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[Pedigree]002 Pregame Gyrations
[Pedigree]003 Let The Games Begin
[Pedigree]004 The Press of Victory
[Pedigree]002 Pregame Gyrations
\Narration\
The sun was very low in the sky when the black coach arrived at the Atlanna Municiple Amphitheater, a huge structure known commonly as the arena. The coach passed through a few security checkpoints, then drove right into the huge building through a back gate.
For years Nathaniel had worked to get his slaves into the arena. He promoted them in pit fights with lions and bears at his casinos, and he finally built the small following necessary to get noticed. His slaves first appeared in the arena in promotional events, unfair bouts against tall odds on weekday mornings, perhaps the worst time imaginable. In those days his slaves were bred using less sophisticated techniques, but they were still a cut above the norm.
Once he could actually get into the arena, Nathaniel had met a few of the right people, and soon House Ellis entered its first slave in an official bout. In a single year, House Ellis grew to dominate the daytime arena, consistently winning bouts against gladiators of other houses. There were two ways to get into the weeknight time slots, either by breaking a rather difficult win to loss ratio in the daytime slots, or by being challenged by a contender who fought during the more desirable time slot.
Since he was a bastard, Nathaniel had not been given a challenge, he had had to do it the hard way. His win record at last gave him a shot at the gladiators normally seen on weekday evenings. In the previous year, the first rather flawed products of Nathaniel's current breeding techniques had began to enter the games. He had also been acquiring better trainers and his gladiators now had a very firm footing in the weekday evening time slots. Recently, much to Nathaniel's surprise, house Caezal had let him know that, if he were to challenge it's two youngest heros, house Caezal would accept.
House Caezal was the very same house that had produced Raptorath, currently the number one gladiator in the country. Caezal's gladiators were known for their high muscle mass and great strength. Nathaniel had done a great deal of research on the slaves of house Caezal because they were the best. He had found that only about a quarter of them were bred, the others were found by a large, expert search team. These men screened thousands of slaves, both green and bred. It was a feat only a man of enormous influence could accomplish. Most slave masters found it difficult to turn an inquiry from a nobleman down, and Caezal did pay well if he decided he was interested in a slave. New slaves entering Caezal's training program, however, did not exhibit the extreme muscularity that slaves that had been in the training program longer did. Nathaniel had long thought that House Caezal had an ace up their sleeve. Their security had been tight, but Nathaniel had eventually located a trainer's assistant who liked to live beyond his means, and had some modest gambling debts.
Nathaniel had found out through contacts that the the assistant trainer owed the Flush Roll Casino a reasonably substantial, though not dangerous, sum of money. Nathaniel had a friend who owned the Diadem Casino. He was a self-made man of the criminal persuasion, and certainly not a member of the upper classes. At Nathaniel's request, his friend had used his stupid white trash act to get the owner of the Flush Row Casino to convince him to have The Diadem Casino take on the assistant trainer's outstanding debts, since the man seemed not to spend much time at the Flush Roll anymore, and was probably doing most of his gambling at the Diadem. In truth, he had been to the Diadem maybe twice in his life and had not been doing any gambling there. Indeed it had taken quite some time for him to find out that his debts had been transferred there.
Once he saw his account limit at the Diadem was higher than it had been at the Roll, he did what came naturally, he drank, gambled and consistently lost money. Eventually Nathaniel had his friend come up with an idea on how the assistant trainer could clean up his now dangerously large debts. He could sell information about the Caezal training program to a lesser house of gladiators who desperately needed help to compete in the lowly daytime slots.
The assistant trainer had been reticent at first but had come around quickly enough. An anonymous representative met the assistant trainer and paid him well for simple information. Nathaniel's agent thus stimulated the man's greed and also gave him some genuinely good excuses about helping others to compete fairly so that the best gladiator would win. He made out as though he were the agent for another house, one of several that fielded losers on a consistent basis during the day time slots. Inevitably the assistant trainer had gambled away his new income, and his need to gamble more loosened his tongue more and more. Nathaniel had gotten some genuinely useful information out of the man, and the crowning glory was a used syringe that had once contained Caezal's nutrient training formula. A formula used on all of his gladiators as soon as they entered training. Although Nathaniel had the nagging suspicion that something in the formula was at least in part responsible for the success of house Caezal's athletes. Nathaniel's mentor, the ancient alchemist, had been working to analyze the ingredients in their meager sample, but the nutrients he had isolated thus far were neither unusual nor particularly earth-shatering.
Marquis Roderick Caezal was the head of an old family with an impeccable name and great wealth. In his younger days he had been a bit of a black sheep. It was he who had started into the gladiator business as a diversion. He had done fairly well, but when his father died, he had sunk a great deal of money into the games and had eventually come out a big winner. Caezal's strategy was to get team fights wherein an established gladiator in the weekend time slot would partner with an unknown young buck. Two such fights and the young buck would be considered for his own weekend spots. This allowed Ceazal to skip the weekday and weeknight fights altogether. Nathaniel himself now used the same trick to avoid weekday fights. Odin, the earliest of his new generation of gladiators had completed his second fight not long ago. Nathaniel was fielding Odin, and an older more experienced, though vastly inferior, gladiator, Fazuul, in the evening's bout.
Instead of following his usual team pattern, for some inexplicable reason, Roderick Ceazal had started two young bucks, Raptovore and Rapturer at the bottom, in a bout against two weekday champions from another house that had been doing well in the weekday time slots after most of House Ellis' champions had graduated to weeknights. Of course House Ceazal's champions had won, as Caezal had planned. He had already lined up his gladiators next bout by having made it known that he was interested in a challenge from the current champions of the weeknights, the champions fielded by House Ellis. For the same social reasons that prompted no genteel house to feel obliged to "stoop" to challenging champions from a "white trash" House like House Ellis, Master Ellis could not afford to snub a nobleman like Ceazal when he made it known he would entertain a challenge. There was a silver lining, however. If Nathaniel won, Caezal could easily be made out to be a yellow bellied priss if Ceazal did not challenge Nathaniel's victors to a bout with some of House Ceazal's weekend contenders. Thus it appeared as though the noble Ceazal was giving the bastard Ellis a back-handed invite to the weekend games.
The evening started with a bit of music, some stand-up comedy and then the fanfare for the main event. The first part of the main event was always the owners' speeches. These were freeform and usually consisted of a stream of insults from one or more of the gladiators owned by one owner aimed at the gladiators owned by the other. The owner would then come on stage and give a more civilized speech about the superiority of his house's slaves and sometimes offer up a personal wager against the other owner. The challenged individual always came on first, and the issuer of the challenge followed. This worked fairly well since the challenged individual might be from a different time slot where purses were not as large, and he had the opportunity to set the amount of the bet. It was considered bad form for the second owner to raise the bet unless the challenged was from an established house with the means to cover such a raise.
