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Waiting in the stagnant darkness for a time that seemed to drag out just long enough to grate on his nerves, Grinder's focus narrowed and his head tilted up subtly as he heard the muffled clicking and splashing of boots approaching the cage to call his House's forces to the fight. Biting back any snarky replies that came to his thoughts when the arriving drow commanded him to follow - one of the drow overseers was female - the cursed warrior grunted back to the fresh meat in their own tongue to follow him or else before acting like he had forgotten about their existence. He had actually wished one or two of the bastards would stubbornly resist orders now that the masters were present and in no mood to wait; the sacrifice of a footpad and minor annoyance from his matron for not keeping the other slaves perfectly in line would be well worth the pleasure of giving another of the most annoying cases what they really deserved as the survivors were kept in their place for the fights.

Stepping forth several paces from the concealing shadows of his team's gate, the massive warrior's grip on his favored weapon tensed slightly as his veiled face slowly turned about to briefly regard his surroundings. That the packed soil and undecorated stone walls of the pit did not look very appealing beyond the leftover stains of earlier battles faintly disappointed him. Grinder had a special love of reminding the crowds that the environment could become just as dangerous as the oversized maul he had loosely chained to his right hand. Any fine details borne by the massive warhammer would be nearly impossible to make out from the distance, though its overall design still looked massive enough to be unweildy for most elves and men alike even as a sledge. Some faint glimmering of reflected light on the surface of the maul's head hinted at some undoubtedly nasty modification to its design.

Aside for his obvious mass and physical prowess, the foreign gladiator's nature was entirely enclosed by an unusually fitted suit of plate armor polished to a mirror-like finish. From a first distant appraisal, Grinder's armor looked like it had been a true masterpiece of craftsmanship at one time, before it was ruined in some past battle and given insultingly inferior repairs. Fully half of the suit was made of plates that snugly fitted and adjusted to the motions of its wearer like a second skin, while the replaced armor fragments showed the same hints of bulk and motion resistance around the joints that made heavy armor such a rare sight in the stealthy and agile communities of the drow.

Over the shining metal suit, Grinder had completed his visual style with a small assortment of favored trophies, leaving most of his backside and skull-shaped helmet concealed by a pitch black leather cape. Patrons with a keen eye for details and an understanding of the surrounding hostile wilderness might have been able to identify the hooded cape he was wearing as the tanned hide of a particularly large cloaker, its fierce distented jaws forever fixed open around the champion's masked face like some hellish opened cage. The gladiator's other tropies centered around a rusted chain he had tied around his waist. Upon this belt hung three hooked lines impaled by a quartet of dried skulls each and the thighbone of some small creature.

His obvious interest in the surroundings vanishing as quickly as they had shown, Grinder continued his march toward the heart of the earthen arena with the firm pace of utter confidence. Though he was flanked closely by three of the orcs and another two hobgoblins his house had granted for the fighting, the open sight of his opposition was enough to make the seasoned gladiator despise the sudden decision to part him from his usual forces even more than had felt. The enslaved braves had yet to fully appreciate the twisted nature of their forced battles, which only left him trusting the unreliable natures even less as they approached the inevitable confrontation to the death with a minotaur and three chain armor-clad bugbears that all seemed to share the same unpleasantly sadistic grin in common.

Before his team had closed enough for the opposition to overhear his threat, Grinder growled under his breath in a mixture of goblin and orcish clearly enough for the fresh warriors to overhear. "If any of you get stupid and think of switching sides now, I'll kill you before those boys have the chance to turn on you." Grinder may have felt prepared for any nasty surprises that could come his way, but the embarassment that would come if his supposed comrades turned on him in a fight was an unacceptable setback to his interests.