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+--- Thread: The Hunger Games (/showthread.php?tid=330)
The Hunger Games - Shang Tsung - 02-22-2014
The Pale Moors were a little closer to a realm that Shang recognized and comprehended. The moment his ride passed through the gate into the adjacent world, he felt immediately the sorrow and misery that suffused the atmosphere. Words about a place called Darkshire and its role as the ‘bastion of hope’ spilled out of the knight’s mouth as he guided his horse down a crude cobblestone path. Shang lifted his eyes and spotted the rustic town in the opposite direction. With its dull brick and dark wooden architecture, it reminded him of some eighteenth century hamlet in rural Britain or Germany.
For another half an hour, they rode further into the Moors, until the flatlands gave way to a dense forest. As if the forest itself gave off an aura of evil, the horse became increasingly skittish and reluctant as they drew closer. When the rider tried to spurn it down the slightly paved pathway that entered the trees, the animal let out a defiant whinny and reared up on its hind legs, threatening to throw off its rider and passenger before the former managed to calm it down.
Lifting his head up, Shang stared fondly at the dark, dense trees. They reminded him fondly of the forests where he had been born. Until, of course, the Europeans had arrived and reduced those vast, beautiful trees to stacks of logs. With a frown, Shang glanced down at the belt the man wore around his plated waist.
“We’re pretty far from civilization, Sir, are you certain your family lives around here?” The knight pushed up his visor and started to glance around the area.
“Yes, they’re just a little further in.” A withered hand moved to the e%g%g sword the man carried.
“Are you ce--” the words trailed off into frantic gurgling as the man’s own blade was rammed through his chest from a gap in his armor beneath his armpit. The horse let out another cry and reared up, this time throwing both its passengers from its back. Holding onto the man’s opposing shoulder, Shang managed to direct the fall so he landed on the knight.
“Why?” The dying man pleaded as he twitched, his strength already too far gone to let him do anything in the heavy armor. Shang rolled the man onto his back and stared down at his now pallid countenance.
“I didn’t want to risk killing you closer to civilization and taking my prize.”
“P-prize?” The knight asked as the old sorcerer planted a boot onto his chest and extended a palm down toward his face.
“Your soul is mine.” Shang rasped as his fingers clenched. It took a little longer for the process to begin, but the sorcerer couldn’t be certain if that was due to this new realm or his own weakness. With a shriek of pure horror, the downed soldier thrashed up only once as his soul was torn from his defeated body. Unlike on previous times, the opaque cloud that rushed up out of the man’s eyes, mouth, and nostrils flashed a rainbow of colors for a brief moment as it exited. After that initial, dazzling flicker of color, it settled onto the green shade that he was so accustomed to.
Drawing it up in front of him, Shang pulled the soul into his body, feeling almost instantly the empowering effect. A euphoric sigh escaped the sorcerer as he pressed his eyes shut. When they reopened, they were no longer milky white but a piercing almost entirely black color. His body was no longer slightly stooped, and his beard and hair had more gray than white in them.
“This is more like it,” the sorcerer shouted--more so to hear how much younger his voice sounded than anything else.
Re: The Hunger - Shang Tsung - 08-10-2014
Whistling as he worked, Shang rolled the desiccated corpse into a shallow grave that he’d dug over the last few minutes. Without losing his tune, he buried the dead guard and patted down the rich, black soil. Turning around, the sorcerer slipped the shovel into a bag on the dead man’s horse.
After taking a moment to fastening the dead knight’s scabbard around his waist and under his robes, Shang gracefully leapt up onto the horse and turned it back in the direction of the town. Now that he’d addressed the issue of restoring himself to his youth, he needed to figure out what realm he had been pulled into by the all-white god. Given the fact that the curse placed upon him by Shao Kahn to remain an old man was no longer in effect, Shang knew he had to be someplace very foreign. After all, there were few realms that could escape the influence of the Emperor…
A half an hour later, Shang Tsung arrived a mile from the outskirts of the rustic little town. Based on the drab architecture and colors, it looked like a depressed, Victorian-era settlement. Dismounting from the horse, he snatched the soldier’s haversack and shooed the animal away. He didn’t want to draw any attention to himself when he entered the town.
