During our stablemaster study, we attempted several times to communicate with the stablemasters, but they all only understood a few words we spoke (a simple quiz involving a few super-easy questions yielded a failing score of 38% 1.5 / 4).
We gave him 1 point for answering his name correctly (even though the question is arguably worth less than 1 point since we gave him the answer inside the question) and 1/2 a point for answering the question "Who is Lord British" with the correct answer for the question "Where is Lord British". The fact that they could even respond about Lord British while practically being ignorant of all else supports the fact that (as will be described) these poor stablemasters have been cursed by him to be his slaves.
Almost all the stablemasters were alike in this regard... all, that is, except Bambi, the Skara Brae stablemaster. There was something different about her.
Not long before attempting these stablemaster observations, the bazookas had observed the Urk invasion of Skara Brae with great interest. We knew that it was a step in the right direction for the safety of Britannia. But we also noticed somebody missing... Bambi! She had left her stable!
We didn't think much of it at the time, considering that we had not yet conceived of stablemaster kidnapping (but, when we found out that the stabled dragons escaped from that stable while she was away, the idea came quickly). Furthermore, our historical record of Britannia (which was analyzed several times) contained precious little regarding the dedication of these stablemasters, and based on our available data at the time of our initial determination of the tamer threat, we believed simple kidnapping to be the optimal approach.
HOWEVER, when we discovered the amazing dedication of the stablemasters (with our Arlin experience and observations), we were exceedingly surprised by the fact that Bambi had left.
... and she left for such a pathetic reason, considering she is more powerful than all the orcs, balrons, dragons, etc. in Britannia combined (a snap-shot demonstration of stablemaster power pulled from the historical archives of the shard--the record can be found here):
In any case, Bambi was different from the rest. Furthermore, after returning to the stable following the expulsion of the Urk occupation, we noticed that she constantly appeared to be sad. She no longer had the grizzly determination that always appeared on the faces of other stablemasters. And, as previously indicated, she also spoke to us with more than a few canned expressions; the enchantment that appeared to bind the tongues of the other stablemasters appeared to have been poorly done in her case. We determined that she was our best source for stablemaster information, and therefore began to study her. We learned her story:
Bambi knew long ago that she was going to be a stablemaster... well, actually, it was not so much a conscious decision... she was bred into it by the sinister Lord British. The Britannia NPC-breeding program is set up to ensure that there are just the right amount of the right kinds of people, with exactly the right skills (and nothing more) in the world. Unbeknownst to many, stablemasters are in fact bred with superhuman--in fact, godly would be the more accurate term--strength. This is understandable, considering that they are required to take care of tens or hundreds of ill-termpered animals--some of which are, in fact, some of the worlds most powerful creatures (dragons, white wyrms, and nightmares). Furthermore, the coveted service they provide in the community also makes them targets of various griefers, and they need to be able to defend themselves.
When she came of age, she went through the NPC-breeding program's "graduation" ceremony. In this ceremony, Lord British basically stands up and says something on the order of "All I can say is that I'm glad you have been engineered so perfectly for working your respective jobs, because I really can't think of anything to say that would possibly motivate you to stand in your shops 24 hours a day to service the REAL people in this world--who, I might add--are almost universally dorkwads. But, since this is supposed to be a time of celebration and motivation regarding your future, just know that your sacrifice is going to be greatly appreciated... err... well not really. But hey, how else am I going to keep this kingdom going?" He then proceeds to pronounce the powerful incantation that binds each NPC to their respective shops. "There," he says, "now if anybody tries to interact with you outside of your shop, you will immediately poof back to it! I know that you all probably wanted to live a normal life, but that's not what you were made for..." The dastardly Lord British then proceeded to walk up to each NPC individually and say random nerdy phrases to them such as "May the force be with you", "The black knight ALWAYS triumphs", and so forth (apparently he is a "nerd" back on earth). Whomever he thus addressed immediately vanished and reappeared in their shop under the power of the dark enchantment he placed over them, utterly bewildered--each being doomed to constant enslavement within their shops, without the promise of being able to associate with people beyond the words "vendor buy", "vendor sell", "where am I?" among a few others (In fact, as was demonstrated, Lord British's devious enchantment also practically removes their ability to commmunicate in any way beyond a few canned expressions).
