Pain... you find yourself clamoring awake to so much pain. Light, the blasted heat of fire.... the haunting laughter of your oldest sister as the house guards subdued you. Your mother's cold voice echoed in your brain as she praised your eldest sister for alerting her to your plans to assassinate her. You were a fool clearly for putting any amount of faith in your sister.
No doubt you being caught was part of her scheme to lower your mothers defenses. You started to open your mouth, to cry out her part in this affair but instead found pain exploded in your temple and your vision sagging as your sister struck and struck again.
That was how long ago? It was impossible to tell really. Your mind was still foggy, they had been forcing you to drink some vile concoction everynight for an undeterminate amount of time. You had been giving to a wretch of a trader... and only quick thinking and so much hate had kept his wretched common guard scum from touching you in any unwelcome way... but he sold you to a group of dark dwarves... in who turn traded you to some paleskinned dark blinded ugly creatures called men.
They were braver than both the drow merchants guards and the dark dwarven slavers... but they only made the mistake to try and take advantage of your bingings once. You would be no easy prey to any creature, let alone pale skinned ugly fools who thought you prey. After you almost ripped the throat of one with your teeth when he thought to get to close and grope you was when they started to drug you.
They also stuffed you into some sort of chest, only freeing you from the locked box to force you to drink that vile potion. At some point they stopped and you found the chest you were in moving... and that was how you ended up here, though where hear was you were not sure.
Sitting up made your vision swim, and your eyes easily and quickly adjusted to the lack of real lighting. You were in some sort of underground room. cool cobbled stones pressed against your backside as soft snores erupted all around you. A voice...Feminine though deep and dangerous sounding... almost feral whispered out. Though it seemed loud in the silence.
"Ah good, one of you awoke, I was starting to wonder if any of you would. What are you? Elfkin yes, but ive never seen an elf with so dark of skin... "
There was silence for a moment as the voice sniffed the air almost like a hunting creature searching for its prey's scent in the air would.
Glancing around you could see eyes that were stragely aglow in a small alcove directly across from yours. A hulking human woman with glowing eyes, sat there staring directly at you.... no doubt those glowing eyes could see you even in this darkness just as clearly as you could see her... Perhaps she wasnt fully human after all.
"Whats your name Elfkin? Mine's Greta."
You awoke to rage pounding in your veins but a sick feeling of weakness coursed through your body... oh and pain so much pain. You were to be a free man, You had served your time you had won your...as you sat up your vision swam for a moment and the rage faded... though you just felt weak. Like your strength had been sapped and fad...
All at once it came back to you. Your master had drained the very essence from your body and soul, He had bought, raised and fought gladiator's so that at the height of their power, their life, he could force them to drink the foul concoction and feed off their strengths. . . once he drained you of your vigor and skill you were discarded... sold to dark dealers to be sent off to vanish and die like all the others before you.
"Easy there friend, yes yes, you are not in shape to move quickly. They bring all the new gladiator's here drugged, prevents issues. It will pass yes yes.
A voice began with a strange accent to it. A pair of greenish yellow eyes glowed at you in the darkness. From the sounds of snoring about you there were others, maybe a dozen or so.
"I am The Quiet pause one moment before the pounce upon ones prey, in a cool winter evening with a slight wind blowing from the east... but my friends call me Silence."
He began from a alcoved room across from yours. Slowly your orcen eyes started to adjust to the darkness and the sliver of light from a torch around the corner and down what appeared to be a hallway.
"What's you name friend?"
As your vision started to come into focus you could see the figure was ... a dark furred catfolk with more than a few scars etched into its torso.
His eyes adjusted to the darkness as much as they normally did. Seeing the Catfolk across from him, his fogged memory recalled an old friend of his, Amon, that scrappy feline could use a shield like no other.
Shaking his head, which turned out to be a mistake as it cause it to throbbed, he finally spoke, "Jason. Where are we? Looks like holding cells for an Arena. Which one?"
"I am Ilvaria, formerly of House Eth'Dathon. It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance Greta. Do you happen to know where I am?"
As Ilvaria spoke, it was clear that she was not a native speaker of Common, likely having learned it only recently, although she spoke with enough eloquence to be understood clearly.