\Narration\
Nathaniel waited his turn beneath the stage as Ominous music accompanied by an eerie mage-light show filled the arena above,
\Raptovor\
from a bank of mist jumped Raptovor in a suit of fanciful armor made from human leather and bone and showing off the oiled young slave's already fairly impressive muscular development. "Ahahaha! "Fazuul, you think you're going to put the faze on me?" Raptovor pointed to himself, his body shaking imperceptibly, as he kept all of his muscles flexed to the max. Think again boy! An old codger like you couldn't hope for a win against me even if you cheated and used your diaper as a sling!
\Crowd\
The crowd laughed and applauded.
\Raptovor\
And Odin, I heard you're a god? Ahahahaha! The god of Uranus! You better stare down your shorts while you can before old one-eye takes a bath in the dirt! I'm going to whip you boy, me and Rapturer are going to send you to your reward!
\Lord Caezal\
Crack! A whip sounded off and the lights brightened as Lord Caezal came out of the shadows. Go on boy, Get your armor on, the bout's going to start soon and you've got to look your best.
\Crowd\
The crowd laughed.
Lord Ceazal went to the podium on the left side of the stage, "House Caezal, producers of fine slaves like Raptorath, Rathar, Bloodorath, and many others is proud to show you tonight that we still have the best slaves on Iffrean. We started these two great new bucks at the bottom, no partnering with a senior slave, we started them out fresh. How many houses of our prestige can boast that? Only one of our competitor's slaves tonight worked his way up. The other is green and riding on his shirt tails. Well I'm here to demonstrate that we at house Ceazal don't need to depend on such conveniences of our august position, and our green slaves are of such impeccable quality that they can best House Ellis' experienced ones! I am so sure of our young bucks, with only a single bout to their names, that I'm going to place one hundred million gold pieces on this win."
\Crowd\
The crowd gasped. The sum was incredible, nearly unheard of even in the weekend time slots.
\Lord Caezal\
The question is, can the turkey take the heat, well, can you Ellis? Ceazal grinned and walked off stage.
\Nathaniel\
Beneath the stage Nathaniel cringed and grabbed his forehead. The whole thing had been a trap! If Caezal had tried the same thing on another gentleman it would have been considered poor sportsmanship, but on an upstart white trash, it was poetic justice. Caezal had raised his two young bucks from the bottom so that, as the challenged, he could set the amount of the bet. It was an amount he knew would all but ruin Nathaniel Ellis if he were forced to pay it. Ceazal had not come to offer Nathaniel a gentlemanly back-handed invite to the weekend time slots, he had come to erase an ignoble upstart from the games. If Nathaniel turned down the bet, in spite of such seemingly good odds, he would be a laughing stock, men who now tolerated him, would snub him, and his challenges would be rejected and no one would challenge him. Nathaniel seethed with anger, "Hold on Ellis, there's got to be a way out of this, think man, you have fifteen fucking minutes to think!"
\Narration\
The lights ebbed and flowed to the sensual beat of a hundred savage drums. A spotlight blazed lighting up a single slave girl with the beauty of a goddess. Aasheeiikaa! the drummers hissed. It sounded like a whisper. Asheika was wearing a brief yet dramatic costume of white feathers. She wore an elaborate headdress, a very brief feather halter, and a narrow loin cloth that hung down between her legs nearly to the floor. The rear of the garment was nothing more than a feather thong giving the audience breathtaking glances at her lush rump whenever she spun. Red feathers added accent to her outfit, in the headdress, fanning scarcely over her breasts from the brief halter, on the loincloth and fanning out from her bracelets echoing her fingers. Ruby studded golden earrings, anklets bracelets and Asheika's golden collar finished off the ensemble. Stage makeup accentuated her lips and eyes to a degree that was excessive close up but stunning in Atlanna's huge public amphitheater.
Her dance to the driving beat was erotic and captivating. Her natural yet precisely choreographed gyrations were oozing with genuine heat. She spun and leapt and rolled with such dazzling sensual speed that the audience scarcely breathed for the entire fifteen minutes of her performance, except to gasp at her incredible body. When the audience could hardly bear to hold it's breath another instant, Asheika jumped and rolled and spun across the stage and landed, to the hush of a hundred drums at Nathaniel Ellis' feet. Her spotlight illuminating the previously hidden slave master as he leaned against the podium. To the hush of the audience she kissed his feet and the tip of his stylish cane, and to his genuine surprise grabbed his ankles, and kissed and rubbed her face up to his thigh where she hissed at the audience like a cat.
From a row along the ringside came a chanting Asheika-Asheika-Asheika, that seemed to flare and spread like a wildfire through the audience until the whole of it was immolated in her heat. At last the flames died, leaving the members of the audience glowing like embers in its aftermath.
\Nathaniel\
Nathaniel wiped his brow with a handkerchief. "Whew, maybe a better just go home!"
\Audience\
The audience laughed.
\Ashieka\
Asheika seemed to take up permanent residence wrapped around Nathaniel's legs like a feline in heat.
\Nathaniel\
"In view of the station of my competitor, I decided to give Fazuul 's crude insulting tongue a rest and keep it clean." Nathaniel looked down at Asheika and tipped his head dubiously.
the audience laughed.
"Well, that was the plan anyway."
\Nathaniel\
"This is my girl Asheika, I was going to tell you that House Ellis breeds high quality slaves of all kinds, not just gladiators, but I guess I don't need to do that anymore.
The audience laughed and cheered.
"As you can see, Asheika is a quite a talent. She is superb at dancing, singing and some other things I'm not at liberty to discuss.
The audience laughed, then cheered as Asheika lick-lick-nipped Nathaniel's thigh through his pants
\Nathaniel\
"I can tell it's going to be a busy night tonight."
The audience roared once again.
\Nathaniel\
"I'd better hurry up or I'm not likely to get any sleep at all tonight." Nathaniel looked down at Asheika.
The audience members grinned and chuckled.
"I listened to what Lord Caezal had to say this evening, and of course he was right. Here I was pitting one veteran and one green gladiator against his two brand new contenders. With those odds, it was really good of him to offer up a small wager."
The audience lost it once again as everyone knew that the wager had been enormous.
"On the other hand, I'm afraid I could not sleep at night if I were to be such a cad as to take advantage of a man as august as Lord Roderick Ceazal."
\The audience\
Awwwwww, the audience cooed.
\Nathaniel\
"Thus, in the interest of fairness, I propose that my veteran Fazuul be taken out of this bout, and a green gladiator, my slave Thor, with no wins to his name be substituted. That way each of Lord Ceazal's contenders have one fight, for a total of two, and Odin has two fights which added to Thor's zero fights also totals to two. I just don't believe I could, in good conscience, wager even a single copper on the bout the way it was originally billed, but if those terms are acceptable to Lord Caezal, I am willing to make a small wager, two hundred million gold sounds about right.
\Audience\
The audience gasped and then filled the arena with applause.
\Ceazal\
The spotlight shifted to Caezal's box as an arena functionary hastened to hand a magic-based microphone up to him.
"What a gentleman you are Ellis, and to think I believed those reports about you being just another blood-thirsty white trash."
\Audience\
The audience laughed.