Entering from the side of town opposite to the inter-realm doorway, Shang pulled his hood over his head and slipped a hand inside his cloak. His fingers closed around the hilt of the dead man’s sword. He didn’t yet know if this world would impede his magic, so he would be ‘forced’ to rely upon centuries worth of swordplay and beating people to death with his extremities.
“Hello, traveler!” A man shouted as Shang passed in front of his cart of goods. “May I interest you in some of Darkshire’s best dried goods?”
A fitting name for such a drab little place. Shang mused as he walked passed the car without a glance. The last time he’d been in a village this small was when he’d murdered a dozen Shaolin monks to help ‘motivate’ Liu Kang into entering the Mortal Kombat tournament. From the look of these people, he could tell he was looking at plenty of easy souls to consume. Now that Kahn was gone, no one would prevent Shang from replacing all the lives he had devoured leading up to his defeat and near-death at the hands of that damned monk.
So many souls to consume… I hope there are some here with a little vigor.
Just as the thought had been processed, Shang heard a loud commotion a few streets ahead. Snaking his way through the growing crowd of people, the sorcerer drew close enough to see the source of the news. A burly man, his body glazed with a mixture of blood, sweat, and viscera, had dragged a carcass into one of the town’s squares. The creature was a mixture of a skinless dog and a morning star, with its glossy, sinewy flesh dotted with spikes and horns. Its feet were little more than stumps with giant claws.
“I’ll be damned… he did it!” Someone whispered in front of Shang.
“He killed that damnable behemoth. I think the cattle herd will be able to rest a little easier tonight,” a second man added.
“We’ll all be able to sleep a little easier!” A frail old woman tacked on.
“All… all in a day’s work,” the man muttered as he accepted a rag and wiped the blood and specs of viscera from his visage. Under the crimson muck, he had rugged, angular features and eyes that probably served him just as well at a bar as they did on the battlefield. The warrior’s jovial tone elicited cheers from the townsfolk, who quickly descended on him to offer whatever help they could.
Once again, Shang slipped from the crowd and entered the nearest building, which bore a softly swaying wooden sign emblazoned with an image of an ale flagon and the words ‘THE Pub.’
Re: The Hunger - Shang Tsung - 08-31-2014
‘THE Pub’ was rather rundown despite the signage that proclaimed it to be the ‘Best Waterin’ Hole in the Pale Moors!’ Based on the parts he’d seen so far and the general mood of the realm, Shang doubted that this quaint establishment had much in the form of competition.
“Hey there, robed guy! You a traveler?” The bartender loudly inquired upon noticing the sorcerer walk into the pub. Shang stifled a scowl as he approached the portly, sweat-stained man. His original hope had been to lay low here until the huge crowds dissipated or the sun dipped under the horizon. He hadn’t expected the owner to be so damned observant of every single person who came into the place, and now he’d be forced into ‘small talk’ to ensure a low profile.
“Yes, I am.” Shang replied, feigning a cordial tone and smile as he sat down on a creaky wood stool. He took a moment to glance around at the rest of the building. Even though the afternoon wasn’t that old, two-thirds of the tables were occupied by at least one or two people. In the corner, a group of eight people occupied a pair of tables that they’d moved together. If this was the afternoon crowd, Shang wondered what exactly the evening or late-night crowd looked like.
“What brings you to this desolate ole place? You want to be a famous monster slayer like Cameron out there?” The bartender’s question was harmlessly, and even as he asked it, it was obvious his focus was more on the pint glass he was polishing with a rather worn-out rag.
Shang made a mental note of the man’s name. “No, I’m just wandering…I figured this place would make a nice stopping point.”
“Ha!” The bartender chuckled before breaking into a fit of laughter—a full-body motion that made his gut jiggle. Once he finally stopped, he set the glass down and plucked up another. “You might be the first person to say that in… well, probably forever! Darkshire ain’t known as a tourist attraction. That was Silent Hill, at least until that place went the same way as the rest of the Moors.”
It was then that the sorcerer saw how he could play this situation to his advantage. As the bartender finished polishing his second glass, Shang slipped a hand into the dead knight’s sack and fished around until he felt his fingers brush up against metal coinage. “Why don’t you give me a drink and tell me all there is to know about this place?” He asked as he dropped three silver coins onto the countertop. The bartender’s eyes light up at the sight of the money, and after he scooped them into a hidden container, he poured a pint of ale into a large tankard.
