“Millions of years ago, this here rock was a desert. Some tribes lived there, but our Dark Lord killed ‘em all.” The slavemaster was a werewolf with a fancy beard and mustache. He wore only a pair of shorts which looked suspiciously like denim, and carried a whip. “Then our Dark Lord asked his whore Mother Nature to do ‘im a favor and turn that desert into sandstone. She took her sweet time doing it, but here we are.” He spat onto the ground at his bare feet, a swathe of red and yellow sandstone. After a few seconds, the spit evaporated under the sweltering sun. “Your job, maggots, is to turn this valley back into sand. Anyone have anything to say?” His beady eyes roamed over the twenty newcomers who stood in chains before him, of which I was the smallest by far, and the only non-human. “No questions, then. Smart bastards.” The slavemaster gestured to a squat ogre who stood ready with a sledgehammer. At the slavemaster’s command the ogre walked from one slave to the next, striking the clasps off the chains binding our wrists and ankles, grunting like a pig the whole time.

I rubbed my chafed arms after the heavy chains had fallen, looking around at the slowly-walking slaves all around us. We were in something like the Grand Canyon, and there were tunnels carved all over the place into the walls of the canyon. Slaves walked in with picks and shovels, and staggered out with sacks that leaked fine sand. They poured these into one of three central piles that sat in the middle of the camp. Small tents and awnings dotted the canyon, and under these sat werewolves and ogres, clearly the people in charge around here. My attention was pulled back to the slavemaster as he whistled for another slave to approach and dump picks at our feet.

“This is your pickax,” the slavemaster said. “You only get the one. The Dark Lord is kind enough to credit one experience point a day to your Slave Core. You may spend one point for better food and a tent bed at night. If your pickax breaks, you must spend ten points to get it repaired, unless you somehow find money to pay for it that way.”

An old woman beside me began to raise her hand, but the slavemaster shot her a malevolent glare. “If you have no points when your pickax breaks, you will do the work with your bare hands and whatever hard object you can find lying around.” He paused for a moment. “Oh, and you can spend two thousand experience points to buy your freedom. If you really want to spend five years sleeping outside and eating oatmeal and drinking disgusting water, be my guest.”

He left us, then, and not knowing what else to do, I picked up the tool at my feet. It was very heavy. I jumped as someone tapped me on the shoulder, and held the pick to my chest as I whirled. A huge ogre, the biggest I’d seen in the camp, towered over me. “You new,” he said, and grinned a very green smile. “You my bitch. Come help.” Well, it wasn’t as if I had anything better to do. I trudged after the ogre, and thought back to my ride into the sand mines.

The elephant-vulture man who had let me into the Dark Lord’s castle had also been the one to tend to me after I’d been thrown into the slave cart. He’d brought me a loaf of nasty bread and some warm milk. I was hungry enough by then to wolf it all down without a second thought. The creature—his name was Suuuuur—had also handed me a silver mirror about the size of a playing card. “The Dark Lord tells me your world cannot manifest their Cores,” he’d said. “In our world, each creature is born with a template that connects them to the Other Place.”

“What’s that?” I’d asked.

“It’s the source of all magic and of the metaphysical systems binding together the world. Experience points, instantaneous skill knowledge, that sort of thing.”

I’d taken the mirror in my hand, noting how it was almost weightless. As I’d looked at it, the mirror had melted briefly into my skin before reappearing. A line of text had appeared at the top of it.

HERO Core v4321.61.7.5.34 || Soul-Binding Complete. || Pritchard || Lv 0 Goblin Classless || 0 EXP / 0 GP

Suuuuur had opened his palm, and a similar mirror with copper edges had appeared in his own hand. A line at the top read

SERVANT Core v4664.62.41.12 || Suuuuur || Lv 186 Sa’Kuham Dark Steward || HIDDEN

Suuuuur closed his taloned fist, and the mirror disappeared again. “Nearly all sentient beings are born with either a Common Core or a Monstrous Core, depending on their race’s alignment. In fact, though it’s a closely-kept secret in nearly every Good civilization that nobles and even royalty are born with Common Cores, the same as the basest peasant. The Royal and Noble Cores that give those people their strength and high level caps are treasures kept closely in the respective families.” The Sa’Kuham (I still call him an elephant-vulture though) smiled. “Even your Monstrous Core you were born with as a goblin gives you more innate potential than the Common Core of the king of the humans was born with.”