\Ceazal\
"I stand corrected, and I accept your wager of two hundred million gold pieces on a bout between my gladiators Raptovor and Rapturer, vs. your Odin and Thor, Thor to be substituting for Fazuul, of course," Caezal grinned.
\Nathaniel\
Nathaniel grimaced, but it was an act. Ceazal had forced him to open with Thor, a totally green slave, but what Ceazal didn't know was that Thor was better than Odin or Fazuul. Nathaniel had seen him spar with both. He nearly always won.
"As long as the management of the arena approve, Lord Ceazal, you have yourself a deal." Nathaniel bowed slightly to the nobleman, then reached down, scooped Asheika from the floor and carried her off stage to the cheering of the audience and more chanting of her name.
\Narration\
Nathaniel set Asheika down once they were safely out of sight of the audience. You my pet, are an impeccable performer, I am very pleased. Nathaniel looked at Tyr and Thor who were there as his bodyguards. "Thor as you heard you will be pinch hitting for Fazuul. Nathaniel removed Fazuul's non-magical iron collor and switched it for Thor's magical one. "There, no need to get us disqualified for packing magic items. This bout means a great deal to me, now I don't want you to show off, I just want you to be shrewd and win this thing. Take no unnecessary chances, these gladiators are supposed to be green, but they are not what they seem. They will be the best you've ever faced. If you want to be a little creative, fine and dandy as long as it doesn't get you killed. Free Odin up as soon as it's convenient and then shut them down. If you win this one, you will take our team into the big time. Needless to say, you will reap great rewards for besting great opponents. Make us proud, Thor, prove you are second to none."
"Fazuul, you're a fine gladiator, but you've sparred with Thor, so I think you know he's got a better chance to keep us in contention. I want you to stay down here and talk to him, tell him what you had planned until it's time, then have one of the guards here take you up to my box. Nathaniel nodded at a guard who nodded back. For now you can fill in for him as my bodyguard. Thor, Asheika, lets hustle to my box."
Once in Nathaniel's box, Tyr took up a position just inside the door and Nathaniel and Asheika sat as close to the action as they could. Nathaniel broke out a couple pairs of opera glasses and handed one to Asheika. Nathaniel cupped his hand and whispered into Asheika's ear. "Some of the better houses have lip readers on staff just so they know what the other owners are saying. I wouldn't put it past Caezal to have a few such men in the audience with glasses aimed at us. I did get our little box warded against magical snoopery, but you can't be too careful. I imagine you already have guessed that that snake Caezal staged this entire bout to ruin a certain upstart, namely me. A wager of one hundred million would surely ruin me, therefore I offered him two hundred million, which if I sold off everything I own down to the last stocking, I don't believe I would quite be able to cover, but it's close enough that lord Caezal can't really know that."
\Asheika\
Asheika nodded. Who are the people in Caezal's box, massa?
\Nathaniel\
The older gentleman is Lord Roderick Caezal, of corse, you saw him. He's a nobleman, a marquis. Nathaniel covered his mouth as if to cough. I believe that young woman next to him is his youngest daughter. She's quite a bit younger than his other children. Probably a menopause baby. I imagine his wife thought she could no longer get pregnant and found out she was wrong the hard way. Elaina Caezal has a reputation as a hellion. She is said to be a little too smart for her daddy's own good, and to be quite an outspoken shrew who nevertheless has kept her father from putting his foot down and getting her married off. She enjoys the games which is not considered ladylike, and I believe she's engaged to some baron someone or other, has been for quite some time. Rumor is she's not really interested in men, but I haven't had the opportunity to observe her close up.
[Pedigree]003 Let The Games Begin
\Master of Ceremonies\
"Ladies and gentlemen, tonight's bout is a two-man team competition between House Caezal and House Ellis."
\Narration\
The crowd cheered, drowning out the muffled sound of powerful winches as two round metal tables rose out of the floor in the center of the arena. Each metal table was about four feet tall and eight feet in diameter with six stout legs. The tables were placed only about four feet away from one another. On each table laid out on his back spread eagle was a gladiator. Four great blocks of granite with arches carved in their undersides to barely accommodate the mens' limbs pinned the two gladiators, each to his respective table.
\Master of Ceremonies\
"Two gladiators are captive beneath slabs of stone weighing many hundreds of pounds. Even the strongest man thus pinned cannot free himself. Captive gladiators cannot be hit by members of the apposing team until they are fully free, or until they first attack a member of an apposing team. Wounds inflicted on these captives supposedly by mistake will result in a blood penalty of equal or greater value inflicted on the offender's own captive team mate, so gladiators beware."
"For House Caezal, pinned beneath hundreds of pounds of stone, I give you Rapturer!"
\The Audience\
The crowd cheered loudly.
\Master of Ceremonies\
"And for House Ellis, pinned under hundreds of pounds of stone, I give you Odin!"
\The Audience\
The week night crowd cheered just as loudly for the Ellis gladiator, particularly a group of men ringside who cheered with gusto.
\Asheika\
Asheika stood, pointed and waved at Officer Leery and the other eleven Atlanna policemen sitting ringside.
\Nathaniel\
Nathaniel chuckled. He cupped his hand over his mouth and whispered to Asheika. "You do have a marvelous memory, my pet."
\Master of Ceremonies\
"And now from house Caezal wielding spear and net is Raptovor! and from house Ellis wielding spear and net is Thor!"
The crowd applauded as the two gladiators were simultaneously released on opposite edges of the arena floor.
Let the games begin!
\Thor\
Thor sprinted for the tables in the center of the ring.
\Odin\
"Over here Thor, over here!" Odin roared above the crowd from the far table.
\Thor\
Thor was obviously a faster runner than Raptovor. He made it to the far table where Odin lay before Raptovor had covered the distance to what was, for him, the nearer table. As he approached the block pinning Odin's right arm, Thor heaved his net at Raptovor, tossed his spear under the table and slammed into the block pinning Odin's right arm with both of his hands. The granite block toppled from the table.
\Raptovor\
Swinging his net as he ran, Raptovor deflected Thor's net with the edge of his own, skillfully managing to avoid tangling the two nets.
\Thor\
As the stone block rolled off the table, Thor saw that Raptovor's net was nearly on top of him and quickly ducked under the table. A single hook from the net caught in his leather armor but he plucked it out, rolled under the table and up to his feat on the other side, grabbing his spear in the process.
\Odin\
Odin grimaced as a net slid off the stones above him. A stray hook cut a gash in his cheek.
\Raptovor\
Raptovor frowned, Odin had managed to push the stone off the table an instant before his net had landed. One thing was obvious, Thor was fast. Undaunted, Raptovor snatched his net off Odin, and tossed it at Thor who was just standing up on the other side of the table.
\Odin\
Odin saw Raptovor snatch the net, and yelled, "Net!" as Raptovor threw it.
\Raptovor\
Confident that his throw would find its mark, Raptovor turned, and began to cover the few yards left to the block pinning Rapturer's left arm down.