“I didn’t think you’d be such a big spender,” he spoke as he smacked the container down and slid it across the counter to his customer. Shang scooped it up as if he were a pro and took a few gulps before setting it down in front of him. The ale tasted like piss mixed with more piss, which only reinforced the sorcerer’s belief that Darkshire was a terrible place. How long had it been since Shang’s last goblet of fine wine?
Too long… Despite the foul taste, Shang knew that pretenses and appearances were more important than anything else. He took a second set of gulps as the bartender made his way back to him.
Re: The Hunger - Shang Tsung - 09-06-2014
“You’d probably be best served to leave town. Darkshire is a morose place. It used to be beautiful before Diablo. Since then we just hide behind the walls until we die and get recruited by the town militia.”
“What?” Shang inquired after another long gulp from the tankard of ale.
“Most of the town militia these days is undead filth. When the Kingdom had to push deeper into the Moors, we were left to fend for ourselves against the monsters. We didn’t have much, especially if the walls failed us, so some necromancer decided to take advantage of the the one resource we had in excess… dead people. Now it’s impossible to die and rest in peace.”
Shang held back a grin. Whoever this necromancer was, the sorcerer respected his genius. “Does that mean the town is safe within the walls?”
The bartender chuckled. “We’ve had worse periods in the past, but I still wouldn’t wander around at night in the your Sunday best. Some people are so desperate to turn a quick profit… it’s easy to vanish into the night.” Shang nodded his head as he finished the rest of the ale and slid it over to the bartender. “Another?” The portly man inquired.
“That’s all right, just keep the change,” the sorcerer answered, and with that, he quickly departed before he had to exchange any more smalltalk. Slipping out the side door, he made his way down the cobblestone streets until he found a rundown tavern. The knight he killed had either been a rich man or his money was worth far more in the Pale Moors. Either way, Shang purchased two weeks in the ‘best room’ with only a few coins.
The man wasn’t tired, but he also didn’t want to wander the streets aimlessly during the day. Once the sun set and darkness set in, he could blend in with the night rabble and acquire a few more souls. His defeat by the shaolin monk had nearly killed him. Even worse, he’d lost his grip upon the hundreds of souls he had devoured over his long life. Now that he was in this new realm, free from the control of Shao Kahn, he had what seemed to be a limitless buffet.
With a grin, the sorcerer sat in a weathered chair and waited for night to fall upon Darkshire.
Re: The Hunger - Shang Tsung - 09-11-2014
Darkshire at night was a far more pleasant place. Like Europe had been before the Industrial Revolution, the streets were illuminated by candles and torches that rarely did their job and often extinguished themselves in their own oil. Just as the bartender had mentioned, the streets were full of an assortment of riffraff. Those men who weren’t drunk were often the ones who were staring at their passers-by like hawks. Shang had a laugh at how obvious they made themselves as they tried to figure out who was drunk enough to rob blind.
Leaving behind the district where his room was located, the sorcerer made his way to a more rundown part of town. He was reminded of New York in the decade before the most recent Mortal Kombat tournament--dozens of aimless drifters with animal glares and sin in their eyes. Shang was beginning to wonder how exactly Darkshire remained stable with all these would-be criminals. He paused to glimpse up at the stone walls a few blocks down. Even at this distance, he could spot the faint outline of guardsman staring out into the Pale Moors. Where those mortal men up there or some of the town’s ghoulish defenders?
Either way, there was clearly very little in the form of law enforcement. With that in mind, the sorcerer made his way off the main street and into a smaller stretch of cobblestone between the rows of dilapidated buildings. Surely he’d find something to take advantage of if he wandered long enough in these ill-light paths.
A few yards away, a woman screamed, and Shang had to suppress the urge to grin. He promptly turned and watched as a woman was shoved down next to a trash bin by an overweight man with dirty clothes. A quick glance revealed that no one seemed to care to investigate screams from an alley. The sorcerer watched as the man drew a small knife and stalked over to the downed woman, who had one hand around her ankle.
I’ll take it. With a smile, Shang pivoted and threw out his palms. When his wrists touched, there was a flash of orange before a flaming skull erupted from between his slightly bent fingers. The projectile slammed into the man’s chest and threw him off his feet and into the brick wall of the nearby structure. “That wasn’t very nice,” the sorcerer shouted as he walked over to the crumpled man and crouched in front of him. “Now why would you go and do something like that?”