“What about this Hero Core?” I asked. “Or your Servant Core?” It didn’t make any sense. If what Suuuuur had said was true, this was some kind of treasure the Dark Lord had given a slave he was just sending off to the sand mines.

“My Servant Core allows me a high level cap, but very few combat abilities, and sends a portion of all experience points and money I earn to my patron master.” He shrugged wrinkled shoulders. “I am content with my life. Your Hero Core is one of the most treasured cores of all. You have a relatively low level cap of one hundred, but have access to all the Hero Classes and their abilities. It is said a Hero Core can even be ascended into an Epic Core, though one such as me has no idea how you could go about that.” Suuuuur’s eye gleamed as he leaned in and put his withered beak close to my face. “You’re wondering why you were given it. Are you religious, goblin?”

“My mom’s Catholic, but I bet you don’t have those here.”

“So no, then. My Dark Lord is. Religious, or perhaps superstitious. Fatalistic. My Dark Lord believes you were brought here for a reason, goblin, and that even if he has no use for you, the Universe or God or Fate might. And if it does, nothing my master can do will stop it. In fact, perhaps if he helps open the door a little bit, whatever powerful force this is might bless him a little more.” Suuuuur winked. “Personally, I think it’s a bit silly. But then, I’m not a Dark Lord.” The creature began to walk away, but one more thing was bothering me.

“Suuuuur,” I said. It sounded like I trying to imitate a foghorn. “If you don’t mind me saying, you people aren’t really what I’d expected out of a bunch of, well, evil people. Like, yeah, slaves and all that jazz, and the castle’s impressive and everything, but…” I shrugged. “I don’t see evil people making sure I have dinner or anything.”

The Sa’Kuham paused before answering. “Well. I think ideology is evil. I don’t think people can fall so cleanly into good and evil. I’ve seen good-aligned people do terrible things. I’d like to think even evil creatures can do some good in the world.” His eyes gleamed. “Make no mistake. The Dark Lord is relentless, and ambitious, and will, no doubt, one day rule the entire world. He has no qualms about slaughtering all who stand between him and that goal. But within that space, he is the most honorable and stalwart man I have ever known.” Suuuuur began walking back to the castle again. “Take care, goblin. May we meet again on better terms.”

I didn’t sleep much that night. The next morning, a couple dozen of the slaves from around the castle courtyard were rounded up and shoved into the cart with me. We were all connected with chains on our hands and feet, and then began a two-day journey through a dark forest. Monsters and beasts hissed and roared around us from time to time, but nothing ever showed its face. I was pretty depressed during that ride. It seemed like nothing would ever get better. I didn’t know if it was possible for someone to kill me and take my Hero Core, so I looked at it only when I didn’t think anyone else was awake. Fortunately the other slaves seemed to be trying to cram as much sleep as humanly possible into each minute, so I had a lot of time to look at it.

So, going back to the present. It was nice to be able to stretch my legs, even if that stretching involved hard labor in a scorching canyon with a werewolf slavemaster. Our job involved going deep into one of the tunnels carved into the sandstone and hacking at veins of softer stone so that it disintegrated and fell at our feet. After a couple hours of sweaty, blistering work, I had enough to fill a burlap bag. Then, I followed my ogre buddy (though he said I was his bitch, that really just seemed to involve hacking at the same part of the wall as him) to one of the big piles and emptied it in front of an overseer, who made a little note on a piece of slate. We continued this for hours, until the sun went down. I spent most of that time trying to figure stuff out about the world I was in. One sun, geology and biology that seemed pretty similar to Earth. Fantasy races, magic, a system using the cores that was clearly RPG-like. I’d tried to interact with the Hero Core a bit on my ride in, but was only able to bring up a stat screen.

