Sisters! Come look! Such strength! I haven’t seen such strength in millenia sisters! The Ways might be opening again! We could go home! Sisters? Are you awake yet sisters?

Hush child, I’m here now, no need to shout… Oh my, he is wonderful isn’t he? He might even be able to draw the interest of our elder sister, how very intriguing...

If anything, Damien woke in a fouler mood than the day before. He hadn’t really believed Jack when he had told him that they probably drugged the food, since only a lunatic would knowingly wolf down drugged food they way Jack had been doing. Of course, Damien supposed that only a lunatic would cheerfully interact with the man who was carting him off in chains to die in a public bloodsport, so maybe he shouldn’t be so surprised. He started to sit up, but the cart hit a divot in the road and his head bounced off one of the chains, drawing a groan from him.

“Gracefully done my boy! Soon the whole world shall fear the mighty Self-Braining Gladiator! ‘He’s so strong that he gives himself a concussion before the fight starts to even it out!’ They’ll say. ‘His skull is so thick he could headbutt a sword and shatter it!’ They’ll say. ‘He sleeps in a forge and they use his head as an anvil!’ They’ll say.” Jack’s taunting earned him a scowl from Damien. “So,” He switched to a cheery conversational tone in a heartbeat, “I was thinking, have you by any chance heard of one of my other names? The Ripper? The Twilight Dagger? Heartrender? No? None of them?” He sighed when Damien shook his head, “A shame really, I had hoped to be more famous before I met my end. At least you look like a capable young man. You will have to do me a favor and mention me in your list of conquests after you kill me. That way I can continue to grow my reputation from beyond the grave!”

Damien was confused now, “What do you mean when I kill you? Don’t they fight against monsters and beasts in this coliseum place?”

Jack gave him a curious look, “Oh yes, but they also pit their gladiators against other people. Criminals, debtors, half-breeds, slaves of all kinds. Generally speaking, if you do something to earn yourself a collar and brand, your chances of landing in the coliseum are fairly high. Particularly if nobody desires your services in other ways.” he sighed again. “A shame really, only my second time getting caught by my mark, and the only reason he didn’t feel like paying me to go after someone else was on account of me bedding his new wife.”

Damien had worked his way to a more comfortable position by now, “What is it that you do? You never said. I assume it isn’t running around and bedding other men’s wives?”

Jack laughed, “Oh, no, I’m one of the best assassins in the game. Fourteen assorted nobles and rich merchants, six mages, twenty-four bodyguards, and I’ve lost track of how many witnesses. Rather proud of the mage kills, not an easy thing to do, killing mages. I’m not much good in a stand up fight though, I’m afraid, which is why I’m hoping you will keep spreading the legend of the Ripper after our bout in the arena.”

Damien felt sick. It sounded like not only was he going to be forced to kill people whose only crime had been being too poor, but he was also sharing his cage with a monster. “That’s horrible! What kind of monster is proud of that kind of mass murder?”

Jack tilted his head back and tapped at his chin in thought, “What was it again? It was one of those big words those mage types like to use… Ah, I remember now! One of the mages I was paid to kill told me I’m what they called a psychopath, I naturally didn’t know what that was, but he was happy to explain when I wiggled my knife around a bit. He told me it means I don’t have one of those voices in my head that tells me what’s right and wrong. I asked him how not having voices in my head makes me crazy, but he had bled out by then.” He shrugged, “Didn’t matter, you can make so much more money when you don’t have to bother worrying about other people’s lives.

“Particularly if you put in as much practice as I do in making your expressions look right. I don’t know how you normal people are able to get them just right the first try, I imagine you would be amazed by just how many ways you can smile wrong and put someone on edge.” His normal grin shifted imperceptibly, and Damien felt the hair on the back of his neck standing on end as he recoiled slightly, “See? You don’t even know what’s different, just that it’s wrong. When your whole job is getting close enough to someone to be able to stick a knife or three in them, it pays to practice how to do it right.”

Damien decided he really wanted out of the cage. Since that didn’t strike him as something he could expect to happen anytime soon, he did his best to clench down on his fear and disgust and continue to work on getting information out of Jack. “What makes you so certain you will fight me in the coliseum, won’t they have a lot of gladiators there to pick from? And why am I being considered different from everyone else?” He gestured at the other cages.

Jack shrugged, “It’s possible they would pit me against someone else, but I can’t do anything about that here. It’s not uncommon to make a new gladiator fight against people he traveled with though. Some people like that extra bit of drama. As for you, you are different because you were sold specifically as a gladiator. Which mostly means that you have been singled out for special treatment on the way to, and inside of, the coliseum.

“Some of your special treatment I will happily skip out on though. You, will have to win fifty fights before they even consider letting you go or looking at you as a potential recruit for their special legion. The rest of us?” He pointed at himself and swept his hand to indicate the other cages, “We have to win one, maybe two fights, to clear our charges and be set free. Which is why they are glaring at you, if they were to try and make friends with you and then have to fight you on the sands they would hesitate, or feel bad if they didn’t hesitate and won because of it.”

Damien frowned, “And you don’t have that problem because you’re a psychopathy.”