\Thor\
Any normal man would not have been fast enough to react to a net thrown from just eight feet away on the other side of the table but when Thor heard Odin yell, "Net," and saw it coming, he instantly spun the tip of his spear before him, caught the net, kept it spinning and tossed it at Raptover's exposed back.
\Raptovor\
Slap! His own net enveloped him from the rear, fowling
his legs and arms and making him nearly fall as its hooks dug into his
leather armor. "Nigger!" he cursed Thor. He hopped the rest
of the way to the stone block covering Raptovor's left arm and heaved at
it as he heard Odin's second block hit the sand.
\Thor\
Having freed Odin's upper body, Thor raced to the third stone block, the stone pinning Odin's left leg and helped him heave it off as he heard Raptovor roll the stone off Rapturer's left arm in spite of the entangling net.
\Raptovor\
Raptovor worked disentangling his right arm, freeing his spear and hooking the net into his armor so it would not get in the way as Rapturer did the same thing with his free hand on Raptovor's right arm. All the while Raptovor hobbled around the table so he could help move the stone pinning Rapturer's right arm.
\Thor\
Thor practically flew around the table and hit the last stone with both hands before running, unarmed, around the table towards Raptovor's right side.
\Odin\
With only the bit of help Thor supplied on his way by,
Odin easily tilted the last massive stone block off the table and hopped
to his feet.
\The Audience\
The crowd roared as Odin jumped off the table and grabbed Tyr's discarded spear. As he did so, a small platform raised from the sand about twenty yards from the table. On it was a wooden block. Stuck into the block were three easily removable gladius short swords.
\Odin\
Odin took aim and heaved the spear at Raptover then sprinted towards the short swords.
\Raptovor\
Raptover rolled the stone pinning Rapturer's right arm off the table and very narrowly hopped out of its way. As he landed the spear skewered his neck. Raptover dropped his own spear on his partner's chest, then stagger-hobbled around the table. Blood gushed freely from his neck around the spear, as well as from his mouth and nose. Raptover grabbed the stone pinning Rapturer's right leg, and with his partner's help rolled it off the table, and onto him with a resounding crunch.
\Thor\
Thor tugged at the spear in the neck of Raptovor's corpse as Rapturer, spear in hand, heaved at the last stone holding him captive with a strength born of desperation. The stone rolled off the table just as Thor got the broken haft of the spear that had killed Raptovor.
\Odin\
Odin took all three short swords out of the block of wood and threw one to the far side of the arena as he brandished the other two and sprinted back towards the fray.
\Rapturer\
Rapturer stood and jumped off the table on the side opposite his opponents.
\The Audience\
The crowd roared as a small platform raised from the sand about twenty yards from Rapturer. On it was a wooden rack. In the rack were three large throwing hammers.
\Rapturer\
Rapturer glanced at his opponents and sprinted for the hammers.
\Odin and Thor\
Both Odin and Thor were now about equidistant from Rapturer who was a good deal closer to the hammers and running like all the demons in hell were pursuing him. The two gladiators from house Ellis gave chase, one from behind and slightly to Rapturer's left and the other from behind and slightly to Rapturer's right.
\Rapturer\
When he reached the wrack, Rapturer grabbed a hammer, and with a snap of his arm, hurled it at Odin.
\Odin\
Odin tried to dodge, but he was running too rapidly to change course quickly enough. The last thing he saw was the head of the hammer.
\Thor\
Thor grimaced as he watched his friend's forehead stove in by a hammer. He halted his run, stuck the short swords in his belt and slowly circled towards Rapturer bare-handed.
\Rapturer\
Rapturer grinned. The odds were even, man to man, but he held all the missile weapons. He smiled as he dropped the spear and took up both of the remaining hammers. Unlike Odin, Thor, the still-living Ellis gladiator, was ready to dodge. It was no matter, he had two hammers, and there was always the spear on the ground if he needed it.
Rapturer hauled back and hurled one hammer and then the other in rapid succession.
Slap! Slap!
Rapturer's mouth opened. The slapping sound he had heard had been the hammer hafts against the palms of Thor's hands. He had caught them both. The man's speed was uncanny.
\Thor\
Thor grinned evily, a war hammer in each hand.
\Rapturer\
"Shit!" Rapturer stared at his enemy in shock, then dove for the spear on the ground next to him. There was a whistling sound in the air and then oblivion.
\The Audience\
The crowd rose from their seats as Thor's hammer splattered Rapturer's skull over the sands, and the deafening roar of their applause filled the arena.
\Thor\
Thor raised his remaining hammer to the fans.
\Nathaniel\
"Nathaniel looked at Asheika and smiled, "I do believe I won't have to sell you after all."
\Asheika\
Asheika grabbed her master and kissed him savagely.
\Nathaniel\
Nathaniel was pushed against the arm of his chair by the shear force of his slave girl's lust. He squirmed off the chair and pulled her to the floor on top of him where the crowd could not see. Before he knew it, Asheika had undone his belt, pulled down his pants and had started riding him like a wildcat. He grabbed her incredible rump and held on for dear life. Climax gripped her once, twice, and as a third orgasm blazed through her body, Nathaniel could stand it no longer. Orgasm pounded through his brain like Thor's hammer. He clutched Asheika's fiery cheeks, and filled her deeply with his cum.
[Pedigree]004 The Press of Victory
\Narration\
After a bit of cleaning up, Nathaniel, his guards and his girl Asheika left the box for the owners reception where the gladiators, owners, arena dignitaries, and ladies and gentleman of the press gathered in the aftermath of a bout. The ladies and gentlemen of the press seemed to be waiting for him as Nathaniel and his people entered the large room.
\Tom Crowder\
"Master Ellis, I wonder if I could ask you a few questions for the Atlanna Sun."
\Nathaniel\
"Certainly Sir, gather around ladies and gentlemen of the press, my apologies for the wait, the win was rather an emotional moment, however I am now at your disposal. Tom, why don't you go ahead and do the interview, and if anyone else would like additional questions clarified feel free to jump in after Tom is finished. I believe you have met my bodyguards, Tom, and this, of course is my personal girl, Asheika."
\Tom Crowder\
Yes, good evening Asheika, I believe the audience was quite impressed with your performance.
\Asheika\
"Good evening massa Crowder, a girl might wonder if massa Crowder himself liked her dancing."
\Tom Crowder\
Crowder blushed, the look the slave girl gave him could have melted an ice berg.
\Nathaniel\
Nathaniel chuckled.
\Tom Crowder\
"Uh, I thought it was excellent, very sensual. Will we be seeing more of you in the games?"
\Asheika\
"A girl's massa might know."
\Nathaniel\
"Asheika is a natural performer, I think it would be a crime not to let her perform now and again. I expect the fans will get to see her from time to time other than in my box, especially if they demand it."
"Thank you Asheika," Crowder pried his eyes off the slave girl and cleared his throat. "I wonder if I could ask you a few questions about this evening, Master Ellis."
\Nathaniel\
"Why of course Mister Crowder."
\Tom Crowder\
"Are you aware that the magnitude, even of Lord Caezal's original bet was quite high even for the arena's top weekend performers?"
