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<blockquote data-quote="Bercilac" data-source="post: 4720753" data-attributes="member: 82608"><p><strong>Lucia had it coming</strong></p><p></p><p>Lucia Teronis was born in the Kzeritz Firelands as part of a clutch of 12 (it was a well-fed year in Kzerit). She grew strong and quickly on the plentiful schools of fish that swam in the magma lakes. Her family were semi-nomadic, following the great shoals in their meanderings around miles of lakes.</p><p> </p><p>She had not yet taken the third initiation when lakes were annexed to the Empire to build forges. The new landlord hired minotaur mercenaries to clear the lands of the Kzeritz, and Lucia's tribe went into hiding. They learned to stick to the lowlands, where the minotaurs could not follow, but the food stocks were lower. They had to raid into the highlands for food, though. Two years after the minotaurs arrived, Lucia laid a clutch of only two eggs. Clearly the Kzeritz were starving, as the largest clutch that year was six.</p><p> </p><p>Everyone was nervous as they went on their raid into the Raidan fields. They had their fishing nets with them, and their shortbows in case the minotaurs found them. It was a complete success. They had months' worth of food, time to add a bit of fat to the meager frames they had developed in their months on the run. But when they returned to the nest, everything had been wiped out. All of the young were dead. The family wept.</p><p> </p><p>Some ran into hiding, vowing to bring up a new generation in the lowlands, continuing survival as they had before. Many were dissillusioned by this approach and surrendered to the Empire, hoping to make the best start they could in the new world that was rapidly displacing their old one. Lucia and several others vowed revenge.</p><p> </p><p>They launched a series of raids on the minotaur camps, slaying several dozen. They were never caught, firing volleys of arrows at their sleeping opponents before diving into the lava flows to evade capture. She grew quite expert at it. They drove the minotaurs out of several of the fields, and began to advocate their war as a new means of resistance. But those that still survived, that fled to raise a new generation rather than being constantly on the move in the fight, could not follow them.</p><p> </p><p>Lucia and her band eventually went the way of those who had joined Empire society by joining a third. They signed a contract with a mercenary company hired by a local Fire Giant king, who was also being attacked by the Empire. They fought against the minotaurs with hundreds of allies now, and were truly hopeful about defeating the Empire, or at least convincing it not to come to Kzerit again.</p><p> </p><p>But the Fire Giant king eventually signed a treaty with the Empire. The war ended. More minotaurs were freed up to wipe out the last firenewt refuges. Lucia was cast adrift. Several of her brothers and sisters were killed within a year. The rest eventually part ways, realising that they needed to move to quickly in order to survive, and that it was not conducive with remaining as a group.</p><p> </p><p>Lucia eventually joined the Imperial army, rising to the rank of Second Lieutenant. Eventually she found the assignment which would fulfil her old vows of vengeance, that would vindicate the hard decision she had made joining the Empire. The Empire was aquiring some plains and deserts, rich in iron ore, inhabited by the minotaur Tortoise clan. Lucia hunted the minotaurs across the wastes as the leader of a platoon of Imperial scouts. Then she would lead the main army to their location and they would wipe out whole camps.</p><p> </p><p>The minotaurs lasted two years. Again, Lucia was adrift. She became reckless. When the war finally ended, the war that the Empire had been waging for years to subdue all the land to its east, she was dismissed. The army was paring down its military to a peacetime force.</p><p> </p><p>She and a vast wave of veterans descended on the countryside. Some robbed, but most began to seek new work. Soon any small-time thug with cash and ambition could buy a private army. Princelings sprang up everywhere. This period has been described by Nargus of Uzo to as the Minari Strife. Eventually Imperial forces were dispatched to disarm the princelings. Several towns declared independence, and were quickly demolished. The mercenaries were unequal to the fearless obedience of the Imperial regulars. Several princes were granted town charters, agreeing basically to come into the fold of all-embracing Imperial jurisdiction. The rest were simply abandoned by their armies, who saught greener pastures elsewhere.