Skyrim: The Bloodworks
I had wanted to try creating a skyrim fanfic (new to this), so here's one in which my main character, Vladimir Drakenborne is captured by unknown men and transported to a fighting arena. You may remember a similar place called the bloodworks in Oblivion.

The cart rumbled across uneven terrain, rattling the chains of its passengers. Twelve prisoners rode in the closed cart; their wrists and ankles clamped in irons that bit into the flesh. They wore nothing more than old rags, striped of their belongings, and given small portion meals and water whenever their wardens stopped for the night. Vladimir had been there for thirteen days. His wrists were raw, trickling blood onto the floor of the wagon. Little food and sleep had deprived him of his strength, leaving him a silent passenger. He had given up the struggle to fight back or escape, now content to simply wait and see where he would be taken. Many of the others had also resigned themselves. Most were fairly young and had the look of strong men, but their backgrounds all varied. A few had been bandits, at least one a forsworn, and some others had been imperial soldiers. The man across from Vladimir was the eldest though. He was a weathered old man with a thick white bush covering his mouth and stretching up to his earlobes. He had no hair upon his scalp, but had thick eyebrows that traced the ridge of emerald eyes. He had slightly more meat on his bones than most his age, but Vladimir could tell his strength was also failing. The old man caught Vladimir staring and lifted his gaze to him.

“What's your name, son?” he asked.
“Vladimir.”
“You use to be someone strong, didn't you? That's probably why they took you,” a grim smile broke across the old man's face.
“Where are we going?” Vladimir asked.

The old man's eyes looked at him with smiling despair, almost lunacy. “To the place where evil festers and rot consumes. Call it what you will. We're all going to die there.” The old man fell silent after that. It was another hour before Vladimir felt the cart jerk to a halt. It was dark outside when he was pulled off the wagon. The wardens threw them off the road and to each man was a warden to guard him. Vladimir gazed down the road. They were apparently not the only ones. Three other wagons filled with prisoners had stopped and the guards set about starting a fire for themselves. The prisoners were not allowed the warmt of the blaze and left far from it to freeze in the night's chill. Vladimir sat in the cool grass, leaning against a mound of dirt where the road began. Black hair matted against his sweat-covered brow just above a pair of amber-colored eyes. In a profound silence, he sat with the other prisoners. Not one spoke. His eyes turned to the guards. The ones guarding them stood on the road, just above the prisoners and kicked anyone who made a sound. The wardens by the campfire sat about drinking and eating. In the glow of the fire, Vladimir finally gained a good look at these men. Some were nords, others imperials, redguards, and even altmer. There was maybe one or two argonians among them, all wearing padded leather armor. Dusty cloth protected their neck and mouths and each kept a steel longsword or mace close at hand. “Slavers maybe?” Vladimir thought aloud. A leather boot clubbed him across the back of the head. The ache filled his head as a line of blood trickled down his neck. “We're going to die,” he heard someone whisper and then another person screamed “He's got a shiv!” Vladimir looked down the line of prisoners as the wardens rushed from their campfire. They were a moment too late when one of the prisoners thrust the shiv into his throat. A gurgled cry escaped the former bandit's lips as he doubled over, both hands gripping the shiv as blood foamed over his hands. Crimson life dripped from his lips and Vladimir saw the man's eyes roll back in his head. Then he fell dead amidst the astonished wardens and prisoners. In the morning the wagons moved again. The prisoners had been packed back onto the cart with one empty seat. Where the bandit had died was where they left him. No burial, no rites. He had disappeared under a flock of black birds. Later they would say he had been lucky.