\Nathaniel\
"That would have been hard to miss, but Lord Caezal was the challenged, It was his prerogative to set the bet as he saw fit."
\Tom Crowder\
"Did you have any advanced warning as to what the size of that bet might be."
\Nathaniel\
"No, I did not."
\Tom Crowder\
"Why did your raise him? Could you have covered that two hundred million gold piece bet?"
\Nathaniel\
"I raised him simply because I knew that a loss of a hundred million would have ended my career in the games, so I figured if I was going to be going out, I might as well go out with a bang. I believe I also wanted it to sting just a bit if Lord Caezal lost, and one hundred million to a man like Lord Ceazal is substantial, but not enough to give him pause. I believe I could have covered the two hundred million, though I would have had to have sold everything down to my last pair of pants to do it."
\Tom Crowder\
"What would you have done if you had lost the bout?"
\Nathaniel\
"Probably jumped off the outside edge of the highest balcony," Nathaniel smiled.
\Tom Crowder\
"Do you think Lord Caezal was out to ruin you tonight?"
\Nathaniel\
"Well now, that's something you'll have to ask him. I am not one to judge a man's motivation for him."
\Tom Crowder\
"Do you believe what Lord Caezal tried to do here tonight was unsportsmanlike?"
\Nathaniel\
"I don't believe you need me to answer that. In any case there is no law that says anyone has to behave like a sportsman or a gentleman. I believe we work on the honor system with those."
\Tom Crowder\
"Are you saying Lord Caezal has no honor?"
\Nathaniel\
"Not at all, I hardly know the man. I'm in no position to make that judgement. I will let his conduct stand on its own merit."
\Tom Crowder\
"Did you ever consider turning down his bet?"
\Nathaniel\
There is no law against turning down a high bet, but it is considered very bad form. It is simply not done. I get few enough challenges as it is. Breaking the custom of accepting the bet of the challenger would have gone much harder on a man of my station, than setting an extremely high bet will go on Lord Caezal. I'm afraid a man in my social position often faces damned if you do, damned if you don't situations from men who look down on his lineage.
\Tom Crowder\
"Would you accept a challenge from Lord Caezal if he gave you one?"
\Nathaniel\
"Certainly, as long as Lord Caezal honors his debt, I have no hard feelings towards the man. if I thought it was a fair challenge like we had tonight, I would certainly entertain it. I believe the idea of the games is to determine who breeds and trains the finest gladiators in the land. When I consider a challenge, it's the pedigree of the gladiators I look at, not the pedigree of their master. Lord Ceazal has bred some of the finest gladiators the arena has ever seen; I believe he deserves respect for that alone."
\Tom Crowder\
Why the switch from Fazuul to Thor?
\Nathaniel\
"It was more fair to pit two novice gladiators against two other novices. I am only glad I had a novice who was up to the task. Without Thor, I surely would have lost."
\Tom Crowder\
What about the hammers there at the end of the bout, did you know hammers would come up?
\Nathaniel\
"I knew there would be two metal tables and blocks of stone carved to entrap but not crush the limbs of two of the gladiators, one from each team. I also knew that other weapons would become available as each trapped gladiator was freed. The design for the bout, and the sort of weapons were determined by the administration of the arena, and both owners were aware of how the bout would work ahead of time, but not what weapons would be available or where."
"Harold Connors, come on over here won't you? Now that the bout's over can you tell these folks what weapons you had stashed for the gladiators and how it all worked?"
\Harold Connors\
"Sure thing. As you saw the tables were relatively close together with the feet of the trapped gladiators pointed at one another. The free gladiators were released at opposite edges of the arena floor. The tables were in the center of the arena floor. Starting gladiators had to run to their captive partners who were on the table farthest from the their respective starting points. Surrounding the tables about twenty yards out were six trap doors through which we could raise platforms to add weapons to the bout. A platform was raised when a gladiator was freed. Which platform depended on where the freed gladiator's feet first touched the floor of the arena. Whatever platform was closest to the newly freed gladiator would be raised."
\Tom Crowder\
"Were any missile weapons other than the hammers available?"
\Harold Connors\
"No, as a matter of fact Rapturer was exceptionally lucky with his jump off the table. The other weapons he might have gotten were spiked shield, two-handed axe, club or rapier. He got the hammers, and of course the short swords had already been triggered by Odin."
\Tom Crowder\
"Thank you Mister Connors. Getting back to Master Ellis here, Your gladiators were doing well throughout the first part of the bout, what went through your mind when Rapturer gained the upper hand at the end there?"
\Nathaniel\
"Thankfully he did not have the advantage for very long. I was holding my breath from the moment those hammers came up on Rapturer's side of the tables. On the other hand, I knew I still had an outside chance, since one of Thor's favorite weapons is the hammer. I don't know if I'd want to bet on him catching two of them out of the air like that on a regular basis, but I'm sure glad he rose to the occasion this evening."
\Tom Crowder\
"Any plans for Thor?"
\Nathaniel\
"Thor is a fine gladiator, you'll be seeing him again. If I could get a challenge for him, I would enter him into the weekend time slots. My breeding program has matured enough that I believe I have some other young bucks that I think will also be winners.
\Thor\
Thor entered the room escorted by several guards. He looked like he had been bathed and dressed in fresh armor.
\Nathaniel\
"I imagine you'll want to interview Thor now, seems like a good time. I need to change his collar anyway. Nathaniel got up and removed the silver collar from Fazuul. He slipped it onto Thor, then unlocked the iron collar and replaced it on Fazuul's neck. There now, that's better."
\The Press\
The ladies and gentlemen of the press busied themselves asking Thor about his strategies, hopes fears and his technique with net, spear and hammer.
\Nathaniel\
Nathaniel whispered in Asheika's ear, "I see Lord Caezal is very conspicuously inconspicuous over there. I will be obliged to go talk to him. I see his daughter is over across the room from him at this time. If you have any interest in trying to figure out what makes her tick, I would suggest you go see her while I busy myself with her father."
\Asheika\
Asheika nodded.
\Nathaniel\
Nathaniel walked directly to Lord Caezal, but from an angle that allowed him to watch Asheika from the corner of his eye.
"Evening, Lord Caezal"
\Lord Caezal\
"Evening, Master Ellis."
\Nathaniel\
"I wanted to complement you on your gladiators. Like so many others, I have always looked to the breeding and training of your fighting slaves as a model for my own. This evening luck played it's wild card and I won, but it could just as easily have gone the other way."
\Lord Caezal\
"On the contrary, Mister Ellis, our luck was even, at best. My slave jumped off the table so as to get the best possible new weapons, and your Thor caught two hammers out of the air. Thor was a better gladiator than Fazuul. That substitution was quite a trick."
\Nathaniel\
Nathaniel nodded, "My apologies, if I had expected I would be wagering my entire fortune on a single bout, I would have chosen my other gladiator differently as well, but I didn't think you would go for that."
\Lord Caezal\
"No, I don't suppose I would have."