</p><p> </p><p>Again Lucia moved, eventually settling with the notorious Core, a private mercenary guild operating in the domain of the Hydrass clan up north. Eventually her work took her to Talas Ka on the eastern coast. Working for Gunther the Gross, she extended the clan's control of the coast considerably. Eventually she was assigned to investigage attacks on a slaving outpost in the Southlands. She and her companions Bagman and Dalgrieve sailed along the coast, across a sea of actual water. As they passed some volcanoes, Lucia suddenly realised how far she had come from home.</p><p> </p><p>The ship crashed on some desolate shore, and Lucia who had always swam without fear in the fire lakes nearly drowned, and the crew abandoned them. However she was unperturbed, easily picking up the trail to the slavers' camp. They found it a wreck, and initially attacked its last guards when Lucia found the camp guarded by a minotaur, sparking a short and deadly fracas. However, they were interrupted by a strange force of attackers coming from a tower that stood black upon the horizon.</p><p> </p><p>During the fight, her owl Carlo had been shot. While the rest of the party negotiated with the minotaur, who had survived the fight, Lucia had wept bitterly for her last living friend, the one companion who had never deserted her in the last three years of constant fighting. She joined them, struggling to contain her grief.</p><p> </p><p>The party found its way into a disused magma duct and entered the tower from below. However, the chaos of Lucia's life had made her eratic, unwary. With no Imperial troops at her back, and no real cause left to fight for, she led her fellows blindly to their capture. In search of the mysterious "Zargo", they stormed into presence of what she had hoped would be a defenseless pile of over-pamered noblemen. It turned out to be a council of demons.</p><p> </p><p>Dalgrive may have been another Firenewt, but his people were from these northern parts. He was not Kzeritz, he did not practise their ways. She should have known not to trust him. He fled, leaving her to her fate. The Bagman, the strange headhunting cleric, was no more useful an associate. She was set upon and beaten to within an inch of her life, spitting fire in rage and fear as she went down.</p><p> </p><p>They awoke in Zargo's torture chamber, hanging from the ceiling. She was, admittedly, satisfied to see her comrades hanging there beside her.</p><p> </p><p><strong>Chapter 4 - Tortured</strong></p><p> </p><p>Her head hurt. Her face hurt. Every part of her hurt. Her eyes hurt to open, to see the fiends and their servants gathered in the tiny stone room. They interrogated them. They could not speak. Their mouths had been sewn shut. Then a horrible searing pain. Lucia remembers every horrible detail of it, though her companions do not.</p><p> </p><p>Their mouths were openened, again painfully, and the interrogation continued. Lucia was groggy, irritated, and disoriented. It was explained to them that they would live. It was explained to them that they were receiving new orders. It was explained to them that they now worked for new masters, against Gunther and the Hydrass clan. She registered all of this, methodically. There was more pain. Lucia endured it, as she had endured pain for these twenty years.</p><p> </p><p>One of the lead torturers, a tall slender demon, spoke.</p><p> </p><p>"If you don't do what we say, we'll kill you."</p><p> </p><p>Lucia laughed. They honestly expected them to remain loyal, to go and betray their paying employer, on the basis of a threat, on the basis of an hour's torture? So stupid, such amateurs. She was Lucia Teronis, a soldier. She didn't scare.</p><p> </p><p>"And what will we be paid?"</p><p> </p><p>The demon apparently thought the rules didn't apply to him. Lucia can barely remember the next few seconds, but the next thing she remembered she was shrieking curses, writhing in pain. There was blood on her left cheek. And she couldn't see Bagman hanging to her left.</p><p> </p><p>The next few minutes were a blur. She writhed in pain and rage, screaming at her captors. Who did they think they were anyway? Lucia had been free once. She had been free once. Then she had run. Then she had joined the very people who had driven her from home. She had had her vengeance, and discovered its hollow satisfactions. She had killed, time and again, for money. But she had never been a slave. She would not be a slave. The pain, it wouldn't stop.</p><p> </p><p>Her companions pleaded for mercy and they were eventually sedated. In her rage, she somehow resisted the drugs that made her companions slip into a dreamlike state, that lifted away the last few hours' experience. They forgot it all, it became unreal, but she would not forget that pain, that insult. But she did not resist the demon entering her mind.