Chronicles of the Collar: The Memoirs of Neeve Barbosa (Part 4)

 This Gorean Fan Fiction was generated using Chat GPT alongside a backstory I created for my character. 

PLEASE NOTE: All the information in these blogs are OOC information unless you gain them IC. PLEASE do not metagame or godmod that you know this information. 

Please note that the Gorean Saga is a fictional series, and its world, customs, and values may not align with modern societal standards or moral principles.

Gor is Copyrighted by John Norman

 

Entry IV — The Betrayal at Port Olni

 

It was on the river that leads to Port Olni, I learned how easily that respect can be taken.

I had come northward by boat, summoned by a fellow of the Physician’s Caste. The message had been courteous and sealed properly; the promise of work, honest. I remember the gentle rocking of the vessel, the spray of water against the hull, the scent of rain upon the wind. The captain was a man of the river, sun-darkened and sharp-eyed, who spoke little but watched much.

 

On the second day, as the sun fell behind the trees, his manner changed.

There was a silence in him, a heaviness that grew until it became a presence of its own. When I approached the rail to take the air, he followed. His shadow fell across me before his hand did.

 

“You’ll be staying here, girl,” he said.
His tone was neither command nor request — it was ownership.

 

I told him I was Free, that my papers were in order, that he risked punishment under the law of the city. He smiled then — a small, cold thing. “Papers burn and there are no laws here. The river keeps no records.”

 

He took what he wanted. On Gor, men seldom ask twice. When it was done, he held out his hand for my satchel. I gave it to him, though my stomach turned as I did.

He removed the papers of my manumission, rolled them between his fingers, and tucked them into his belt. “No longer needed,” he said. “You’ll find life simpler without them.”

Then he cast me in a discarded Free’s outfit, but without boots or veil, onto the dock at Port Olni and told me to disembark. I did so, because there was nothing else to do.

 

The riverboats departed behind me, their lanterns fading into the mist, and I stood barefoot upon the stones of the dock, my body aching, my throat dry. The harbour stank of tar and fish; the voices of sailors carried laughter that was not kind. In that moment, I was no longer a Free woman. Not truly.

 

I wandered the dock until night fell. The torches guttered low, and the rain began. I found shelter in a deserted paga den — a ruin of a place, its tables overturned, its walls scarred with knife marks. The scent of old wine and smoke clung to everything. There, in the shadows, I waited.

 

Across the alley, beneath the weak light of a torch, I saw a man bargaining over a kajira. She was red-haired and defiant, her spirit not yet broken. The men spoke in low tones; their words laced with irritation. “She’s beautiful,” one said, “but I’ll not have a slave who questions command.”

 

The buyer turned away, muttering about spirit and obedience. The slaver spat into the dirt.
I watched her — that girl — as she met her master’s eyes without flinching. I knew that defiance, that refusal to yield. It was a spark I once carried, long before I understood the weight of Gor’s order.

 

When they were gone, I realized how precarious my position was. No papers, no protection, no caste to vouch for me. To the eyes of any man, I was as collared as the red-haired girl.

That was when he found me.

 

He wore the leathers of the city slavers — not gaudy, but clean, precise, and marked by the confidence of one who knows the value of flesh. His eyes scanned me with practiced detachment, measuring the curve of my shoulders, the state of my feet, the cut of my clothing.

 

“Where do you go, girl?” he asked. His voice was smooth, almost courteous, but there was no mistaking the authority in it.

 

“I seek no trouble,” I said. “Only a place to rest.”

 

He smiled faintly. “A woman without shoes, no veil, without escort, and without papers seeks only to rest? Curious. You are a runaway, then.”

 

“I am Free,” I answered, though my voice faltered. “My papers were stolen upon the river.”

His brow arched. “Ah. A Free woman whose papers wander away on the river. How unfortunate.”

 

There was mockery in his tone, but also interest. He stepped closer, his gaze steady. “Tell me your name.”

 

“Kristie,” I said, because that was still who I believed myself to be.

 

He considered this, then nodded. “You will come with me, Kristie. If your story proves true, perhaps you will leave with your honour intact. If not — well, Olni has ways of reclaiming what the river delivers.”

 

I followed. Not because I trusted him, but because there was nowhere else to go.

 

He led me through the streets to an inn near the central square. Within, the air was warm and heavy with the scent of paga and roasting meat. At a corner table sat a man of the Scribes’ Caste, robed in blue and white, his eyes keen as steel. Beside him, a woman — also a scribe, but of higher rank — held a scroll and quill, her manner calm, almost serene.

The slaver bowed slightly. “Lady, Master — I bring a curiosity. A woman claiming freedom without proof.”

 

The man looked at me long before he spoke. “You have the bearing of one who was trained,” he said. “But so do many kajirae. Tell us your story.”

 

And so I did. I told them of Lara, of the fire, of Cardonicus, of my service and my freedom. I spoke of the captain, of the river, of the loss of my papers. As I spoke, the woman’s expression softened. The man’s did not.

 

When I finished, he leaned back, fingers steepled. “If your words are true, then you have been wronged. If they are not, you stand as property of this city until proven otherwise. There is a choice to be made.”

