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 Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 9:56 am
And History Shall Repeat Itself Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
--Patrick Henry.Story:
The night sky spread out in endless glory above the old man's head. He was a cyborg, with one leg that was replaced with a mechanical sort of peg. His face was ancient, but his blue eyes twinkled brightly as he told his tale to the plantation workers around the fire.
"Many hundreds of years ago, long before the fourth and third world wars, black folk were enslaved by white. Hard to believe, isn't it? We have never known such a time. Fortunately, Slavery was abolished sometime after.
"But history always repeats itself...
"This is the year 2600, and slavery has been reintroduced to this sad world. This time, however, it is not the black people who are enslaved, but the white people. Now we are the ones called coloured, or brancos, or any other rude name referring to our skin colour. No matter what your race: human, vampire, anthro, whatever, it makes no difference. If you are pale of skin, you are a slave.
"Some slaves try to escape, even a few succeed! Other slaves are happy to serve their masters and some of those hate the ones that try to escape. And what of the free Brancos? Why, many of them try to set other slaves free. You would be surprised about the black people as well. There are so many kinds. The cruel, harsh master; the kind, loving master; The unwilling master who will set a slave free; and some who are only there to help abolish slavery once more.
"Well, I have told you all that I know. Oh? You want to hear about me? I was once a slave, too. But now I travel around to plantations and factories and mecha-slums and tell unfortunate souls like you about hope. The hope of freedom, the hope of security. Whatever it is that you are looking for. They call me simply The Old Man. Why? Because I am an old man...and...there was once an old folk-song...sung by the black slaves so long ago...about an old man who spread hope to the sorrowful. Do you want to know the secret to freedom?"
The Old Man Stretched out his wrinkled arms and pointed shakily at the sky. Out here you could still see stars, untouched by the city lights and mecha towns. The star formation that he pointed to was once called the big dipper. Now it was called the Great frying pan.
"Follow the Drinking Gourd!"
Back Info:
The setting is the year 2600, so of course there is a good deal of creative technology. Slave markets are in giant machine controlled warehouses. The cages that the slaves are kept in -sometimes in groups, sometimes individually- can be brought to a bidding area by way of crane machinery. Potential masters can also choose slave by doing a walk-through. It is impossible to escape from the cages because of new technology, and slaves must wear a collar identifying who is their master and what sort of slave they are. The collars can not be taken off by any other means but a special key (which can be stolen). A master will mark a series of colours on a slave's collar for service indication. These colours are:
Green=harvester/field worker/outdoor slave
Blue=Magic aid
Gold=Personal aid
Yellow=Nanny
Orange=House servant
Brown=animal handler/stable hand
Red=cook
Black=Miner
White=Guardian (rare. pre-attatched tag. Please contact me.)
Masters can put more than one colour on a collar.
Also: Slaves can start out in a master's possesion or in the building that will be depicted in my first post. Be creative, I just want everyone to understand what the slave market looks like.
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Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 9:58 am
Profiles:[b]Gaianame:[/b]
[b]Name:[/b]
[b]Age:[/b]
[b]Skin Color:[/b]
[b]Race:[/b]
[b]Bio:[/b]
[b]Appearance:[/b]
[b]Other:[/b]
Black:
White:
Gaianame: Kat Kazetouhi
Name: Tare Silverwing
Age: 17
Skin Color: White
Race: Shade
Bio: Tare is a daring girl with a knack for getting in trouble. She is respectful (usually) and obedient (sometimes). She is strong and compulsive, but also can be very kind and gentle. She feels the need to protect the other slaves, and whoever becomes her master. Total freedom is virtually impossible for a shade, so she does not seek it. Shades are always serving others.
Another thing that she yearns for is to find other Shades. Shades are a dying race, so she has her work cut out for her.
Appearance:
Other: She can heal and use shadows, as well as weave dreams and illusions.
Shades can grow wings of their clans. Tare for instance is from the Falcon Clan, so she has Falcon wings. Each member of a clan has wings of a different breed of their bird. Tare has the wings of a grey Falcon.
Her collar color is set to white, but can also have other colours added.
Gaianame: The Scarlet Woman
Name: Constance Haert
Age: 16
Skin Color: Milk White
Race: Empaths
Bio: Constance is a calm, gentle, caring person. She doesn't mind the slavery as much as the others. But it does hurt her terribly when the other slaves are mistreated around her, because she feels their pain. She is instinctively caring of everyone younger than her, and knows far more than she should for her age.
Appearance:
Other: Her collar colour is yellow, because her kind are instinctively maternal creatures and will defend the young of any species with their lives.
Gaianame: StrawberryGizmo
Name: Wensdae Abbot
Age: 18
Skin Color:White
Race: Oracle
Bio: Wensdae is a rebellious slave (perhaps too rebellious for her own good) that has attempted escape one too many times. Although she is always obedient to her masters, she takes any chances she can at freedom; she is always recaptured because she is too prone to stop and help another slave in need. She longs for a time when slavery is no more. Because of her unconsistent history, many are weary to even bid on her. She has spent the last six months perched aloft in her cage.
