Delphney's Gambit Chapter 1

         Delphney finally fell asleep after a long day. She woke immediately in a place, unlike the soft plush comforter where she had laid only moments ago. In a wheat field, it was morning and the star was orange. "What the..." This was certainly not Earth. She had to be dreaming. Still dressed in her loose-fitting pajamas, she felt exposed. The wind swayed the light yellow wheat next to her and for a brief moment, she was at peace. A mounted man rode up next to her along a road that was all but hidden until now. He spoke in a language that she didn't understand. He was dark-skinned and dismounted with a scowl. "Look I don't understand who you are or what you want?" He didn't respond but kept his furrowed brows. She resisted when he grasped her wrist to turn it over. He spoke a bit that sounded like a question. "I don't know what you're saying." His grip was tight and she tried to get away. He pulled something out in the tussle. That was when everything went black. He must have knocked her unconscious.

         She woke up with pain on her forehead and especially on her arm. She was still in her pajamas but they were damp from the humidity of the room she was in. The sounds slowly returned to her as her vision did. There were various sounds she could identify, moaning, chatter, and the sounds of screams. Those people were not human. She started to breathe heavier. Panic was starting to come in and eventually a full-blown panic attack. People were having sex with these various humans, most were humans. Occasionally she saw what looked like...oh what were they called. The blow to her head had made it difficult to think. They had long ears and lanky bones. It didn't matter. Looking down she saw her arm there was a tattoo-like shape on her forearm right below her wrist. It was a letter similar to S with a smaller letter similar to the letter D. What is all of this? She inspected her surroundings a bit more a found that she was in a large metal cage with a padlock on the exit.
         There was a large ogre who was raping a young blonde woman. The girth of the ogre was too large for her and each time the pendulum swung new blood spurt onto the floor. The sight made Delphney almost vomit but there wasn't anything in her stomach. When had she last eaten? She moved to sit up and looked over at the different men. She decided they must be slavers, or perhaps masters who would pay for her. I need to get out of here but I'm not really in the best situation. Those men had swords, daggers, shields, some even wore armor. There were guards at the exits too which she eyed. A fat auctioneer was currently selling a happy-looking woman with nothing but a collar on. She was baffled by this sight. How could she be happy? Her eyes narrowed on her arm for a brief moment and could have sworn she saw the same black tattoo on her arm but something was off about it.
         A shock of vertigo hit her once and before she got a chance to look at what was going on her eye-level with the auction house was rising. She was being lifted off of the ground, someone, someone strong enough, was picking up the entire metal cage with her in it. This sent her into another panic attack as surely there was little she could do with her small frame against someone that strong. She peered behind her to only see the torso of the person holding her. It took up her entire bar length. Was this person taking her and what was he going to do to her. A strong fight instinct went through her thought pattern and she attacked the man at where she thought his heart would be. Punching him but hurting her fist more than actually feeling like she impacted the green flesh.
         He was carrying her outside. It was darker than before. The alien star was setting against the purple backdrop. A pair of moons hung in the sky waiting for their time to shine. Her cage was dropped on a carriage where two other slaves were being held. She immediately recognized the marks on their arms and it was dawning on her what they were. They were brands. She had been branded a slave. It didn't feel like a molten brand though. Why was one of them different than hers? It looked like a C instead of a D on one of theirs. "Do you speak English?" She asked but neither one of them responded to her they just spoke quietly with one another in a different language. They were barely clothed, just like her. Still in her pajamas though and was thankful they had not taken that from her. She would have to wait for her chance to escape.
         She had no idea where the three men were taking her and the other two but the horses seemed scared. If there were humans here surely one of them spoke English, she would have to find them and ask them about how she might get back home. Time flew by on the carriage ride and she grew tired and eventually sleepy. When she woke she was back in her bed. Sitting up she looked around a bit and sighed at the feeling it had all been a dream, looking down at her arm she noticed the tattoo was still there. It faded slowly into her normal light brown skin. The image of it being there even for a second started her heartbeat up again. It was morning and she would need to get ready for the day. The school was boring but at least she wasn't a slave-like in her very vivid dream. It had to be a dream right?
