In a valley in the Anchor of the World, tribes of humans fought over the river and fields and game. They had come far from their homeland in the Boreal Highlands, finding in the nearby gardens a bounty of life that let them thrive. Their forays there discovered plants that they had come to learn to plant, such as wheat and corn. This development of agriculture permitted their population to explode, to such a point that they now were locked in conflict with each other. Their competition was generally peaceful, occasionally violent, and rarely murderous. There came a day, however, when the down-stream tribe raided the up-stream tribe's village, putting it to the torch once and for all. They wanted an end to the competition, they wanted the valley to themselves. They did not know quite what to do next, however. They had burned the village down, but the peoples were now captive. What to do with them?
Some argued to kill them all, but others called that suggestion unthinkable and inhumane. Many more objected on pragmatic grounds, however. It seemed to wasteful to kill so many when life was already so hard! And so the chief, a fat and greedy, but undeniably cunning man, came up with the solution.
"We kill the ablest men, those most able to resist," he decreed, "and we take in the rest as part of our tribe."
"They will not want to join those who murdered their husbands and brothers," others warned.
"We will not give them the choice," the Chief said, smiling at his own thought, innovative among mankind. "They will join, or they will die. They will labor, or they will die. We will not need to prepare our foods or sew our clothes anymore. We will live lives of luxury and plenty, and they will serve." And so slavery was born on Galbar. It was as simple as that.
The lifeblood phased through the world, seen and unseen, twisting and churning. It bled with every moment more of its contents, spilling out god after god. Even those of weak concepts were now freeing themselves, thanks to the damage that had already been done.
Everything in this world has a Core, a central identity which defines it. A mountain is a mountain, a tree is a tree, a bird is a bird. A tree can no more fly than a bird can absorb sunlight. This applied to sapients, as well: Humans, Vrool, Elves, Alminaki, all individuals had cores that they could not escape. This applied to the gods as well - no, especially to the gods, who were defined by such core concepts that it gave them life. There was never a choice for Enmity to be created cancerous, or Boris wild.
As the hearts of man grew dark, another sliver of the Lifeblood was lost. When it was told its Core, however, it wept, for it was as cruel as any that could be.
It's identity was as simple as it was terrible...
To be enslaved.
No, more than that, to suffer, to weep, to gnash and scream, to face misfortune and tragedy and pain and pain and pain and pain and pain and pain and pain and pain and pain and pain and pain and pain and pain and pain and pain and pain and pain and pain
Too soon, it was too soon, it didn't exist yet, this wasn't right, the identity depends on the prison, this existence was a contradiction, this was stillbirth. A name of a place rung in the god-embryo's mind, a name it couldn't understand because it didn't exist, but is should. It had to. They were linked. How could this be?
Whips cracking. The institution spreading. Tribe after tribe conquered, a tribe becomes a nation, a nation becomes an empire. Chains that bind the wrists. Slaves everywhere, even without chains, slaves to fear, slaves to hunger, slaves to ambition. Everything slaves to their own existence.
Explosive rage formed with agonizing despair as the god-embryo took a shape. Its time had come, but it was too soon.
The down-stream tribe had over the last decade become known as the Geldricks, a more proper name for the people that had conquered lands beyond the valley in every direction, particularly into the rich southern fields of the Gardens. They had crushed tribe after tribe, killing the warriors and enslaving the rest. Such was the size of their labor force that they could dedicate themselves to the art of war without worry of mundane tasks. Each warrior had many slaves to take care of all their needs; every waking moment of theirs was from then on practicing battle, preparing for war against other tribes and their own slave populations. The tribe split into several villages across the land. Their familiar foes, those who didn't succumb, adapted: they emulated their practices of slavery, which spread like wildfire across the Toraan as far as humans lived.
The slaves were kept docile through terror. Every year, the ten most disobedient slaves were executed in front of the others to break their spirit. They were sacrificed ritually when the game proved insufficient as an offering to the dark gods that they believed exist. Ironic, that the most evil deities existed only in their own minds.
It was a hot day of summer. The old man had toiled in the hole for a week now, tirelessly skinning the game he had been given and tanning their hides to make leather. The heat was unbearable and the insects were relentless, but he labored on regardless. He had no choice: he could not climb the sheer clay walls, not at his age and with his legs. And there was nowhere to go even if he did somehow escape. So he lived in that hole, processing the animals they threw down at him and returning processed parts via a basket they would lower.
So when he heard voices approach that day, he panicked and started to assemble the products of his labor. It was early! They shouldn't have come for another day now! He despaired; when he didn't produce enough, they would throw down rocks. He heard children laughing. He froze. Strange, they never brought children with them before. What did they want now? Couldn't they just leave him alone?
He looked up, and saw many heads emerge from the top of the whole. There were a half dozen boys and girls there, accompanied by a single hard-looking man. He knew that man: that was his tormentor, the one responsible for keeping him imprisoned and punishing him when he didn't obey. He shrunk back into a corner of the hole as the children pointed and mocked his unkempt appearance and filthy living space.
"...this creature, for example," the man above seemed to be saying. "Once, he was productive, but age has slowed him. Many other younger slaves could do twice the work for half the food. He drains us now, so we do what we must to keep the tribe strong. Now do as you've been instructed, children. You too, Herrek; if you don't have the stomach for this then you don't have the stomach to eat." The old man couldn't quite process what was going on, the man's uncaring tone clashing with his terrible words.
