After that Shade sat silently and uncomfortably in a cage with Charlie sitting on a bench across from him. Shade was torn. His pride and

  ego were bruised because these shlubs captured him so easily while he was out. However on the other side he was on a fast track to

  one of the 7. He’d just need to play his cards right whenever he got to the ludus.

  “Ya know i don't get you.” Charlie started to say.

  Shade lifted his hand and pointed to his collar. “I seem pretty got to me… in a deadpan response”

  The slaver blinked in confusion and burst out laughing. “Oi Andy this one back here is a comedian.” he barked with laughter, his foul

  breath and browning teeth stinking up the small space before the wind pulled it away. “Nah nah… what i meant was. Most people cry or

  fight or make oaths to the system to chop off my balls. But your just sitting there like you paid a few coins for a ride into town.”

  Shade turned and looked directly at the man. “I was wondering what direction to take my path in life. “You all decided for me. Now it's

  just wait and see what happens next. But what were you all doing over there?”

  Charlie Shrugged. “It aint a secret, Some fifteen years back there was a tier 3 adventurer. He bought a party of slaves and had them

  trained up to tier 2. He thought the dungeon was also tier 3. It had just ranked up and they didn’t know. You don't know about this?”

  Shade shook his head, but intel on how this society operates was a key commodity so he let Charley talk.

  “Aight… So, they all died, and the dungeon got the blueprints for the slave collar. Next thing goblins came out the cave with capture

  collars, and fell on a war band of orcs while they slept after a battle. They enslaved the orc war band and took them into the dungeon

  where they killed all of them, but that tierd the dungeon up to 5, but now it makes tier 5 Shaman and Orc slave pairs. But ever since they

  overran the fort at the mouth of the valley. We lure the orcs to leap across the ravine, and then we kill em with traps and arrows and take

  the collars they drop. Only way to get collars without a properly sanctioned merchant's guild license. Which folk like us can't afford.”

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  Shade nodded along. Soon enough it was Charlie’s turn to drive so he hopped out of the cage and then locked it back up behind him.

  Soon enough Shade saw another man yall and muscular but missing his ring and pinky finger on both hands. He only regarded Shade

  for a moment and then wandered off out of sight without a word. Once Shade was sure that he wasnt goning to be actively guarded

  again, he sent himself into meditation. His core swirled before him. But it was dom and diffuse. The miasma still coated the surface but

  another layer above that was a gray bubble around his core. It let mana flow into his core but didn't let mana from his core back into his

  body. Like once before he began to make his core spin faster and faster, this did seem to have an effect on the ambient mana in the air.

  There also wasn’t nearly as much miasma in the air. But it began to spiral around him in his awareness. He could feel that feeling in his

  chest whatever he had damaged spiritually was still tinder and he'd stop if it got too painful. Then he had a thought about a muscular,

  polite man with a giant fire tortoise and with a clean freak of a mentor. He grabbed a hold of his mana in his core and began to make

  them spin in opposite rotations. At first when his core came to a stop it felt like he was having a heart attack but with a force of effort that

  was almost too painful to continue he got them to counter rotate and grind the mana between them like millstones over and over, pulling

  in all the mana and some light miasma, but it was all ground down into fine unaspected mana, just as a fine gray white mana mist

  started to seep out from the energy field that was around it. Something pulled him from his reverie. It was a strike to the side of his head

  that sent him to the ground from his sitting position.

  “What the fuck is this?!” Charley roared as he stood above Shade’s now prone form. “You roll in your shit?!”

  Arthur was confused, and then the smell hit him. It was bad. Rank. he glanced down and a tarry substance clung all over his body. it

  smelled like rot and corruption mixed with sewage and sour body odor. The smell was too much and Shade began to vomit more black

  sludge. The next thing Shade felt was a tarp thrown over him and then he was dragged out of the wagon with a thud as he hit the dirt of

  the road, and then he was dragged a ways until next he saw light he was being tossed into a river or stream, he couldn't tell more than

  that it was running water but not too deep. Shade broke the surface sputtering. But immediately crouched to grab fists full of sand and

  begin to scrub his body clean. When he was done his skin was red and raw but he managed to get it all. It came out of his hair with

  surprising ease. As if it wouldn't cling to non living cells.

  “Thought you said you wasn't cursed or diseased.” Charly said from the side where they had burned the Tarp. “even checked it with a

  lie detector.”

  “Poisoned maybe…” Shade hedged. "I don't have any memory before I woke up near the fort. I barely escaped with my life and then I

  woke up in your cart..”

  Charley shook his head and the tall man just kicked sand over the fire before Shade was escorted back to the caged wagon. The dark

  spots still stank so he sat in a different corner of the cage. That night he got some stale bread and dried trail rations. It put a little more

  into his calorie pool. It was a blessing that he still had access to that talent. But since he couldnt access his inventory with the

  Pemmican bars he would have to be strategic with his uses. He could surely escape, but this was an easy way into this society. And if

  he could escape whenever he wanted he could just ride this whole situation out until it either became untenable or he would be put in a

  position where he couldn't escape.