035 - EVERYTHING HAS A PRICE
The next two fights proceeded as expected, with the Arena seeming more interested in attempting to draw out new skills from Conrad than in actually defeating him - a good sign. If he could manage to string this thing along long enough he might just get out of here. He was careful to wear the pin on the inside of his clothing, though, no sense in tempting it more than necessary.
His first opponent, a sort of frog creature that wielded twin, sturdy wooden batons seemed to be intended to get him to use Adrenaline Rush again, the Announcer’s commentary was less than subtle.
“GLURPTOK IS DANCING AROUND CONRAD! WILL HE EVEN BE ABLE TO CATCH SUCH A FAST OPPONENT?”
But there was no need, the creature was quick, but its attacks were so weak Conrad didn’t even need to block - his Toughness stat was well beyond what something like this could dish out. He simply waited, biding his time until…
“THE MERCHANT HAS GRABBED HOLD AND EVEN WITH JUST ONE HAND HE’S LETTING GLURPTOK HAVE IT!”
Conrad was about to pick up the thing’s own stick to beat it to death with, but it seemed the dungeon had put almost everything into its speed, leaving little left to bolster its health. With a crunch that was more shocking than anything else, Conrad sank a fist right through its face, ending the fight.
The crowd, for once, didn’t seem to know whether to cheer or boo. More of them had come to see, but still, it was a paltry number compared to what Conrad hoped to attract, compared to what he needed to attract in order to keep the dungeon convinced that a winner of the Conquest was in its interest.
There was exactly one man in the audience who didn’t seem confused at all about watching Conrad win.
“THAT’A LAD! GIVE ‘EM ONE MORE FOR ME!” the man shouted drunkenly, mug of ale spilling as he cheered.
Conrad shook his hand clear of frog brains, looked the man directly in the eye, and saluted with a fist to the chest. He’d never seen the salute, it was different than adventurers showing respect, but it felt right for the Arena. Then he kicked the dead thing away from him, earning him more applause, and the dungeon the rest of the man’s ale along with the mug that it had come in.
He exited the Arena, noting only with passing interest that the Announcer had awarded him ten pallets of red bricks. Not exactly exciting loot but Conrad wouldn’t get to enjoy any of it anyway.
When he entered again the following day it was in a flash of inspiration that Conrad decided to add his own flair on top of the Announcer’s exuberant introduction. He turned to face each quadrant of the surrounding audience - still growing it seemed - and saluted with a closed fist thumped once on his chest and held for a moment, as he had done for his single fan the day before.
It was surprising how good it felt when he saw that same man, sober today, thump his own chest in salute to Conrad. Finally, a friendly face.
Then the Arena sent out his third opponent, a huge turtle creature as big as he was. The dungeon, evidently, was experimenting, because this creature seemed to be all constitution and no speed. Conrad dipped and dodged easily, again never invoking a skill, his passive and natural buffs more than enough to handle it.
“KABUKI JUST CAN’T HIT THE HUMAN, BUT WITH A SHELL LIKE THAT, CAN CONRAD EVEN DAMAGE THE MASTER OF THE THIRD TIER?”
As it turned out, Conrad could. He slipped a heavy punch and jammed his dagger into the space where ‘arm’ met shell, eliciting a deep grumble of pain. Repeating the motion became easier as the thing took damage and, eventually, it dropped to its knees.
To the Announcer’s credit, it seemed to take its role very seriously. It never gave much if any indication that it was losing whenever Conrad won, and instead, commentary remained neutral, by turns praising the creatures of the dungeon and Conrad himself as if both combatants were champions deserving respect.
So it was without any compunction or fear of repercussion that Conrad stepped around the beast and slit its throat. He swiped his knife through the air to flick off the extra blood before sending it into his inventory, and at the sound of the cheers decided he’d spend the evening working on some sort of flashy moves with the knife. Winning with style was now becoming more important than simply moving forward.
He saluted the crowd, ignored his shiny new plans for a water mill except to realize it must have been extracted from the mind of some poor soul the dungeon had killed, and exited.
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Much later, and with more cuts on his hands from practicing flashy knife moves than he had earned in all three of his fights so far, Conrad was eyeing his cot with half a mind toward turning in early. The door opened. Not the main entrance where prospective gladiators entered and exited, but the special door that only Mitch and the other guards seemed to be able to use.
