#gladiators

The under-the-stands concessions are opening. The sports bars are heating up their grills and putting the drinks on ice. Superstar fighters are suiting up. Up-and-coming gladiators are getting rubbed down. The earliest spectators are already lining up for the choicest seats. The bookies and touts are chalking up the day's odds and taking early wagers on the hottest races and fights.

And none of them suspect that, down in the darkness beneath the world's biggest, shiniest arena, a penniless slave boy is about to change everybody's odds for good. 

Lucius doesn't care that he's at the very bottom of an unforgiving social ladder. His heart is set on something (for him) unattainable. But—in that place where life and death walk daily side by side—when without warning Lucius's personal odds change, unhesitatingly he grabs his slim chance in both hands and stakes everything on his own bet. 

Over a single day, between dawn and dusk, beggars and nobles and even gods find themselves drawn into Lucius's go-for-broke gamble with the greatest powers in his world. He, and they, soon find that no system can withstand someone who understands how to game it—especially when it's a sports fan who knows all the stats, not just out of a desire to win... but out of love. 

Reader advisory: Please note that everything in this story was once real, except for the magic. 

(Though maybe that too....)

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TODAY'S FACT IS

Did you know that Tyrannophasma Gladiator is the largest known species of gladiator in the world? They are only known to be found around the Brandberg Massif in central Namibia.

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