Afterwords, you confronted Volcatia's owner, a low-tier aristocrat and obvious newcomer to the arena. You offered to buy her at an inflated price, only to have him turn you down publically. When you told him that he had no business sending a slave to death fights she could not win, he dismissed your criticism, though other trainers seemed to quietly agree.

You collect 15 SP as base pay from the arena on the way out. It would be 40, but you did not fulfill your obligation to the arena by providing one dead body or another in the last fight. You absorb a look of disapproval from Marianus. Hopefully he'll forget about this soon.

You should probably talk with your patron aristocrat about what happened. There's also the fight signups in two weeks to plan for. And the coming month would be as good of a time as any to get your fighters into more varied activities -- you've been tossing around the ideas of teaching them to speak Gnoll, buying them a Tacticus (an easy to learn, hard to master strategy game) set, hiring them out to the construction industry, and getting them art supplies.

But first, you should probably figure out what you're going to do about the two male humans who are obviously following you home.

Previous threads:
Thread 1: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/14630047/
Thread 2: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/14641861/
Thread 3: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/14712324/
Thread 4: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/14721967/
Thread 5: http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/14772442/

Current inventory:
-91 SP
-Human Slave (Septimia, left) - convict, top-tier novice
-Lizardfolk Slave (SSssS/"Slicks," above) - sold into slavery, top-tier novice
-Human Slave (Antonina, right) - convict, middle-tier novice
-Human Slave (Eunice, not shown) - low-tier novice
-net
-tail knife
-weighted chain
-heavy shield
-club x3
-buckler x3
-spear x3
-armor x4
-slave housing (4/5 spaces occupied)

>>14784036
>2 male humans following you home
Shit. Do we have a weapon?
If not, keep a little bit of a lead on them, and stay out in the open with other people within sight.

>>14784036
The male humans following us - how large/muscular do they seem, and can we tell anything by their walk? Do they seem like hired thugs, and if so, do they seem like street urchin thugs, or professional killers? Are they visibly armed and/or armored? Are we armed/armored? And finally - are we with our gladiatrices, or alone?

Also this is really late for me. I will not be able to stay around long..

>Do we have a weapon?
Built in weapons aside, (you are a gnoll of not insignificant dangerousness) no.

>The male humans following us - how large/muscular do they seem, and can we tell anything by their walk?
One is medium sized, one is notably muscular. They both look pretty healthy.

>and can we tell anything by their walk?
They're making a token attempt to not be noticed out of politeness.

>Do they seem like hired thugs, and if so, do they seem like street urchin thugs, or professional killers?
Yes, more upper class than lower class.

>Are they visibly armed and/or armored?
They're wearing tunics, and have limited room to be hiding weapons.

>And finally - are we with our gladiatrices, or alone?
You have all four with you. None of you have armor on or weapons out, your equipment is packed and carried in a crate.

Let's stop and talk with them then. Again, in the open.

I'll wait for a few minutes, or multiple votes, whichever comes first. In the meantime, join chat if you enjoy IRC. irchighway.net, #gladiatrixmanager

>>14784170
Seconding this.

"Sure is a nice time of day for a walk, sirs!"
"Yes. The weather is lovely."

The bigger one speaks in an a deadpan tone suggesting exaggerated boredom. He stares directly at you. You've used the same tone of voice to get rid of an overly enthusiastic acquaintance who refused to take a hint.

>>14784225
Reply in deadpan. "OK, then, enough chitchat. Tell us why you've been following us."

>>14784291
second this

The smaller one steps out from behind the bigger one.

"Hey, no need to get excited. Plenty of room in the city for everybody. If you accused everyone on the same street of following you, you'd be pretty busy, right? Why don't you run along home, you're obviously too tired to deal with other people."

He smiles. Oddly, it would almost be a convincing gesture in a more normal context.

>>14784316
Take a detour from your normal route; stop at a diner or something, maybe take a market route. If they are still following you, just smile at them and wink. Let's see how they fare against that.

