Note to the Language:

The People in the story don’t speak English, neither any other currently living language, thus if someone says things that you might find sounding weird or wrong, remember that it might be working in their language. For example the rhyme of Qweris which doesn’t rhyme in English  (A man went to the king, he asked for the greatest of powers and the greatest of pleasures, the wineglass fell down, now the man cleans the treasures as a servant).

Further, the Lizard People who call themselves Drs´sesk have a multitude of clicking sounds in their language. In the simplified language, which is also used to communicate with other races, these are often reduced to the amount that can be emulated by the race in question. 
In case of Elven and Humans only three clearly distinguishable sounds are used. Written, I will display the sound in the throat as ° , the one with the tip of the tongue close to the teeth with ´ and the one with the whole tongue as `.

CHAPTER 1:
I felt something running down my throat when I regained my consciousness. I was too weak to move and my senses seemed distant. I tried to open my eyes, but they were crusted and dry and even when I managed to open them, all I saw was a blurred mess of colours. My whole body felt similar, but the worst was my throat and my mouth. My lips were dry and numb; my tongue was lying dry and sticky in my mouth and my throat hurt every time I swallowed.  I continued drinking the liquid that was poured into my mouth for it promised a recover and end to the pain without the necessity of death just yet. When the bowl was empty, someone to my right refilled it again before it was handed to me anew. After I drank half of the second bowl, I grabbed the bowl of liquid and tried pouring it into my mouth. Unfortunately I neglected the influence of physics in my haste and literally poured it over my face rather than into my mouth. It wasn’t that bad since it allowed my head to feel refreshed but I heard amused sounds from around me and someone said: “Be careful! Otherwise you might drown yourself in the middle of the dessert with the tea that is supposed to safe your life!”

It sounded to me like from far away and the outlandish dialect of the person speaking to me didn’t make it easier to understand. At the time, I didn’t grasp the sentence. It was just some sounds I knew. When I sat up a little and took the refilled bowl to my mouth to finally quench more of my thirst, I noticed the smell and taste of the liquid. It seemed to rejuvenate me all by itself and I managed to recognise it as peppermint. It sounds weird, especially regarding the situation I was in, but I was delighted on a ridiculous level that it was peppermint. That’s my favourite tea flavour, you know?

A few bowls of tea later, I couldn’t continue drinking for my stomach felt full and it also sounded that way. I placed the bowl somewhere to my side and pushed myself with all the power I had up onto the wall, so I could finally sit properly and relax.
Relaxing, listening to my heartbeat, to my breathing. I heard voices around me and I could still feel the void and its promising peace behind my mind, which was about to start working again, slowly that was. It all felt surprisingly usual, as if I was used to feel the void in my consciousness and the one thought arose to me: “I wouldn’t mind to die.”
I felt my thoughts slipping through my mind. I felt my heart beat, knowing that it was going slower and slower, about to end forever. I felt my mind drifting towards the void, the silence and peace of nothing, The feel of nothing being wrong or out of place. The ultimate promise…
Suddenly I felt something on my mind, something holding me. I heard a voice in my mind: “Not yet, hold on. You are alive, as you should be. You are free to go later on if you want to.”
I followed the suggestion. Maybe I obeyed. I don’t know for sure, but there were no thoughts of mine guiding my mind in any one direction, just the luring promise on one side and something or someone on the other.

Then I opened my eyes. I was still sitting on the wall, but now I could see someone’s blurry face close to mine and I could feel someone’s hand on my head. Then I noticed more hands holding me all over the place and worried chatting. The Face in front of me moved and I recognised that the person was speaking, but it took me several more seconds to realise the words of his out of the sounds around me: “… senses. Concentrate on what you hear and feel. What you taste and smell. Your eyes will recover soon, but don’t linger in the void nor linger in the darkness, your thoughts or memories else you will be losing yourself and your life.”

