But for a Slime

Chapter One Hundred Twenty Five

Joe woke the next day, a sudden and new brilliant idea popping into his head. With the slave master's villa barred to him, he sought other opportunities and balanced them against what he knew was coming. The idea burned in his thoughts, certainty coming to him. I could do this easly… and save all the kids! Then… Giddy, he began to evaluate what his dreams had offered, calming and going through them carefully. OK. First option was to just wait for the new slaves to come… slave collars come out and that's my chance. Or… but… two! Joe grinned with excitement as he could see freeing himself in only a few days. Grab the collars from other slaves? I take their balls no… wait… I add my four balls and then … steal them for myself? Then free them and take back my four plus all theirs for myself… then add all those balls to mine to free myself.

Joe's thoughts began to spin a thousand ideas and possibilities from this, his grin growing before he grit his teeth. All right… how do I do this… They know… almost immediately… when I add a ball… so, they'd know from others, right? Or… His thoughts bounced. I'd have to gather enough… and the four I had … definitely not enough! I'll need at least double… triple of my collar… proabably? Just to be safe? So I'll need four to match my collar if I have an eight collar… so twelve more to get double… … or twenty more to have triple my collar? That… hmm. That's… a lot… but. Joe pushed that concern for later, going through the process step by step first just to make sure it would be possible. Joe pursed his lips as he continued. And there is some kind of … response too? I was able to push it with my will. That means… my owner… Gunlan… could as well, right? Even the slave master? He seemed to sense it… I guess 'cause Gunlan gave him permission. Would I be fighting two people then? Makes sense… in a horrific way. But… OK.

So then I get enough… and I have to push through Gunlan's and Ily's wills, and I become my own master. OK. Works… I hope? Things seem to be matching… sorta for what I felt as I was wrestling with my own collar. But then… right… let's go through this. So… facts.

Fact one. They know almost immediately. Fact two. I had about half what was on my collar… I think? Not sure… OK. A guess. But… just a guess then. And that didn't budge it at all… or at first, but then it shut me down hard. So… Fact three. My efforts add to it, but that was only to just start making a difference. So… I think we gotta assume, fact four, the owner and boss can also resist… counter my efforts. So… four is not near enough at all! Unless the control is… exponential? But… given how paranoid you'd want to be to keep people under control… have to assume much more needed… double? Triple? Ten times? That… Joe sighed with a grimace. That leads to fact five. There are more than enough balls… seem cheap… cheap enough. So … if it's so easy to get them, gotta make it real tough to 'steal' from another… So… going to have to say matching it is not enough. Pretty good assumption one, going to need at least double or more… save side triple? Joe felt his grimace grow, his hope wilting.

But assume I can get enough. I take the balls from other slaves. Going with assumption one, I need double or triple… and going with triple… I got four free collar balls… I can only work on single collars. Which means I need at least four more to just be on par with what I think my collar is. So… I'd need at least double… but I'm going with triple, right? That's twenty more collar balls… twenty plus people in my room, dump four balls in, steal one slave… The implications left Joe feeling a bit overwhelmed. I'm not getting through twenty people before the guards are on us!

Alright… focus… we can do it on double or triple collar people. Is there… enough? Joe's thoughts wandered then he grimaced as he could only come up with about five or six people in the camp with double or triple collars, including him. Hope regrew but then began to wilt again. OK… that's six people to free… pushing it but maybe do-able? So… two triple and four double… gives me fourteen balls plus my four… I got eighteen. Joe twisted his mouth in frustration. Even if all six are triple collars… that only gives me eighteen more balls plus my four for twenty two. I'm not even triple my own count… and I'm not beating double or triple collars with only four balls. I'm going to have to have two single collars… that gets me to six collars, now I can do the doubles… that gets me to three to one on the doubles… then I'll have my three two one on the triple collars. I need eight people now just to get enough balls to be three to one and work on the double and triple collars… so that might … that's really pushing it. That's… Joe ran the numbers then grimaced again. Only twenty balls total. I'll need four more to be at three to one, that's another four people… I'm back to twelve people. That's… Joe worried at his lip.

