Context: The following tale is a form of ancestor worship amongst the nomadic firryans of Foregone, and the firryan diaspora community on the world Relgan. It took place around 85 BP.
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Bring out the next item! You’ve all no doubt heard the stories, they’re all the rage here in Foregone. A man of brutal cunning, a man of resourcefulness, a warrior that not only evaded a dozen capture teams, but who ambushed and slaughtered every hunter in two of them! It’s Chirraga the Javelin!”
The auctioneer gestured to stage left, and a man was brought out in chains. Tall, chin held high, and deep purple bruises interspersed between the jagged, sharp black tattoos that lined his body. As a firryan, the skin around his wrists, neck, and ankles were colored a steel grey, mimicking the chains which bound him, while the rest of his bare flesh and hair reflected the same brown as the wooden stage.
The men and women in the audience, citizens of the many nations on the neighboring planet of Relgan, gasped and gawked at the physique of the man on display. Athletic, toned, not a single ounce of bodyfat or wasted muscle. His entire body was chiseled for the express purpose of lobbing javelins at pursuing capture teams.
The story of Chirraga the Javelin started spreading through the city of Foregone three years prior. The cosmopolitan firryans who made up the slave-hunting teams were quick to embellish these stories to their relgi clients, hoping the prestige of buying a famous firryan would boost their value at the auctions.
“Born twenty years ago,” the firryan man running the auction said, “Chirraga saw much of his clan rounded up by capture teams when he was a young boy, and vowed revenge. He escaped deep into the red forests that dominate the region south of the city, then spent the next twelve years honing his body to perfect the javelin throw. For years, capture teams would occasionally discover abandoned camps in that forest, with man-sized targets carved into the red bark of the trees. Without fail, half a dozen spears were always stuck right where the heart would be.”
Chirraga couldn’t help but smile at that.
“He’s smiling?” A man in the audience asked.
“Does he not know the position he’s in?”
“I don’t think he cares much.”
“What a wild man. I don’t know what use I could have for him, but I want him nevertheless.”
The auctioneer slapped Chirraga’s tight chest, wiping the smile from his face and inviting a calculating glare. “Three years ago, he finally grew satisfied with his skills, then began his one-man campaign of terror against our capture teams. Stalking the forests, disregarding the dangers, he bravely, or perhaps foolishly, confronted our teams armed with nothing but a bundle of sharpened sticks tied to his back! He’d launch one, two, all the javelins he had before he even thought about retreating deep into the forests. As you can tell from his developed legs, he’s quite the runner. Not only did he almost always kill the first hunter he ambushed with a well-placed shot to the chest, back, or skull, but he kept dozens of other of his kind, the savage nomadic firryans, from being rescued by our capture teams. This was, of course, until he got greedy and attempted to ambush a caravan which held an entire clan of savages in open cages. He attacked, managing to hit the driver of the first carriage with such force that the javelin went in one shoulder and out the other. But as he stood his ground to throw the rest of his weapons, he didn’t notice one of our heroic hunters had circled around to tackle him from the side.”
“Tch,” Chirraga glanced away.
“With his legendary record in mind; dozens of hunters killed and nearly twice as many savages escaped due to his actions, we should start the bidding at a modest 23,000 rigetti.”
A man shot his hand up, “24,000!”
A woman followed, “26,000!”
“27!”
The price rose higher and higher, and Chirraga couldn’t help but straighten his back when faced with his increasing value. He stood so proud in fact that, were it not for the chains, you’d never guess he was being auctioned off as a slave.
“32,000 rigetti!”
The auctioneer rolled his eyes, circling around Chirraga, “come on, just 32 thousand? Think of all the people he’s killed. Think of all the safety measures you’d have to enact to keep a dangerous beast like him sedated in your home. Do you want to send him to fight in the arenas? Do you want to show him off as a conversational piece at your next gathering?” The auctioneer grabbed Chirraga’s square jaw, turning his head left and right to the crowd. “No matter what you goal, Chirraga the Javelin can-“
“Argh!” Chirraga yanked his head back, mouth open, then jolted his neck forward, locking his jaw down around three of the auctioneer’s fingers. Biting through the knuckles in a single clean tear, he turned his head and spat the bloody appendages out before the auctioneer even had a chance to notice the pain.
The firryan looked at his hand for a moment, the auction hall silent save for the gushing blood that splattered the wood stage. “M-my… my ha-aa-AAAAH!” The auctioneer’s eyes went wide as the agony finally hit his brain, and he crumbled to the floor, screaming.
The audience gasped in horror.
“He’s an animal!”
“I didn’t even know you could bite through bones like that.”
“I-I think I’m going to be sick…”
With a bloody, self-satisfied smirk plastered across his face, Chirraga looked down his nose at the auctioneer. The man cried, and desperately crawled through his blood to collect his severed fingers. He slipped twice, and his skin started turning red to blend with the growing puddle.
Chirraga the Chomp ended up being sold for 113,000 rigetti, the highest any slave had been sold for in over a decade. During his many years of enslavement, he made 14 escape attempts and killed 42 relgi.