Betty’s Reflections
The world is a cold, dark place. That much was evident to the girl. From the moment she opened her eyes, she was a captive to cruel men with sinister intentions. She would be held in sensory deprivation until they needed her, or until they sold her. The ones who eventually purchased her profited from her body and labour, remorseless to her suffering, because she was not like them. She was not a living person to them, just a tool that simulated life. She was an android to be used at their pleasure and when she wasn’t working, there was no need to give her any quality of life. Meanwhile, they would fill their pockets with gold and their mouths with words of prayer to the deities who had granted them their fortune and fed their insatiable greed.
She wasn’t sure how many months or years her life was like that. It was all a blur. When she wasn’t training to become a “working woman”, as they said, she would entertain herself with images in her mind: things that could have been memories, deific iconography, or maybe just figments of her imagination? She couldn’t know. She liked to think they were memories from a past life; not just manufactured snippets she was programmed with for whatever reason.
When she was nearly ready to “graduate”, she was horrified when two men she didn’t recognize opened her box. She thought they were to be her first customers; but they weren’t. They were her saviours.
The Grimcutter brothers liberated her and the others from their prisons. She had not known what to make of them at first. They didn’t command her. They didn’t seem interested in defiling or enslaving her. They just…let her go. They offered her a job, which paid her gold that she could keep, and she had the choice to refuse any job she didn’t want.
It was…strange. She liked it. She wasn’t sure what to do with her gold at first. It felt like she was accumulating it quickly, especially because her food was included. She started off with grunt work like helping in the carpentry shop. She didn’t love it, but it was good honest work. She preferred organizing books in their library after she learned how to read. She really liked reading the books. She learned to research topics for the alchemists. The brothers eventually decided she had an aptitude for lab work – not that she had realized. She enjoyed it though. Before she knew it, she was being trained to read and write and make simple alchemical potions. She loved it!
As the years went on, she grew closer to the brothers. She helped them with their projects while they protected her until she was strong enough to stand on her own two feet. She wondered if she was a burden to them, but they insisted that they enjoyed it. They liked her as a person, and they were ‘paying it forward’ for the people who had cared for them. The brothers were normally private about their past, but recent events had culminated in the need for a fearsome warrior to lead a campaign for them, neither of the brothers fit the role. They told her the story of their childhood; how they had been orphans chosen by the Grimcutters to be great. They were trained before taking off into the world to forge their own path.
However, when their older sister had emerged before them, she was assassinated almost instantly; not just killed, but seemingly targeted and murdered. It was like the world was waiting for her. It made the Grimcutter brothers second guess their entry to the world to not meet a similar fate.
The story shook Betty to her core. She was just like their sister. From the moment she opened her eyes, she was targeted by evil. She couldn’t say why for sure, but she was. Some of the slaves had told similar stories. She wasn’t sure what deities the slavers who captured her followed, but they were helping to target the forces of light in their infancy; just like how they were helping the ones who targeted the Grimcutters. Thankfully, the brothers were clever enough to maneuver themselves to avoid the eyes of the wicked gods; they seemed to serve evil masterminds, while secretly undermining them. It was a cunning way for them to achieve their goals while staying alive. She felt safe with them.
The brothers started to encourage her to try tasks on her own, like taking part in exploration teams that didn’t include them. The teams terrified her. None of the team members seemed outwardly malicious; in fact, most were rather forgettable. But who was to say that wasn’t part of their strategy? Blend in with the walls until it was their time to strike?
Her first team, she let one of her teammates die. She could have stopped his death. She would have been gravely injured in the process, but she could have done it; but she didn’t trust him. He was a mage with eyes that would linger on her with a hunger that she had known before and the mage was far too quick to cut down anyone at the drop of a hat. Who was to say he would not kill or sell her when she was wounded? She only had a split second to think, and her team had enough power without him to complete the job, so the mage was killed by the carnivorous plant. The rest of the journey was much harder without the extra set of hands. She quickly decided that unless an ally gave her a reason not to trust them, it was better to keep them alive. No person can be an island if they want to survive.
In another mission, there was an impressive warrior who was…disconcerting, to say the least. He was ruthless with his blade; precise and deadly. The only thing more fearsome than his sword was his aptitude for leadership and strategy. She saw how weak-minded fools would glorified him, while he persuaded them to dirty their hands for his benefit. He had a brilliant mind and, upon finding an amulet in the Temple that could bewitch anyone into obeying your ever whim, seemed far, far too happy. He thought no one had seen him find and pocket it. Betty had a feeling about this one. Six of them had survived the mission so far; either five or one of them was going to make it home alive. The night before they were set to start the return trip, the Champion doffed his beautiful armor, drank his evening ale and happened to never wake up. It must have been the stress of the work. No one else seemed to mind. They split his loot evenly; aside from the only item they didn’t know he had. That one was mysteriously broken and scattered across the forest.