>>14784316
i say shrug it off for now...keep to main streets and public places in general
dont head directly home try to bore them into leaving us alone or just try to lose them in general

>>14784316
Take this opportunity to buy the drinks and food for the normal postmatch party and the girls wanted some games ane art and stuff right? Buy it for them. If the two still follow, make them your pack mules.

>>14784354
i like the idea of turning them into pack mules if they keep following just drives the nail home that we know theyre following
might make them give up on the chase as well

"That's a good point, I could use a rest. Well, see you around!"

You make a detour through an open air market. Two silver pieces later, you are the owner of one tacticus board, some tokens, two tacticus hats, some paint, four canvasses and brushes,

The two men follow you, stop about a block away, and proceed to examine the shit out of every vegetable the nearest stall is selling in extreme detail, one at a time. You stare directly at them. They look at you, then back at the vegetables.

You approach, and point out that you are a little girl and have too many things to carry. The smaller one sighs and motions for the larger one to leave, before turning to you briefly.

"Be seeing you."

Well we know that people are following us and are being particularly unsubtle about it, we should take a careful look around if there are people actually tailing us with those two being a red herring.

We are seriously going to want to move Antonia, Septimia and Slicks up a notch in the hierarchy, as they are getting far to big for this pond. Arranging a meeting with Volcatia's trainer so we can train her with our girls would be a good thing to look into to keep her alive longer and get us some talking time with her to work out a way to get her out of the arena which her parents will pay handsomely for.

Also how does Tacticus need hats, this needs some explanation.

>Also how does Tacticus need hats, this needs some explanation.
They're traditional.

Also how exactly does winning your freedom in the Arena work, is this more Roman slavery where you can just pay your way out or are there extra hoops to jump through for Arena slaves or is earning freedom a pretty rare thing?

Also is Tacticus a Chess or Shogi analogue or is it more like Go or something else entirely and what do the Tacticus hats look like?

The two men appear to have gone, and if someone else is following you, they are very, very good at it.

Unfortunately, Volcatia's owner is a bit of a mystery. You don't have any reliable way to contact him. You can always try asking Marianus, or approaching an unknown trainer for help if you're lucky enough to run into one.

There's also your fighters' schedules to deal with, and your patron to report to, if you feel like doing one of those first.

>Also how exactly does winning your freedom in the Arena work
This is up to you. You're the sole owner of your slaves, and you'll have to free them voluntarily. The standard practice is to promise freedom to a slave at a certain, specific point (a certain amount of money earned, a certain number of wins, etc) as a motivator.

>Also is Tacticus a Chess or Shogi analogue or is it more like Go or something else entirely and what do the Tacticus hats look like?
Closest to chess. Most of the pieces are conscripts, with rare pieces changing the rules for the others nearby.

Lets find out their names. We will need to find out for certainty who hired them(Noble Rat's Friend) so that we can build more of a rapport with them. Once we get their names we can speak with Vol's father about the men. Ask if he knows them, friend of friend kind of connection or something.

We should walk up to them thank them for being so kind as to escort us frail girls to our home and ask for their names.

>>14784562
I say we wait for Him to contact us. We can get his name from Vol's father. He would be the one to know who he is.

You catch the two men just before they turn a corner and thank them for escorting you so politely, and ask if you could know the names of your benefactors.

"Fabius and Flavius, at your service, ma'am," says the smaller one. Presumably he is the former and his friend is the latter.

A few seconds after they leave, you realize that these are the names of recurring comedic side characters in a series of popular plays.

It was worth a try.

Next on the list is Volcatia's family, after a quick trip home to drop your slaves off. The door security, recognizing you, sends you in immediately. Apparently, everyone is expecting you.

You tell Volcatia's parents about the fight, the various things that seemed slightly off, the crowd and Marianus' reactions, and finally "Fabius and Flavius."

Volcatia's father nods, takes a few notes, and tosses you a bag of coins.

"It seems that Volcatia's dog of a former husband has noticed you."

He thinks.

"What do you plan to do next?"

