I didn't do that, right?
Sigh.
I didn't do that.
I said, "They're paying your life so I don't attack them? But I never attacked them."
"They're paying my life so you don't start." She sighed. "Get it over with. I don't want to suffer."
"I'm not killing anybody. If you like, you can stay and learn. Or I can help you find somewhere else to belong."
"You're not going to grind my bones to make your bread?"
Oh sweet gods, not that. "Ogrish marrow-bread is usually made from cattle... intelligent life is not a target for that. One mistake millennia ago and the world never lets us forget it."
She was just the first. She stayed just to prove herself wrong and learned a lot of things. Including how to read and write and defend herself from the sort of people who would send people like Ella to me.
Ella was just the first. They sent me the unwanted young women for the most part. The occasional young man. All the people who would not be welcome where they came from. Some were simple. Some weren't as able as others to do the things others wanted of them.
Even Welcome species can have Unwelcome People.
I didn't mean to start a school. It just sort of... happened. A lot of my students become fellow mycologists. Some become spore-oriented Druids. Some become alchemists. Some become potioneers. A few leave to be Adventurers. Many join me in becoming teachers.
My little cave has become a huge underground warren of classrooms and farms. Full of students and teachers and Natural Philosophy in progress.
Some of my students are selling fine potions and medicines back to the towns from whence they came. I don't blame them for yelling at the people who sent them as sacrifices.
We're calling it Ogre Farms. Just so they know they were wrong about us. About everything.
[Photo by Mathew Schwartz on Unsplash]
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