Chapter Text
PROLOGUE
Damaris was a rising star in the adventurer’s guild. She had come to these lands only about a year ago and while people tried to deter her from being a solo adventurer, she had done it anyway. She quickly rose through the ranks to become an S Rank adventurer by her own right. Capable of taking down dragons by herself, a personal goal.
Things had not always been so grandiose for the minotaur though. She started life as a farmer’s daughter, far off south. Her mother was tragically killed when her mom tried to stop a dragon from stealing their cows. After that her father needed help with the farm work. Damaris learned the worth of a hard day's work, and learned much about trade helping her father sell goods, but she knew that life had more to offer her. As soon as she was an adult she had left her family to travel towards the north, where lands were still being tamed and adventurers rose and fell. Along the way she had stopped at any library she could, as well as being of strong body, Damaris wanted to be strong of mind too, and her appetite for learning was insatiable. She read books on economics, societies, styles of governments, monster biology, fighting styles, anything she could get her hands on.
She had traveled by foot for 6 months before she finally reached the edge of civilization. She was just thankful the climate had cooled again. That’s when her stardom truly started. With everything she had learned, plus her naturally stronger body than any of the northern races made her truly a fierce combatant. Whatever she couldn’t beat with brawn alone, she could outwit with her mind. She had even gone back home to kill the dragon who killed her mother. So she quickly climbed the ladder of the Adventurer’s Guild to S Rank, there was barely anyone who didn’t know the name Damaris.
STORY
A dragon’s territory is huge. Depending on the size of the dragon it could be anywhere from a few miles to more than a hundred. Demaris had been tracking a particular dragon for months now. She had headed eastwards from the edge of civilization, she traveled through forests, around a sea, and across mountains. On her journey she had fought drakes, panthers the size of bears, and bears the size of elephants, but the dragon dwarfed them all. The dragon was the size of a galleon, and hide like a fortress. Demaris had been tossed around like a rag doll but she gave as good as she took and after an hours battle that started in the dragon’s lair, it had ended in the middle of the forest with roughly an acre of trees feld. Demaris was badly beaten. She drank her last healing potion which barely healed her massive amount of damage, but stopped the bleeding at least.
She wandered away from the dragon. If she was closer to civilization, cutting it into pieces for parts would net her the fortune of a small country, but she was too far away. The flesh would rot before she got anywhere that could afford to buy them and that wasn’t even factoring how she’d even transport it. She would come back later for a tooth at least to prove she had killed it, but for now, she wanted to get clean.
A few miles away she was finally able to find a stream. She stripped off all her magical equipment and clothes, setting them aside. She resisted the urge to hide her things, she was too far from civilization to worry about anyone finding them anyway. She wandered into the water and began washing off. She was about half clean when she heard her armor clank. Damaris quickly looked to her armor to see a goblin of all things poking her things.
“Hey! Leave my stuff alone!” She yelled gruffly.
The goblin yelped and jumped in surprise, the little thief grabbed Damaris’ dagger and started to run off. She quickly lept out of the small creek and landed in front of the goblin. Damaris was tired from the battle and angry at the tiny burglar. The goblin suddenly made a wide stab at Damaris’ leg, she wasn’t worried though, it was a goblin what could it do? But it was a critical hit as the wide arch of the dagger went and stabbed Damaris in the side of her ankle, severing her achilles heel. She roared as she fell to her knee. The goblin dodged the falling giant and tried to stab Damaris in the chest, but she was too quick and with a mighty punch sent the goblin flying. It crashed into a tree and went limp. Damaris hadn’t meant to kill the small creature, if she was rested and healed she would have been in her right mind.
Then an even smaller goblin ran past Damaris towards the first goblin, crying and began to shake it. That’s when she realized she had just killed a child’s mother.
“I am so sorry little one…” Flashes of her own mother’s death played through Damaris’ mind. She reached a hand out to the child desperate to make things better but not having anything in her possession. Damaris felt the blow to the back of her head, causing her to fall face first into the forest floor. As the world swam in her vision, another goblin child, this one looking older than the first one stepped into view, and brought his club down on her head causing everything to go black.