\Nathaniel\
"I couldn't help but notice the way your gladiators worked with the net and hammer. It looked to me like they had been thoroughly prepared for the weekend time slots. The members of the press seem to be wondering if you started your men in on weekday mornings for some reason other than to prove you could still come up from the bottom of the heap. I myself believe you just wanted to prove the value of your training program, of course," Nathaniel smiled.
\Lord Caezal\
"Of course," Lord Caezal scowled. "The way your Thor returned that net and caught those hammers, I would say my gladiators were not the only ones trained for the weekend time slots."
\Nathaniel\
"Thor is blessed with quick reflexes, but your supposition is quite true, Lord Caezal, it is no secret that every owner's goal is to field fighting slaves in the weekend time slots. They are, after all the most lucrative and prestigious."
\Lord Caezal\
"Indeed."
\Nathaniel\
"The trouble is, not every owner has a breeding and or searching program up to the task. Thor is a fine slave, and I believe one of his best features is his speed."
\Lord Caezal\
"Yes, I noticed that."
\Nathaniel\
"I have noticed your slaves are famous for their strength, and Rapturer demonstrated that House Caezal muscle tonight when he tilted off that last granite block by himself."
\Lord Caezal\
Caezal nodded. "Once they get two or three limbs free, they can usually remove the remaining blocks by themselves. It just takes longer. I expect your Thor could have done as my Rapturer did."
\Nathaniel\
"Perhaps so, Thor is a strong boy, though I believe Odin was stronger. Well, I do not want to impose upon you any longer Lord Caezal, but I felt it was the gentlemanly thing to do to come tell you I am pleased with the outcome of our bout, and I have no hard feelings. I enjoyed the opportunity to face some real competition."
\Caezal\
"Your gladiators performed well, Master Ellis, congratulations on the win. I will see that you get your money within four weeks."
\Nathaniel\
"Thank you Lord Caezal, good evening."
\Caezal\
"Good evening, Master Ellis."
\Narration\
While Nathaniel talked to Lord Caezal and clandestinely monitored his girl's doings, Asheika went to check out Lady Elaina Caezal, Lord Caezal's youngest child.
\Asheika\
Asheika meandered backwards along the wall as she watched Thor questioned by the press. She knew she would wind up not far from where Lady Caezal had found herself a quiet place to watch the press at work.
\Lady Caezal\
Lady Caezal watched the boring interviewing from a safe distance. The press seldom asked her many questions anyway. Actually, they had no idea what to do with her. Women were not supposed to enjoy blood sports. Then something else caught Lady Caezal's eye, but she didn't dare stare, she was very good at not staring. "Damn it Elaina, your infatuations will be the death of you," Elaina thought to herself as she tried not to appear to be looking at what she was looking at. Elaina sank down in her chair, but then she realized she was just doing it for the angle and sat back up straight.
\Asheika\
After a while, Asheika got fairly close to Lady Caezal's location and turned. She saw the noblewoman was actually quite close and knelt immediately at the lady's feet and bowed her head. Excuse me mistress.
\Lady Caezal\
"You are Asheika girl, is that right?"
\Asheika\
"Yes mistress. Does mistress know Asheika?"
\Lady Caezal\
"Well, I did see your performance tonight."
\Asheika\
Asheika remained silent
\Lady Caezal\
"I'm sure I might have caught a glimpse of you and your master around the arena once or twice before that too."
\Asheika\
"A girl might wonder if mistress often spends time at the arena."
\Lady Caezal\
"Yes, much to the dismay of the men, though my father doesn't seem to mind anymore. None of his other children have taken any real interest in his hobby. I think he gets lonely in that box without me. You may look up at me when you speak to me girl, I prefer it."
\Asheika\
Asheika looked up at Lady Caezal, "Yes Mistress." Asheika looked into Lady Caezal's blue eyes. The lady's hair was a pretty blonde color, but her face was rather plain. Lady Caezal had a small waist and good hips, but she was also small-breasted. She looked handsome in her finery, but she was not a woman of outstanding beauty.
\Lady Caezal\
"You do have a spectacular face."
\Asheika\
"Thank you mistress."
\Lady Caezal\
"Where did he find you anyway?"
\Asheika\
"Master's house bred me, mistress. Asheika is trained as a personal servant."
\Lady Caezal\
"Did they train you to... nevermind."
\Asheika\
Asheika smiled. "No mistress, Massa had Ashieka trained in music, dance and table service. Asheika was supposed to be a virgin girl when she tried for the position of massa's personal girl."
\Lady Caezal\
"Lady Caezal cocked her head. Supposed to?"
\Asheika\
"A girl could not wait that long."
\Lady Caezal\
"Didn't you get in trouble?"
\Asheika\
"A girl found out massa knew she was hot-blooded, he liked that about her."
\Lady Caezal\
"Well, your Master Ellis is a practical man. Does he treat you well?"
\Asheika\
"Massa treats his girl well."
\Lady Ceazal\
"Does he ever go anywhere without you?"
\Asheika\
"Sometime he sends Asheika to get her hair done, or for clothes when he has meetings. Asheika is with massa a lot. She is his personal girl."
\Lady Ceazal\
"Yes, I know. What sort of clothing does he get you?"
\Asheika\
"Massa likes to dress Asheika in expensive dresses and small things, and he likes silk underthings. He has to come with his girl to the stores or they won't serve her."
\Lady Ceazal\
"But they will if he comes?"
\Asheika\
"Massa knows how to handle those people. He gives them the look, and they shut up and do what he says mostly."
\Lady Caezal\
Lady Caezal giggled. "I know how to do that look, but I wonder if I could get them to fit a slave girl."
\Asheika\
"A girl thinks Lady Ceazal knows all the most exclusive stores."
\Lady Caezal\
"Yes, but I mustn't have anything to do with you, at least not in public. My father would be angry. He believes your Master Ellis is not a proper gentleman."
\Asheika\
"Massa Ellis has trouble with gentleman. He acts right, but they don't like him anyway, because his mother was white trash. They are mean to him sometimes." Asheika lowered her eyes a bit.
\Lady Ceazal\
Lady Caezal squirmed a little in her chair, "Well that's unfortunate. You are very sweet, Asheika, but you had better run along now, I don't want my father to get riled at me. Maybe I will see you again. Would you like that?"
\Asheika\
"Yes mistress," Asheika smiled and looked at Lady Ceazal, then got up and walked back towards Thor and the men of the press.
\Lady Ceazal\
Lady Caezal inhaled and breathed rapidly as she watched the slave girl go.
\Nathaniel\
After a few minutes Nathaniel returned to gather up his people. "I'm afraid it's getting late, and it has been quite a night for us. Please try to wrap it up now. I have a full day ahead of me tomorrow, and I'd like to go back to the training camp and get some sleep."
\Tom Crowder\
"I believe we're done for now, thank you Master Ellis."
\Nathaniel\
You're welcome Tom, I appreciate you and your colleagues dropping by. It has been a pleasure. Nathaniel shook a few hands, waved and led his group back to the coach.
---
\Narration\
Once the doors of the black coach had closed leaving Nathaniel and Asheika alone together away from prying eyes and ears, Nathaniel sat with his girl and relaxed.