         There was a friend of hers that was older than her. He was a juvenile delinquent she had met at summer school when she was there for acceleration and he was there for credit recovery. He had been taken away by a policeman that day. She didn't know why but something felt off about seeing him being carried away. He wasn't necessarily a bad dude he just had a bad home and was lashing out violently. That night, she thought, she would pray for him. She looked to her bed as a double-edged sword that night. She looked like a summer Olympic silver-medal gymnast as she finished her prayer and got into her pajamas and ready for bed.
         Her eyes stayed open for a while wondering if she would see some sort of transition. She was wrong it was almost like she forgot what she was doing for a while, things went black while her brain shut down this side of her and she groaned upon waking up in the snow. Was it winter when she went down last night? She pushed herself up and something small fell on her. It was wet but warm. Looking up she could see a slain man atop of her cage his throat was removed, or perhaps torn. There were grotesque sounds coming from somewhere. Looking around she could see that she was still in her pajamas, the carriage was turned over and there were two dead horses she could spot but where the other two went she wasn't sure.
         One of the cages had a woman cowering next to some broken wood. Her shoulder look dislocated and she spoke softly towards her. Her words made little sense to her and so Delphney just mimed that she didn't understand and hoped that the same gesture worked here. The young woman just made the face and posture of a wolf briefly before bear crawling over to her cage. She got up on her legs and reached over the cage to the man. The young woman's clothes were separated into two parts one was that of a raggedy blouse and the other a pair of thigh-length shorts. Delphney couldn't help but look at the woman's stomach since it was revealed from the reach she was trying. She wasn't muscular but lean and Delphney could see her ribcage.
         A growling could be heard from somewhere she couldn't pinpoint. The rummaging through the man wasn't quiet especially now that she had found the keys to Delphney's cage. The lock was starting to be unlocked when the lycan made it's presence known now. The woman had unlocked her cage finally but not before she was gored and torn asunder by the lycan. Delphney couldn't help but look as the woman was torn apart. The lycan was going for her intestines and liver especially. It was intelligent, straining out whatever bile was in the intestines before devouring it. The thought sent a shiver down Delphney's spine before panic started to ensue. Should she open the cage and run? No, the lycan would surely hear and chase her down. Her only hope was to lock the cage again and pray
         She tried to calm down. Perhaps pretending she was dead would make this monster go away. His hair was light brown and spikey like it had been rolled around in mud or oil. The snow falling in it gave little sparkles where the light of the moon reflected. She felt someone else there before she could actually see the man. He was tall and young-looking. He wore a long dark red with a green and gold edge. There was a sheath at his side that looked sleek and slender. He drew the sword and the lycan immediately started to back off. Did he have a silver sword? That's what lycans were weak to right? Maybe this folklore of her world was similar to this one? The lycan fled the scene and the man had his sword back in its sheath before she could even look back to watch him do that.
         The man approached her slowly. He was handsome, he was tall, he was...wait that's Jacen. The juvenile delinquent from her high school. He looked older wearing these clothes but no mistaking it. It was Jacen alright. He spoke to her. "Did he cut you at all? Speak slave." Did he just call me a slave? Wait, I understood him. He's speaking English. Finally! Someone who could understand her. "Y-Yes! I mean, no he didn't cut me, not that I'm aware of." She opened the cage and had to remove the man on top of it before she could climb all the way out. Jacen had a mysterious and stoic nature to himself in this real and she wondered why he was able to understand while no one else spoke English.
         "How is it that you are able to speak English and no one else?" He cut off the end of her sentence before she was really able to finish. "Mind your tongue slave and speak only when spoken to, didn't your master teach you..." he trailed off as he realized something about her. She was angry but she couldn't help see what he was looking at. He was looking at her tattoo. She wanted to ask about the tattoo, but anger was something she was able to control. He would have that control over her. To be made angry so quickly when it was he who had saved her. Her emotions were conflicted drastically. "It's time we take you back to the auction house. With your master dead you would be classified as a runaway." She started to breathe heavier and panic started to rise once more. "Don't, I could just disappear and you could claim I died."