Appearance:
Other: Being an Oracle, she is of prophetic opinion and spiritual nature. She is "clairvoyant" and normally has precognition and predictions of what is to come. Though, recently, her visions have become clouded, and her sense of sight blinded. The future is foggy, she says.
She wears gold and blue colors on her collar.
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Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 10:05 am
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Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 10:07 am
First Post (Important! Must Read!): In a huge gray building that billowed black smoke from several smokestacks, there was a cage. Several cages actually. Several hundred to be exact. Some of them could be seen being lifted by an enormous mechanical claw and swinging out of sight into a room on the farthest edge of the building.
In one of the currently stationary cages was a girl with silver hair and grey, mirror-like eyes. The sunlights in the ceiling high above illuminated her pale skin and gave it an odd sort of glow.
Her eyes were distant, staring off into nothing, as if she were remembering better days, or dreaming that the current days were not so grim. She touched one hand to her left ear. Three earrings sported it. They were a mark of her clan. Three silver studs for her, the silverwing.
The other hand rested on the floor of the cell beside her threadbare white dress. It was of simple design, with no sleeves and thin straps that held it up. All the female slave wore these. The males wore plain pants and tunics.
She looked like some sort of angel with her stony grey wings spread behind her. She didn't always have them out, but they were comforting in a way.
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Posted: Sat Feb 16, 2008 8:06 pm
Constance was sitting in the corner of her cage. She was high above the ground and was trying to not think about it. She was terrified of heights. Her obsidian hair shimmered in the darkness and her silver eyes sparkled with unshed tears, as if she were in agony but almost refused to show it. The small black onyx crystal embedded in her wrist since her birth, the one that identified her as an Empath, glimmered in the dull light of the warehouse. She was waiting anxiously for somebody to want an auction, and for this warehouse to be emptied. She'd been in the air so long. She'd been in darkness for too long.
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Posted: Sun Feb 17, 2008 1:22 pm
The silvery girl noticed that the girl the in the cage hanging nearest to her looked very nervous and upset. She crawled closer to the bars in a very graceful set of motions and pressed her between the cool iron. "Hey." She whispered, trying to get the girl's attention. Her wings twitched slightly as she spoke in her velvety voice. "Hey, are you going to be okay?"
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Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 2:41 am
Constance looked up. She blinked slightly. The girl speaking to her had . . . wings? All of a sudden, Constance went pale. Paler than usual, actually. "A-are you an a-a-angel?" she squeaked. Normally she was so calm and collected. But the height and her fear of death collided and caused her voice to rise several octaves. "I'm not dead, am I? I don't want to be dead."
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Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 11:05 am
"No, your not dead. Unfortunately." Wensdae shifts slightly in her cage to face her more recent neighbors. "Death is not a thing to fear in this world, girly. Believe me." She listens to barley audible creak of her swinging cell. "Death is starting to look far more appealing than it used to. After being here as long as me..." The flutter of wings comes from somewhere to her right..
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Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 11:23 am
The winged girl turned her mirror eyes to Wensdae. "Don't give up just yet." She told her in a velvety, musical voice. "There is still hope." She looked at the frightened girl. "It's true, I'm not an angel. I am a guardian, though."
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Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 11:35 am
"You are very brave. But time can wear on you." Wensdae focuses her hearing on the musical voice to the right. "You are...a shade? You have wings, am I right? Describe yourself to me, so that I may see you better as we speak."
She turns her head slightly left."And you, young lady..do not fret. She is right. You wont be here as long as me anyway." Smiles slyly, "Don't let the heights get to you."
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Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 11:46 am
The shade tilted her head thoughfully. "Describe myself? I don't know..I hae Long gray hair, light skin, gray eyes. Right now I am wearing my gray wings. I guess I can just be described as gray." She said, though silver was a better word in all of those cases. "My name is Tare Silverwing. Pleased to meet you. I've been a slave since I was very young, and Being a shade I'm sort of doomed to serve others anyway." She laughed a little to show that she wasn't bitter about this. "It's alright though, I like helping people."
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Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 12:37 pm
"Aah, yes I see you now. Very nice to meet you, Tare Silverwing. I am Wensdae Abbot, an Oracle. I've been up in this thing for the past six months, if I'm counting correctly. Its nice to finally have some company." Wensdae closes her vacant eyes, and leans her head back to rest on her cage. "Gray is too boring for you, by-the-way. Gray is plain, your voice sounds more silvery."
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Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 12:52 pm
Tare blinked, surprised. "I always thought that silver was light and higher than my voice. You really think that I'm silver?" Stupid question. The light that bounced off of her made her practically radiate silver.
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Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 1:32 pm
Wensdae opens her eyes and stares directly at Tare, as if she can truly see whats in front of her. "I may not have any sight, but I that doesn't mean I can't see. And you, my dear, are shining. I can feel it. Never doubt that."
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Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2008 3:52 pm
Constance subsided into silence. She tucked her head into her knees and wrapped her arms around her legs. The height was starting to make her dizzy, and she wanted to succumb to the dazzling lights dotting the edges of her closed eyes.
"Sometimes death is the only escape," she whispered softly to herself, listening to her own voice. It felt soothing, hearing herself talk. It was sort of reaffirming that she was alive, and that she did have the strength to survive, even when things seemed bleak and dull.
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