Take over a collar.. fight it… take out all the balls… add them all to the next… Joe shook his head with some concern. I don't know if I'm going to have enough time. And what will they do when I free all of them and th…. Oh! That…

A horrific thought came to Joe's mind, and he immediately knew it as truth. That would be… so easy! No slave can free a slave! That's… such an easy flat rule to end any slave uprising… Joe grit his teeth, the realization of that hammering home hard and his welling hope crushed. That would… make too much sense! Then… Options spun through his head, but already Joe could feel the plan beginning to fall apart, leaving him feeling quite a bit less certain.

Then… options… maybe… don't free a slave. Just need a ball… but that means all single collar slaves are now useless to me… even if I could buy the time…and… I only have four balls. Could I overwhelm a three collars with my four? At minimum it's gotta be double, right? Means my only options are double collars as I only have four balls… So… that only gets me one ball. Put my four in, steal the other two, take five out, leave one on so the guy is still technically a slave. But… slave guy's going to know immediately. And now… I don't even have enough people… I'd need… almost twenty people again! Even if I lower my error of margin… and it's double just to overwhelm… and I have eight in my collar… I need twelve more to add to my four. I need twelve double collars crowded in my room. Gotta overwhelm twelve collars…

There's… no way… and if I were running the slave system… no way I'd only set it at double… I'd put in … even ten times, just to be safe! And if none of this works… ten or twenty others stuffed in my tent while I'm desperately trying to put the collars back on and run them back to their tent… This is… do or die… And Joe felt uncertainty swelling greater than his willingness to take a chance. Still, Joe ran the numbers for a bit just to be certain before stopping in disgust when he realized that there weren't even double digits of slaves in the camp with double or larger collars. Joe just didn't have enough, even if he took all the double and triple collar's excess balls, he'd only have seven extra balls, or nine if they all were triple collars. Gives me eleven… or thirteen if I'm lucky, and if I need double… I'm really short… and if this doesn't work out… they'll know immediately… I'm not going to be able to hide this at all… Especially as all those slaves will be mine… their going to know they lost them. Will they know they're mine? Can I even… give them back to the slave master? How do I even… Oh… Can I claim them… for my master like the guards did? But… wouldn't that be Gunlan? That's… Uncertainty grew and with it Joe's growing dislike of this option. This… has to be a last dangerous all or nothing option…

With frustration, Joe set aside that as an option and turned to preparing for the soon to come kid. Time to figure out what to do with the kid… Joe sighed and rose to his thigh stumps, tying on his prosthetics. Time to start the day. After he'd accepted that he wasn't going to be able to get back into the villa, he'd spent pretty much all his time focused on how he would try to save the next kid that would come along.

He'd been stymied at almost every turn, finally having to make a choice to be incredibly cruel to ultimately save the next child. He'd already planned it all, but the hope from finding the collar balls had him thinking he could free himself before the next set of kids came. Now, he knew his chance at freedom would only come the next time the collars were retrieved from the villa, long after the kids had been killed.

And despite his renewed efforts to find another way, he couldn't find any way that might keep the kid safe other than what he'd already planned. It would be cruel; horrific even. But at least the kids would survive. The simple truth was that the collar was insidious and ultimately worked as both a control device and the perfect retrieval system. There were small loopholes that depended on the foolishness of the owner, but for the most part, these were immediately remedied as soon as the slave was seen again by the master. The only successful escape was to never be seen again while also convincing oneself that you could ignore the authority of others.

Given the nature of the society and how ubiquitous it existed within society, comprehension in how slavery and the slave collars worked was embedded in every citizen from birth, even if they weren't slaves themselves. In fact, in acting as a master of a slave and seeing the rules worked against a slave would cause the rules to be even more strictly enforced upon any who would found themselves with a collar on them. A person's or master's own certainty in the rules, authority, and place of a slave in relation to the rest of society would ultimately be used against them when they found themselves collared as well, chained as strongly as their own beliefs since their beliefs were the basis for their own containment.