>>14784660
By wait for him to contact us I mean we should set a plot in motion that makes him lose money so that he has to 'trim the fat' and will sell Vol to us.

Ask the father if he can take some steps to ensure that no harm comes to us or our girls. Even, maybe, if it involves lower pay for us.

We are taking hits to our reputation to protect his daughter, and risking our girls. That's what their money covers. The risk of our lives costs extra - protection.

State that we'd like to help her survive. If her parents would like to pay us for her immediate release upon us aquiring her, then fine. We'll "sell" her back to her parents on the cheap. If not, we can still say that we'll do what we can to try and make her not die. Maybe we'll even make a bit of money out of it. Having high-class friends is never a bad thing.

>>14784676
I plan on making sure he losses every fight, while you make sure he losses every business deal. I can only do so much to make sure your daughter stays alive, try to set up a boycott of his fights, and offer to buy Volcatia every month. This is as much as I can do on my end, so we need you to provide motivation for him to sell. Being followed makes my shoulders itch, I also want some form of protection in case the Slug decides to get cute with me and ruin MY reputation.

>>14784719
"If you can do it, we will be eternally grateful, but it won't be that easy. We have our own resources that we are bringing into position. You're... a roadblock. A vital roadblock, but you're unlikely to be more. Keep it up."

>>14784709
"The money is for you. We're glad to cover any expenses we can. Will Maximus help you feel safer?"

One of the door guards takes a step forward. He is a brick wall with feet.

I have a plan to rescue Volcatia. It does, however, require the possession (but not necessarily use) of explosives, or at least some form of OH GOD FIRE EVERYWHERE in a jar.
Also, is the arena seating area (specifically where the fancy rich people sit) made mostly of wood, or stone?

Until we know who owns her all we can do is stopgap measures, we can't do much public slander, we can't do any daring rescues attempts, we can't train her into something resembling competence. Our first priority in regards to this situation is to know who owns her, who trains her and what channels they are using to shove her into constant deathmatches.

We can't let this completely overtake our lives though, we still have our girls to worry about, keep them training, move them upwards in the hierarchy, given how well they've all been doing they deserve some serious kudos, we want them to keep doing this well and keep training real hard and some positive reinforcement couldn't hurt.

>>14784768
Are you made of Felt? How about we keep /that/ plan on the back burner.
>>14784769
I agree, but we should at least try to make an attempt to stop other people for sending pups into death matches. I say we keep doing the same thing we just did last fight. That is the speech and offer to buy in front of the other trainers.

Lets keep Mr. Brick with us. I like him, he seems like a solid bro.

>Also, is the arena seating area (specifically where the fancy rich people sit) made mostly of wood, or stone?
Mostly stone, but there are wood and cloth parts.

>Until we know who owns her all we can do is stopgap measures, we can't do much public slander

"There, we can help you."

He brings out a separate sheet full of notes. Name, address, associates, habits.

"But if you do anything illegal, the money stops. We don't need Volcatia stolen. We need her free, one way or another."

>>14784768
For the love of God let's not try and rescue her illegally just yet, and for the double love of God, let's not do *anything* involving the use or ownership of fucking explosives.

>>14784768
This is the best plan ever, as there is absolutely nothing that can potentially go wrong with it.
... No, seriously. This is a very bad idea.

>>14784743
Ask them how much Maximus costs, if we can trust him when he's left alone with Antonina, and whether he'd give a shit about helping with combat training.

Training Volcatia seems to be a good idea but we'd need to find out where she trains first.

>>14784815
>>14784845
Fire-in-a-jar guy here.
Spoilsports. I just wanted a fake bomb plot. You know, 'hey Gaurdy McGaurdguy, I saw a guy acting shady under the rich people's seats, and he left this behind, I think there might be more' and hand him the thing.

>>14784888
"Maximus costs a great deal. We are paying for him. Since he must stay with you to protect you, there's no reason he can't help you elsewhere, within reason."

The documents have information on where Volcatia is kept.

