The four of us stood together, our bestial kills in front of us, collectively basking in the roar of the approval of the crowd. The whole of Red Sands arena was electric in its entirety and energy. Waving one last time, myself and the others went back to where we had first appeared in the arena and stood on the platform. The little circle in the sand dipped downwards and it descended back into the Hypogeum, that dungeonlike hive of activity preparing for the next acts of spectacle for the masses. Then we walked back down to the parking lot. Fifteen minutes later, Gaias appeared.

“Splendid, my boys! Simply, splendid. Turned those Black Lycanthropic Infernal Beasts into mincemeat!” He said enthusiastically.

We climbed into his vehicle and Gaias drove off back to the Brazen Chains ludus.

“Thank you, Commodas.” Velias said to me. “For getting the Lycanthrope off me.”

“No problem.” I said.

He smiled and we seemed to get along better. As the others excitedly chattered over our victory, I closed my eyes and rested.

When we got back to the ludus, we disarmed ourselves and got unarmored. The others went to take a shower in the ludus barracks, but I would do that at home at the apartment Livia and I were living in with money from Gaias. I went to Gaias’s office to meet him there.

He tossed me a bag of coins that clinked against each other, a cold metallic sound.

“Your share of the prize money.” He said. “You did good today, Adrias.”

“Thank you.” I replied.

“You sure you don’t want electronic credit?” Gaias said.

“No.” I said simply. “I like the weight of money in my hand and on my belt.”

I shifted the rug in the room with my foot and took off the suffocating mask. It was good the others didn’t question my secrecy too much, so long as I accomplished the ludus’ goals, I supposed. They weren’t paid enough by Gaias to care beyond whether or not we got more prize money.

I left through the trapdoor and changed in the passageway before walking out. I wondered how my night vision worked. It wasn’t natural, certainly. That much was clear. There were no light sources in the tunnel that a passer had not brought themselves and thus you were in pitch black darkness. Zero photons bouncing around to strike your rods and cones in your eyes.

I had taken the contacts out, but the dye was still in my hair. It would wash out when I took my shower. I suppose the Servi who saw me on the way to Livia and my apartment would merely think that I was trying to follow some new fashion.

I went back to our apartment, climbed up the stairs, entered our room and then immediately jumped in the shower to let the hot water flow over my sweaty and dirty body. I had to kneel down to get the spray of shower head to fall onto my face. I ran shampoo through my dyed locks and black came out of it, leaving only pristine white strands.

When I was done, I dressed in semi-formal attire and sat down. Livia came in and embraced me and cried.

“I thought you were going to die.” She said, tearfully.

“It wasn’t that bad.” I said, even though it had been pretty bad before I had rallied. I felt embarrassed that she felt so strongly about my safety and that I had worried her.

“Oh! I have a gift for you.” She said.

“What is it?” I asked, surprised she had gotten me anything at all.

“I have tickets to a play.” Livia said.

“Which one?” I asked.

“Oedipas Rex.” She said.

We walked to the theater, observing the upwards curvature of Sunburst Station’s ring as we walked, held to its inner surface only by gravity generators. We entered the theater, a grand building.

Livia and I filed in, but I quickly realized a problem as we found our seats. I was too tall and would block the people behind me.

“This is outrageous.” A man said behind me. “I can’t even see with this big imbecile-“

There was more angry murmuring from others and the man started talking louder.

I turned around and he pretended to not have been the one speaking.

Unlike on Lavinius, these Servi on Sunburst Station were more aggressive and less obedient to Imperators. I wondered if that came from seeing Imperators more. Familiarity breeding contempt.

An usher came up to me. “Your grace, we have other, perhaps more fitting seats for someone of your caliber and status.”

I followed him, dragging Livia along with me.

The usher brought us to the upper tier where private boxes were constructed, overlooking the play and its actors below. We entered one and sat down. There was a crash next door in the next box over and I looked to the side and then glanced back. Not my problem.

The play started. Oedipas was king of Tebi, married to Queen Jokasta.

I wondered idly why it was that the people of the Dominium had such an obsession with the culture of the Haellenes of Grecia and the Romaens of Italia when we were all the sons and daughters of godblessed Thaekyria. Why were there not more stories of Augustas’s homeland or the Old Thaekyrian Empire on Terra that preceded the Dominium? Had our culture simply not produced enough stories of note? Had we had to borrow all our legends and myths? The thought depressed me.

King Oedipas stepped out and was immediately swarmed on stage by priests. Tebi was cursed and dying and they begged him for a solution. Oedipas replied that he had sent his brother-in-law, Kreon, out to the Oracle of the sun god. The actor playing Kreon entered the stage on one side and an actor presumably playing the Oracle entered from the other wing.

Kreon went over to the Delfic Oracle, the other actors freezing on stage to symbolize his distance in time and space from the other characters in the city-state of Tebi. The Oracle was a young woman on a tripod stool. I looked at her disdainfully, everyone knew Oracles look nothing like humans. Where were her draconic scales and her great stature and fangs?

I heard laughter from the box next door, a woman’s voice loudly sounding out.

The pitifully human looking oracle whispered something in Kreon’s ears, and he returned to the others, the actors unfreezing as they did so.

Oedipus asked Kreon what the news from the Oracle was, and Kreon was hesitant. He asked if the king wanted to hear the news in private.

The king insisted that it be said for everyone to hear instead.

Kreon told him then that the killer of King Laias, Oedipus’s predecessor, is in Thebes and must be driven out to remove the curse.

I heard a crash in the box next door. Curious. I got up and walked over, pausing at the privacy curtain. I sniffed, my keen senses detecting a strong scent of smoke and chemicals. I entered and found an Imperator and a Hetaira passed out on the floor. I recognized a plethora of drugs and substances and alcohol strewn around the box or spilt on the floor.

“Adrias?” Livia called. “Are you alright?”

She tried to enter but the fumes nearly made her pass out and she juddered back. This was no place for a Silver Servus. The man and I were both Copper Imperators and the Hetaira appeared to be a Gold Hetaira. All three of us had the constitutions to survive in this miasma. But perhaps not enough to survive whatever they had ingested.

I sharpened and focused my hearing until I could make out the most minute sounds in the private box we were in while completely blocking out the sounds of the play.

The other Imperator wasn’t breathing.

I started doing chest compressions.