We of Sanctuary are split into two types of people. We are still slaves or we are free. We are Melinda or we are Charles. We are shackled or Unshackled. Yet how many are left who will not bow to the self proclaimed lords? How many can still walk head high, unafraid?
There is much talk of freedom, yet citizens starve while others feast. Some citizens strike down others, and do so without fear of reprisal. Some make laws, others chafe under them. There is no justice is Sanctuary. The current overlord is one man, who proclaimed himself leader by strength of arms. One man who kills those that threaten him.
The irony of our current serfdom is that we impose it upon ourselves. We can blame no drow, no beholder, no duergar for our plight. For it is we who hold the whips, for it is we who lock the shackles. For one man could never make us slaves unless we allow it. The sheriff is only as powerful as the people of Sanctuary make him.
History is there for all of us to read, no sooner than they declared themselves free men and women, Sanctuary's first and finest set about building themselves a new prison. It would be so easy, so nice, for us to blame Melinda alone for this tradition. And easier still to believe that Melinda was an illithid slave, or a vampire or daemon. That would absolve us from some sense of responsibility for her actions. It might divorce us from her, helping us to forget how human she was, and how human it is to give away freedom as soon as it is won.
For it is not enough merely to cast off one's chains, but one must strive to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others. One must seek models of social interaction that step outside the dualism of slave and slaver; drudge and taskmaster; vassal and ruler. But Melinda, and all the petty tyrants who have come after her, could only imagine themselves as free if they held the whip. Only by controlling others did they really feel free.
Of course neither she, nor Bhast, nor Azzam now, would admit to themselves that they tyrants. Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims is the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
We will suffer their rule no longer.
It is time to take up the sword. Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. We must show them all that we will never stop, never halt until Sanctuary is free. Death is a better, milder fate than tyranny. We will show the Melinda’s what they have forgotten, that in the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.
Nobody can give you freedom. Nobody can give you equality or justice. If you're done being a slave, you have to step up and take it.
- The Unshackled.