The Tower’s huge bulk darkened the door briefly before it closed behind him and he entered the preparation area. He walked right up to Conrad’s cell and leaned in, forearms sticking through the gap and resting against the flat surface of one of the cross bars.
“You…son of a bitch,” Conrad growled. He pointed his knife at the big man, “You’re lucky I’m trying to make a name for myself here or I’d cut those right off you.
There was a commotion against the far wall and a voice rang out, “Oi! That’s The Tower you’re talkin’ to, Con! Show some respect!” Jace, the wannabe gladiator, called out. From the eager look on his face, Conrad could tell he was hoping to impress Karno with his quick defense of the big man’s honor.
“Shut the hell up, Jace,” Conrad said, “He’s the reason I’m in here.”
Jace scoffed, but after seeing Conrad win three fights he was no longer an enemy. There was a bit of friendly jest in his tone as he said, “Murder’s the reason you’re in here.”
“We talked about this,” Conrad said, pointing his knife at Jace now, “It was self-defense.”
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Jace waved his hands as if it didn’t matter and gestured to Karno, “All right, Tower?”
Karno nodded to him, “Jace.”
Everybody went silent, and after a few moments Jace lay back down on his cot with an awkward, “I’ll leave you to it then.”
Conrad and Karno returned to staring each other down, and for Conrad’s part he returned to threatening the big man with his knife as he said, “You screwed me.”
Karno looked down, “Looks that way.”
“LoOkS tHaT wAy?” Conrad mocked, “Everything you told me was a lie! Forcing people into the Arena? Do you know how many people I’ve watched come and go from this place? Chaos take me for a fool, Jace actually likes it here more than he does… wherever he goes out there.”
“You haven’t met my wife,” Jace called out.
“Shut the hell up, Jace,” Conrad called over his shoulder again.
“Wasn’t all lies…” Karno said, but his voice made it plain he didn’t believe it anymore, or at least, didn’t come here to argue his own philosophy, “Paul’s debts were bad and the rules here… this place… this system… people shouldn’t have to live this way. Killing for what you can get for yourself with an honest day’s work. Turns men rotten.”
“I think I got enough bricks for that kill the other day to match about a month's worth of honest days,” Conrad said, unimpressed. He put his knife away and returned to his cot, “If that’s all you’ve got I’m going to sleep. You can boo me tomorrow with the rest of the haters.”
Karno cleared his throat loudly and Conrad raised his head just enough off the pillow to show he could still hear the man.
“Don't you want to know?” Karno asked, “Why I’m still here?”
“Cause you’re Barrett’s man,” Conrad said, relaxing again and closing his eyes, “Pretty clear when he congratulated you on ‘capturing’ me.”
“You know I didn’t. That’s just what Barrett said to the crowd,” Karno said, deep voice frustrated.
“What? Wasn’t you that brought Conrad to face the Arena’s justice?” Jace called out.
“Shut the hell up, Jace!” Karno and Conrad both said in unison.
The man held up his arms in exasperated placation and lay down, facing the wall.
“I wanted to get them all out. I meant it,” Karno said, “Exaggerated a bit on the turmoil here and I had a sense you’d take to that story. But murder…? I never thought it’d be called that. What you did to Dirk and Paul you did to defend yourself.”
Conrad shot up and clapped his hands loudly, pointing at the man whose lies had put him in this cell, “YES!” he pointed again and again in emphasis as he shouted at the sleepers around the room, “I’VE BEEN SAYING IT! HAVEN’T I BEEN SAYING IT?!”
“Oh shut the hell up, Conrad,” Jace muttered, “Ain’t how Barrett sees it.”
“You shut the hell up, JACE!” But seeing that this proof of the unfairness of Conrad’s sentencing did nothing to move the Great Piners around him, he let it go.
“So what happened then?” Conrad asked. He was feeling slightly more generous to Karno now that he had admitted to the lies and the wrongness of this whole situation. Enough to hear his story at least.
“Paul’s family,” Karno began, and Conrad couldn’t see in the dim gloom of the dungeon but he would have sworn he heard a small sniffle, “Said it was my job to keep him safe. He went out with the legendary Tower and that was supposed to be the safe option for handling his debts. They won’t even speak to me anymore after what happened.”
“They know it was me that killed him?” Conrad asked. Hearing about Paul’s family made the death feel real and heavy. Sure he was out doing a dangerous job, but it was a bit like taking up a role as a city guard - those types weren’t signing up for the kind of danger he had ended up in. Paul had been no adventurer.
