# Viasperon's Story - "Chapter 9?"



## andygorn (Apr 1, 2011)

Hi all,
I don't think I've had anyone's thoughts/suggestions about these stories yet. I don't know if that means people don't like these or if you're all just shy (lol), but I hope you're enjoying them all the same.

As before, all the "Viasperon's Story" Chapters are just written as they come into my head. They're not planned or scripted, definitely not written in the point of view of the same character or in strict chronological order, and often written in a 'soft' sort of stream-of-consciousness way, so I'm not sure which direction they will be headed in or what secrets may yet be revealed (I hope this doesn't sound self-indulgent, but that's just the way I write).

Anyway, on with Chapter 9:
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_*Chapter 9?*_

Whilst trying to get up from the floor where he’d fallen, an unintelligible burble assailed his ears.
Putting a hand onto the sleeping-bench to help try to lift himself to his feet, he recalled that he hadn’t merely fallen: he’d been deliberately tripped up.
Gritting his teeth against the pain in his ribs as his torso shifted and as he found new injuries, the noise came again...._’What was that sound? And where was it coming from?’_

“It doesn’t seem to understand...” <another tortured wheeze> “No, I’m not sure why _either_, because you would think that the slaves who lived would be the ones who proved quick to understand instruction, wouldn't you..?”

Steel toe-caps tapped across the floor towards him as at least one of his captors approached. “He asked you a question, slave, you ought to reply.” came the sibilant whisper near his ear.
Looking up at his questioner through his eyebrows, he saw a slash of flame-red hair masking most of the man’s features, but the corner of his right eye caught sight of the heavy-bored pistol just as it’s muzzle was pressed against his temple.

“If you wanted me dead, you would have killed me already, so I have value to you and there is no point in you killing me” the prisoner snarled back.
As a reply, the gaoler’s high-pitched laugh bounced off the cell’s walls. “It is _true_, there are losses that I would find difficult to bear, but there are others which can be discounted as easily as a scratch.”
Even if he hadn’t felt it happening through the contact with his skin, the _slide-chunk_ sound told of a bolt-action being cocked and primed, ready to fire.
Turning his gaze ever so slightly, the gun was more something that an Ork would use: huge in the other man’s elegant hands, he recognised that it wasn’t a firearm... instead, he knew it was a device for launching a metal rod into an animal’s brain to put it out of it’s misery; it was yet another sign of how little they thought of him.

“You should armour-up, gladiator...your next challenge awaits. Few of your intake have lasted this long; your survival alone is a thing of comment in the High Circles, though they all wait for a champion to fall. So, the longer you live, then the higher you climb in their estimation, yet the greater will be your disgrace...and their ecstasy... when you finally succumb.”

Trying to appeal to it’s rationality, he asked: “You have already injured me today, so my fighting capabilities are impaired. Perhaps you have been... careless...with your attentions and I am now incapable of fighting at my best in your games; I am sure that would prove to be so...*unsatisfying*...to your patrons, would it not? Or perhaps I should just refuse and continue to kneel here..?”

Shrill laughter echoed throughout the chamber once again:
“It is interesting that you assume the bruises and cracked rib were inflicted today? You are no novice...you _know_ that time passes differently here than elsewhere. The passage of hours here is altered, even when compared to most of the rest of the Dark City.
“As to your question, refusal is precisely the contingency that my little friend is here to stop...to ensure that you can walk into the arena and that you _cannot_ refuse. It would not be the first time that a fighter has refused and it would not be the first time that a body has been pumped so full of drugs that their physicailty rebels, even against their own willpower” came the reply.
The man’s hand beckoned the room’s other occupant forwards and it shambled into the winking yellow half-light from the window ‘outside’, metal scraping against the stone floors. Thinking...no, hoping...that it was just wearing heavy boots, he looked down, only to see that the feet which protruded from it’s pale green skirts were made of tarnished metal and which were fashioned in the style of a bird’s talons.
Although there was no warmth in the gesture, the man threw a comradely arm around the thing’s shoulder as it stepped forth, displaying it’s face. “This is Narenn...he has become quite skilled at inducing compliance, isn’t that right..?” A gasping chuckle seemed to echo from it’s plasteel-grilled visage by way of reply and it reached out for him with hands made from needles and razor-knives that clicked and rotated excitedly, the movements becoming markedly more frenzied as they neared his exposed flesh. Though he did not want to show fear in this place, he could not help but recoil from the spinning digits as the man’s voice admonished the creature: “Naughty naughty, Narenn...you know not to play with it until it is the time.”
With the speaking man now in profile, he finally recognised the face: Avidrate...a Trueborn in the service of the Kabal of the Poisoned Chalice, now his captor and punisher.
Though the knowledge was of limited use right now, it was still a victory of sorts, so the prisoner was careful to keep the recognition from his face and voice as he enquired: “So, when am I to go out again? Today..? Tomorrow..? Now..?"


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