\Nathaniel\
"I believe Lord Caezal isn't too fond of illegitimate sons of gentlemen, but at least he was civil."
\Asheika\
"A girl thinks Lady Caezal finds her attractive."
\Nathaniel\
Nathaniel chuckled, "I believe Lady Ceazal hides it much better, but she had the kind of reaction to you I have seen in most men. Perhaps she does not find men as appealing as women. As a breeder of human beings, I can tell you that that particular trait is not as uncommon as our culture would have it."
\Asheika\
"A girl found out Lady Caezal had seen Asheika before tonight, somewhere in the arena with you."
\Nathaniel\
"Now that's an interesting coincidence, since the only time I had you over at the arena before today was those few days when we were out here for the sale of your sister slaves. That would have been two weeks ago when I first acquired you as my personal girl. Come to think of it, that's when I heard from Harold Connors that Lord Ceazal was looking for a weeknight challenge for his two new gladiators. We sat and worked the basics of tonight's games out right then, and I sent the challenge to Lord Caezal that day. If I hadn't been in such a rush, I might have realized what Caezal was up to, but I probably would not have, since it's not everyday someone tries to ruin you just out of the blue. I know some of the gentlemen talk about me behind my back, but they've never tried to ruin me just because they don't like my pedigree, of course most of them are not wealthy enough to want to risk that kind of money.
\Asheika\
"How much money is Lord Caezal worth?"
\Nathaniel\
That's hard to say exactly. He has an enormous amount of land, a lot of which is feudal holdings. In other words, the land belongs to the King. Lord Caezal can use the land but he must pay tribute to the king whether he uses it or not. In effect he rents a lot of land from the crown. He can farm it himself or lease it to others and make a profit that way. As long as he has enough to cover tribute he is fine. On the other hand, he can't really sell the land because he doesn't own it, and if he can't make tribute he would loose face horribly with the king, he could even loose his title. Otherwise he is probably worth about a billion four hundred million. Well, after he pays me, just about a billion two hundred million.
\Asheika\
"Massa's going to be worth four hundred million. Three massas is worth one Lord Caezal.
\Nathaniel\
"I suppose you could look at it that way, my pet, though as a nobleman, he has an ace that would be virtually impossible for me to get. I'm sure some of his children must be wealthy as well, though probably not nearly as wealthy as he is.
\Asheika\
"Massa, how do you make children?"
\Nathaniel\
Nathaniel chuckled, "Well you know the first part. A man squirts his seed into a woman. Actually a man's seed contains about three hundred fifty million little swimming things kind of like tadpoles. They are called sperm. You can see them using mental projection or clairvoyance spells. My mentor the alchemist has a magical device that does the clairvoyance for you and shows you an illusion-based image of the tiny thing you are looking at. I have one at the lab too, they are a nice convenience. Each of these little swimming things has the recipe for half a human being.
Nathaniel went to his desk and got out a piece of parchment and a quill. "Now let me draw you a rough picture here. Here's the woman's tunnel, or vagina in scientific language. Up here at the top is a little opening to her womb. Those little sperm swim through there, some of them stay behind to guard against other men's sperm. Now up here in her womb there are two tubes, twisty affairs that go up here to her ovaries. This is where the woman makes something very like a chicken's egg only very small and without a hard shell. A woman's egg, even though it's not even the size of the head of a pin, is still huge compared to a man's little sperm. An egg has half the recipe for a human being in it too. When one of these little swimmers burrows into the egg here, a chemical reaction takes place hardening the outside of the egg so no more sperm can get in. The little sperm's half recipe and the egg's half recipe combine, and the egg starts dividing into little cells, each with it's own identical copy of the full recipe. Now this dividing mess goes down the tube to the womb and if the recipe's good, it sticks on to the side here and starts to grow using nourishment it draws from the lining of the womb. It grows to become a baby."
"Now the problem is these half recipes for human beings aren't always so viable. See when a man's body makes a sperm or a woman's body makes an egg, It has to take the full recipe for a human being that a person has in every cell and make just a half recipe. It doesn't divide into the mother's and the father's original contribution which would be the simple thing, instead it kind of mixes and matches, traits get scrambled and new traits and combinations of traits are created. That's why kids are different than their parents but with some similarities. On the other hand, all this mixing and blending is a little dangerous, sometimes what you get is not a viable variation, and it just plain doesn't work. Now about a third of the time, for reasons of a bad recipe in the sperm or egg's contribution, or poor conditions in the womb or in the tube here that the egg comes down, the whole process falls apart and a child does not form. We call that spontaneous abortion. About two thirds of the time, things go a little better and you get a child."
"The system nature uses does one thing well, it makes everyone different, but the whole process of making the recipe in one of these sperm or eggs involves a kind of random recombination. So every child's traits are somewhat like the results of a whole lot of dice being rolled, plus in areas that don't scramble so much, some untouched traits transfer directly from one parent or the other. Now when you breed a man and a woman trying to get certain traits, you hope the traits you want are some of the ones that wind up going over straight without getting scrambled up much. It is very hit and miss. If you can take a look at every sperm and select one that carries as many of the father's desirable traits as you can find, and then make sure that's the one that fertilizes the egg, you are much farther ahead, but you are still dealing with the unknown of what's going on with the egg. Now with three hundred fifty million sperms in every cum, you can afford to be very selective on what particular one you use, but with only one egg a month you get what you get."
When I started looking at my father's breeding program, it was pretty traditional. Take a man with as many desirable traits as you can find, and breed him to a woman with as many desirable traits as you can find. Now that was very primitive and it really doesn't work all that well. Now there are little curse spells that I learned from a slave when I was a child. I adapted them for use on sperms. I would curse all the sperms with the trait sponsoring height under five and a half feet tall to death, and I would curse to death those sponsoring less than one and a quarter times average strength and so on, I would just keep cursing and cursing and that would narrow the number of sperm, but each time I would curse, I could be sure that the remaining sperms had the traits I hadn't cursed. I could find just a few sperm that were the best out of the three hundred fifty million, then I could cast a vitality spell on those and inject them directly into the womb. It improved my breeding program immeasurably.
\Asheika\
Is that how you bred Asheika, massa?
\Nathaniel\
No, my pet, but if you are ever forced to give an explanation of what I do in my lab to breed better slaves, that is indeed one thing I do, or have done. You should not ever speak of my breeding methods with anyone but me, however you'll be spending time with me while I'm working in the lab, so you might as well know what I'm doing since I'm sure you would piece it together anyway.
\Asheika\
Massa doesn't select sperms?
\Nathaniel\
Well I'll tell you what I did next. The cursing method allowed me to narrow things down to the sperms with the most good traits, but the egg, that was just as random as any of the millions of sperm and there was no way I could narrow it down since there's only one a month. The next thing I learned how to do was to get a narrowed down sperm from two different men, then I would take the half recipe for the human being out of the egg, and I'd substitute the half recipe from one of the narrowed down sperms for it. So now my egg had a half recipe I liked, and when I combined it with the other sperm, I had two half recipes I liked, and that produced very good results.