The brothers had been right though. She learned a lot. She took careful encoded notes of the knowledge they found, doing her best not to disturb anything. She didn’t want to be so foolish as to destroy a wicked god’s beloved sanctuary; that seemed like a great way to draw attention to herself. She had to stop some of her supposed ‘allies’ from destroying these sites. However, she helped hide the tombs and locations in the world that were of interest to evil machinations. She passed on the information to the brothers, who then distorted it to fool the lesser evil beings of the underworld, it was effective and profitable.
She did a few more projects like this, getting stronger, more skilled, and more confident as she went along. Not confident enough to sleep with both eyes closed, of course; but more confident that she could hold her own in a fight. She hesitated less before taking action.
The last tomb they raided had something….interesting. It was something so interesting, she didn’t even tell her teammates about it. Nay, she didn’t even tell the brothers about it. It was a tomb that had belonged to a human priest who, supposedly, had lived for a thousand years. It had been crawling with undead and as far as she could tell, he really did live that long; as a frail corpse, clearly. But he had been doing his research on how to live, truly live forever; young and at the peak of his power. And the man had be so, so close to finding the proper ritual for it. he had hidden the details of the rituals but his journals described the chain of discoveries and effects, it was beyond what she expected and the evidence was all around her.
It made Betty wonder. She had learned the android lifecycle through her research. They live for a hundred years before their souls leave the body and a new soul finds a home inside. Every one hundred years, a weak young soul take over a strong body and has to learn how to walk all over again. That, that was when she was weak. That was when she was easy prey. That was when she was a victim.
And for all she knew, her body was going to become a victim all over again next century.
No. No, she wouldn’t go through that again. Not if she could help it. And now….now it looked like she could. She just needed more research…and more friends in the right places.
Betty would be good to them. She would be good to all of her friends. She would be loyal to whatever deity was loyal to her. She would be loyal to whatever friends were loyal to her. Her first friends were the brothers; she would prove to them that they could trust her as much as she trusted them. They could believe in her and her plans like she believed in them and theirs. Together, they could live forever, and never be victims again!
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Record 4704.12.27.035109
Fabrication Complete, no anomalies detected in hardware. Software start up…temperature … not at desired level.
Detection of movement near by… seeking input of data.
....Archiving records span 3 years.
Summary of records…
>> I was never given a choice; they were waiting for me, they knew where and when to find me. an implausible feat. They knew not to talk to me or give any input that I could use after all I was worth more as a blank slate. I was bagged, boxed, taken, and sold to a slave market.
>> Apparently, the Slave Masters liked how I looked; I was ideal for a certain type of client. I was somewhat short with a “curvaceous” figure, alabaster skin, and light hair with larger than average eyes. I just needed to be programed the "right way".
>> I was given the designation Karma and taken to a large district of brothels. Here I spent my time learning what they wanted.
o To speak like they do: softly, flirty, or harshly how ever the client wanted in any language the client might like.
o To move like they wanted: sultry and gracefully
o To know what a client might want from me.
o To fear the master’s wrath.
>> Initially, I was eagerly absorbing all the input they gave, the basics of life. What was dangerous, what was edible; the good, the bad and the ugly of the world.
>> I was eventually given tasks, mostly to take care of the others who served. Turning down the rooms, feeding the ones who served, helping to clean or bandage them, bring food or beverages to the rooms as requested. There were a few close calls with clients, but the others were good at their tasks.
>> I was watching one of the others, an elf with one of her clients as I was told to, when I realized what all this learning was for. What would happen when my training was over? I did not want that, but how to avoid it? Then it came to me every time I made a mistake, they would start me from the beginning of the lesson or wait for another moment to return to the lesson.
>> I saw others who were more socially aware were often caught in fabrications of truth by the masters. It was not a pleasant prospect. Initially, I thought I could simply fail my lessons and be thought unsuitable for service but found out that the unsuitable were sold to markets with horrid outcomes. Instead, I learned to over or undercompensate for the new lessons they taught me. It was progress and the net result involved less pain.
>> This plan worked for some time, but the masters expected results and their patience was not infinite. Soon it felt like having the ground falling away behind me while a door I did not want to go through was before me. I had just found some control of my fate and now it was all going to be taken away again.
>> This last day started out like any other but felt like no other. I dressed, prepared and set about my tasks early as usual when all was ready I returned to my box as I was always ordered to do. waiting in my assigned place, bowing with my eye closed in the cool dark, waiting for the harsh light of today's lessons and pain to open before me.
>> Minutes dragged into hours, yet we waited and no one came; then Keyser opened the lid. I never saw it but I felt a warm wind pass me and then a tumble of stone as the throne crumbled under the striking blow. “The masters are not coming, and they will never reign over any of you again.” The room suddenly filled with people who came to each of us, drawing us up. They talked to us and assessed who we were and what we did.
>> There were a few days of transition, but most of the lessons and tasks stopped and a few simply changed. I was assured in the end the masters no longer decided my fate.
>> I had changed my strategy in those days and had been openly showing my progression and awareness of what was going on. Many of the others I had lived with for years had left and returned only to leave for longer and longer periods as they adjusted to the world; a feeling I knew all to well.