Jack waggled a finger at him, “Psychopath. Lovely word, psychopath. And you are quite right. It is in my best interest to be friendly with you, because it might make you hesitate if we have to fight, while I will cheerfully gut you if you do. Now that would be a marvelous way to improve my reputation, killing a gladiator in open combat.”

Damien shook his head, “Then what was all that about me spreading your name after I win? Shouldn’t you be planning on spreading your own name?”

Jack shrugged, “‘Plan for the worst, hope for the best.’ That’s what my dad used to say when I was little. He was never all that good at following his own advice though, he certainly didn’t plan on me using that knife he gave me on him. Maybe I get you to hesitate, maybe I don’t. Maybe a few of those ones behind us decide that they want to better their own chances of getting the killing blow in and cut me down from behind. I’m truly not a very skilled fighter, I imagine it would likely feel as though you were fighting against an unruly child.

“Would you like to know a secret?” Jack switched to a whisper and leaned uncomfortably close. “This is the third time I’ve been stuffed in one of these cages. I’ll probably escape before we get to the coliseum.” In a more normal tone, “But on the off chance I don’t…”

Damien decided he was done talking for now. Jack was an unrepentant murderer, and he felt sick just talking to him. He lapsed into an uncomfortable silence for a while, before he was rescued by the appearance of Slimeball. “Good morning! I trust you slept well?” The man gave him a smug grin, “Time for your morning walk, and time for your guest to return to the general population carts. I can’t be seen as going soft, no matter how entertaining the idea of someone bedding that fool’s new wife on her wedding day may be.” He opened the cage and one of the men grabbed hold of Jack and started to tow him to the other cages, while three others clamped a thick metal collar around Damien’s neck and attached it to a sturdy length of chain. The other end of the chain was clipped to the rear of the lead wagon.

“Remember now fresh meat, I have a schedule to keep and I won’t be stopping for a few hours yet. Try not to trip and fall, I hear being drug behind a cart is an unpleasant experience.”

Just then another goon came running up to them. “Boss! Jim is dead! He was puttin tha’ talker in one of the cages and suddenly ‘is manacles was off and he was runnin off while Jim fell over! The slaves said they ‘eard ‘im say ‘Never turn your back on da Ripper.’ afore he scooted.”

Well that certainly didn’t take long. I wonder if he was really just screwing with me that whole time? Damien carefully didn’t say anything since Slimeball looked furious, “Where the hell was everyone else? The man bloody told us he was an assassin! It’s a good thing Jim is dead because his cut will be paying for the loss of a valuable slave! Damned fool, I have a schedule to keep and cannot afford to chase after the little rat. Get ready to move, and if you let any more slaves get away you better hope you end up like Jim, because otherwise you’ll be riding in one of those cages!”

After they had been on the road a while Damien was convinced that his ‘morning walk’ was guaranteed to be an ‘unpleasant experience’ regardless of whether he fell or not. The chain and collar were heavy, and the caravan moved at around a light jogging pace for him. Which meant that he had to jog the whole time while carrying a heavy chunk of metal around his neck in the desert. Unpleasant was far from the words he would have used to describe it. Hellish on the other hand, was much more accurate. When they stopped to rest the animals around noon they also unhitched him and stuck him back in his cage with a laugh.

The rest of the day was just as miserable, spent wrapped in metal, in a metal cage, with a shoddy wooden roof that only offered partial protection from the sun beating down on him. When they finally stopped he felt like his skin was on fire, practically all of his exposed flesh was one big sunburn. After they stopped they were finally fed again, and again he got a much better quality meal than the others, earning him scowls and glances that were equal parts fear and outrage. He couldn’t believe people were this easy to manipulate. He was just as much a captive as them, and yet they were looking at him with far more malice than they showed the goons taking them to their doom. Yet they had been told that Damien would be the one to kill them, and despite the clear evidence that he was not there by choice they still chose to hate him for getting slightly better treatment than them and judged him for something he might not have to do, and certainly had no choice in the matter.

The next few days were even worse. The only real difference is that Slimeball spontaneously decided that Damien wasn’t nearly bronzed enough, and to truly get his money’s worth he was going to fix that. Naturally the tan had to be uniform, and that meant that Damien was treated to the dubious honor of being stripped naked in the desert and slathered in a thick greasy substance that was supposed to keep him from getting too burnt but still allow him to tan. It worked, he supposed, but it certainly wasn’t perfect, and he spent an unfortunate amount of the next couple weeks of travel with sunburns in very unpleasant locations.

It worked though, by the time they arrived at the city that housed the Coliseum of Burning Sands his skin was bronze all over, and he was in excellent shape from all the running. He hated to admit it, but he was awestruck by the city when he first laid eyes on it. The rooftops glittered and sparkled in the fading light of evening, while the coliseum itself possessed its own dim reddish glow. Ribbons of green flowed along the streets and clusters of foliage spread from the edges of the city in sporadic clusters, and Slimeball was courteous enough to mention that the city was built on an oasis, hence the greenery in what was otherwise a barren wasteland. When they actually reached the city though, all of its charm and beauty faded into a sickening horror show for Damien.