 

The slaver smirked, as if the choice were already his. But the Lady turned to him sharply. “Enough. The girl will remain under our protection until the truth is known.”

He frowned but obeyed. On Gor, even a slaver bows to the will of the Scribes when law is invoked.

 

Thus, I found myself in chains once more, but in a household - that of the scribe and his lady. They both treated me as a slave but also with the respect of a girl with intelligence and training. I felt like I something between the two sides of the coin - a woman suspended between worlds.

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 Entry V — The House of Barbosa

 

The scribes of Port Olni bound me with expectation and a single collar that showed that I was owned for the city's sake - in case of issues. Weirdly – this gave me solace in the days and months that came. No questions could be asked of me. I was there’s – at least by the city’s standards.

 

In the House of Barbosa, silence was virtue. Arealius, the master of the house, was a man of maps and measures; Lady Sorana, his companion, was the High Scribe of the city, known for a mind as exacting as the quill she carried. Within their walls, order was a law more absolute than any decree of Ubar or council.

 

I lived among them as one reclaimed from the storm—neither slave nor guest, neither servant nor equal. Each day began at dawn with the recitation of duties: records to be copied, supplies to be tallied, herbs to be dried for the infirmary. Lady Sorana insisted that I write each task in a ledger, for “words,” she said, “are the chains of the mind—stronger than iron, subtler than rope.”

 

Arealius was of sterner nature. He would summon me to his study, its tables littered with scrolls and inkpots, and question me on the workings of the body as if interrogating a map.
“What is the colour of blood deprived of air?”
“Why does the heart quicken before the stroke?”
Each question was a test, and every hesitation earned a single raised brow that stung worse than a lash.

 

Yet there was discipline in his precision, and in that discipline, I found calm. He did not beat obedience into me; he carved purpose. The pain of ignorance became a sharper torment than the memory of chains. His demeanour changed – softened even. I began to truly love him and his companion. My fears and chains forgotten even in the half-life it was – somewhere between here and there.

 

Months turned to seasons. I learned to read the terrain of fever, the tides of blood, the architecture of bone. Lady Sorana taught me the law that governed healers: that our first oath is to truth, our second to order, and mercy only if it does not disturb either. Under her guidance, I assisted in the archives, transcribing the histories of cities lost to time. It was there I first encountered the records of Earth—the tales of other women brought across the stars, many who had perished, some who had risen. In those faded accounts, I saw the reflection of my own path, and I knew that the Priest-Kings shape lives as carefully as a scribe shapes letters.

 

When I was not in study, I travelled with Arealius, mapping the cities of Gor. I tended in the infirmaries and learnt of the comings and goings of the cities we visited. The work was unending: men cut by steel, slaves blistered by fire, children wasted by hunger. The citizens called me “the quiet healer.” I seldom spoke, for words too easily disturb the dying. Instead, I listened—to breath, to heartbeat, to silence. And I retained the words for my master’s ears, where he would tend to them like a doctor to a patient.

 

After nine months, Arealius called me before him. Lady Sorana stood beside his chair, her face unreadable. A parchment lay upon the table, sealed in blue wax.

“Your service has proven your worth,” Arealius said. “The city recognizes you as of the Physician’s Caste. From this hour, you are free—by law and by choice. Take our name, if you would bear it with honor.”

 

I bowed my head, not in submission but in gratitude. “It will be my honor,” I answered.

Thus was I reborn a second time—Neeve Barbosa of the Caste of Physicians. My papers bore the signatures of both Arealius and Lady Sorana, and beneath them, the seal of Port Olni itself. When the wax cooled, the weight upon my shoulders did not lessen; it deepened. For freedom on Gor is not escape. It is duty multiplied by choice as I had found before.

 

I remained in their house for another year, learning not only the art of medicine but the governance of castes and the fragile politics between them. Arealius trusted me to travel with him to the frontier towns—Hellvegen, Hulneth, and then the frost-rimmed walls of Tyros—where I treated wounds of battle and plague alike. Each city left its mark upon me: the northern winds hardened my resolve; the southern markets reminded me of the chaos from which order must ever be drawn.

 

In Tyros I rose to the rank of Assistant Head of Caste. There, I trained apprentices, many of them slaves owned by the Physician’s Hall. I saw myself reflected in their eyes—fear, curiosity, the silent hunger to learn. I was patient but firm with them. “The hand that heals must obey the mind,” I would say, “and the mind must obey truth. Only then does mercy have meaning.”

 

The years in Tyros were years of quiet mastery. I bore two children—Millie and her brother—within the safety of the city walls. Through them, I learned another kind of discipline: the discipline of love, which demands endurance without command. My life had turned full circle—from captive to healer, from servant to teacher. Yet the echo of iron never left me. At times, when the wind rattled a door-chain, I would feel again the cold curve of a collar against my skin and remember how it had taught me the boundaries of self.

 

When Tyros fell to unrest, I travelled once more, as all Goreans must when cities rise and crumble.

 

Eventually my path led me to Var-Kor where the story continues once again.