<div align="center"><strong>~Cingerotix: Bath House to the Mess Hall – Scuffle with NPC Gladiator~</strong></div><br/>Cingetorix stood in the bath house, naked, shaved, and oiled. He wasn’t sure how long they were to stand here like this, but seeing none of the other slaves don their loincloths, he refrained from covering himself as well, simply following the lead of the experienced slaves. He wondered what was to happen next; why had they all been shaved and oiled?<br/><br/>Suddenly, the others were pouring from the bath house, filing out in a loose sort of line. They were all moving in the same direction, and so it was that Cingetorix followed the other slaves, all of them naked as you please, their hard, oiled bodies glistening in the setting Spanish sun. He soon found himself standing in the Ludus’s mess hall with all of the other gladiators. He noticed the other gladiators forming a line and began to move to the back of that forming line when another slave girl entered the room again. It was the same one who had come to inform the doctore they were all to be shaved and oiled.<br/><br/>Tilting his head slightly, he found it curious how all of the gladiators and other slaves seemed to whip into shape whenever this particular slave girl was around.<em>This woman obviously holds a place of honor among the slaves,</em>he thought to himself as he watched the woman move amongst them. She was inspecting the work of those who had shaved and oiled them and she was fast approaching him.<br/><br/>Cingetorix didn’t really snap to attention or bow his head in respect or reverence to this woman as did most of the others gladiators and common slaves. Instead, he watched her, his eyes fixing upon hers as she drew near him. He stood with his feet shoulders width apart and held his arms slightly from his side, palms facing her as if to say, ‘look at me.’<br/>She made quick work of inspecting him before moving on to inspect the woman with whom he had arrived at this ludus. He watched, curiously as the Nakia lifted Ryann’s hair and inspected her back. He noticed the snarl upon Ryann’s face and the tightening of her fist. He noticed the defiant look in her eyes when she looked towards the gold painted champion as well. Soon enough the slave woman finished her impromptu inspection and exited the room. The other gladiators and slaves returned to whatever they were doing before her arrival.<br/><br/>Cingetorix walked e behind Ryann when they were approached by two men offering bowls of gruel. He didn’t like the look of them from the moment he saw them approaching in his peripheral vision. He stared the man in the eyes for a moment before he slowly reached out for the proffered bowl of gruel. Just before his hands reached the bowl, the man dropped it. The clay bowl shattered and the gruel splattered on his feet and shins, blemishing the oiling he’d just received. Cingetorix never took his eyes off the man, holding his gaze with a glaring, seething look in his on own blue hues. He could hear heated warning Ryann was giving her new found “friend” but he was too focused on the man before him and his words to noticed what happened next with Ryann.<br/><br/><div class="quoteheader"><div class="topslice_quote">Quote</div></div><blockquote class="bbc_standard_quote">NPC Gladiator: “Only those who bear the mark deserve to eat,” he stated with chest puffed out. Fists clenching at his sides, he squared up to the new recruit, having already taken a dislike to him. "We will face each other on the sands tomorrow, and you will die with an empty gut."<br/></blockquote><div class="quotefooter"><div class="botslice_quote"></div></div><br/>In a blur of movement, Cingetorix shoved his fist into the man’s face just as his foot hooked behind the other man’s. His nose buckled and crunched under the force of the blow and the man went flying backwards, crashing on his back with a thud. The man scrambled to regain his feet, but before he could get off of his back, Cingetorix had a foot pressed to the man’s throat, bearing a considerable portion of his weight onto the man’s windpipe and severing his oxygen. Glaring down hatefully at the man with his fists balled up tightly, Cingetorix growled vehemently, baring his teeth in a scowl of rage.<br/><br/><strong>“Why wait? I need no mark  to end the likes of you.”</strong><br/><br/>He noticed in his peripheral as the Egyptian came over to Ryann, his senses were all suddenly very keen and alert to his surroundings. He knew there was going to be repercussions for this incident. There always were. He was not new to being a slave, only knew to being a gladiator. He pressed his foot firmly into the man’s throat, choking the life from him, and fueled by rage, he was determined to continue until the man died or someone stopped him by force.<br/>