Walking out of the tunnel from the portal, the intense sun and dry air assaulted David. David couldn't see until his eyes started to adjust to the light. Once he opened his eyes, he could see the landscape around him clearly. Hence, the first words that David said when he entered the surface world of The Other was, "A fucking desert."

Yes.....the Diego Family of the mountainous jungles of Peru on Earth....occupied a damn, hot ass desert in The Other. It was the weirdest thing. David didn't remember reading any books about a desert in The Other. Most of the Carmine Family's information talked about endless forests that surrounded their city and towns.

"Keep moving forward," the fancy slave master yelled at the group of men, "Follow your masters."

The group of men marched out of a fortified area near the portal and into the city streets. For some reason, David had expected the cities in The Other to be modern just like Earth. He was completely wrong in his expectations. This city looked like it was taken right out of movie set about the ancient Inca civilization. Everything was made of stone. The roads were a mixture of dirt and stone. There were no cars or trucks...only carriages that were pulled by large beasts that looked similar to camels. It was like a step back in time.

'Why didn't modern technology make it to this place?,' David thought to himself.

Since David was a student of architecture, he had studied the architecture of all the great ancient civilizations on Earth. This place looked like it was out of some animation made for a documentary on "Machu Picchu." The only difference that was obvious was the lack of towering mountains on the horizon.....those were replaced with towering sand dunes and the top of a large stone wall that appeared to be protecting the perimeter of the city. Looking around, David could see guards patrolling the top of the walls with spears.

As the men walked, the group of newly captured slaves saw several other slaves the city with and without their masters along the route. The slaves were easily identifiable by the metal bands around their necks. There were also groups of merchants selling goods, people going about their daily business and groups of soldiers patrolling the streets. Everyone seemed to be getting along well...as well as a civilization from the 14th century could get along in a desert.

After walking for short while, the group of slaves arrived at a large building on one of the many streets of the city. They were marched inside and sat down on a large wooden bench that stretched about 100 feet down a long hallway.

"Stay put and don't cause trouble," the man leading the group said before walking to a door to side of the hall.

After about 20 minutes of waiting, the slave trader stepped back into the hall way with two slaves at his side. One had a basket in his hand and the other had a large pot.

"Eat and drink," the slave trader said, "I need you to be in peak condition as we go to the auction. I do not want to lose money because you need a little food and water. You will have twenty minutes of rest before we leave for the auction."

The first man, with a basket in his hand, began handing out what appeared to be biscuits to the men in the hallway. The next man followed and started allowing each man to take a sip of water from the pot.

In normal cases, most people would have turned their noses up at the biscuits and communal drink. However, most of the men were starting to feel the fatigue associated with the lack of nourishment.

David was hungry and thirsty, but he wasn't really fatigued. His Body of Recovery skill had many benefits. It healed the body of injuries, but also helped nourish the body with heavenly energy. Since David had a small stream of heavenly energy, then he could survive for a few days on that by itself. But....he still ate the food and took a few sips of water. The heavenly energy would keep him from dying.....but it wouldn't keep him from wasting away due to hunger and thirst.

As the man with the basket finished up with delivering the biscuits, he was stopped by one of the newly arrived men.

"Hey...what are they going to do with us?," one of the men that David didn't recognize asked the basket holding slave.

The slave looked around in a panic a first, then leaned forward and said quietly, "Caves. Servants. Sex. War. Slaves serve one of those purposes." Then, the man took off quickly down the hall...he slowed to his normal pace when near the exit.

Of course, David could hear the exchange. He completely understood. 'Seems like his slave life was going to be one of those options. I hope I get something stable. Stability would be great until I can figure a way out this collar and escape,' David thought.

Realizing that he had only used 2 of his 20 minutes for rest, David closed his eyes and focused his soul perception out into the building. He needed more information about his situation. Since his perception now gave him about a 50 diameter awareness, he decided to make use of the skill.

In viewing everything with his soul sense, David could get a general idea of what was happening in his surroundings. Most of the building seemed to be similar to office space....this place seemed like some sort of merchant headquarters. Some areas also appeared to be guard or slave housing. Focusing in on the room that the fancy slave trader went into, David could barely make out their speech.

"Only twelve this time? Gabriel is sure slacking these days. Usually he sends us twenty. Well, I see that there were two more but those idiot guards killed them," a heavy set man who was a bit short told the fancy slave trader.