He saw the children picking up and holding rocks. "What-" he managed to let out, confused, before the first rocks started raining down. The smaller ones were little more than pebbles by with the drop they still hurt when they hit. The bigger ones smashed clay from the walls as they came down. One of those struck the side of his face, knocking in to his back. Still they continued to rain. he curled up into a fetal position on the dirt to protect himself. "Please, no, mercy!" he cried as the onslaught continued, but they didn't stop. Of course not. He was a thing, an animal.
And they were putting him down.
"Toshre." The Chained One.
The god-ling pronounced its own name as it came into being, rising from the earth itself. He did so with disdain in its voice, disdain for this world, and disdain for himself. He knew what that name meant. He knew what he was. And that realization broke his mind. No, it had broken his mind before he had such a thing.
Contradiction. "To be enslaved". Yet here he was, on Galbar. Where were the chains? As he rose, heavy chains materialized around himself, difficult for even a god to move. It made him want to laugh; chains alone didn't make a slave, but it seemed this reality had a keen sense of appearances. He rose to his feet, dragging the chains behind him as he lurched through the forest. Forest. Strange, this life. It seemed almost familiar. He must have seen this world while he was still part of the Lifeblood.
He felt his faceless face, knowing he would find no mouth nor nose there. All he had were his glowing eyes to mark his appearance. And his stature, of course; as he came erect he stood as a giant, nearly ten feet tall. He stumbled forward. As he dragged them along his chains carved deep grooves in the forest floor, cracking branched and crushing flowers. He walked without purpose.
Another contradiction: he was enslaved by his very identity, yet here he was walking free in the woods. Or was he free? Was this existence itself enslavement? No, this was all wrong. He shouldn't be here. It was time yet. It... that place, it didn't exist. But it needed to. He rested himself against a massive tree, and covered his forehead with his massive left hand.
This. Was. Wrong. Every fiber of his existence rebelled against itself. Was he the god of slavery? Or slaves? Both? Was he master of the whip or chain? He was all of that, he knew, but that made no sense. His mind shattered as he continued to trudge through the woods.
After some time - how much time? He could know, it might have been minutes as easily as decades, it all seemed to feel the same to him - he came upon a strange sight. In a clearing was dug a sizable hole, some ten feet across. Walking to its edges and looking down, he saw a terrible sight: the motionless carcass of an old man, his body broken. Dry blood was caked across the bottom of the pit. At first, comprehension defied him. What had happened here? What had happened to this poor human, to come to such a state?
Then he saw the rocks at the bottom, strewn across. Many were coated red with blood. Some benches and stools were damaged as well, clearly indicating what had happened. Rage rose up in him. To be caged and slain like an animal in this was was intolerable. He rose up and roared, though he had no mouth. The deep and terrible sound echoed and the ground shook across the land, announcing his fury.
He would secure vengeance for the old man's fate, and for his own broken existence. He would make this world pay a bloody price for everything.
Silence echoed through the ruined village. Toshre stood in its center, motionless, surrounded by utter carnage. The chains wrapped around his arms and legs were red with fresh blood. The ground around him was littered with the same, as well as other fruits of the massacre. Men, women and children were torn to pieces, shredded and ripped and hacked and butchered. He had killed them. He had killed them all.
Murderer.
How had it happened? One minute he had been at the pit, then the next... that pure bloody rage... He just lost control. He became a slave to his own fury. A bitter laugh escaped his form. This was his way of conforming to his core? This carnage?
Despoiler.
No, they had deserved it, every one of them. These people, these humans, they were vile creatures. They had commuted unspeakable sins against one another. They had created him. Did that not merit death?
Monster.
And then there was the confusion. Some of the slaves had stood side by side with their oppressors hurling spears at him as he tore through the settlement. Did they embrace their bondage? Were they trying to curry favor? Were they protecting their own lives? He did not know. He had killed some slaves, he could now see. Their clothing was simpler and their forms thinner. It was not intentional; swinging his chains around had simply caused collateral damage. But surely it was worth it. Surely they would approve. They had to know that death was preferable. That this existence was a mistake.
Mistake.
Gripped by sudden agony, he gripped his head, and roared again, this time not in rage but pain. It was a filled with all his grief and regret and despair. As he roared the land around him shifted: across two kilometers, massive chains burst from the earth and flew into the air. They formed a wall around the village as they converged a hundred meters in the air, forming a dome. More chains erupted everywhere in the dome, ripping apart the earth, the trees, and the village equally easily. When he was done, a dense forest of chains surrounded him in the dome, nearly too thick to see through. The exterior of the dome was so tightly wrapped in chains that it might as well have been solid.
Unknown to him, this same roar also gave birth to the Ix'hakai, born of his rage. Creating it purged himself of the bloodlust he had been possessed by, but it was a terrible thing. Twenty feet tall and fast as lightning, with massive arms and legs, it drew power from this dome, a holy place that Toshre had unwittingly created. It would dwell in the darkness from then on, hidden from the sun and the outside world, leaping from chain to chain and devouring any creatures that dared to enter that cursed place. While it stayed in the dome, it would heal all injuries such that it would be nearly impossible to kill.
He fell to his knees where he stood as all this occurred, unaware of what he had brought to life. Let this be his prison then, where the god of slaves and slavery and misery might rot. He wept.
His existence, he knew, had been a mistake.