While I blinked and waited for my eyes to recover to a descent feel, I stared right into the scaly face of the person in front of me. He started to talk to me, but I just sat there and listened: ”I am glad that you recover. I was worried about you from the moment we found you in the middle of the desert with no goods and nothing but weapons. I don’t know how you made it that far into the desert like that, but I will make sure that you will get out of it safe and sound. Promise. So what’s your name?”
It took me nearly half a minute to realise what he had just said and weakly uttered a response: “JOSHI.”
I noticed his face deforming itself a little and when I looked around, the others in the room had all different expressions. The only ones I could deceiver were the ones of the human races, the elven looked as if they didn’t even hear anything though. I looked at the lizard-like person, who was still standing above me and asked: “Did I say something weird?”
“Not really”, he responded, “but that is very unlikely. For one, humans have usually at least two names called first name and last name. For two, you are human. And for three, JOSHI is the name of an ancient deity or saint or whatyagonacallit… Think for a second, can you remember anything from before today? Your childhood, work, family, training, hobbies, education, travels, abilities or targets?”
“N…No…”
“Then maybe you remember that name in particularly for it has some important meaning to you. After all, most groups that honour Dragons still have a soft spot for JOSHI, even though he is technically a Drako and not a Dragon.”
“Maybe… But who honours dragons as deities?”
“Somewhat-deities, not deities, there’s an important difference, but to your question on who, there are the elven, although in their no-deities-just-the-void-and-principles-but-honourable-way, a few minor groups of humans in the Republic, some of which are totally crazy and last but not least us Drs’sesk.  The Dwarves and the Taclap on the other hand have a form of despise for Dragons, one of the reasons that the task to keep our trading relations in good shape is more like a war than a negotiation.”
“So, did I worship JOSHI as my deity or something?”
“No, I don’t think so. From what I deduced from your belongings, you in fact admire JOSHI a lot, but worshiped a god named Anubis instead. If my memory serves, he was the god of Death who judged the dead and directed them to the place in the afterlife that belonged to them or fed them to Sobek. Egyptian I think. Widely similar to the God most Drs’sesk worship, you might consider it a possibility, that he is Anubis, just interpreted by us and that it would indeed be legitimate to worship him from now on instead. Further, you indeed seem to have worshiped Dragons as honourable and high creatures of balance.”
“My belongings? Where are they? Why did you search them? What did I have with me? W-”
“Slow, slow, that really has time for later, right now you should relax and sleep, without killing yourself if that’s possible.”


I looked around the people slowly as if one of them might hold the answer to who I was and what had happened to me. My eyes landed on the elven woman and I noticed that she was standing a little bit more aside than the others. I also noticed that she was wearing a leather collar with green runes. I couldn’t see many of the runes, but I could read “to serve and receive” on it. I turned around to the Drs’sesk who was now standing by my side and asked him about the collar and the runes. He answered: “Oh, that? Well, slaves who are traded inter- and nationally and are considered ‘legit’ by the council are often kept in-line by magic collars. Of course these collars are not allowed to temper with the will or actions of a person to not infringe the pure-mind-dictate of the magic association. Therefore I can guarantee that all her actions are indeed her actions, although the things she might do might be orders.”
“Oh… ehm… I didn’t expect you to be a slave-owner. I guess there are people treating slaves decently after all?”
“Indeed there are, but she isn’t my slave. I am not allowed to own a slave.”
“What?”
“You see, slave-traders are not allowed to own slaves themselves. In order to prevent traders to enslave free people against their will, ‘production’ has been forbidden centuries ago. Instead, we have to find people who want to be slaves or people who want to sell slaves they already own. We are aided by the forceful enslavement of very dangerous criminals though. Furthermore, we are free to use our ‘products’ that we sell while we possess them, but only slave-owners have the right to alter a ‘product’ to their wishes. This includes decorative changes, cultural changes and functional changes which may increases the worth of a slave under certain circumstances alike. It would damage our economy significantly if we would be allowed to force every product we get to become a more valuable one. It also wouldn’t help our public perception by making it even less favourable than it already is. It really isn’t so different from other merchant occupations.”
“S… slave-trader? Does that mean you are going to enslave me?”
“Depends on what you would call ‘enslave’. If you mean robbing you of all rights and forcing you into enslavement, no, that would be highly illegal and bad for business. However, you are in a life debt to my caravan, so my caravan gets your belongings, excluding essentials like your clothing and one of the daggers and I can make one suggestion for your future that would aid my caravan.”
“And what should I do? Work for you like a slave without being worth a damn?”
“Of course not, that would be not just vile but also very cruel. I want you to go to the temple of Qweris and get his blessing. The temple is conveniently close to the next city we travel to.”
“This ‘blessing’ will enslave me, right?”
“If you get it… yes, but if not, you will die.”
“WHAT!”
“Listen, it’s not because I don’t want to let you live as a free person, but I have to think of my business and even if not, what should I do? I can’t just let you go; you wouldn’t survive with your memories like this. Without your name or at least knowledge of a past or profession you will not be allowed to pass the guards of any city alive and just taking you with us without you being really worth what you cost in any way will just not do it. As a slave however, I can give you a new name, even officially. I also would have good reason to keep you and you would be allowed to be taken into any city. As the free person you are right now, you have of course the right to ask for a quick and painless death. I actually have a death spell I would like to try on someone since quite a while… should be painless… is in theory at least… better than a dagger or wolves at least, I can guarantee that!”
“Then why rescuing me if you going to kill me anyway?”
“I am only going to kill you, if you chose death above slavery and there was always the chance of you choosing slavery, which would give you a new life and at least a reason to exist and bring me a lot of money.”
“Why do I need the blessing to become a slave?”
“Honestly? You don’t. You can as well take a plain leather collar from our chest and give me all of your rights right away, but considering how you got here and all; the blessing would ease our case on the official side.”