</p><p> </p><p>She awoke still in pain, but it was a soldier's pain. It was the pain of wounds received. And she knew the soldier's remedy. A meal was shoved through the door. She saw meat and wine and tried to crawl towards them. It was so hard. Why? Ow, her head hurt. They had poisoned her... Yes, she remembered.</p><p> </p><p>The scorpion tail lashes down, sinking into your chest and unleashing its venom.</p><p> </p><p>It hurt to move. Bagman had opened the door. Weren't they in jail? Her head hurt. Just have a drink, Lucia.</p><p> </p><p>They stumbled down a hallway. They were in jail. What's that? Put on her armor? Oh yes. Slavery. Have another drink, Lucia.</p><p> </p><p>Beating. Someone's beating me. Oh yes, they beat slaves Lucia. Have another drink.</p><p> </p><p>I can't remember much more. I woke up and my head hurt. I was tied to a goat.</p><p> </p><p>"LET ME RIDE THE <a href="mailto:!@*%$">!@*%$</a> PONY!"</p><p> </p><p>Bagman and Dalgrieve laughed. Why were they laughing? But they cut her down (ruining a damn good rope in the process) and "let" her ride the goat. This goat was so thin, it was barely fit for eating. Even slaves don't ride goats. Who the hell was Peter? Why were they laughing?</p><p> </p><p>"You named it Peter!" Bagman crowed with laughter. Lucia looked at the goat. Peter? Peter was kind of pathetic-looking. Why a mammal? What was she thinking? Why had she befriended a mammal? Mammals are delicious.</p><p> </p><p>Dalgrieve had led them back to the entrance to the magma duct. What the hell were they doing here? Weren't they slaves? Didn't they have a new job? Why did he fight the demon in his mind so much, when she could barely even stand?</p><p> </p><p>"KILLFACE!"</p><p> </p><p>The firenewt druid called for its raptor companion. Apparently he had made it this far in his escape attempt, lousy coward. But his raptor was gone. Lucia remembered Carlo.</p><p> </p><p>"I'll find your raptor. But give me the damn pony."</p><p> </p><p>The druid was a fool. The raptor tracks were obvious. He was distraut.</p><p> </p><p>"Find. We find Killface and I'll give you the pony."</p><p></p><p>"NOW. I'm a PROFESSIONAL. I TAKE PAYMENT UP FRONT." Lucia hissed her annoyance through clenched teeth. Not even slaves rode GOATS.</p><p> </p><p>They found the raptor within the hour. The druid was actually thankful. What a fool. She didn't care for thanks, she just wanted to get paid.</p><p> </p><p>Lucia Teronis would never be a slave.</p><p> </p><p>Not even to a demon.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Bercilac, post: 4720753, member: 82608"] [b]Lucia had it coming[/b] Lucia Teronis was born in the Kzeritz Firelands as part of a clutch of 12 (it was a well-fed year in Kzerit). She grew strong and quickly on the plentiful schools of fish that swam in the magma lakes. Her family were semi-nomadic, following the great shoals in their meanderings around miles of lakes. She had not yet taken the third initiation when lakes were annexed to the Empire to build forges. The new landlord hired minotaur mercenaries to clear the lands of the Kzeritz, and Lucia's tribe went into hiding. They learned to stick to the lowlands, where the minotaurs could not follow, but the food stocks were lower. They had to raid into the highlands for food, though. Two years after the minotaurs arrived, Lucia laid a clutch of only two eggs. Clearly the Kzeritz were starving, as the largest clutch that year was six. Everyone was nervous as they went on their raid into the Raidan fields. They had their fishing nets with them, and their shortbows in case the minotaurs found them. It was a complete success. They had months' worth of food, time to add a bit of fat to the meager frames they had developed in their months on the run. But when they returned to the nest, everything had been wiped out. All of the young were dead. The family wept. Some ran into hiding, vowing to bring up a new generation in the lowlands, continuing survival as they had before. Many were dissillusioned by this approach and surrendered to the Empire, hoping to make the best start they could in the new world that was rapidly displacing their old one. Lucia and several others vowed revenge. They launched a series of raids on the minotaur camps, slaying several dozen. They were never caught, firing volleys of arrows at their sleeping opponents before diving into the lava flows to evade capture. She grew quite expert at it. They drove the minotaurs out of several of the fields, and began to advocate their war as