         He hated repeating himself and so he decided to say this in a different way. "You are a D-tier slave which means you don't know any better so I will ignore your disrespect for the time being. If you disappear when they run the slave scry you will be identified as alive and hunted. I will be questioned and found to be telling a lie and then my lordship will be in question. I think it would be best for you to return with me." She thought on what he said for a moment before coming to the memory of that ogre how he had dislocated her legs to force his way into her and how she was being ripped apart by it. "I can go back. I'll die. Please, there has to be another way." He looked to her as he went through some of items not finding much of value but a fabric that he gave to her. "Put this on, it's cold."
         She was reluctant to do anything this man said but he was her best bet to survive. He had shown her some kindness by scaring off that lycan and from the looks of him, he wasn't going to harm her in this state. Perhaps there was some rule about harming another person's slave regardless of the master being alive. Maybe he would get a reward if he returned her unharmed. Maybe he was just kind? "Can you at least tell me what's a D-tier slave?" she asked. "Come we can talk about it as I escort you back," he said. She gritted her teeth and said, "Thank you." The walk was gonna be long at least she was getting some information out of him. That was when it dawned on her, he was the only person who spoke English that she knew so far.
         He explained as if it was common information. "A D-tier slave is usually a new slave or defiant one. It would automatically change to C-tier upon routine obedience. I'm guessing your parents didn't explain this to you when you were sold off. Or were you forced?" She wasn't sure if she should reveal the information that she wasn't from this world, perhaps he would think that she was crazy. "It wasn't my idea." He didn't think that was an answer but it didn't matter at this point. "The language is called Cymmon," she blinked a few times at his statement then it dawned on her that he was answering the question she had asked a while back. He wasn't looking at her while they were walking. She found this off-putting.
         "Did you see where the third slave went to?" he asked. She wasn't thinking about that but that was where his thoughts were. What was the benefit for him to return her to the slave market? Was he going to take the other slave back too? Did he work for them? Something was off about him. Her mind finally came up with an answer for him. "I didn't see her but she couldn't have gotten far since it's snowing." That was when she noticed that he had been tracking the footsteps of the other slave. He took the two of them off the road and down following the tracks. The sound of running water could be heard. Shouldn't it be frozen over? Goosebumps were spotting her skin all over and little tents formed against her pajamas at the centers of her breasts.
         The woman was there bathing in the clear blue water. How was she not freezing herself solid? As they approached it became more obvious that it was a hot spring from the steam in the surrounding area. She was nude and didn't hide the fact either. Her bronze hair was frizzy and way too curly for her tastes. She was lean and malnourished. Her skin was black in some areas and purple in others. Probably bruises, she assumed. She spoke and language that wasn't Cymmon and so Delphney was oblivious to the conversation. He responded and the slave nodded before getting out and clothing herself. She bowed before him and his hand moved over her wrist. She said some words and a glow came about her wrist before something changed and she was standing again. "Come, we should get you back to the auction." He said to Delphney.
         She was cautious about what she wanted to ask him. He had already been upset with her for speaking without permission. Perhaps she could figure this out without having to ask. The man grabbed her wrist, some sort of magic happened from the arcana that burst from his hand. She nodded and then stood up to follow him. He said specifically that he should get just me back to the auction. Why not the both of us? What was the reason for touching her wrist? She looked down at her wrist and saw the tattoo. She figured it out. The woman was sort of down-looking, her hands placed neatly in front of her as they walked. She had given herself over to him. But why? The market did have horribly people there. The other slave knew more about what to expect than she did. Perhaps she should follow suit. "Um, Sir? May I do whatever this other slave did too?"
         He paused, only for a moment, to stand and look at her. He wasn't looking her up and down like she expected it was more like he was actively listening to her. His voice came out before she could see his lips move. Her eyes fixated on his pale blue ones. He had to repeat himself because she didn't hear him or didn't respond the first time. "Do you understand what the other slave did?" He said while she looked down. Her response was enough for him and so he followed up with, "It means you're willing your ownership over to me due to the death of your master." The other slave looked at her and tilted her head. She obviously didn't speak the language. Delphney contemplated the idea for a while. She could tell he was getting impatient. She nodded finally. "Yes, sir," she added at the end only because she didn't want this newfound relationship to start sour.
