Ultimate Trickster Lord Reincarnation

The Fighting Ring

When I arrived at the location it appeared I wasn't the only one interested in 'making money quick'. The building was inconspicuous, just a little run-down shack shoved between other structures. It could not hold this many people, so where were they all going? A few men stood out front of the rackety wooden door as guards, and the burly one acted as a bouncer, checking people as they came in. Nobody handed in an invitation; it was a check to see if anybody more righteous was trying to bust their operation. I wondered how they could tell. It didn't seem to be magic.

I approached the tough, scarred bouncer and held up the piece of paper I had received from the little girl and my coin pouch. He motioned for me to take the hood off. I pulled it down, revealing my long black hair and lone grey eye. I had changed back into my clothes from the first day, the cheap pants and tunic I had stolen. In combination with my somewhat dirtied face from sleeping outside and still skinny frame, I passed the test. With a grunt, the door opened. My hood sank comfortably back over my face.

Immediately to my left was a set of descending stairs that everyone was shuffling towards, brushing past others coming back up. They faded into darkness, going deep within the earth. So that's where people were going. I followed quietly behind as the shuffling hoard headed below. The light from the day above faded into pitch black before morphing into eerie, flickering lanterns that opened up in an enormous underground foyer.

Akin to a mineshaft, the area was enclosed by dirt walls reinforced with wood and stones. The ceiling stretched high enough up that there was even a second-floor wooden walkway encircling the room's square perimeter. On the far side from where I came down was another set of stairs headed up in a spiral to the walkway. The outskirts of the room sported what looked to be booths with people waiting in line, and to the far back, away from the stairs, the area cut off into a row of wooden rooms closed to the public. Their doors were shut tight with walls extending to the roof in secrecy. In the back left corner was another set of stairs leading further down. An excited chatter filled the area, entangled with heated debates and the occasional shout. The place reeked of earth, sweat, and metal.

The biggest attention draw, however, was the giant dug-out crater in the center. Surrounded by a series of stacked rafter seating, it was enclosed by a fence and lit with impressive chandeliers. Within the crater was packed flat ground stained suspiciously with reds and browns. On opposing sides of the circle were dark hallways stretching somewhere unknown, the size for a person to walk in and out of.

This was an arena.

'So it was a fighting ring.'

I eyed the line of people at the booths.

'...A gambling fighting ring.'

What sort of deals were they offering?

I approached a booth at the corner that had just freed up, getting comfortable on the stool as the person behind the counter scratched something down in a notebook.

"Sorry about that- what can I help you with? Free drink with over a hundred put down!" The fellow chirped, looking up to greet me with a wide grin. His hair was slicked back, yellowed teeth contrasted against pasty skin. The red tint to his nose and cheeks suggested he was drunk, or that he was a consistently heavy drinker. The potbelly further confirmed this. A clean white shirt too tight to fit him anymore was spotless except for sweaty stains under the arms.

"Hundred of what?" I asked.

"Copper, or one silver!" He replied, fixing his ruffled collar, "Pretty good deal! You will get 50 copper back if you win, and keep your money!"

I recalled what I had learned from Diane. 60 copper for a meal plus a room at a nicer tavern. The average free-lancing job for a day paid about 20 copper. Do a few day's worth of work on the streets, spend a few coppers to buy your bread and water, and then risk the rest here to earn it back. Get inebriated with the drinks they sell, and gamble even more. A 50% return on investment was good...so what was the catch? If too many people won, how would they run a business?