Damaris wasn’t sure how long she was out, but it was now getting dark. She heard voices all around her, but nothing she understood. She looked towards the voices and saw about a dozen goblins about 10 feet off and seemed to be having an argument. Judging by the finger pointing, she was pretty certain the argument was about her. She tried to move and found herself bound. The ropes must have been enchanted because they wouldn’t break even give her considerable strength. Her struggle caught the attention of the goblins and they all took a step back away from her, at least until they realized she couldn’t break the ropes. One of them gave what sounded like a laugh and said something that relaxed the others considerably. Damaris figured that one must be a magic caster of some sort given its intricately carved wooden staff with inset gem. He must have been the one who used magic to strengthen her bonds. Most of the rest seemed to have been a hunting party given their bows and spears, but there were also two that actually looked… old. Damaris couldn’t remember ever seeing an old goblin, especially ones that given the better quality of their hide clothing and the respect shown to them must mean they were the leaders. Every goblin leader she had seen before was always the strongest and most ruthless.
The mage walked over to him and said something down at her with a commanding voice. Damaris just growled and tried to bite him but he managed to step away.
“ Ta! ” The mage goblin shouted at her.
She felt a tingle around her neck and suddenly felt overwhelming guilt at what she had done. Wait… She tried to look at her neck, which she knew was impossible, but she tried anyway. Had they put her in some sort of slave collar??? She looked around a little and — from her position on the ground — she could only see goblins. Did they have slaves somewhere else? Why would she be separate from their other slaves? Who would they even enslave, this goblin village is way too far from civilization or any other sapient races as far as she knew.
“ Kee… ” The magic goblin said and Damaris’ body froze still. The magic goblin cast a spell and the ropes fell off her body.
“ Gish! ” He commanded, and she was compelled to move into a sitting position.
Most slave collars worked more on intent than actual language, so she didn’t need to understand them to follow their orders. He then said something much longer and more complicated. Even if Damaris knew goblinese, these goblins weren’t talking in any dialect she had heard before, though maybe that’s because the only words she heard goblins use were in the heat of battle. In any case, Damaris just sort of stared at the mage.
“See?” Garris, the goblin mage said as he turned back to the group. “It doesn’t understand language and obeys the beast collar, it is clearly an animal.”
“True,” Tithic, The elder male goblin said, “The beast collars do not work on goblins, but we have never seen anything like this. Though that doesn’t explain the incredible artifacts near the beast when it was caught.”
“The dragon was found dead not too far from where we found the beast.” Mirtith, the lead goblin hunter said. “We know the dragon has… had amazing items like those, perhaps the beast had snuck into the cave and saw shiny things to take?”
“Do you think that maybe…” Vishal, one of the newer hunters said, “that this creature is what killed the dragon?”
The other goblins stared at Vishal for a moment, then to the beast, and back to Vishal before they all started to laugh at him.
“If that thing is what killed the dragon, then how was a child able to knock it out?” Mirtith said as he got his laughter under control.
Vishal’s cheeks flushed.”B-but the items were covered in blood, blood that had not fully dried. She was not bleeding, but the dragon certainly had been from whatever killed it.”
“That still doesn’t explain how a child was able to take it out, Vishal.” Garris said.
Tithic looked to his partner, the female elder Killie. “What are your thoughts?”
Killie studied the beast for a moment. “The creature does look more like us than any beast we’ve seen. Even the apes’ bodies look too different, but the children said she stood up right and punched like a warrior. Even now while she’s watching us, I feel I can sense purpose in those eyes, like she’s trying to figure us out.”
Tithic nodded a little. “I get that feeling too. Though in my younger days I got the same feeling from some birds, the apes, and even wolves.”
“I have too, but not like her.” Killie said. “There is something about how she watches us…”
“So what do we do with it?” Mirtith asked. “It killed Rikkel, leaving her children orphaned.”
“And if you believe it is just an animal,” Killie started, “then it was probably just territorial. She should have left it alone, despite the shiny things near it. If it is an animal it did nothing wrong. On the other hand if it is like us, she was protecting her belongings.”
“In either case,” Tithic said, “I don’t think it deserves death, especially since she is responding to the beast collar. She is large and looks quite strong. Surely we can find use for such a powerful creature.”