>He brings out a separate sheet full of notes. Name, address, associates, habits.
Cool. Any chance of investigating some of the holdings around the arena? Or, asking the people at the arena if there are any names that seem familiar to them?
I figure these will give us a good lead on finding Volcatia's training grounds.
If we find THAT, we can talk to Volcatia, and offer to help train her. It's illegal to steal a slave, but it's probably still legal to practice fighting with them.

We should avoid talking to anyone on the list directly without knowing their role in this, or investigating wealthy houses just yet. Focus on the low-profile investigation first, or else we may find ourselves tailed by 8 hired thugs next time instead of 2.

This information is very useful, now that we can track down Volcatia's owner we can publicly call him out on the dismal performance of his slave and say something along the lines of that out of respect for the game we should take her and train her with out girls. The two possible outcomes are us getting her into something resembling competence or him refusing and us getting ammunition with which to drag his name through the mud. Reputation is everything in this industry and if we are able to, with the help of our new noble buddies, make it more trouble than it's worth to keep her than to sell her to us.

As a side question how far up were we in the rankings before we were freed?

>>14784916
Seems like a good deal, then.
And the documents detail where Volcatia trains? Cool.
Guess we know where we're going this afternoon.
>>14784890
My time on Space Station 13 has taught me that for the time, effort, and bullshittery that goes into implicating someone else for a crime, you're more likely to be caught doing that than if you just toolboxed the guy and shoved his corpse in a locker.

>>14784939
We don't want to be too open about this though, or we will seem like some creepy fangirl stalker following her everywhere and trying to purchase her.

>>14784944
You're missing the point.
>Bombs under rich people
>they pay the most money
>PANIC AND MAYHEM
>hey where's whatsherface gone
But whatever, OP wants to play by the rules, I'm cool with that. I just think she's gonna end up dead soon.

>As a side question how far up were we in the rankings before we were freed?

You were warming up for city-wide champions. Luckily, you were promised your freedom after making a specific amount of money for your owner. He underestimated the amount of money he would make per-bet. Still, he made many times your price off of you, so he can't complain that much.

I like having Maximus around, sure half his job is going to be spying on us but we're planning on helping Volcatia anyway so no harm done and having a brick wall of a man around never hurts, also having a sparring partner for the girls to teach them how to fight some one much bigger than them is useful. Last but not least he can carry groceries and provide brick wall eye-candy for our human girls.

>>14784975
How about "Win a city-wide tournament" as the requirement for freedom? Would that be viable for our slavegirls?

You take your leave, bringing Maximus, who you have mentally named Mr. Brick.

On the way home, you gently nudge the conversation towards the general direction of several sexy subjects. Maximus guesses where you are going with this, and points out that his pussy and cock supplies are quite high, what with his rank and the wealth of his employers, implying that he does not need to bother your slaves. Well then.

Maximus unpacks and tries to figure out the place for him to sleep that is most inconvenient for any would be attackers. You let him get started, anxious to get started with your plan.

Volcatia's owner, Priscus, lives in a standard aristocrat home. From a few blocks away, you can tell that there's definitely an entrance, an inner courtyard, and rooms leading off from there. Luckily, there's a good bit of foot traffic -- various workers going about their business.

You may stand out a bit, however.

>>14785001
Currently, absolutely not. Later, one of them may get to that skill level. It's possible that none have the talent to make it that far, though.

Walk in like you own this miserable shithole.
You are GNEUTERED god dammit.

When we talk to Priscus we'll definitely want other people listening so he can't wave us off with a "I want her to die a horrible painful death in the arena, good day", we need to make it so that refusing our request to train Volcatia, free of charge with our so far excellently performing girls makes him lose more face than he is willing to lose. Given that there are others listening we'll of course want to use the reasoning that her current performance is simply sad and that we are doing this out of respect for the noble tradition of Gladatorial Combat.

>>14785082
This is a good plan. I'm not sure we want to bring Mr. Brick with us. He's recognizable and that is working with volcatia's family. Just bring Sept and Slicks in full weapons and armor perhaps?

