Akin's Throat 2

Both Velendo and Tao scramble awkwardly to their feet. They're in a small cavern, separated from a huge open area by a line of metal bars. The air is astonishingly hot and humid, and the muck at their feet smells like pure sewage. Around them, a dozen or so drooling corpses stand swaying slowly back and forth, moaning slightly to themselves.

"What the hell?" asks Tao, looking around. Her field of view is quite limited; the small cave that they're locked in seems to be in a corner of the much larger cavern that stretches away into darkness, and some sort of a platform blocks most of her view. She bats away an investigating flumph with one hand as she turns to Velendo. "Where do you suppose we are?"

"How should I know?" asks the cleric irritably. He walks to the bars and rattles them slightly. Behind him, the zombies drool and sway. "Locked. Let's try to get someone's attention."

Hmmm, thinks the half-elf. A city full of weird creatures and vile abominations who I am supposed to "Save." I know, I will do what Nolin does, put on some sort of show and then yell at them like Velendo. No, that won't work. The show part I mean, the yelling I can do. I know, I'll take the form of the truest gift the Goddess has ever given me and show all these people her beauty, power, and grace. And if that doesn't work, she smiles to herself, I can threaten them with the horn. Behind Velendo, Tao turns into a unicorn.

"Hey!" he shouts, and rattles the bars again. "Hey! We aren't supposed to be in here!" From around a corner comes an orcs dressed in black robes. He stops in front of the bars, stares, and juts out his tusked jaw.

"Thugok! Ixil hoth, thrum kathlok!"

Velendo rolls his eyes and turns to Tao. "Tell me you speak orcish, or at least undercommon." Tao shrugs.

"Hey, I just kill 'em. I don't speak to 'em. That's Nolin's job."

"Well, he isn't here. Nice unicorn form, by the way." Turning back to the bars, Velendo makes pantomimes with his arms as he speaks loudly and slowly. "We. Need. To. Get. Out."

"Chuddik. Urth thraskool." The orc, clearly annoyed, turns and trots away around the corner. A minute later he's back with a bedraggled duergar in tow. The gray-skinned deep dwarf eyes Tao and Velendo suspiciously as he leans on a staff.

"Uchukla?" He tries again. "Thriss issilthalma? Belluq'uq quildeen? You understand this?" The last one is in heavily accented dwarvish, which both Tao and Velendo know how to speak.

"Yes! We're in here by mistake. We need to be let out."

The orc in dark robes jabbers at the duergar, who glares back at the two prisoners. "Kithlin says you're not supposed to be in there. Kithlin says you are in his zombie pen. Are you stealing?"

Velendo sputters. "No, of course not! We were teleported in here in error. We just want to get out. You'll notice that we haven't hurt any of your zombies."

The duergar also translates for the orc, who finishes counting the zombies before grunting back at him. "Kithlin says you lie. Says teleport doesn't work. I wouldn't know." He gazes up through the bars. "You lying?"

Velendo turns his gaze to heaven and counts to three. "No. Not teleported, transported. Just let us out of here! What is this place?"

"You're in Kithlin's zombie pen. Best zombies you can buy. He sells them from here. People come here, to Akin's Throat, to buy them. Good money. They make good servants." Both the duergar and the orc look at Tao and Velendo speculatively, as if sizing them up for zombiehood or sale, but Velendo's obviously magical equipment – and the fact that in unicorn form, Tao has two feet of magically sharpened ivory protuding from her forehead – seem to deter them.

"Do you have any ghouls?" The duergar look shocked by this question. When he translates it for the orc, Kithlin very carefully and eloquently spits towards Velendo. Other than this, he doesn't bother to answer.

"Right, then. Where did these undead come from?"

The duergar doesn't even bother to translate. "The zombies come from dead slaves. Also from battles."

"You have slaves?" The duergar stares at him as if he were an idiot, and again doesn't bother to answer. He and the orc argue for a minute, and the orc turns and shuffles away. As he does so, a loud roar rises from a barely seen stone structure.

"What's that?" asks Tao in dwarvish. The duergar grunts.