“Given that it looks a lot like ,” Mirtith wondered aloud, “I bet it would work well in the farms with the other beasts of burden.”
Tithic nodded. “Very well, Vishal you grew up on a farm, would you take her?”
Mirtith laughed. “You trust the youngling to not be scared of the dragon killer?”
The group had another good laugh at Vishal’s expense.
“With the beast collar working, it doesn’t matter how powerful the dragon killer is, even a young one like Vishal can command it.”
Mirtith chuckled. “Very well, Vishal, take the beast to the farms.”
Vishal walked over to the beast. “Up. Follow.” Vishal knew enough that the beast collar could only convey simple one or two word phrases. The beast stood up on her hind legs just like they did and lumbered behind him. Vishal hadn’t seen the creature standing before, it was easily three times as tall as him.
“I don’t care what they say. I think you killed the dragon. A new creature unlike anything else we’ve ever seen shows up the same day as the dragon dies, and close to the dragon’s corpse too. It’s too big of a coincidence…”
As Damaris followed the young hunter she realized her foot was stiff but must have been healed sometime while she was out or she wouldn’t be able to walk right now. As the young hunter babbled to her, she felt at her neck. There was indeed something there, but it felt like a simple leather strap, not the metal of a slave collar, though these goblins didn’t seem to have metal at all. All their tools seemed to be made of bone or stone. She tried to yank the leather strap off but the collar stopped her with a mental command. It sure acted like a slave collar…
The village itself was much bigger than Damaris would have expected, it was probably more the size of a small town. She did a quick estimate given her knowledge of goblins and societal structures and estimated that there were at least a thousand goblins here. Even if only ten percent of the population were trained hunters or warriors, a hundred plus goblins would eventually wear Damaris down, especially without her magical equipment. Without that she was only about half as strong as she was. This was definitely not what she expected from a goblin town. She had heard that goblins never actually settled down anywhere, that they were nomadic, but the structures were certainly permanent buildings. The town was set in an open valley in the middle of the forest. Near the edge of the village she could even see what looked like farms. Maybe goblins weren’t as terrible as they were made out to be.
Damaris watched as goblins quickly moved out of her way, even trying to hide at the sight of her. Understandable, she was a giant, easily 9’2” tall compared to the 3’ goblins. But before they noticed her, they seemed to be acting just like villagers in any town. Adults going about their chores, children either helping or playing, if the goblins were any of the civilized races, this town would seem completely normal to Damaris. They had to walk clear across the town towards the farms. She looked around examining the farms. They weren’t as efficient as her farm back home as far as planting went. She did see something analogous to sheep, some sort of fat fowl, even a type of pig. But as they travel past them she couldn’t help but start to feel a bit insulted as it became clear which farm was they’re destination. It was a cattle farm. She didn’t recognize the type of bovine, but it clearly was. She wondered how the goblins controlled the large creatures, it’d be like humans herding elephants for gods’ sake.
The young hunter took her onto the cattle farm. Damaris saw clear over the goblin sized farm house and saw a female goblin look up and get startled at the sight of her. But instead of becoming fearful she came around to the front of the house.
“ Gish. ” The young hunter ordered and Damaris found herself sitting back down.
“Young Vishal?” Hixly, the head of the cattle ranch greeting the young hunter.
“Hello Rancher Hixly. This is a bit of an odd request, but this beast killed a villager and has been sentenced to work for its crime.”
“Sentenced? For a beast?”
“There is a debate if the creature is intelligent or not. But Elder Tithic thinks she could make a worthy beast of burden given her size.”
Hixly walked around the beast examining it. “She’s certainly strong, despite the fur I can still see bulk where muscles would be. I see there is a beast collar on her. Such a strange creature to have the body shape of us but still look like a cow. Well I’m sure I can find use for such an animal.”
Damaris wanted to run, wanted to punch one of the goblins, wanted to rip off this damned collar, but unfortunately any time she had those kinds of thoughts, the collar evened out her emotions and suppressed the urges. The blasted thing was making her docile! So docile that she was just given to a cattle rancher just because a minotaur happened to look vaguely like a bull. But she couldn’t really argue. Damaris had seen only a handful of minotaurs since she came up north and if the civilized people barely knew about minotaurs what hope did these isolated goblins have to know what she was.