>When we talk to Priscus we'll definitely want other people listening
Does this mean you're against walking in like you own the place, or is this a footnote added to walking in like you own the place?

>>14785117
Footnote, I'm not saying we kick his door in but we should walk in in a way to attract attention, bringing Antonina Septimia and Slicks with us looking every inch gladiators should also be done. We don't want Brick with us, he might be recognized.

>>14785117
simply barging in to someones place likethat could get us in trouble and may even lose us some respect so personally im against it
>>14785112
i dont know about this either it could be seen as a threat

>>14785140
If we bring our gladiators in full armor, we show the rich fop that this is what we can make Volcatia into, on the surface at least. But what we are really doing is covering our ass in case he wants to set us up in his house by attacking us with his men. Hmm, maybe just bring nonlethal weapons like nets, clubs and shields.

>>14785160
Or we could 'bump into' him while he's outside, in the company of relevant peoples. You know, make a scene in front of the fanboys.

Honestly, I think we should look into the Noble Rat stuff more. Aristocracy is basically Hobbes' war of all against all. It's likely that the Rat has tons of people who hate him simply because their fathers hated his father. Surely we can find some subtle way of spreading knowledge of what he's involved in and use it to shame him?

Also, adamantly against tresspassing on someone else's private property with armed minions - non-lethal or otherwise..

>>14785160
hm...i agree on the full armor and weapons provided we make it clear they are there as gladiators basically make no actions that would make them appear a threat
nonlethal would probably be the best idea and i agree about not bringing brick
either way i like your idea in the end ill let you decide im just putting in my two cents

I agree with armor, and maybe a shield or something, but weapons, even non-lethal seems to be a bit too threatening, if we can we should try to hide daggers on them incase shit goes down. If the weaps are discovered simply claim that they are your bodygaurds while you go out, and if anyone starts shit with you they have the daggers to ensure you can end it. Just make it seem like you're not to be messed with, and you're 100% ok with eviscerating an urchin kid for trying to steal your money.

You're a gladiator (ex), act like it. Death is a means to an end.

I don't understand the point of offering to train volcatia. Wouldn't accepting the offer make priscus lose face? It would be like he can't even train his own fighters. It would be much better to make a public wager with him, that you could train volcatia better than him, that you could train her to win a match against one of his fighters. This puts pressure on him to accept your offer or look weak. This could of course backfire if he has access to a particularly strong fighter, so research should be done beforehand to determine what he can put on the table. If he has a really good fighter, that gives you more time to work with though, as you can give yourself a longer deadline while still making it seem like a legitimate bet, buying you more time.

You decide to bring your full crew, in armor. You pack all of your non-lethal equipment in your crate and drag it along as well, in the unlikely even that you'll need it.

"...name and business?"
"Gneutered and let me in. Priscus expects me."
"But, he's out."
"Without ME? I'll wait."

You guessed right -- this sort of thing is normal. You are in.

Priscus takes his time getting back. He's accompanied by several men of similar age (about 30) and clothing style (moderately expensive, attempting to pass for extremely expensive). You don't recognize them.

He almost stifles his reaction to seeing you completely, and has it under control in a moment.

>>14785244
"Priscus, I have an offer for you. You see, when I first saw your gladiatrix, I thought she was a scrub. An underweight, unexperienced pussy who can't fight her way out of a paper bag. But I looked again hoping that she would be better. And I saw it. She could a one of the best gladiatrixes the arena has ever seen if you let me train her. Take a look at Slicks here, did you see the fight. She dominated her opponent. Or how about The Sept and Ant connection here. One of the up an coming tagteams in the business. Look all i wanna do is make Vol the best or failing that one of the elites.

>>14785294
This is for getting her out of priscus's prissy fingers and into our hands. From there we can buy time for her to be free.

He will refuse. He's going to lose face but refuse anyway. Worth a shot, though.

One of Priscus' friends gets the first word in.

"You have an arena slave?"
"Oh... I almost forget some times. Her record isn't the best, I sometimes wish I could forget her."

His second friend is more interested in you and your group.

