Slavery

It was a weeklong bumpy journey. Tate remained tied to the rat the whole time except for using the bathroom and whenever they decided to feed him. Tate is starving, tired and sore its extremely hard to fall asleep on the back of a moving rat while tied up, even when the slavers stopped, he remained tied to the rats back.

The 7th day they emerged from the forest. The forest was no more, for as far as one could see it had all turned to grass land. A mile or two away, giant black walls surrounded a city that had a massive black castle at its center, the castle also had its own black wall surrounding it. As Tate and the slavers get closer to the city horses, bulls and other strange monster could be seen grazing the plains outside the city, some pulled wagons and others pulled fancy carriages that were black and had gold trim with red velvet curtains covering the windows. People were tending to farmland all around, some had hoes some carried buckets but the one thing all the farmers had in common was the collars they wore around their necks. Tate had no idea why they wore the same collars, but he was bound to discover why shortly.

They approached the massive castle gate. The black stone wall itself was 60 feet high, the gate house has massive wooden doors that had a thick layer of some kind of metal on its surface. The gate house entrance is 30 feet high and 20 feet wide making each door 10 feet wide They were stopped by a guard that asked for some kind information and then allowed them to continue on their way.

People and monsters were everywhere most of the people looked poor, and the ones who looked poor all had collars on. The other people were dressed in fine clothes and were yelling out orders to the poor people. The monsters were either in cages of all different sizes or was pulling something be it wagons, carriages, blocks of chiseled stone, exc.

The slavers, rats and the tied-up Tate continued to weave in and out of the crowded city streets. They were headed straight to this coliseum looking building that had the name of slave market painted on its stone walls in red letters, it was half a circle in shape, at the bottom there was a flat area with a podium and looking up were big stone steps that were also supposed to be used as seats.

Let's head to the market and see when the auction is going to be so we can register the boy the slaver named Red said.

They arrived at a little shack next to the stone slave market building. They were greeted by a normal looking middle-aged man. What are you here for he asked, buying or selling.

To sell Red said, we found this boy and his tribe up north at the base of the great cliff. When we attacked, we sent in the Midnight Moon Rats first and he attacked them with a hail of rocks killing over half of them in an instance.

That is quite a prize you all caught for yourself the clerk said.

There's more Red said, when he attacked, his mouth never moved only his arms, I'm pretty certain Hes a user of true magic. The way he commanded the stone to hover in the air first, he has to be a true mage.

If what you said is true, the capital city is about to go crazy when I release this news the clerk said, the auction is scheduled in 3 days would you like to leave the boy here we have a special holding area for his type.

Yes, that would be nice me and my guys are going to stay at the tavern and don't really want to watch him anymore.

Thats fine then I will take him remember the auction is in 3 days at noon.

I will be there waiting to receive my fortune; did you hear that boy welcome to your new home, capital of the Onyx Kingdom the Forsaken Citadel.

"Tell me slaver, did the women and kids escape after your rats knocked me out."

Thats the first words you have said to me in a week, and you use this last chance to ask about the women and kids. Since you didn't bother me, I will give you an answer and that is I don't know, the rats followed them, but we were busy with you, if you ever get free go back and look for yourself.

20 minutes later Tate finds himself in a metal cage that has a green hue. This is an adamantium cage the clerk said nothing is going to be able to break you out, only a few extremely powerful beings would be able to break that metal, and those chains are made of a anti magic metal. This is how you will remain until you are purchased and given a slave collar and then you won't need the cage or anti magic chains because your new master will be able to command you not to attack anyone.

In the 3 days before the auction, they feed Tate a lot to fatten him up and look healthier if he didn't eat, they would force him, they also bathed him and trimmed his hair. When they finished with Tate, he looked like a straight a's student with clean cut hair, he was the new prized pig everyone was after.

On the day of the auction Tate sat in his cage and all he could hear is a guy yelling out numbers and saying next person, finally he hears the clerk say. Ok is everyone ready for the final show of the day this boy was witnessed fighting with true magic Hes around 6 years old and is in good health so without farther ado bring him out.

Tate steps into the afternoon sun that's beaming straight down on the stadium, it's still early winter and just a few weeks have passed since Tates birthday. Tate went from the youngest hunter to a slave in 4 weeks.