They put you in the kennels and for a day, it felt ... right, fitting. Then some of the bigger beasts arrived and you went from feeling like the perfect monster to afraid constantly. You didnt realize it, but for about a week they were conditioning you to mind your manners. Yesterday however... they put something in the food you were given and now... now you find yourself waking up in a small pen on a cold stone floor. The air smells musty, like sweat and grime, fear and death lingers on the edge of it. Voices... you hear voices breaking over the darkness.
Human words, Little used but understood even in your more feral mind. What did that scary orc with the scars say the last time they beat you within an inch of your life.... that this was your last chance? Another mauling without provacation and you were be ground up as meat for the Wychlarran?
You focus on the words being said...
The woman shifted... sniffing the air again.
"Ah the feral one awakes... Greetings sister."
She began and you Ilvaria could hear the shifting of chains on the other side of the stone wall to your right.
"The ringmaster calls to the crowds before and after the fights, He mentions Belde... and one of the other fighters when i first arrived told me its in Cheliax. I was with my mate readying for a trip across the spine of the world when we were attacked. Slavers, searching for riches by selling us here. They dangle the chance to be together again in front of us, promising to free us if we manage to survive 500 fights."
She paused and glanced up to the wall beside her. You Ilvaria could see faint scratchings there, though it was impossible in this light to count how many were there.
"most of the fights are against beast and monster, the ones against other gladiator's are usually for show not to the death... though well things happen."
You could see the outlines of white teeth and a dangerous gleam in her eyes though. Clearly she had been the cause of an accident or two.
"They will go easy on you at first, no doubt they paid a handsome sum for you darkskinned one. They will want their money's worth."
You awoke and stretched, the pain from their whips and the haze of their magics slowly ebbed from your body and you could only smile. The fools, you would have come here probably of your own violition had they but asked. Now... now you would have to make them suffer for it. You could hear a voice in the darkness, just out of sight. There were a few sleeping shapes in the same open cell you were in snoring despite the voice speaking out to someone.
The voice paused in the silence you realized that yes, the voice heard your movement. You heard the creature speaking tell the other voice that his ridiculous long name and then that he went by Silence, the other voice answered as Jason...
"and you listener... you are welcome to join us yes yes, you are new too, they were wary of you when they drug you in."
The voice began and after a moment it was clear he was speaking to you Roland...
She regards Greta and Ilvaria with eyes like orbs of jet. This place was proving more hostile than her old haunt.
Khomann looked again at his cellmates, eyes brooding, jutted chin frowning. They looked dangerous. Fair enough. So was he. Sometimes. With Kaul.
"I am here because I fell for the classic blunder: I trusted another: my sister, specifically. She promised that we could kill our mother and take her place, and I was a fool."
As the new voice begins to speak, Ilvaria turns and looks in it's direction. "Ah, one of the surface dwellers, and a demontouched at that!"
As Ysder begins speaking, Ilvaria gives her a look similar to the look one might give a dog that began speaking.
"If you want death that badly, I'm sure you can be obliged."
|
"So it seems that someone wants us for something, And they seem not to care about asking. Wary they should be anyone whom kidnaps someone else should be wary."
He slowly sits up and looks around his darkvision taking in all the people in this cage with him. his smile widening a little as his cruel thoughts danced thru his head. however he will lay low and not draw attention to himself yet
"No, not many survive long here, you are right. But you are wrong about the real fight. The real fight started ere you were born, continued with your first breath and continues here and now. We can kill each other, here, now if we wish. Else we meet out there in the arena. But I have no desire to kill you."
Khomann pauses.
"The desire to kill is what they want us to have to win. But our desire should be to survive. Kill, sure, if we must to survive. But needs not desire, needs not enjoy it. Madness that way lies."
And when I do, that bastard is going to pay dearly. He thought.
"So, half-blood, how did you come to be here? They catch you eating babies on the surface or something?"
"Sad to say I had a similar experience, except I'm pretty sure they kept me in a bag of holding."
Ilvaria tries standing, and rubs her wrists to get the circulation flowing.
"So, if we're meant to fight in the arena, perhaps we could have a pact to work together? While I lack natural weapons, I am far from defenseless. I have magic. Furthermore, should an escape attempt prevent itself, it's much better to escape as a team than as an individual."
Nothing new...a good sign.
[b]"Before here? I...am not sure. I have known little else. Just my name. I am Khomann.
And you?"
"I don't have enough information for such a discussion yet; I'm just making a tentative offer for now."