"So, these girls are yours? And they're trained, I take it? How exactly does that work?"

You're intensely enjoying the feeling of knowing that Priscus effectively cannot have you thrown through any windows for the moment, no matter what he wants to do.

>>14785328
Explain your rigorous training methods (BS if you have to) Make it seem like your training is kickasso. Hopefully you can get the crowd to egg Priscus into letting his slave train with you, maybe talk about how you develop strat with board games (I forgot the name of it) and generally make your arena slaves awesome.

>>14785304
the problem is if we do this we need to make it seem like this was the actual intention rather then simply freeing her
if we do this then simply free her our reputation will go down the drain for outright lieing to the man
however if we keep her around to make it appear real the family might not be so willing to pay as much or even at all for keeping her in danger
not totally against this its just very risky and could backfire in multiple ways

>>14785328
>"So, these girls are yours? And they're trained, I take it? How exactly does that work?"
Buy slaves at a market, train them in the ways of combat, and enter them in non-lethal fights for the amusement of spectators in the arena.
I was a slave myself, but I earnt my freedom through combat. The arena is my life, so when I was free, I became a manager and a trainer.

As a trainer, I'm interested in training slaves to be arena champions. I think Volcatia has what it takes.

>>14785328
If his friends are interested, a demonstration between Sept and Slicks to show off their skills would be nice. Followed up by>>14785294

>if we do this then simply free her
If I recall correctly our goal is to make the girl Not Die.
Not to make the girl free.
Keeping her as a slavegirl combattant of our own fulfils our end of that bargain.

>>14785336
i say we keep the important bits out weve had quite a bit of success and it might not be a good idea to let just anyone know...word spreads you know
i say once were done talking to the freidn we get to the point and discuss price

Tell him that seeing Volcatia fight in the arena with so little training is an insult to the Arena but out of our love for the games we insist upon training her alongside such Gladiatrixes as the ones we bring with us. I stake my reputation upon the fact that after a month training with me she will barely resemble what she was when she last fought.

Or something to that effect, also working in the hint that his refusal could only be due to a desire to disrespect the Arena with a pitiful fight would be good.

"If you want to forget her, would selling her not accomplish that?"

>>14785354
i get the feeling he doesnt care much about insulting the arena and cares much more about money

>>14785368
This. We don't want to seem too suspicious, so don't offer to train her for free, but do offer to do it at a low cost.

>>14785368
True, the question isn't whether he cares about the Arena but whether he cares about everybody around him, many of whom care about the Arena, thinking that he blatantly insults one of this places fine traditions. It's not about his beliefs it's about his image, if a number of people think you go out of your way to insult this tradition they might not want to work with you.

>>14785375
if hes spending what appears to be next to nothing on training already and doesnt seem to care much in the first place why would we be payed for training?
i say we offer to buy her outright this guy wants to make money not spend it
find his asking price even if its a little high i say we go for it haggling down will probably destroy our chances

>>14785375
Makes sense. We can offer to Buy her, because our business as a manager is to train slaves, then have them fight for money.
If that doesn't work, we can train her, and explain that we want to bet a large amount of money on the 'weak underdog' who is, all of a sudden, able to kick a large amount of ass. At those odds, our bet makes good money.

You have an audience. Your audience is keeping you from being thrown out. You want to keep your audience.

"Well, I'm glad you asked. You see, all of my girls are carefully chosen for their potential, whether they have any experience or not. Too bad I didn't get to Volcatia first, but you can't always get lucky.

Anyway, I train my girls in every major style -- reverse Fulci, double feint, rising stone -- both to fight, and to counter them.

Volcatia has the talent, but she just doesn't have the experience to put it to use.

I could always show you, if you like."

Priscus' friends would both, in fact, like. One of them recommends that Slicks be involved in the demonstration. Priscus is struck.

And that's a thread. It's late and I'm slowing down and my writing quality is suffering. E-mail in field for mailing list, thread archived. I'll check on the archive once the thread 404s and start us off with anything that there's consensus on.

>Priscus is stuck.

>>14785401
til next time then