"I own no one, I don't need inherited slaves. But none of you know how to live free. So from this day forward, I'm going to live my life helping undo what my family did to you. You are hellkin, harukh'ai, and kobolds, true, but you're also people, not animals." -- BKF
It was not magic that ran my Unty's factory. It was Unwelcome People. Tethered with chains and contained by warding runes that would harm -even kill- if they set a toe out of line. Kept in deprivation, just on the very verge of squalor.
Squalor, I knew, would foment disease, and disease stopped these captives from working.
If my Unty hadn't died, I could have killed him. My first act was to hire a decent Wizard to safely disable the wards while I worked to detach the shackles. They weren't locked. They were sealed on these poor wretches. Fortunately, the shackles were vulnerable to a little vinegar and the judicious application of a very small time spell.
By the time I'd undone the last shackle, all of Unty's old Olikent friends had found me. The venal, wheedling, slimy insults to worms.
"It's very simple," suggested the most insistent of the crowd. "Declare them as dependents, and the governors will gift you alms to feed and clothe them. Then you feed them cheap gruel and clothe them in sacking loincloths. It's pure profit."
I said, "It's a pity it's illegal to murder you for saying that."
I lost the favour of Unty's friends soon after that.
The real problem was that none of these people knew a life outside of the complex. They were unused to sunshine. They had never touched grass. They had no idea what a vegetable was. They didn't know a world without orders.
And the worst thing of all was that they feared me.
I'd turned their world inside-out and upside-down. I'd destroyed everything they knew. Even if everything they knew was among the worst experiences an intelligent creature could have. No Druid, Cleric, nor Healer had a miracle to heal the damage a bad life does to a person.
The best advice that Weiderwass' Guide to Headology could say about matters was, Gradually introduce the patient to better things at a slow and gentle pace. You can scream and cry about it where they can't see you, but act like the proper evil overlord when they can.
There was going to be a lot of screaming and crying in in my future.
I hope my old Unty is rotting in all nine hells. I hope the Plane of Torment is doing everything and anything they can to make his soul suffer. Not that I ever liked hir in the first place. I just never knew the reason before ze died.
Step one, shreds of meat and shavings of vegetables in their gruel. Then gradually enlarging the line they must not cross so that they have extra room. I shorten their work hours by seconds in the day, and replace the Guards with Healers one at a time. Once per week.
Step two - years away from now - is to give them some simple choices and staples, as well as 'green time' in the gardens.
Weiderwass was right. I am screaming and crying about it.
[Photo by Levi T. on Unsplash]
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