HERO Core v4321.61.7.5.34 || Pritchard || Lv 0 Goblin Classless || 0 EXP / 0 GP

STR 9 || CON 7 || DEX 12 || INT 14 || WIS 8 || CHA 6 || 0 Attribute Points Available

============Worn Rags (+1 AC)===========

===============Unarmed===============

I wondered how powerful a weapon my pick was, but decided not to try it out on anyone. Aside from the worldbuilding I’d been able to figure out, I learned a bit about my ogre friend and about my work. I was the bitch of Grub, apparently, an ogre who had been enslaved after his tribe had attempted to rebel against the Dark Lord armed only with some warhammers and a stolen cartload of enchanted Elvish cockrings. I’d have given a lot of money to see that fight. Grub had been a slave for three years now, and saved five experience points a week (their day, week, and year system was interestingly similar to ours) toward his freedom. He put one point aside in case he broke his pick (which had happened a couple times, apparently they do just wear out eventually) and spent one every Wednesday (or the equivalent, I won’t bore you with all the date names) on a better dinner and a nicer bed.

Grub showed me the best way to use my pick, how to tell the softer veins of sandstone from the surrounding, harder rock, and how to kick at the sand instead of always using the dingy brooms they give us to sweep the sand up. “Bad for lumbar,” Grub said, pointing at a scrawny old man whose back was decidedly crooked. “Practicing good form important. We do this every day. Little hurts add up.” He made extra care to remind me to listen for the sound of running water. “That not water,” he said. “Soft pockets in rock. Sand goes through cracks and pushes down. Caves in. We die.” I made sure to listen closely all day, but heard nothing.

That night, the slavemaster blew a little flute whistle, and everyone immediately stopped working. I felt a slight tremor in my right wrist, and turned my aching arm to look at it. My Hero Core appeared in my hand.

HERO Core v4321.61.7.5.34 || Pritchard || Lv 0 Goblin Classless || 1 EXP / 0 GP

STR 9 || CON 7 || DEX 12 || INT 14 || WIS 8 || CHA 6 || 0 Attribute Points Available

==============Worn Rags (+1 AC)===============

==Worn Mattock (unskilled, -10 To-Hit, 1d3 Piercing)==

Some of the other new slaves were also looking at their arms, but I didn’t see their cores pop up. I figured you could only see someone else’s core if they explicitly let you, like Suuuuur had. “Awesome,” I said to Grub, who hadn’t even looked at his core. Of course not, he’d been here so long a measly little experience was nothing to him. “My first experience point. I know I should be saving it but I’m starving.”

Grub’s chuckle was wet and hearty. “Only thousand and nine hundred and ninety and nine to go.”

“That’s the spirit,” I replied, and we walked together to the food line, carrying our picks with us. The cook was a werewolf with a giant belly and a stubby nose. I held out my bowl, hungry even for the plop of gruel I saw was coming to each slave, but the cook instead put bread, a carrot, and dried meat on my plate. “Cap’n says welcome to the new bois,” he said, and motioned for me to get on with it.

Grub and I sat with our backs to the canyon wall as we ate. “This isn’t so bad,” I said. “Not for, like, slavery. They don’t even beat us for no reason, and I could get good food and sleep inside every night if I wanted.”

“Mmmhm. Freedom better,” said Grub. He looked up at the sky, where stars were showing themselves in the wake of the setting sun. “Food keeps weak down. People think ‘not so bad,’ and they stay slave forever.” He raised a meaty fist and clenched it, as though taking the sun in his grasp. “One day, I be free. Until then, I work. I eat slop. I stay strong. One day I be free, and return to fight Dark Man, and this time not go slave. Die in fight.”

I looked at Grub in awe. I hadn’t taken him to be a particularly intelligent creature. “I get the freedom thing. Where I come from, we say ‘give me liberty or give me death.’ But why would you just want to go back and die in a fight? What’s the difference between getting your freedom and dying, and dying as a slave?”

Grub looked me in the eye. “Everything.”

We finished our meal in silence, and then we retired. I lay in a tent with about thirty other slaves—all the newcomers were given a free night, and about a dozen more slaves had cashed in their experience point—and Grub slept alone on the top of a huge boulder, pick on his chest, looking up at the open sky. As I drifted to sleep that night, I thought that he looked awfully peaceful.