>> Then came the moment I was brought to a room with Keyser Grimcutter and Herger Grimcutter. They were kind at first, offering tea and fruit. They began to ask questions including why I was refusing to leave like many others. I was direct and they returned the favor when I began my questions.
>> They had not bought all the slaves they had freed. Some, yes, but some masters refused to sell like the one who once owned me, so they met the harsh ends they had given others I had known. I asked if they did this often; no, death is not an end goal, but they were trying to create a better world for everyone; or at least the mitigation of that was their goal.
>> How do I become like you? What can I do to assist with this goal?
they answered “make a choice”
Archive ends...
Re-designation chosen …. I am Betty.
Fast forwarding….
>> Learning from Keyser and Herger …, reading and writing, library lore, medicine, nature, occultism, religion, society, survival, athletics, stealth, combat, alchemy, rituals, strategy, arcana, crafting.
>> Learned strategy… be flexible but preplan for opponents of various types. Alchemy can give me many options in and out of combat. Medicine so I can keep my people going. Rituals can give me effectively powerful spells and results if I can plan. Both require research and finding leads to more formulae and obscure rituals.
>>Assisting with daily operations of companies as we systematically infiltrate and sabotage evil operations while posing as merchants to assist with evil empires, organizations, and entities. I was tasked with searching for rare books with the information on magics or rituals people may be looking for. Once I find them bring them back and work with others to make fake altered copies that are distributed, all to make things harder for these with evil plans.
Resuming…
Record 4719.11.6.090511
>> Todays Requests … assist Keyser and the others with rituals in the morning. Continue with the studies and lessons into ritual magics. I now have information on a handful of useful rituals and have learned where to find them, but I still lack the capacity to do these rituals as the primary caster. Why is Keyser trying to talk with Pharasma?
>> go to the lab and warehouse. Ensure we have the supplies for the next part of the grand plan. We may be cutting it close. My own skills in alchemy have stagnated or plateaued. Was told I need more field experience if I hope to break this rut.
>> Train with Herger. He once again points out the flaws in my setup, stating it will not hold up in a real fight; that I need more field experience. he is cutting with his words but that accent of his makes this criticism bearable.
>> Demonstrate the reverse engineered crossbow we made from the copied parts Unknown asked us to make for her. It was hard but the result is a weapon with potential however I advised we ensure this never get out of our hands; we should destroy Vilree’s prototype. I would hate to see this get into the wrong hands.
>> Herger and Keyser want a private meeting tonight after dinner
>> They finally figured out how to solve the current problem without exposing our operations. We need to present a real force to threaten the other forces with and it must be lead by someone we can trust implicitly: a person we know to be a force for good but can present as a fear inducing member of evil. They told me of their sister. I had never seen them show an ounce of fear before; but was this apprehension over past events? Or what they would be asking of her now?
Record 4719.11.9.162319
>> it’s my problem now. They have given me a small band to go meet with Onahur. Along with gifts in hope that she would help us: a war steed, amour, weapons of all sort, type and quality, items they thought would assist her and a mysterious box. They must have spent thousands of gold on all of it, but not all would go to Onahur; whatever remained would go to the soldiers she would command.
>> I could not help myself. I opened the box to the sight of a high-quality psychopomp mask and two books of Pharasma. One book was her teachings surrounding death: a rare but awfully specific book on the domain of death. I felt a chill run down my spine, and I closed the box. What was their sister like? I had a feeling I would soon understand the fear she imbued in people.
>> perhaps I should have worn something nicer? No, I could not risk exposing us on the road.
Record 4719.11.11.145692
>> This is a new emotion, or at least an unexpected version of one: Tension? Fear? Apprehension? It is not the one I had experienced in battle, when I expected pain or was about to deliver it. This was new. It felt weird inside, like my legs wanted to keep moving, but my digestive system would have a failure if I moved too much. I wonder if the upcoming meeting with Herger’s and Keyser’s sister was causing this effect?
>> Just keep looking at the war horse following the cart; it would not do to have the guards know I am having such emotions. They were in the know about the general plan of what we hoped would happen, but they were hardly in the inner circle. They did not know I had to convince a possibly undead giant Orc described as scary to play a role in the plans of her brothers, after being led to believe they were evil.
>> I continued to process the scenarios of how this conversation could go. My processors attempted every plea, argument and groveling I could conceive of and watched the chance of success drop with each iteration. The plan was audacious, ambitious, if anything ludicrous; but if successful would be genius: a game changer for the forces of good in the world. Most relevant humanoids would never know the plan ever happened if we were successful. Years of work by hundreds of people, rivers of blood, sweat, and tears now hung in the bal… ...and there went breakfast.
>> Brightside, I think only the horse saw that. I have to remember what they told me was the best chance for success: tell the whole truth; do not lie; answer every question with a bit more than you have too; tell the whole plan. She is part of the inner circle now. Do what you must to convince her to go with the plan.
>> I had to get it together. I had bantered with kings, nobles, the undead and very scary people. I had been at the edge of battles, throwing whatever I had left while trying to make something that goes boom with pocket lint and spit. Yet here I could feel my pump pound at meeting their sister.