Joe shivered at the thought of the insidious nature of how the user's own mind trapped them and empowered the collar to control the enslaved. Joe frowned at the thought, then wondered. Then… could I just believe that no one can be my master? Joe's eyebrows furrowed further and he then grimaced. A bit more nuanced than that then… it seems that belief has a huge impact… I know I'm able to straight up ignore other's commands if I believe they don't have authority to, but as soon as Gunlan gave authority to the slave guy who picked me up… Joe's nostrils flared as anger punched through his control. A deep breath and closed eyes returned control to him and he continued his thoughts. So… still anchored in objective facts about who the collar is owned by… at the very least. And the collars react when claimed, so… Joe began to nod. OK. The linchpin would be the claiming then? The objective fact the collar rests it's enforcement against the collared's wishes, but then it … what… reads the mind? Emotions? Something? And then determines restrictions based on the person's thoughts? But…

Joe frowned, gritting teeth. The slave guy who took me from Gunlan… I could resist him until Gunlan gave me to him… so more than emotions… maybe reading key events as well… Joe grimaced and sighed. Not going to know now… and doesn't matter now. Joe stamped his stumps into his prosthetics, wincing a bit at the pain as they settled in place, then marched out of the tent. Right… time to do things.

As he came out of the tent, Joe looked to the left and frowned, finding a guard waiting silently by his side. The man nodded at Joe as he came out then fell in beside and a step behind him. Saying nothing and simply walking along. He moved at Joe's side for a time, snaking through the tents towards the mustering yard. When they passed by the tents and out into the open, the man spoke softly under his breath; a single phrase. Joe didn't understand, nor did he take the chance to try to listen with a change in language skill, but a quick glance up and over his shoulder showed the man looking down with a sad regretful smile before blanking his face and looking up. Joe frowned, confusion flickering across his face before realization hit him. He hid his frustration and returned to his mumbling and distracted behavior while lining up in the mustering yard, a single thought now front and center. Gotta guard now… probably that one guy who narked on me.

He kept his frustration hidden but quickly feared a lot of his plans had to be scrapped and remade, so for the next several weeks, he found himself busy and extremely worried. Tension knotted his stomach almost daily and while he was able to come to another solution rather quickly, worry about being able to duck the guard at the appropriate time removed any rest or relaxation he had. It wasn't until he worried himself sick that he quickly realized he didn't need to change his plans that much. He simply needed to make it past the guards, and he did so easily enough each night. Ironically, it was the scope that proved worrying as he realized that now he had to find a way to feed the kid and get him or her water.

The more he thought about those logistics, the more he realized he wasn't going to be able to deliver such to him. At first, he was rather certain the food, at least, would be easily rectified, but then realized he had to prepare the food. The kid would have no fire with which to cook and water became a special kind of problem.

And so, his days shifted very quickly and he found himself spending a significant amount of his night time in the forests stocking up on meat and what easy vegetation he could find. The vegetation proved the easiest, the berries or vegetables that could be eaten raw washed and slowly filling his inventory. Water and meat, however, required new efforts and he soon had built a small smoking cabin far out in the woods so nothing would get back to the camp. The biggest struggle was building the smoking cabin in such a way as to not allow fire to spread and so Joe found himself sneaking to and stealing from every brazier he could get to, the prepared fuel easier to ignite than full logs. The fire was encased in a tall makeshift stone ring and topped with a poor grate of whatever metal he could find and scavenge from the camp. That added its own drama as the slave master soon had the guards scouring the place for who was stealing all the metal in the area as Joe targeted anything that could be used as a screen.

When he finally got the smoking cabin built, he made it rather too large, but wanted a place to hang his hides as well, hoping to prep them as best he could to hold water, even though he had no certain idea of how to accomplish this. He had some idea, so spent time carefully scraping the hide as clean as possible then hoped drying it in the smoking cabin would be enough.

Finding thread almost crushed Joe until he remembered the pile of cloaks he was sleeping on and he quickly began unwinding one of his cloaks to sew the leather together in his best attempt at a poor water pouch. The needle and keeping the water contained required more carving, the needle proving frustrating but the water spout the much greater challenge as he struggled to make a small wooden donut like shape with a fitted plug which was sewn into the head of the leather pouch. His nights were very busy as he spent significant time and effort to begin preparing smoked jerky and many pouches of water.

A second interesting interlude occurred just before the next set of children came to the camp; he gained a new title in the form of HP Masochist. It popped up after a torture ended and he'd taken a look at things on his status while he waited for his legs to heal. Makes sense… heh… how much HP I've been losing! A quick glance at it showed it was basically the same thing as SP Masochist.