This is the world Bambi was born into. At HER graduation, however, she had a bout of diarrhea and was in the bathroom when the enchantment was pronounced, apparently weakening its effect / duration. When Lord British spoke to her, it took more than one of his random phrases to get her to poof to her stable--although he didn't think much of it... and neither did she. She went about her work with great dedication to start out... but it wore on her as the days went by, and her dedication wavered.
The orcish invasion came, and in spite of the fact that she could have single-handedly wiped out the entire orcish hoard, she was also a lonely woman and did not want her immense power to scare off any possible male suitors who might come her way (not that she had any time for such things, since she was required to work in the stables 24 hours a day doing YOUR dirty work). Therefore, she decided to leave Skara Brae for a time during the Urk occupation. On her way out, she left a sign indicating that she would come back when it was "safe"... for the average person, that is, considering the balron or ancient wyrm lair could be considered safe for the average stablemaster.
While she was away, she discovered that normal people--people like you--don't sit in a stable all day getting paid 30 gold to feed, take care of, and clean up the manure of a variety of nasty creatures for an entire week (per creature)! In fact, normal people get out and do things like adventure--killing horrible monsters and obtaining massive amounts of money in a matter of minutes! Furthermore, because of the requirements of her job, she had hitherto NEVER LEFT the stables... not for love, adventure, or any other reason! But now that she'd had a taste of freedom, it was difficult to keep her in the stable. In fact, she kept that sign hanging by the stable door (it remained there long after she had returned) as a reminder of what a liberating experience she had thanks to those wonderful, blessed Urks!
Life actually looked up when she came back after the Urk occupation--it appears all the animals she was watching escaped while she was away! Finally time to relax! But NO--almost as soon as she had returned, people were practically lined up outside her door with a circus of bloodthirsty creatures DEMANDING that she take care of them right away. Nobody even asked how she was doing--all that spewed forth from the mouths of the masses was a barrage of "stable" commands... it was enough to drive a stone-hearted man to tears, let alone a poor stablemaster girl.
You see, based on our comprehensive analysis of the average sosarian's behavior, you all have an entitlement complex--and it hurts people... people like Bambi. You believe that for a mere 30 gold (chump change) you can expect uninterrupted service from somebody keeping your incredibly dirty and violent animals safe and well-fed (the food will cost at least 30 gold in and of itself) for you for an entire week? At least there is some consolation in the fact that some people only ask the Stablemaster to hold cats, rabbits, and rats--bless their souls--and not those big ol' cow-eating dragons that cost more to keep than she gets paid for her services.
Seeing the damsel in distress, and having gathered a large amount of data regarding stablemasters and ways around the enchantment which binds them, I did what any compassionate Bot would do. I took her on an adventure to see the world.
We took her to the Fire Temple. She was all-too-happy to go, finally getting a taste of adventure.
After landing, Bambi began to unleash years of pent-up fury upon all the inhabitants of the island. Even wandering healers were not exempt from her wrath! The denizens of the fire temple were no match for her god-like power.
We even tried to teach her how to talk smack.
Having exterminated all the creatures in the fire temple, we returned her to Skara Brae. Note that even 20 minutes of suffering Level 5 poison only slowed her down a little.
BUT, upon our return, we couldn't keep her in the stable. Having realized how terrible her job was, she decided she'd had enough. She was out for blood. Her first target--Brenna, a shepherd who had used Bambi's services one too many times.
She wandered the town, already being eyed suspiciously by the town guards (she "failed not", however, to see that they were pawns of the dastardly Lord British, intent upon keeping her and others in line). Her spree ended prematurely, however, when she turned on a nearby bard. The bard emitted her "vendor sell" macro on accident (but Bambi was too busy fighting to respond to the request). The bard, however, proceeded to call the town guard upon Bambi, and that was, as they say, all she wrote. I cried out in sorrow for Bambi, a tragic case of a stablemaster. After she was gone, the Skara Brae stable felt so empty.
In order to ensure that Bambi's death was not in vain, we carefully analyzed the experience, and came to the conclusion that all stablemasters had pent-up fury inside of them, in spite of the enchantment that Lord British cast upon them. In fact, we discovered that through music, we could unleash this fury upon anyone--it wasn't even required that the stablemaster be disillusioned as Bambi was--so long as the initial song was initiated outside of the influence of Lord British's domain. This was an excellent discovery--one that the bazookas and our allies harnessed in the pursuit of our goal of wiping out the existence of the human race from the face of Britannia, as you will see in our next tale.
Until then...