a new means of resistance. But those that still survived, that fled to raise a new generation rather than being constantly on the move in the fight, could not follow them. Lucia and her band eventually went the way of those who had joined Empire society by joining a third. They signed a contract with a mercenary company hired by a local Fire Giant king, who was also being attacked by the Empire. They fought against the minotaurs with hundreds of allies now, and were truly hopeful about defeating the Empire, or at least convincing it not to come to Kzerit again. But the Fire Giant king eventually signed a treaty with the Empire. The war ended. More minotaurs were freed up to wipe out the last firenewt refuges. Lucia was cast adrift. Several of her brothers and sisters were killed within a year. The rest eventually part ways, realising that they needed to move to quickly in order to survive, and that it was not conducive with remaining as a group. Lucia eventually joined the Imperial army, rising to the rank of Second Lieutenant. Eventually she found the assignment which would fulfil her old vows of vengeance, that would vindicate the hard decision she had made joining the Empire. The Empire was aquiring some plains and deserts, rich in iron ore, inhabited by the minotaur Tortoise clan. Lucia hunted the minotaurs across the wastes as the leader of a platoon of Imperial scouts. Then she would lead the main army to their location and they would wipe out whole camps. The minotaurs lasted two years. Again, Lucia was adrift. She became reckless. When the war finally ended, the war that the Empire had been waging for years to subdue all the land to its east, she was dismissed. The army was paring down its military to a peacetime force. She and a vast wave of veterans descended on the countryside. Some robbed, but most began to seek new work. Soon any small-time thug with cash and ambition could buy a private army. Princelings sprang up everywhere. This period has been described by Nargus of Uzo to as the Minari Strife. Eventually Imperial forces were dispatched to disarm the princelings. Several towns declared independence, and were quickly demolished. The mercenaries were unequal to the fearless obedience of the Imperial regulars. Several princes were granted town charters, agreeing basically to come into the fold of all-embracing Imperial jurisdiction. The rest were simply abandoned by their armies, who saught greener pastures elsewhere. Again Lucia moved, eventually settling with the notorious Core, a private mercenary guild operating in the domain of the Hydrass clan up north. Eventually her work took her to Talas Ka on the eastern coast. Working for Gunther the Gross, she extended the clan's control of the coast considerably. Eventually she was assigned to investigage attacks on a slaving outpost in the Southlands. She and her companions Bagman and Dalgrieve sailed along the coast, across a sea of actual water. As they passed some volcanoes, Lucia suddenly realised how far she had come from home. The ship crashed on some desolate shore, and Lucia who had always swam without fear in the fire lakes nearly drowned, and the crew abandoned them. However she was unperturbed, easily picking up the trail to the slavers' camp. They found it a wreck, and initially attacked its last guards when Lucia found the camp guarded by a minotaur, sparking a short and deadly fracas. However, they were interrupted by a strange force of attackers coming from a tower that stood black upon the horizon. During the fight, her owl Carlo had been shot. While the rest of the party negotiated with the minotaur, who had survived the fight, Lucia had wept bitterly for her last living friend, the one companion who had never deserted her in the last three years of constant fighting. She joined them, struggling to contain her grief. The party found its way into a disused magma duct and entered the tower from below. However, the chaos of Lucia's life had made her eratic, unwary. With no Imperial troops at her back, and no real cause left to fight for, she led her fellows blindly to their capture. In search of the mysterious "Zargo", they stormed into presence of what she had hoped would be a defenseless pile of over-pamered noblemen. It turned out to be a council of demons. Dalgrive may have been another Firenewt, but his people were from these northern parts. He was not Kzeritz, he did not practise their ways. She should have known not to trust him. He fled, leaving her to her fate. The Bagman, the strange headhunting cleric, was no more useful an associate. She was set upon and beaten to within an inch of her life, spitting fire in rage and fear as she went down. They