Chapter 448 - Far Future Ch. 158 – Let’s See Some Blood (1/2)

Celestia resisted the urge to feed the grinning, disdainful drow his teeth with her usual impassiveness. She grabbed up the four registration tokens and walked back to us... and the experienced drow gladiators had given us careful berth, despite themselves.

”They've stuck us in among the outlanders,” she informed us, tossing us our badges. We inspected the mustering address on the things, turned together in that direction, and shrugged together. Of course we wouldn't be settled among the bladewitch covens and warlock sects, or even the lower order mercs or something, as long as they were drow. To drow, breshkt were as foreign a species as the humans they were mixed with.

The big celebration and slaughter wasn't until tomorrow, but naturally the teams and individuals had to register and be allocated ahead of time. Massive numbers of slaves, sacrifices, convicts, conscripts, and aliens were being shuffled into holding pens, to be released tomorrow, while the professionals were allocated their stalls and positions for the big event.

According to the terms of the contract, the last thousand surviving beings could opt to leave the arena and earn their rewards, which could be any manner of things, from information to mere cash to rare goods to bioengineering, or maybe even asking a favor that wasn't too much of an imposition.

The last hundred beings would get greater rewards, jacked again for the last ten, and graduating for the last five.

The likelihood of that happening for an outsider was slim to none. The long-established pros would join in once the mass slaughter was done, looking for up and comers to kill and further their own legends, while eliminating potential future rivals after they did all the boring and tedious slaughter. They had to join before the last ten thousand were set, but that was hardly an imposition. The killing would continue until then.

The smart ones would survive to the last thousand, and then immediately vacate the arena before the pros killed them. Then the pros would clash, a few would kill one another, most would simply withdraw before that happened, leaving only the last few to contest one another for the highest slots.

Our bikini and blood donors had witnessed more than a few of these grand celebrations, and even fought in two of them, making it to the last thousand before leaving the arena to the truly adept. The impressions they had of the master gladiators left no doubt that they wouldn't survive any sparring that occurred.

That wasn't our impressions, of course.

Keva had analyzed the styles of the various covens and bands for all of us, Jensa had pointed out style weaknesses, and we had gotten a lot of practice in fighting elvar of all kinds on our way here. Our Courtiers of Death were in full force, and oh, were they not going to like fighting against us.

We hadn't even pulled out our shields in a proper duel yet, only mass combat outside the arenas. Of course, we were obviously all wearing bucklers, but we hadn't actually equipped them. Naturally, we hadn't needed to, so a lot of the drow were wondering how arrogant we were, not using them against combatants... because we didn't need to? Wouldn't that mean that equipping them meant we were finally facing something serious?

That was exactly what it meant, and honestly, simply by making the shield a Profound Weapon and so usable with Wisdom or Intellect bonuses to AC, which they normally weren't, they would shoot our AC into the stratosphere and make us nigh-unhittable by our opponents. When we actually bothered to use them, ouch, the drow were going to be in for a rough time.

We wanted to stop just below the top ten. Arena rules forbid the top hundred from tag-teaming one another, all duels had to be resolved between individuals with no outside help. That said, engaging, disengaging, and moving from one opponent to the next while only wounding or blooding was all perfectly permissible, as was jumping on someone just wounded from a fight with somebody else.

”Hello.” All our eyes turned on a party moving through the press. While the majority of people were wealthy drow, there were plenty of aliens of all types in specific areas, drawing the intrigued, arrogant eyes of many of the dark elvar here. Aberrant races, fringe players, criminals, corrupt lordlings, vassal races, emotionless sentients, and lots of Warped of various kinds.

Seeing some overly ostentatious yet obviously competent humans among them was not a surprise, but it was something we were looking for.

From Markspace to the Quanta to downloaded to the Umbran databanks wasn't too long. The Umbrans naturally didn't know everyone in the galaxy, but they did know everyone who was prominent. Anyone who could walk into Gloomheart and not feel out of place was definitely not a nobody.

The hit came back in seconds, along with his personal history from seventeen years ago... because he came from the other side of the Rift.

Marquis de Krov. He was a Marquis because he had a Writ of Marque, making him one of the nobles of the Empire, a free-willed, starcrossing freebooter with his own ships and fleet, empowered by the Empire to wage war, conscript troops, and explore beyond the edge of the Empire's borders in humanity's name basically as they saw fit.

Such men weren't the same as Dukes, who were even older hereditary dynasties, with rights to planets and even systems that came with their Writ of Nobility. A Marquis could also end up claiming planets and territory, but their title was from a Writ of Marque, and so of lesser status.

Most such men were aggressive, ambitious bastards fully willing to use the Writ, and the ship and fleets that came with it, in unscrupulous and bloody ways to enhance their own wealth, power, and prestige. Buccaneers was a polite term for most of them; rogues, scoundrels, and profiteers described most of them, and those it didn't were usually fanatics or warmongers taking the edicts of the Empire to their deadliest extreme, or out and out pirates and raiders preying on aliens ruthlessly, and humans if they thought they could get away with it.

Selling humans off to aliens for personal profit was one of those actions which would earn a Marquis a gyro in the head for themselves and their entire family line. The fact we had seen him here was a death sentence as soon as we confirmed what his dealings with the drow were. Duke Rimval was already writing out his death warrant.

He should have sent one of his sons. At least then he would have survived...