So unfortunately I had to re-write this roleplay after it was executed because the girl protaganist was frightened and force posted an 800 passang drift against the prevailing stream away from me in Port Kar. Rarely was I told in more expressive terms that she wasnt going to take the offered exchange which in truth was well intentioned. If anyone is interested I can post the original which bears a great ressemblance to the one below but where the plot elements will actually lead somewhere useful rather than nowhere as I was forced to do here.
[09:25p] › You are now known as WaylandSmith.
[09:25p] › You have joined the conversation.
[09:25p] › WaylandSmith changes topic to: Port Kar - the former place of business of Slaver. A large warehouse meant to hold merchandise on the river docks. RP entrance required
[09:25p] › WaylandSmith changes welcome message to: The hall way leads to a large domed room with gaudy frescoes. 4 exits lead to all sides, rings are set in the wall and a small raised circular dais is in the centre of the room.
[09:34p]
WaylandSmith Wayland had wandered back to the main training hall with the bottle of Falarian wine in one hand and a cup in another. From Slaver's office he dragged out the latter's chair, a comfortably high backed, high seated contraption - a rarity he was sure had been made to the personal tastes of the old curmudgeon. As darkness was falling he lit a single of the torches that lined the walls - it cash a shimmering glow into the vast room giving the illusion of life to the scenes depicted in the frescoes.
[09:39p]
WaylandSmith xenia was still in her hidey-hole where she had kept herself safe from unexpected visitors, observing the smith drinking she felt a deep distrust. Seating himself in the chair Wayland slipped a hand under his doublet and shirt to scratch the itching wounds left by the Kur's claws. Then filling a cup with wine he took a tentative sip of the legendary vintage, it tasted rich; tart and sweet at the same time and with an immense depth of flavour, truly a vintage of legend.
[09:42p]
WaylandSmith He raised his booted feet and unceremoniously placed them on the raised dais. Sipping more wine he felt the warmth of the liquid perfuse his being, the taste was old and spoke of the rich variety of Gor and its peoples. Mumbling darkly the smith drank seeing the full glory of Gor's splendour before his eyes - the many places he had visited.
[09:44p]
WaylandSmith The Falarian wine brought the splendour to the fore of what once had been and if the dark outlaw magistrate was to be believed, if not something Wayland already knew in his heart, was now dead. Its memory kept only by the few that might have survived and the relics of a former golden age bottled through infinite care by Falarian vintners.
[09:45p]
WaylandSmith They were dark depressing thoughts, the smith's lips were drawn into a thin almost colourless line as he considered that most likely all had passed - vintners from Falaria and hunters from Schendi alike. Irritated he ground his steel tipped heels on the wooden parquet dais, leaving deep marks. The past was a dead end - what was left?
[09:50p]
WaylandSmith His thoughts dwelt on Fury, his old and most trusted partner despite the passing of the years that had separated them. She had lived up to her sobriquet - ever furiously energetic even when it seemed that the world had died around her. Her discomfiture that Wayland and Dalamar had not immediately teamed up almost palpable even when it was so predictable. A small amount of bile rose from Wayland's stomach, he spat it out rather unceremoniously.
[09:52p]
WaylandSmith He reflected on the one other human that wandered in. Seen her flinch at his casual touch. His thoughts turned to his stabled and bosk, Big Jim trusted in the care of his Master with all the matter of factness of a small child. Something that xenia had never been able to rely on - sold for debt at an age that no self-respecting Gorean would have accepted it for slavery.
[09:55p]
WaylandSmith Recalling her brown eyes he recognised a deeply wounded sadness in there. She had spoken of scars - some on the surface but - he surmised - mainly deeper ones invisible to the naked eye buried in her very being. She was damaged. Her spirit and nature blunted by an unnatural act performed before she was even able to express herself - that and what must have followed on board the captain's ship...
[09:57p]
WaylandSmith Drinking more of the fallen glory of Gor, he thought instead about the death of most humans on Gor. He dismissed thoughts of the girl’s slavery itself, it was the manner of her bondage that was offensive, now that Mankind's twilight seemed to have arrived the smith felt there was little he could do for the world more than just care for his bosk. What the girl needed was to reforge herself anew.
[10:01p]
WaylandSmith : In wine is wisdom.
[10:11p]
WaylandSmith : Through the heat of the forge shall it be remade.
[10:16p]
WaylandSmith Any weapon no matter how deeply battle scarred, worn, tired or dented - whether rusty or even snapped in two - could be remade through the scourge of the heat in the fire of his forge. He had sensed the girl was broken the moment she had flinched when he lifted her onto his knee - a gesture meant to facilitate her work but from the snapping shut of her eyes clearly a prelude to an episode of dread to her.
[10:19p]
WaylandSmith shrinking from common human contact was unnatural and the sign of a flawed being - like the unbalance in a sword between its hilt and the blade proper bespoke of an inner disruption. Wayland could neither change the past nor ensure a happy future but he could enable her to reforge herself so she would arise as shining new as an old blade brought to life. This he determined to do if only to redress the ill done to her as a toddler.
[10:22p]
WaylandSmith Bored he returned to explore the former home of Slaver looking for something of us. A little brazier he lit it so that in half an ahn or so it would be radiating fierce heat from the middle of the dais and warm the room. He wanted to bathe but to his irritation it proved difficult to find an actual tub, the baths section of Slaver's house being fitted with heavy stone, tiled or porcelain tubs that could not be transported. For lack of an alternative he settled on a large oblong to oval vessel made of earthenware.