“Fuck you,” the other man spat as he tried to reach for his knife. Before he could move more than two inches, Shang slammed his fist onto the outstretched hand, smashing it down onto the cobblestone. The sorcerer glanced over at the woman to see that she had fainted. With a smirk, he turned back to the would-be criminal and punched him straight in the throat, crushing his Adam’s apple. As the man started to choke and sputter, Shang did what he did best. Just like before, it took him a little longer than he wanted to, but eventually he felt the all-too familiar elation as the pitiful creature in front of him started to convulse.
As Shang’s fingers clenched into a fist, the man’s soul fled him through his facial orifices. Like before, there was a momentary flash of all the colors of the rainbow before the green cloud seeped out and flowed into its new owner. The empty vessel slumped back against the brick wall and moved no more. A sigh escaped Shang’s mouth as he felt the new vitality and strength flow through him. The almost-criminal didn’t bring much to the table in terms of skills or talents, but his lifeforce would nevertheless serve to sustain its new master.
“What happened?”
Shang turned to see that the woman had regained consciousness. He contemplated offing her quickly and leaving the scene, but a glance down the street revealed that some people had just left the buildings to risk checking out the commotion. “He went into cardiac arrest. That’s a risk you take when you carry that much weight around and try to get by as a petty thief. Are you okay, Miss?” The voice that came out of the sorcerer’s lips was charming and youthful, and an extension of his hand toward the slightly injured woman yielded the desired effect--a somewhat bashful smile and the attempt to stifle a smile.
“Yes, I don’t think the ankle is broken.” From the way she was able to stand up, it was obvious that she was correct. “Thank you...what is your name?”
“Shang Tsung, at your service.” He punctuated the response with a polite bow that he also used as a chance to check his flanks for any opportunists creeping in from the shadows. “Might I suggest escorting you to a nicer part of town?” He added as he extended his elbow toward her.
“That would be wonderful,” she spoke softly as she wrapped her skinny arm around his elbow and allowed her to lead him back to the main street. Before they’d taken more than a few steps, a man in a very nineteenth century-looking police uniform came into sight. The man, complete with mustache and a custodian helmet, looked straight out of a children’s picture book on Victorian England.
“What happened back here?” The man demanded, his accent somehow managing to match his manner and appearance perfectly.
“That gruesome man back there tried to assault me!” Shang’s female acquaintance replied as she gestured to the corpse. “This gentleman intervened, and that monster back there expired from shock to his heart.”
The policeman furrowed his brow as he stepped around the pair and looked down the alley at the body. “Looks like Big Leonard got what was owed to him… the scoundrel’s a purse-cutter and a sociopath with a special taste for women. I’ll let him sit there and spoil a little before I bother to tell anyone.” With a snicker, the police officer walked off to tend to other matters, leaving Shang and his associate to continue on their merry way through the district.
Re: The Hunger Games - Shang Tsung - 09-18-2014
In life, the woman had been genuinely attractive.
In death, she was a work of art.
Shang had never bothered to ask her name, even as they’d leisurely strolled across Darkshire exchanging pleasantries about the town and her upbringing. She’d been ‘summoned’ into the Omniverse a few years prior, back when there was some war threatening ‘the Kingdom’ and Darkshire. She’d been sixteen then, and when she came of age, she’d started working as a seamstress to support her family. The whole account read like something out of a Dickens novel.
By the time he’d escorted her through the back alley door of his tavern and up the empty stairwell to his apartment ‘to enjoy some tea,’ Shang could barely hold himself together long enough to close and lock the door. After that, it was just a swift knife to the throat and he was alone with his thoughts.
Now he sat on his bed, his hands and sleeves stained crimson with her blood. The woman’s body was resting in gentle riposte on his sheets. He’d had laid out the sheets before leaving the room, just in case he didn’t come back alone. Now they were home to the broken body of some nameless, working-class woman. Above her twisted form was the true and beautiful prize, her soul. The greenish vapors swirled gently in an almost-sphere a few feet over her chest.
Anyone else probably saw nothing but a cloud of colored smoke.
Shang Tsung saw an entire life. He saw the young woman...Stella, arriving in Darkshire with her family. Her thoughts and panicked emotions about those days radiated outward like a tiny sun, causing the sorcerer to scowl. Even after the war ended, all of her thoughts were about work gossip and trying to find a man to fill what she perceived to be an emptiness in her life. Pathetic. Most of the women he killed were warriors or talented with magic. Less exemplary females were often just like this one--overly obsessed with life’s more trivial aspects.
