"Come," the vampire said, not a true answer, waving for the elf to follow. He lead her out of the room into a deserted hallway lined with tapestries displaying war, giant hordes of people--if Kaura looked closely she may be able to figure out that it was a chronological progression of the great war between the vampires and elves. It was that war that had seriously effected the number of vampires, so many had died in the conflict with the elves that their culture had been shattered, and even then that was before the time of his sire's sire, long back into history. Since then the two cultures had moved apart, the vampires essentially picking up and leaving, traveling across the continent. Abel was, for one of his kind, removed quite far from anyone else's territory. While it was true vampires were quite territorial, they normally gave themselves easy allies to fall back upon.
Candelabras full of glowing coal, providing warmth as well as light, decorated the halls, hanging chandeliers occasionally throwing multicolored light from large candles. They went through a plethora of staircases and hallways, the vampire seemingly to know more by instinct than anything else which pathway to take, though it seemed to be that the rule of thumb was forever downwards. They were nearing a part of the complex that was paradoxically warmer than where they had been, nearer to the surface, not recessed into the mountain itself. A low, dull roar of voices greeted them only fifty steps before they came upon the great pit where the other slaves were being kept, prepared for auction.
Nearly a hundred women were there, almost all of them naked except for rude burlap shifts or dresses. In some cases they were not clothed at all and clearly at the mercy of the deprecations of the guards. A trough outlined the large pit where the women were kept with piping going up to large funnels. That was for food, Abel explained. The single trough cutting the pit horizontally was for water, which seemed to decide social class right then and there. It appeared the closer you were to the source the better off you were and the farther away, the more piss and feces you had to deal with in your water supply. Clearly the vampire ran a brutal system that did nothing to favor the weak. Guards crawled over the entire area, keeping an eye out for all potential threats, not that there were many.
The vampire perhaps intentionally lead her past the great pit to a room of hewn stone that resembled nothing more than a smithy's work place, with extra tools besides. A large furnace was kept going which lent to the heat of the room, enough to get most people who were unused to it sweating in minutes. There were tables across the room, with some affixed to the walls next to tools hanging from them. Abel went somewhere near the back of the shop and shouted a rough order, "Bend over one of the tables!"
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