‘Wait, am I dismissing this because of the damned collar?!’ Damaris thought angrily, but her fury was quickly expunged by the collar. ‘Yeah, probably…’
“ Kiken. ” The rancher said, compelling Damaris to follow.
They went into what was effectively a barn and after some prodding and orders the rancher eventually coaxed Damaris onto her hands and knees. She really wished they had at least given her clothes back.
“ Lins! Lins! Oos lins. Oos. ”
Lins didn’t seem to be a command the collar knew, but ‘oos’ was making Damaris feel proud and accomplished.
“ Ya .” The rancher ordered and Damaris suddenly felt like she was too low so she stood up.
“ Oos! Geen! Oos Geen! ” Again Geen didn’t seem to be a command the collar knew.
After repeating the two words a few more times and gesturing, Damaris started to realize ‘lins’ meant for her to go down on all fours, and ‘geen’ meant stand up.
“This is utterly humiliating, you know.”
“ Ta cree! Gan Oom! ”
She suddenly felt immense shame about talking and wanted to tell the woman off but couldn’t manage to say anything else. The rancher then walked to Damaris' side and feeling even more humiliated than before, the rancher started to fondle her breast! Damaris tried to muster every ounce of anger and outrage she possibly could but the collar calmed her down just as fast. When the rancher found her nipple and pulled, Damaris’ hands dug into the ground beneath her. Not just because of the further attempts at rage, but also because her nipples had always been so sensitive and she hated that it felt kind of good in this embarrassing moment. The rancher did a messaging tug that Damaris’ knew immediately as the same kind of pull she would do when milking cows. She tried so hard but couldn’t help but give a sigh of pleasure. Apparently the collar didn’t care about squashing positive emotions at all. Just when she was starting to get used to the sensation the rancher stopped and seemed disappointed, clearing having hoped milk would have squirted out.
“ Kee. ” The rancher commanded and again Damaris’ body seized up. She figured ‘kee’ must mean something similar to ‘stay’. The rancher walked off and started a fire in a pit not too far away before walking off. She came back in a short order with a large dagger or small sword that looked like it used to be some animal’s tooth. Damaris looked at her worried what the rancher would do with a dagger that size, but the collar kept tempering her fear, filling her with a sense that everything would be fine. That's when the rancher took a hold of one of Damaris’ horns.
‘No no no!’ Damaris screamed in her mind. A minotaur’s horns were a mark of pride, a status marker. Minotaur’s with broken horns were seen as foolish, but those who had their horns cut off were seen as pathetic, unworthy creatures. In minotaur society, they didn’t even cut off the horns of criminals! It didn’t matter though, no matter how much anger or rage or wanting to rip the limbs off the woman one by one, the collar tempered all the feeling and kept her body still as the rancher slowly sawed off each of her horns. Damaris felt utterly broken, could she even go back to civilization now? How would anyone respect a minotaur who let their horns be removed. While she looked down at the ground wanting to cry, Damaris didn’t see the goblin pull on a thick leather glove and remove an intricately carved stone from the fire pit. Then the smell of burning leather hit her nose and she quickly looked back in time for the goblin to shove the stone against her right flank. The conflict of pain and the collar trying to sooth her made her dizzy until the stone was removed and water poured over her rear end. She had just been branded. Her horns were removed and she was branded! That was it, she knew then that she could never go back to civilization.
“ Oos oom, oos. ” The rancher cooed and gently pet Damaris’ shoulder and side and all of her hatred and anger vanished from the soothing words, the damned collar even dared to make her feel proud for what had just happened to her. Once the rancher was satisfied with her calming words, she pointed to a stall.
“ Ti lins. ”
Damaris crawled into the stall and lay down in the hay. The rancher spread a salve on the fresh brand before she tied a rope around Damaris’ neck and tied off the other to a pole and then just left. Damaris wanted to pull the rope off her neck and run for it, but no matter how hard she tried to summon the wherewithal, the collar continued to quell the urges.