“Soul is a soul.” With a gesture from Shang, the soul surged at him and vanished through his chest. He felt a mild rush as her thoughts and memories melded into his own. She had no remarkable skills, even related to her job, so that was a mild disappointment. For everything he had formerly been capable of, Shang had never been able to sew or stitch very well.
For the time being, it seemed like that search would continue.
In the meantime, the sorcerer glanced out the window and saw that it was still dark, which meant he still had some time to dispose of his garbage. The last thing he wanted was to spend the morning with a stale corpse.
Re: The Hunger Games - Shang Tsung - 09-26-2014
Two hours earlier, Shang had been leisurely burning a corpse into indiscernible fragments. He’d discarded the remains into an open basement window and casually made his way back to the nicer part of town. Now that he was here once again, the sorcerer found himself sitting in the closest thing to a cafe in Darkshire. In front of him on the wooden table was a tiny ceramic mug filled with hot water stained dark brown by tea leaves. He stirred around the leaves absentmindedly as he looked out into the street.
Everything seemed as normal as could be, despite the fact that no less than two people had died last night. How many others had vanished into the alleys and hidden nooks of Darkshire? Such attitude made sense in a huge city like New York or Shanghai, where it was entirely possible for people to simply cease to exist, but Darkshire was no New York. Darkshire was barely the size of a provincial city and yet the people seemed so comfortable and accepting of the lot they had been given in life.
Sheep like this would be easy to coerce and utilize to serve his means.
“May I offer you a croissant or a baguette, Sir? They came in fresh from the bakery this morning.” The speaker was a boy barely old enough to grow hair on his upper lip.
“Yes, of course,” Shang replied as he fetched another coin and press it into the apprentice’s palm. “However much that will get me, and you can keep the change.”
The youth’s eyes light up after he glanced over the coin for a few moments. “Thank you, Sir!” With that, he rushed away to go fetch Shang some fancy breads. The last time Shang had enjoyed fancy bread had been Paris just before it’d been conquered by the Germans. The sorcerer, fresh off watching Goro win his ninth Mortal Kombat tournament, had decided to visit Europe before the whole thing went up in flames. Even after the war started, he’d stuck around a little longer to collect a few souls.
As he looked out into the street before him, Shang couldn’t help but wonder just how much further this place could sink into its desolation. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.
Re: The Hunger Games - Shang Tsung - 10-02-2014
With the sun under the horizon, Shang Tsung found himself once more in the streets of Darkshire. Much like he’d done before, he aimlessly wandered until he found himself in the worst parts of the town.
Just as before, he found himself confronted with an assortment of shady characters and the overpowering stench of poverty and human excrement. On this night, however, the sorcerer was not of his own appearance. Rather, he wore the guise of the knight he’d murdered prior to his arrival in this squalor-filled medieval cesspool. In his right hand, he held out a broadsword, and his left hand lazily hung at his side.
“You don’t belong here,” someone rasped from behind Tsang. The sorcerer turned around to find himself confronted by five dirt- and sweat-stained men in tattered clothes. All of them were already armed with knives, and from the manic looks in their eyes, they had already settled on a course of action. “This is the territory of the Folville’s, and I don’t think the boss takes kindly to knight’s wandering around our turf.” The man talking was casually tossing a knife between his hands.
“Come die on my sword,” Shang replied matter-of-factly as he started to walk toward his aggressors. The man furthest to the left let out a laugh and moved forward with his knife, but before he had a chance to strike, the sorcerer threw out his palm and blasted the rogue with a fireball. As the unfortunate man’s two buddies tried to react, Shang cut the talker’s throat open with a swift swipe of the sword. After dodging an erratic knife thrust, he leaned forward and put his blade through the throat of the third man, who gurgling blood as he collapsed into a twitching heap.
The surviving gang member dropped his knife and fled down the street. Shang could have killed him to, but what he wanted was to be on their radar. It would be so much easier to have them feed the souls to him than to play a cat-and-mouse game.
Speaking of souls… With a grin on his face, the sorcerer sheathed his weapons and raised his arms, beckoning his prizes to him.