         With the ritual over she looked at her tattoo. It glimmered in a way unlike she had seen before. Magic was something that still baffled her. How was any of this normal? Everyone just acted like this was casual. His hand was so much warmer than expected from the cold winter surroundings. What was he in this realm? She couldn't help but see the eighteen-year-old, but here he looked so much wiser and older. He acted older too. She was his now and she didn't know what all that entailed. He seemed powerful and that sword of his had a feeling of nobility. Now with the need to go to the auction house over and unnecessary, the three of them went to a location he desired. There was a horse he eventually led them to. He mounted with ease and experience before galloping slowly so that they could keep up with him. She contemplated making a run for it but figured she wouldn't get far in the cold and still in her pajamas.
         She was so out of shape. Her calves burned by the time they had made it to his...castle. What on Earth is this young man? How is this his home? Is it his parents? The horse was taken to a stable. There were three other horses inside all of which were reddish blonde. She really wanted to go inspect and see the horses up close but that probably wasn't in the cards right now. The door seemed heavy as he pulled it open and the cold air rushed in and mixed with the smoldering air of the post fireplace den. Her body needed the warmth and so her intention to get in there faster was obvious to only him. She didn't even know his name in this place. She wanted to call him Jacen but wasn't sure if he went by that here. The other slave stood at the door while Delphney walked right in. He was looking at her, "Propper etiquette is to request to enter." She sort of blushed but then realized what she was doing. Why should she be embarrassed, she should be resentful for being his slave.
         The large entryway had a red and gold rug that covered most of the stone floor. A large pill-shaped low-lying table was surrounded by what looked like leather-based furniture. A section away was a large fireplace and two rectangular plaid windows that went up at least twenty feet. A small staircase extended from one side of the room to the other that increased the height of the room as it went into a commonplace where she could see twin half spiral staircases leading upwards and perhaps downwards as well. It was massive and this was only a fraction of the castle. She looked to him and then to the door where the other salve was. She went to her and turned to look at her new master. "You may enter," he motioned towards the other slave. This disappointed her. She pouted in the cold as he approached her.
         The wind wrapped around her hair and forced it into her face before she combed it back behind her ear. He spoke to her, "You are new to this permanent profession. If you hope to make it to C or even B tier you will need to learn proper etiquette." She frowned and pursed her lips tightly in defiance and wanting to speak out. "I don't even know what that means, but I think being here with you is better than being taken by those ogres in the auction house." Jacen narrowed his eyes and looked to her wrist and then back to her. "Come inside. If you don't know about tiers then you probably haven't spent your experience." Her neck stiffened as she walked in, confused and perplexed by the choice of words. "Experience? What is this a video game?" She said. He looked to her with furrowed brows. He didn't answer the question.
         He started to explain once they were in the main foyer. The other slave quiet and with her hands between her legs, waiting patiently and politely. "A D-tier slave like yourself will become a C-tier once you are reliably obedient. Look at this slave. She is working her way towards C and will be there in a few days at most if she keeps this up. Once she gets there she will earn another eight experience points and would probably spend those points to either increase her charisma or perhaps extend her youth. I haven't asked her if she spent her points yet or not. Look at your wrist, hold it with your index and thumb at once. Then slide your thumb off of it upwards and you'll see what you can spend your points on and how much they cost. You shouldn't be able to afford eternal youth just yet but if you wait until C-tier you probably will."
         This was too unreal. She mentally shook her head at the idea that this was more and more like a video game than real life. She was starting to feel more at home here though. Starting to believe more that this was real and her normal life which felt so bland was just a dream. She pressed her index and thumb to her tattoo that still taunted her with the D-tier. Then extended her thumb up like a phone swipe and a screen appeared as if it was a digital projection. It moved as her hand did before she started to read it. Name: Delphney Springwood, Age: 18 years, Gender: Female, Orientation: 75% Straight, Experience: 8 points, Potential: 87, Unlock, More Details unlocked at C-tier. She blinked a few times out of pure amazement. It was so similar to a video game. She clicked on the unlock button and a sub-window popped open.
         There were a few options. She could increase her strength and dexterity. Things like that. The one that seemed interesting was her charisma. Then there were features she was curious about. She could change her gender, increase pheromones, alter areolas, duplicate self, increase sensitivity and lengthen orgasm. There were others but those were the ones she noticed first. What was increase fluids? She wondered. Looking to her master she asked. "May I ask a question?" He nodded and motioned his hand for her to speak. "What would you want me to spend my points on?"