- "Good morning. Welcome to the green hell. And may I say, I hope that your stay will be a pleasant one."
- —Gottlieb to Florin d'Artaud.[1a]
Gottlieb Mannfredstein was only nineteen years of age when he had traveled to Lustria. The Estalian watched in horror as half of his friends died in the poisonous air of the jungle, their corpses scattered like grisly chaff between the shore and the cursed temple of Ytzel Cho. At first he mourned their deaths, weeping as he and the handful of survivors had tried to hack their way back to their boats, but that had been before he was trapped by the lizards and brought back to entertain them like an animal in a zoo. By his reckoning, that had been eight years ago.[1b]
In truth, the Slann Chuptzl Qo had ordered Scar-leader Scythera's skinks to teach Gottlieb how to talk when the mage-priest had passed through ten years ago. In turn, Scythera branded the Estalian with neatly burnt, square hieroglyphs onto his tanned skin. These simple lines of branded ownership symbols run down the pallid flesh of Gottlieb's spindly arm, and the human's shackles carrying similar marks, a simple script that spoke its owner's name and rank.[1a]
Description
Since his captivity, Gottlieb can easily be mistaken for a lunatic. Beneath a shock of pure white hair sticking out at wild angles from the crown of his head and line of his chin, his beard is arguably the most tangled thing in the entire jungle. Even after so long, he retains his warm Estalian accent, yet such tones shatter into a high pitched braying that might be either sobbing or laughter. Rocking back and forth on the dais he sits atop, Gottlieb's well muscled arms clasp around his bony knees and pigeon-chest, the man cramming his knuckles into his mouth as he giggles and weeps.[1a]
In other respects, the Estalian looks fit and hale. The lithe muscles that move beneath his tan are strong, and the teeth which grind against his fists are strong and white. For all any onlooker could know, Gottlieb might have been forty or a hundred years old.[1a]
Spoilers for The Burning Shore
After helping Florin d'Artaud in escaping the Lizardmen, Gottlieb finally felt a sense of victory over his captors, the triumph giving him enough strength to start hating his captors again. The Estalian howled with joy and defiance. Because of the noise, Xinthua Tzeqal ordered one of his bodyguards to "silence that mammal" as it disturbed the slann's concentration. Without question, the Saurus clubbed Gottlieb, and, at long last, the Estalian's suffering was over.[1b]
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