[10:24p]
WaylandSmith The item was perhaps 60 hort long and 40 hort deep and wide - he placed it to the side of the dais and filled it laboriously with the icy water that ran in the kitchen. Taking time to add more fuel to the brazier he paused momentarily thinking of the wisp of a broken girl, she had remained hidden or fled - unusual for a kajira. He realised it would take a great blaze to reignite her flame and he certainly could not to rekindle it.
[10:28p]
WaylandSmith Her reforged shape would require a new habit - certainly one that was not so ostentatiously provocative as the red silks. Whilst most men seemed to have died in the cataclysm that hit the planet, the smith had no doubt that any Man they met would practically as a first reaction desire to find again the comforts of yore in the arms of a pure red silk. It was likely Slaver should have an ample stock of such item, most likely in the room he saw before.
[10:33p]
WaylandSmith In the backroom; that held the instruments to break a girl to the collar; the smith had noted the extension leading to a dress room. It was like an elongated hall where mirrors alternated with cupboard doors, there was a scent of perfumes, spices and that unmistakable hint or just a memory of feminine arousal. Girls had once entered here wide-eyed excited and scared at once - pleased and ashamed - to be made to wear the diaphanous clinging silks provided by Slaver.
[10:37p]
WaylandSmith The old merchant was clever enough to know that packaging his wares was a sure way to increase their price and draw the prospective buyer's eyes away from any imperfections. The silks were all carefully marked by colour and type and had beautiful patterns of talendars, dinas, verminium, flamarium and TaGrape woven into them. As a craftsman himself the smith admired the handwork, his fingers feeling the thinness and precision of the weave and the embroidery. Flowery but exquisite he thought.
[10:40p]
WaylandSmith Looking at the shimmering liquid gloss of the black verminium, he drew the silvery blue flowers closer to his eyes. Perhaps with some skill he might achieve a similar effect on steel through acid etching, the pattern was delicate but not beyond his skill. He shook his head - there was a purpose at hand and he needed to get on with it. Without further ado he drew a selection of silks with various designs and colours in the approximate size of xenia from the cupboard.
[10:43p]
WaylandSmith Rifling through some drawers he found rolls of ribbons - smiling he immediately recognised the one he could use as a model for metal work in future and drew two lengths from it. One just 10 hort long, the other considerably longer. In his mind’s eye he started to see how a reforged item might surge out of blinding white hot heat shimmering with such templates- he trusted to his instincts - that sort of work was after all his caste.
[10:46p]
WaylandSmith The room of silks felt at once strange and familiar - it was not so different when he was choosing a beautifully carved hilt for a weapon - or swirling pattern to etch on the handle of a trident. From idle curiosity he opened the other drawers, to his surprise it contained a set of carved figurines in bone or possibly some kind of ivory. Picking them up he realised they were the work of the red hunters, men who lived or had lived in the polar regions of Gor.
[10:52p]
WaylandSmith he knew their work from the period he had stayed with them to learn cold metal working. They were figurines of slave girls, probably for teaching purposes though for the life of him Wayland could not remember a time that Slaver had been short of girls in ownership that could demonstrate this in the flesh. Each figurine had a little box in which it was carefully set wrapped in a silk kerchief to prevent damage, 8 in all. His curiosity getting the better of him he drew them out in order.
[10:55p]
WaylandSmith The carved figures seemed set in an order of greater overt expression, the first was a slave girl in the demure Tower pose. A decorous pose that could be adopted by girls when in the presence of FW whose sensibilities - for which Wayland cared little - might be offended. He placed it back but not without admiring the mysterious smile on the face of the carved figurine, even in tower the kajira expressed a secret strength in the knowledge of having found her true self.
[11:00p]
WaylandSmith Nadu - there was no mistaking the pose struck by the bone kajira, a recollection hit him - one with dark sea-green eyes - his thumb placed on the panting lips of the figurine ran down its body over the outthrust breasts and came to rest at its vulnerably open core. Wound up in his vicarious musing he almost thought to feel the opening of the girls wetted nether lips in response to his touch and in accordance with the wanton needy look of her face not to mention the needy upturned palms.
[11:06p]
WaylandSmith Shaking his head to dismiss the image that haunted him he exchanged the nadu-kneeling girl for the next. It was a girl in submission, he hand reaching up to place the master's foot on her neck, a useful way to beg for mercy. Another girl presented herself in display but the smith's critical did not sufficiently turn her knee outward and so returned her swiftly to her box. The ones in bracelet position were charming but in his eyes lacked the adjunct of steel bonds contrasting with white bone skin.
[11:10p]
WaylandSmith the two final ones were girls posing in the ecstatic position of sula and sula-ki - the latter arching wantonly upwards totally confident in her arousal and the expression of her inner self for the pleasure of her Master. The figures were tactile, Wayland ran his fingers over the rounded curves with the pleasure of a Man and of a craftsman - admiring the figures beauty in both manners. Sighing he put them back in the boxes - he had no need or desire to instruct xenia in any of that.
[11:14p]
WaylandSmith xenia needed a new fire of her own making: a wild dance, a fast dance, a revealing dance, a dance where pain would be sublimated into new strength: the rebellion dance. Perhaps then she might find peace again – he would leave her with some new clothes and food. Port Kar was dour and dark in its downfall and he did not want to stay much longer, he guessed Dalamar and Fury would be of a similar mind.
[11:16p]
WaylandSmith Stoking the fire in the brazier he took a last look around and reckoned the stage was almost set - it was time to bring forth the main protagonist of the proceedings. Throwing off his clothes he proceeded to bathe himself in the icy waters of the tub washing away his concerns and even unaware that he was completely alone. The warmth of the brazier dried his skin and warmed his bones and he felt himself reforged anew with a fresh purpose.