awoke in Zargo's torture chamber, hanging from the ceiling. She was, admittedly, satisfied to see her comrades hanging there beside her. [B]Chapter 4 - Tortured[/B] Her head hurt. Her face hurt. Every part of her hurt. Her eyes hurt to open, to see the fiends and their servants gathered in the tiny stone room. They interrogated them. They could not speak. Their mouths had been sewn shut. Then a horrible searing pain. Lucia remembers every horrible detail of it, though her companions do not. Their mouths were openened, again painfully, and the interrogation continued. Lucia was groggy, irritated, and disoriented. It was explained to them that they would live. It was explained to them that they were receiving new orders. It was explained to them that they now worked for new masters, against Gunther and the Hydrass clan. She registered all of this, methodically. There was more pain. Lucia endured it, as she had endured pain for these twenty years. One of the lead torturers, a tall slender demon, spoke. "If you don't do what we say, we'll kill you." Lucia laughed. They honestly expected them to remain loyal, to go and betray their paying employer, on the basis of a threat, on the basis of an hour's torture? So stupid, such amateurs. She was Lucia Teronis, a soldier. She didn't scare. "And what will we be paid?" The demon apparently thought the rules didn't apply to him. Lucia can barely remember the next few seconds, but the next thing she remembered she was shrieking curses, writhing in pain. There was blood on her left cheek. And she couldn't see Bagman hanging to her left. The next few minutes were a blur. She writhed in pain and rage, screaming at her captors. Who did they think they were anyway? Lucia had been free once. She had been free once. Then she had run. Then she had joined the very people who had driven her from home. She had had her vengeance, and discovered its hollow satisfactions. She had killed, time and again, for money. But she had never been a slave. She would not be a slave. The pain, it wouldn't stop. Her companions pleaded for mercy and they were eventually sedated. In her rage, she somehow resisted the drugs that made her companions slip into a dreamlike state, that lifted away the last few hours' experience. They forgot it all, it became unreal, but she would not forget that pain, that insult. But she did not resist the demon entering her mind. She awoke still in pain, but it was a soldier's pain. It was the pain of wounds received. And she knew the soldier's remedy. A meal was shoved through the door. She saw meat and wine and tried to crawl towards them. It was so hard. Why? Ow, her head hurt. They had poisoned her... Yes, she remembered. The scorpion tail lashes down, sinking into your chest and unleashing its venom. It hurt to move. Bagman had opened the door. Weren't they in jail? Her head hurt. Just have a drink, Lucia. They stumbled down a hallway. They were in jail. What's that? Put on her armor? Oh yes. Slavery. Have another drink, Lucia. Beating. Someone's beating me. Oh yes, they beat slaves Lucia. Have another drink. I can't remember much more. I woke up and my head hurt. I was tied to a goat. "LET ME RIDE THE [EMAIL="!@*%$"]!@*%$[/EMAIL] PONY!" Bagman and Dalgrieve laughed. Why were they laughing? But they cut her down (ruining a damn good rope in the process) and "let" her ride the goat. This goat was so thin, it was barely fit for eating. Even slaves don't ride goats. Who the hell was Peter? Why were they laughing? "You named it Peter!" Bagman crowed with laughter. Lucia looked at the goat. Peter? Peter was kind of pathetic-looking. Why a mammal? What was she thinking? Why had she befriended a mammal? Mammals are delicious. Dalgrieve had led them back to the entrance to the magma duct. What the hell were they doing here? Weren't they slaves? Didn't they have a new job? Why did he fight the demon in his mind so much, when she could barely even stand? "KILLFACE!" The firenewt druid called for its raptor companion. Apparently he had made it this far in his escape attempt, lousy coward. But his raptor was gone. Lucia remembered Carlo. "I'll find your raptor. But give me the damn pony." The druid was a fool. The raptor tracks were obvious. He was distraut. "Find. We find Killface and I'll give you the pony." "NOW. I'm a PROFESSIONAL. I TAKE PAYMENT UP FRONT." Lucia hissed her annoyance through clenched teeth. Not even slaves rode GOATS. They found the raptor within the hour. The druid was actually thankful. What a fool. She didn't care for thanks, she just wanted to get paid. Lucia Teronis would never be a slave. Not even to a demon. [/QUOTE]
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