The last stretch of their journey had been even rougher. The roads shook the wagon violently, throwing prisoners back and forth. Only the chains strung through loops in the floor kept them from being flung across the wagon, but the shackles dug in deeper. The day brought smoldering heat and the thick smell of decay with it. The roads were covered in rocks and bone and as they battled forth towards their destination, Vladimir realized that they were no longer on the road. The wagons had diverted onto a rocky cliff that spun right then turned left and continued up a mountainside. What lie at the peak was the question though. After the events of last night, there was no chatter amongst the prisoners. Half of them were scared of what await them, for what could drive a man to take his own life? What was so horrible that he would rather die than live to see it? It was a question shared amongst every prisoner. Left to their thoughts, each mind would conjure the worst possible outcome and it drove home the fear that loomed over them. The sun had risen to the peak of the afternoon when the wagons stopped for the final time. A thousand sound bombarded them at once as wardens undid the chains and dragged the prisoners from the wagons. The other carts had been brought in as well and there the wardens did the same. Vladimir's bare feet crunched sun-bleached bone as he was rushed out. His eyes quickly surveyed his new surroundings as best he could before he felt the wardens shoving him in a single direction. Tall pikes ascended from the earth, bearing the rotting corpses of former prisoners. His eyes swiveled forward. He looked in amazement at the bazaar before him. Thousands of canopies were set up with vendors selling wares to a crowd of people. The human sea parted before the wardens as they waved their swords and in rows the prisoners were marched, side by side, each bound to the man in front of him. These people were dressed in varying styles of clothing, from the fine velvet cloth of wealthy nobles to the dirty rags of beggars. There was no clear ethnicity between them either. Like the guards, there were members of every race present with smiling faces and a few cheers. “Fresh blood!” they cried. Other wardens and even mercenaries moved through the bazaar, all heading in the same direction. Vladimir's eyes fell from the people around him and his ears became mute to their cries. His attention diverted entirely upon the massive structure that towered over the bazaar. Stone walls rose a mile into the heavens with the statues of horseback cavalry and dueling knights watching as sentinels from the wall's battlements. A carved shield with a tarnished emblem sat in the center of the archway. Giant iron band gates sealed the entrance and before the wall stood two dozen men in steel plate armor. “New blood for the warmaster,” one of the wardens said. “Enter,” spoke one of the armored men, who stood aside. Two of the armored men turned wheels on either side of the archway. The very earth seemed to quake as chains were drawn and the gate lifted from its place. Loose dirt fell from the gate as it rose and thundered a sound as it reached full height. Hands shoved Vladimir, ushering him forward. The gate fell shut behind the last of the prisoners with a resounding boom that echoed through the walls of the Bloodworks.

The Bloodworks was a coliseum massive in its size and elegant in its design. It had been built in the earliest days of Skyrim, when men first arrived in these lands. Seated in the dry peaks of the southern mountains, it was invisible from a distance and its location known only to those who already knew where to look. In the last thrity years it had become a nest of slavers, skooma dealers, shady merchants, and wretches. The bazaar, which sold anything a normal merchant wouldn't be caught dead with, created profit and commerce and the people stayed for the battles. Thousands had been dragged from their homes, chained, and forced to fight in this coliseum, the same as Vladimir. He sat in his cell in the underbelly of the coliseum. Each cell was bare with a stone floor wet with the blood that drained down from the upper levels. Three prisoners were kept to each cell and each floor contained twenty cells. The dungeons here ran down three stories and as one college mage proved, magic was useless here. The cell bars were too thick and sturdy to break and magical wards fizzled out any spell cast against them. Whoever their wardens were, they had obviously been well prepared. The prisoners had met the warmaster – a giant of a man with a scar running from his left temple and splitting his lips. He had a hairless scalp and tanned skin stretched over a mountain of muscle. When he spoke, his voice came like a clap of thunder that ripped through the air. But even he was not the most fearsome thing the Bloodworks had to offer. In the time since their arrival, they had learned from prisoners who had been in the Bloodworks far longer, about the “boogiemen”, or so they called them. The wardens called them inquisitors – men or monsters dressed in black fur coat with macabre clay masks. According to the rumors of a lanky man with the look of a rogue, their tongues had been ripped out so they could never speak and they moved through walls. He had a hundred other little tid bits about them. That they were the ghosts of the dead prisoners who served the wardens in death. That they roamed the dungeons at midnight and feasted on human flesh. Vladimir could easily pick him out to be a storyteller of tall tales. He was the kind of guy who loved to capture the attention of those around him with his stories, but Vladimir could not dismiss his skill. According to a few other prisoners, the rogue had survived two years in the coliseum. “He could tell you a joke, slit your throat, and steal your coin purse all in one movement,” a fellow prisoner had told him. Against his better judgment, Vladimir had decided to speak to the man and he told of his experiences. “Use to be in the thieves' guild. Was damn good with a lockpick and use to fence some items.” He had quite a tale to tell, but what most interested Vladimir was his stories of the coliseum fights. “They have fights every day. If at least ten people don't die, they call it a slow day.” Having enticed Vladimir, the rogue continued, spinning tales of his own battles with exaggerated moments.

