Role

Chapter 20

Chapter 1 - Slave Labour.
Four unnamed orphans crowded the stall, as the slave master hawked
his wares across the town. Though selling children in to service was frowned upon,
no one really cared about what the religious or the liberal had to say. Children in service
were a delicacy for the richer houses of the city. Many found them cute, some even
eventually claiming them as their own children. Those who held the slaves cared little for how
they were found. Some spoke of whole professions dedicated to those who would steal the children
out of their caverns. The Stalkers, they called them. Though living a life of a Stalker was also
frowned upon, not many arial's lived a life of prosperity. They had to eat somehow.

The four orphans were quickly snatched up. Each was taken by a different House of the city, taken
for purposes of labour. Arial children did not have the ability to argue or be stubborn, for whatever reason.
Something that was highly prized in the orphans and the slave labour they produced. Though
there was a young orphan who did not speak, he certainly looked up for a job. A tall arial, shrouded
in a black cloak with silvery runes gleaming off his staff approached the slave driver and bought
the silent orphan as quick as possible. As the mage quickly grabbed the orphan's talons and hoisted him
over his shoulder, the slave driver watched the mage depart. Though the slave driver is supposed to
be hard, strong, against the will's of love and compassion.. he could not help but frown at his own doing.
For he sold an orphan to a mage. The mage of the strongest house in the city. That very day, the slave
driver killed himself - ashamed of his own doing and not willing to live with his punishment. Whomever
was to punish him in the afterlife, however, would certainly do so without remorse. Something he, perhaps,
should have related to. The mage tossed the orphan down into the basement and closed the door behind him, leaving
him in darkness that had no feeling. The cold void of the cell. Darkness. As the mage closed the door, he
quickly spoke words of magic and locked it tightly. The orphan, as tricky of a thief he was, would not
be able to escape from there. The mage, content with himself, went upstairs to his labratory to continue
his newest invention. Though the orphan's involvement was easy to notice, the mage decided to keep the orphan
out of it until the very last part was complete. He was the final key.

The days passed, with the orphan feeding off grain that was thrown in to the cell. Water dripping from
stagalamites above provided his liquid nourishment, as the mage would sometimes simply forget about him. He
was too busy preparing a spell for his House's domination of the economy, to worry about some stupid kid.
The orphan cried for many nights, screaming and wailing in a loud piercing tone that awoke neighbours from houses
far off. The orphan even awoke the deep sleeping mage, once. It was to be the last time he would do so. The
mage, being completely enfuriated at the orphan for waking him, cast a quick spell of persuasion that would silence
the orphan permanently. Not knowing the full power of the spell, he spoke the words of command. "You will
never know emotion. You will never cry again. Feeling is as foreign to you as your parents are. You