\Asheika\
"But massa, a child like that would have two fathers and no mother."
\Nathaniel\
Nathaniel chuckled, "Well in a way you're right, but the woman who carried the child is still it's mother in most ways even if she didn't supply half the recipe for the child."
\Asheika\
"How would you make a girl if you only have two fathers."
\Nathaniel\
I was very fortunate, you see it's the sperm that determines the sex of the child. In effect there are girl making sperm and boy making sperm. The recipe in the egg is always like a recipe from a girl making sperm, so I would always substitute a girl-making sperm's recipe into the egg and if the other sperm I used was a girl making sperm, then the child would be a girl, if it was a boy-making sperm I would get a boy.
\Asheika\
"That's clever massa, you can get a girl with two fathers and no mother. Is that how you bred me? Have I got two fathers and no mother? Well I mean I know I have a mother, but she didn't make part of the recipe for me if you did it that way."
\Nathaniel\
"You were a generation beyond that technique, my pet."
\Ashieka\
"How'd you do me then massa?"
\Nathaniel\
"I started with two very select sperm, two girl makers, of course."
\Asheika\
Asheika nodded
\Nathaniel\
And then I got a whole bunch more sperm that had traits I really liked. It took years to develop the trait isolating spells and the divinations to check my work to see if the traits would all work together, but once I had that and the spells to teleport those traits, to swap them for traits I didn't like, then I had arrived.
\Asheika\
"You mean I started with two fathers, then when you found a trait you didn't like, like that silver coin you had in your right palm earlier today, and you found a trait you did like in another sperm, like that gold coin you had in your left hand earlier today, you swapped them. You switched them for each other using that apportation, that teleporting objects power you showed me?
\Nathaniel\
Nathaniel nodded.
\Asheika\
"You just kept doing that, out with the bad trait, in with the good, out with the bad trait in with the good till you could stand it no more, then you checked it, saw if it worked according to your spell and you put that egg with the recipe having all kinds of traits you liked in my mother?"
\Nathaniel\
"I do believe you have it, my pet."
\Asheika\
Asheika looked overwhelmed. "How many parents do I have?"
\Nathaniel\
"When I was a kid, I heard a slave say, 'It takes a village to raise a child,' In your case my dear, it took a village to parent you."
\Asheika\
"And that's why Thor can put away three highwaymen? He got a whole stack of good traits and you got rid of the bad ones?"
\Nathaniel\
Nathaniel nodded.
\Asheika\
"An that's why those white gentleman couldn't have as good breeding as me even if their mothers found a wagon load of four-leaf clovers on the day they were conceived?"
\Nathaniel\
Nathaniel nodded.
\Asheika\
"Massa how could you do this?" Asheika covered her face with her hands.
\Nathaniel\
"I am an evil man, my pet."
Nathaniel took hold of his girl and stood her up, turned her and pulled her to a mirror mounted on a bookcase cabinet door. "Look in the mirror Asheika."
\Asheika\
Asheika looked in the mirror.
\Nathaniel\
"Tell me it didn't work."
\Asheika\
Asheika looked at her perfect face, a tear ran down her cheek. She was so beautiful, so flawless, but was she human? "It worked massa, it worked, Asheika cried."
\Nathaniel\
Nathaniel held his girl and rocked her. He pulled her back to the seat. "I am sorry my pet. Some stories are best left untold. I do believe you are the only one I will tell about my work, and you are not to tell a soul. You are such a gem, my dear, a magical child. In spite of my work, you saw all your sister slaves were unique. It is always thus. All the fine details are still left to chance, no matter how carefully one plans. Even twins with identical inherited traits wind up with unique personalities. There are endless combinations of traits, trade-offs, positive and negative interactions, enhancers, modifiers augmenters, there are different traits that accomplish similar ends, and there really is no perfect combination of traits, but compared to raw chance, the dice were loaded very strongly in your favor."
For several minutes Nathaniel held his girl and said nothing, only the gentle rocking of the carriage and the small rattlings of items in the coach could be heard.
\Coachman Hermes\
"Training camp, massa," Hermes spoke into the talking tube.
\Nathaniel\
Nathaniel crossed to the desk and pulled a talking tube, "Take us to the tunnel Hermes. Go just inside, let the door close, turn off all of the carriage lights, and then tell me all is ready."
\Coachman Hermes\
"Yes masta."
\Nathaniel\
Nathaniel rocked his girl for a few moments longer.
\Coachman Hermes\
"All is ready, masta."
\Nathaniel\
"Nathaniel opened the door a moment and made sure his instructions had been followed correctly. "Do you see the small light at the other end of the tunnel, Hermes?"
\Hermes\
"Yes masta."
\Nathaniel\
"Good, I want you to roll the carriage towards it as slowly as you can make her go, slow and steady"
\Hermes\
"Yes masta."
\Nathaniel\
Nathaniel closed the door and crossed the cabin to kiss Asheika's forehead.
\Asheika\
Asheika blinked and looked up sniffing a bit.
\Nathaniel\
"A moment, my pet." Nathaniel began weaving his hands in inscrutable patterns and murmuring arcane syllables with a strange cyclic intonation.
\Asheika\
Asheika looked out the window, but it was too dark in the tunnel, she saw nothing, she felt like the carriage was moving from side to side as well as going forward, her frame of reference melted to ooze. It was as if she were nowhere or anywhere, it was a dizzying, stupor of sensationlessness...
\Coachman Hermes\
"Massa we have reached the end of the tunnel, now what do we do? I can't see."
\Nathaniel\
"Hermes, activate the running lights and open the stone door."
\Coachman Hermes\
"But masta, we should be at the turnaround, the door is at the other end of the tunnel."
\Nathaniel\
Not this tunnel, Hermes. Nathaniel opened the door and lowered the stair. He stepped out on the stair as Hermes turned on the running lights and the spot lights that pointed ahead.
\Asheika\
Asheika went to the door and looked out.
\Nathaniel\
Nathaniel saw the flat stone slab blocking the carriage's forward progress and smiled.
\Coachman Hermes\
"Masta, where are we?"
\Nathaniel\
"Open the stone door, Hermes, you will see."
\Coachman Hermes\
Hermes removed the appropriate lever shaft and handed it to Thor who stuck it into a hole in the wall and twisted. The stone slab began to slide aside. Hermes stared open mouthed, "Massa, it's the island."
\Asheika\
Asheika looked out in wonder, she pulled her master back into the carriage and embraced him.
\Nathaniel\
"We're home Hermes, you can drop Asheika and I at the lab complex, then go on to the island training camp and drop off the guards. After that you can return the horses to the carriage house."
\Coachman Hermes\
"But massa, how'd we get here?"
\Nathaniel\
Nathaniel squeezed the right cheek of Asheika's extravagant butt, "An enchanted tunnel, Hermes. Close the door and lets get rolling."
\Coachman Hermes\
"Yes Masta!"
the story continues in [Pedigree]005 The Scarlet A
copyright 2000, by Rapina
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