"Arena. Owner facing down a bunch of slaves and criminals. Should be fun." He sounds bitter. "But no fun for me, not today." The orc appears behind him, carrying a huge ring of keys. As he unlocks the door, Tao and Velendo exchange a glance.

Tao nudges Velendo's arm with her head, and draws him closer. "If there's an arena, and we showed up piecemeal around this place, what do you suppose the chances are that...?" Velendo nods.

"That's what I'm afraid of. We better go." The gate rattles open, and Tao and Velendo walk out into the humid warmth of Akin's Throat. The sound of Tao's hooves echo on the stone. Zombies try to shuffle after them, but Kithlin drives them back with a few kicks before slamming and locking the gate.

"Next auction tomorrow," advises the duergar. "Get here early, bid on a good one."

"No thanks," says Velendo. "Thank you for letting us out. We need to go."

"Huh. Kithlin says you do this again, you'll pay for it."

Tao and Velendo break into a trot as they run past slave pens and a deep pit of squirming rats, moving under humongous mushrooms as they make their way towards the arena that dominates the large cavern. Above them they see Luminor and Nolin silhouetted against the ceiling, and Tao manages to catch their attention. The airborne Defenders land next to Tao and Velendo.

"Good to see you," says Nolin, who was singing Agar a soothing song about stepping on bugs.

Tao asks, "Do you know where the others are?"

Nolin grimaces and nods towards the arena. "I think we need to go buy some tickets."

* * *

The gravel pulses and fountains upwards, leaving Malachite and Galthia disoriented. They are in an oval hall of some sort about sixty feet across. The heat and the sound are both tremendous; at their arrival, a wave of cheers and boos rebound across the arena, deafening in its loudness.

As they both stagger to their feet, they can see that the walls are cut with three narrow windows that circle the entire room, each eight feet above the other. From those windows, hundreds of faces peer down at them. Across from them, an impossibly gaunt woman with stringy black hair stands in a swirl of dark cloak. Near her are three dead humanoids, a few live goblins screaming and trying to avoid her, and a fairly well-armed humanoid frog.

"Arena," says Galthia.

"Arena," agrees Malachite. He feels his armored shoulder begin to itch in the heat, and he concentrates his glare towards the combatants. The white glow that fills his vision is immediately tainted by spiraling corruption. He looks back at Galthia. "She's undead." Even as he says this, the woman manages to grab one of the fleeing goblins by the back of its neck. To the roar of the crowd, she twists off its head and buries her face in the fountaining blood. Then she drops the cooling corpse and lifts her face in a ghastly red smile.

"Right," says Galthia. Like lightning, he sprints across the room. His fist pinions up towards the gaunt woman's face, all of his strength behind it –

and some kind of invisible force slows and deflects his blow.

Before he can snatch back his fist, she moves like a striking snake and snares his closed fist in one talon-like hand. Her eyes catch Galthia's, as if to savor his expression, and then her grip clenches. Galthia feels most of the bones in his hand crunch and grind as they're pulverized into sharp fragments by her supernatural strength. Her other hand also clutches his wrist in a perfect combat maneuver, twists, and yet another of Galthia's bones snaps with a pain that takes away the monk's breath. I was taught that one myself, a distant part of his mind thinks above the pain and fear. She's better at it than I am. Still watching his expression, the woman smiles slowly, and her sharpened fangs catch the torchlight as her blood-caked tongue darts out in anticipation.

Around them, the crowd roars.

Then the woman pulls in a way that has nothing to do with muscles or martial arts, and the githzerai feels part of his soul sundered as it is simply ripped from his frame. He almost drops to his knees as the life force is torn from him. Slowly, she throws back her head as she lifts the ephemeral tracings of Galthia's soul high to her lips and greedily gobbles it down. Her tongue darts out as if to savor the flavor, and she sighs in rapture.

Her voice is muffled and high, like she's speaking through clotted blood. "You should pick your fights more carefully, boy. This one didn't belong to you. But it does now."

"I don't think so." Malachite's boots glide silently over the gravel as he charges towards her, and Karthos blazes with triumphant light as the paladin prepares to swing.