Karno nodded, “I think it’s safe to say they won’t be part of your cheering section.”
“What about Eloise?” Conrad asked. He hadn’t even thought of the woman since the fight out at her cottage. Hell, he hadn’t even met her. But she had been part of the story that led him to all this so he was still curious.
“I’m done with her,” Karno said.
He stopped talking but Conrad knew it was the kind of pause that wouldn’t hold for long.
“She abandoned them!” Karno said bitterly, “All those people who needed her. Barrett offered her a home and a garden here, a little bit of gold and safety, and she left! The herbs were the last thing allowing those poor people to keep their homesteads and push back against Chaos in the best way possible - making the Chaos Lands habitable for people.”
“The people you robbed?” Conrad quipped.
“They could still make it! That was how I fought against Barrett. The other crews rob everybody blind, some of ‘em even destroy what they can’t carry. ‘Finger on the scales’ Barrett calls it,” he beat palm against the bars, “But he couldn’t get one on the people I took from! They could restart, they had the herbs, and they didn’t need Barrett or the Arena! But he knew! Barrett knew what I was doing and so he took out the only support that could have kept them there - Eloise!”
So, Karno had been resisting Barrett, if only just barely.
“Have you seen them?” Karno asked, “In the crowd?”
“Who?”
“Same folks who put you on my trail. I’ve met them. Good people,” Karno said, “Haven’t quite forgiven me and I doubt Trish ever will but the other two…”
“Trish? The Brewer?” Conrad asked, shocked.
Karno nodded, “And Cora, and her husband the Herdsman, Gunny. Barrett’s men brought ‘em in this afternoon.”
Conrad blew out a sigh, “That man doesn’t waste any time.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Karno said.
Then a sudden thought chilled Conrad, “My parents?”
Karno shook his head no, “They’re too close to the city. Me going out there was brazen, but Barrett’s men won’t touch them.”
That was a relief. The two were quiet a few moments before Conrad interjected, saying, “So Eloise doesn’t want to go, Paul’s family hates you, the homesteaders don’t trust you… seems like your ‘rescue’ mission has fallen apart.”
Karno nodded. And Conrad decided to poke the man a bit more. He deserved it.
“And the other people here, they treat you like a celebrity. No real friends here because ‘The Tower’ and half his accomplishments aren’t real. You’re a fairy tale. Spun up by Barrett to romanticize what he does to bring people out to bolster his ranks.”
Karno nodded again.
“You’re a fraud. Before you met me you could barely even use that spear, let alone the shield! You could barely defend yourself and failed to defend the people who depended on you for safety. They followed you because they believed your legend and you let them. You didn’t have the balls to step in and hold Dirk back, or Paul, and you let them go against me and I did what I did because of you! Their deaths are on you! The people you robbed losing everything they fought so hard to claw out of the land? That was you! All of it! All of this! It’s you who should be in here, not me!”
Karno nodded again, face downcast and shadowed.
“You fucked up!” Conrad growled, “That’s why you’re here. You fucked up and you want me to forgive you! Absolution for your sins. You want me to forgive you because in your lonely, pathetic little life here, among all of these people, the gladiators, the guards, and even Barrett, the last person to show you kindness, the only person left who even resembles a friend, is me!”
Karno didn’t look up. Probably couldn’t. Good. Sheep should avert their eyes before wolves.
“But haven’t you heard, friend?” Conrad said, he was on his feet now, “I’m the Merchant of fucking DEATH! No forgiveness for sale here! All your sadness and moping stories of how you’ve got it so bad won’t earn two points with me. I’m done with you - and when I complete the Conquest and leave this Order-forsaken place behind, you better pray I’m not still angry, because if I can survive paying the price for killing two decent men, the cost of killing a chicken-shit like you won’t even register.”
Conrad breathed heavily as he finished his tirade. His heart was pounding, rage coursing through him. He wished he could fight tonight, right now. He’d smash whatever it was that was sent against him and ask for seconds.
Karno just nodded and stood up straight.
“The Chieftain is the champion of the fourth tier,” he said, “He starts slow, but gets more dangerous the longer you fight him. I’ll be there. Didn’t want you thinking you had to die without a… well, without anybody around.”
“You don’t spend enough time in the Arena,” Conrad spat, “I’ve got fans now.”
He made a rude gesture to Karno and the man turned and left.
Forgiveness? Like hell. He’d be Chaos taken first.