The next hour passed in a haze of activity. The prisoners were herded like cattle into squat, roofed buildings and forced to wash themselves in huge basins filled with dirty water. They were each given a simple pair of ill-fitting undergarments and a plain white tunic to wear, then marched back out and into the cage cart.
More than once while they washed and prepared, the unnamed considered running. But the memory of the prisoner's head popping off and the heavy collar around his own neck dissuaded him. Courage was great, but removing a man's head and then reattaching it through either magic or some trick of advanced technology served as a harrowing warning.
As the unnamed climbed back into the prison cart, he saw the man who had been killed and resurrected rocking back and forth in the far corner of the cage and staring wide-eyed out into the distance.
The horned giant was sitting in the opposite corner of the cart, wedged in tightly. He shook his head as he considered the poor soul. "He is remembering, I think," the big brute said, nodding in the other man's direction. "When they die and coming back, they are remembering what happens."
The unnamed shuffled toward the huge figure, glad to be talking to someone even if he looked like he could unknowingly rip a man's arm off with a sneeze. "You've seen this sort of thing happen before?" he asked.
The big brute nodded solemnly.
"The mines. They having same kind of thing there. Sometimes we dig down deep in the dangerous places. Sometimes people are dying because of explosion, or collapse. Sometimes we find the fire imp, or demon."
He shook his head, wiggling his finger as though he'd just pulled a hot pan out of an oven.
"Nasty business. No good."
"This blood pit," the unnamed asked, "what is it exactly? What should I expect?"
The big brute shrugged, huge shoulders rising up and down and causing the cart to groan in protest at the movement. "Expecting pain. Much pain. Then death. Then back to the cart and home again if you die good. If not… then something else."
"So they're taking us to some kind of arena to die, then they'll pull that resurrection trick they did with Harry Head's Off over there and make us do it all over again tomorrow?"
The big figure nodded. "We going to the pit to fighting, not just dying. If fight and win, then we staying alive and come back to this place." He grimaced, rubbing at the errant hairs on his huge chin. "But winning is very hard. You got no rank. No skill. No weapon. Is very difficult. You be fighting against strong enemy with sharp weapons. You die quickly I think."
The brute waved a hand toward the others trapped in the cage. "Everybody is dying quickly. But, if you die good, lots of blood and screaming and running around, then they bring you back again." He grinned, showing twin rows of thick, blocky teeth. "Is entertainment for pit boss and customers. Is making credits, make money when we putting on a show."
"Well," the unnamed said, leaning back against the cage, "that's not what I was hoping to hear."
The unnamed ran a hand through his dark, matted hair. That had been a surprise when he'd bathed with the others, ashamed and racked with pain. This new, uploaded incarnation of REDACTED had long, dark hair and dark eyes. Based on the dirty reflection of the water they'd been forced to bathe in, he looked like a battered copy of Keanu Reeves, or maybe that was just his imagination trying to cast his new face in the most pleasant light it could.
It'd been some time since he'd had hair, let alone anything of this length. Pity that he wouldn't live long enough to enjoy it. Or rather, he would live, and then die, and then live again over and over until the slavers tossed him to the curb.
He let out a heavy sigh. "So that's it then. We're being sent to die for entertainment and there's nothing we can do about it."
"Just so," the giant agreed.
The unnamed looked up at the other figure, noting the thick cords of muscle on his arms and legs. "What about you? You look like you can handle yourself."
The big brute nodded, tapping on his chest with a smile. "Naleth Who Tends is handling himself, yes. But I am not to be fighting the ones you are fighting. Naleth is to fight Sharek. Is very tough fight. Deadly beast with many claws and much strength. Naleth probably die too."
"It doesn't make sense. Why are they doing this?"
Naleth smiled his toothy smile. "Credits. Is money, always money. Shiny. Everybody is wanting creds."
The unnamed nodded. The great game was appearing more and more to be less of a blissful version of reality and rather the exacerbation of the worst elements of the real world. Brutality, greed, and the misuse of power seemed to be the order of the day in this simulated afterlife.
"This shit is barbaric. Sick bastards watching people kill each other for sport. That kind of thing went out with the Romans. Don't they… Wait… You have a name?"
"Naleth who Tends," the giant confirmed.
"How do you have a name? I thought you said they erased our names. Is it because you were an NPC?"
The big brute nodded. "Name is given by the programmings. When I waking up from the dream, I already having the name. Some NPC don't liking their name, so they choose another. But me, I like my name, so I keeping it." He looked out into the streets beyond the confines of the prison cart. "Naleth who Tends. Is good name, yes?"
The unnamed nodded, feeling more and more baffled with every new fact he learned about this strange virtual world. "Yeah, it's a great name."
Final preparations were made and the cart set off toward its troubling destination. The unnamed stood next to Naleth, staring out at the undercity as the cart passed through dirty streets cluttered with people and buildings of all shapes and sizes.
While most of those he saw were human, there were other races represented in the undercity. Goblins, orcs, dwarves. Some he recognized, but others were completely unknown to him. There were animals too, being sold or led about in the streets. Chickens, miniature horses, goats, dogs, cats, and other creatures that looked like they'd been ripped out of a fantasy bestiary.
What little uniformity there was to the architecture of the city was from the dull gray rock which featured heavily in its buildings. That and the prolific amber lights swinging from wires and hanging above doors and windows gave the city a distinctly dwarven quality.
The pervasive stone, however, was where all uniformity ended. There were no sharp-cornered geometrical shapes, gilded symbols, or precisely crafted, oversized buildings with Nordic emblems carved into their stone facades. Instead, the buildings were meanly crafted, hewn out of the rock by brute force and with minimal interest in aesthetic appeal. Functionality was the order of the day rather than beauty.
Everything looked old, but there was a certain weight and veracity to that age. The cracked stone, weathered wood, and mossy walls didn't look like fabricated, simulated objects designed to appear ancient. They genuinely seemed to have existed for centuries down here. The pitted metal bars of the prison cart were similarly realistic, flecks of rusted metal peeling away here and there where the iron had degraded with age and neglect.
It all served to drive home a simple, harsh truth. He really was here, uploaded into a new reality, traveling by slave cart to die for the entertainment of others. Not just that, he was going to die for the amusement of people just like him, those who had uploaded their consciousness to Havenspire to escape the specter of real-world death.
It was beyond unfair, beyond monstrous, and beyond his ability to change.
"Spire is not good, huh," Naleth mused, his lips tilted into a slight smile as he spoke. "Not what you expecting."
The unnamed shook his head. "Not at all. I mean, I knew it would be different, but not like this." He grimaced, enduring another wave of pain as the strange affliction burned through his body like a fever.
Naleth pointed a meaty finger at him. "Some people who are coming into mines, they have shakings and pains like you. When they first coming to Havenspire. Much pain. But the pain is leaving soon. Not lasting too long."
The unnamed nodded. "Well, that's something, I guess. Maybe if I can die in an entertaining enough way I'll stick around long enough for the damned fever to end."
The huge brute nodded in agreement, entirely missing the sarcasm in the unnamed's words.
As the cart clattered along, a dull haze of noise began to rise up ahead, growing steadily louder with each passing moment. It took a while to decipher what he was hearing, but slowly the unnamed began to understand, making out the roaring of a bloodthirsty crowd echoing throughout the street.
The rise and fall of cheering and shouting greeted him like the hungry roar of a ravenous beast.