“By the way, name's Harlequin.”
“What's your real name?” Vladimir asked.
“Don't recall and not important. The wardens call me Harlequin, so that's who I am,” Harlequin responded with a smile.
“I'm-” Vladimir started but Harlequin cut him off.
“Vladimir Drakenborne. Thirty-seven winters old, an imperial, and a damn good swordsman.”
“How do you know all that?” Vladimir asked, irritated.
“Because, my business to know. There's no coin to make here, but there's information and that's important.”

Harlequin went on, changing to the topic of information exchange. “Every match is won with information, not brute strength,” he had said. Apparently he worked in secret as an information broker within the Bloodworks. For extra food and water he sold information to other prisoners on their opponents for the next match and his business had been booming. He seemed to know about every prisoner, even the newest ones. “Sometimes I sneak out. The wardens keep details on the prisoners.” Vladimir had asked how and Harlequin responded with a smirk, “Told you I was damn good with a lockpick.” Security was too thick at the entrance for him to escape, but he had found that it was lighter inside the coliseum. Sticking to the shadows was easy for a trained thief. “Might want to know you're going up against an argonian assassin,” Harlequin had told him on his third evening since arriving. He had yet to fight, but had known it wouldn't be much longer. “Not just any assassin either. He's from – was from the dark brotherhood,” Harlequin corrected himself. “These wardens mean business if they can capture a dark brotherhood assassin. Must have been those inquisitors.” Harlequin spoke between the bars to the others, piling on details of another story. “Anything I should know about?” Vladimir asked. Harlequin smiled. He had not had the pleasure of having Vladimir ask directly for information until now. “Besides don't die? The argonian's wicked with daggers and fast. When he throws his weight into it, chop his head off.” As per the usual rate for prisoners, Vladimir was forced to hand over his loaf of bread and tankard of water to the imperial thief. Vladimir lay awake on the floor of his cell for hours before a warden stepped down into the prison. He opened the cell and two others kept the other prisoners at bay while Vladimir was extracted. Under guard, he was moved to another room in the dungeons where he was fitted with leather armor and given boots and a two-handed broadsword. As he held the blade, he glanced at the guards. Their hands were on their swords to show they would cut him down before he swung. He dropped the idea of escape and followed the warden as he was lead up through the dungeons and into a large room. Tables of weapons were shoved against the wall and a female warden leaned against the far wall. She was dressed the same as the others, except for a face mask. Beyond her yawned a long hall that ended at a gate. Light shined in through the bands of iron. “A former soldier,” the woman said, reading a dossier. “You served seven years in the imperial army, then left and came to Skyrim. From there it becomes interesting, though I suppose your adventuring days are behind you now, aren't they?” she asked with a cruel smile. The guards marched Vladimir past her, casting him into the hall. A second gate closed behind him and the woman watched him from behind the gate. “I've seen your opponent fight. This is farewell, imperial,” the redguard woman said as she walked away and the gate into the coliseum slid up. Vladimir rested the flat side of his broadsword across his shoulder and with a heavy sigh stepped out into the blinding light. Then he felt a blade pierce his stomach and saw the dusty dry scales of a black argonian as it pushed the dagger up to the hilt. “Welcome to the Bloodworks, fresh blood,” he said.