"Yes. My nephew has been sending over quite a few good slaves since he arrived back on Earth. It appears that his father has been promoted over the Earthen Carmine Family. Maybe this will be good for us in the future. Who would have known that my sister's fancy for a man from the Carmine Family would give us this opportunity," the fat man said, "Now go march those slaves around the city. Let everyone know that we have a new crop in for purchasing."

"Yes, Head Steward Lazarus," the slave merchant said before leaving the room.

David was surprised. He had always been told that the rumor was Vincent Carmine's adopted son Gabriel was actually an illegitimate child. No one had ever said that Gabriel's mother was a woman from the Diego Family. And it sounded like their group was not the first group of slaves that Gabriel had sent to his mother's family. 'One day, I will kill him,' David thought to himself with a smile.

David withdrew his perception just as the slave trader was walking back into hallway.

"Alright, everyone get up. If you haven't finished your biscuit yet.....then cram it into your face and get up," the slave trader said.

"March to the exit," he ordered before smacking one of the slaves on the back with the crop in his hand.

The extravagantly dressed slave trader marched the group down the street in a single file line while yelling to everyone who would listen, "New batch of high quality slaves! Foundation Stages! Some Americans! Come to the square for the auction at 1 PM." The man repeated these lines every 500 feet of walking.

David started to get sick of the repeat marketing of this slave trader. He didn't like the feeling of being someone's possession without any control....but who would actually like this situation...none of the men in the slave line seemed to be having a good time of it.

David looked ahead to see Chaz with his head held down walking in line. David smiled again. He had so many people that he needed to kill.

This slave parade around the city gave David a excellent chance to observe the lay of the land. Most buildings appeared to either serve as residential or commercial uses. However, there were two larger buildings that looked like mansions that were located equally from the walls near the center.

'Those must be the big shots' houses,' David thought seeing the decorations and ornamentation on the walls of the two buildings. He could remember that the Diego family had two god level founders. It made sense that they would have big extravagant buildings for themselves.

David saw many things as he was toured around by the slave trader. He tried his best to remember the inside layout of the city. He never knew when he would have to use the information, but he knew that it would be helpful.

Walking around, David also had the chance to overhear the conversation of the city's residents. There was various gossip and information that David had learned from his travels around the city.

This main city of the Diego Family was called Nazca City. David remembered something from his high school history about a Nazca civilization....so maybe that was related to the city name. The city seemed to have a population of around 40,000 people. David was having trouble understanding how so many people made it to The Other, but when considering that the portal between worlds had existed for thousands of years...it was understandable that the population could get this high.

David also understood that the people were speaking another language....but he had no issue understanding or talking back. It seemed that he was the only one because a few of the slaves seemed to be completely lost.

In his eavesdropping, David also learned many people on the street mentioned traveling to oasis in the desert for trading. It seemed that some groups of people from the Diego Family had colonized some of the oasis in the desert for their own use. Most talk surrounding the multiple oasis was related to mining or farming. These two things seemed to be the main economic drivers in this desert civilization. As he realized that the descriptions from the Carmine Family seemed almost opposite of the Diego Family, David couldn't help wonder just how far separated the different families were in The Other.

After wondering around the City for about 3 hours, David couldn't understand why these people would parade new slaves around so much. It didn't seem wise to show a captured prisoner the layout of the city. However.....after thinking over the situation, David realized the reality. These people were just not concerned that there may be a potential slave uprising or run away slaves.....why would they be concerned?.....they could kill anyone of the slaves with the push of a button.....and there was nothing the slaves could do about it.....David included.

Besides general information about the city, David also overheard various resident talk of demon raids on oasis towns and general fears about the possibility of an upcoming war with the demons. It seemed that the Diego family was located in an area of The Other that was near populations of demons.

In David's previous research at the Carmine Family on Earth, most of the information that was available discussed devils. Little information was actually available on Demons. Devils seemed to be creatures and items that develop spirituality and often human characteristics. For example, the mother of the two nurses in the Carmine house was a wood nymph born from the spirit of a forest. She had migrated over from The Other before the passages were restricted and eventually fell in love with a human. On the other hand, Demons were a humanoid being similar to humans that had a large variety of species. Vampires, succubus and orcs were just a few types of demons.

Regardless of his other thoughts, David got somewhat excited when he overheard the information about these peoples fears. It was good to know that his enemy's had fears. He could always use those fears to create some wonderful nightmares. David just smiled his broken tooth grin as he walked single file behind the slaves in front of him. He continued walking...fantasizing about ways that he could use all of his new information to his advantage...hoping that someday soon....he would be able to get this collar off and get some revenge on these people.