Re: The Hunger Games - Shang Tsung - 10-11-2014
A town like Darkshire provided an almost limitless supply of wretches and idiots. During the dark hours, Shang’s ‘patrols’ as the knight would always net him a few cutthroats, and that number had gradually started to increase as his ‘rapport’ started to spread through the poor quarter.
In the daylight hours, he’d wander around as himself, ‘enjoying’ the town as best he could. As Shang Tsung, he was little more than a traveler who had taken a liking to Darkshire and decided to stick around for a week or so. Over the last four days, the sorcerer had learned all he ever really wanted to about the town. He’d met a few of the local council members, who always tried to play up the virtuous role of Darkshire as ‘the last bastion against the darkness.’ Shang was convinced that the people her just didn’t know any better or were too afraid to leave behind their rotting reality for greener pastures.
Long story short, he was still firmly convinced that he was doing these people a favor by giving their lives a purpose by ending them.
The week was drawing to a close, and Shang found himself trolling the alleyways for wanna-be cutthroats. As he rounded a corner, he heard that all-to familiar threat. “You’re in the wrong part of town.”
The threat, coming from a scraggly little man who appeared fresh out of puberty, drew a faint smile from Shang Tsung. Still playing the part of the dead knight, the sorcerer placed a hand on the hilt of his sheathed sword and the other one his heart.
“Dost thou speakest to me?” He inquired with a slight degree of faux melodrama.
“Don’t play stupid with me,” the man rasped as he reached into his coat and drew out a dagger. “I knew some of those boys you killed.”
“Then could you please do me a huge favor?” Shang asked, dropping his attempt at an accent and opting instead for something closer to sincerity.
The man with the knife furrowed his brow for a slight moment. “I… I guess?”
“Send my regards to them,” with that, the sorcerer threw out his hand and released a flaming fireball into the would-be vagrant’s chest. The projectile erupted, throwing the man back against a brick wall. With a smile, Shang drew his sword and walked over to his fallen adversary. His grin melted away when he realized that the man was already dead. “Makes it too easy…” He whispered as he sheathed the blade and claimed a fresh soul. Once the deed was done, Shang left what remained of the corpse to rot away.
“I’m not a fan of what you’re doing,” the voice came from behind the sorcerer, prompting him to pause and glance over his shoulder. Yet another scraggly-looking pauper was glaring at him. Unlike the last few, this one looked as if he’d visited a gym sometime in the last fifteen years. “I don’t know what you are, but I doubt you’re a knight from Darkshire.”
“Who are you to judge what someone does on sabbatical?” Shang inquired as he drew his blade.
“Your indiscriminate killings are causing ripples among the real people who hold power in this town. And trust me, these aren’t individuals that you want coming after you. They’ll do much worse than lock you up in the jail.”
The sorcerer let out a laugh as he set the sword on the ground in front of him. “I was cursed by the Elder Gods, and I spent forty years in the dungeons of a power-hungry tyrant. I’m not afraid of some gangs in a backwater provincial town.”
“You think we haven’t dealt with your type before? Every now and again we get some primes who want to try and reform this place. We dealt with them, and we will deal with you… Boys! Get him!”
Before Shang could react, every door within eyesight swung open and a flood of humanity gushed forth. The sorcerer was forced to retreat without grabbing his weapon. Without looking over his shoulder, he charged down an alley he knew led to the district’s main thoroughfare. When he made it to the street, he found a ring of men with crossbows waiting for him.
“Get on your knees, you tin-headed nob!” One of the men shouted as his finger hovered over the trigger.
Re: The Hunger Games - Shang Tsung - 10-16-2014
A grin slowly spread across Shang’s visage as he lifted his hands and put them behind his head. Unbeknownst to the collection of crossbowmen, the sorcerer’s fingers were moving around in strange patterns, and a nearby wall was starting to glow orange. Before anyone could notice what was coming, a flaming skull erupted from the surface and slammed into the middle man, blasting apart his exposed face.
The shock of seeing one of their compatriots struck down by a fireball caused the rest of the men to panic long enough for Shang to dash forward and smash his gauntleted fist through a second man’s lower face. As the fresh corpse toppled over, the sorcerer snatched his crossbow and sent a bolt across the plaza into the eye of another vagrant.
Rather than push his odds any further, Shang hurtled the gun at the closest cutthroat and made for the closest alleyway.
Once under the veil of darkness, the sorcerer jogged down to the next street and took a left turn. After half a block, he threw open a nondescript wooden door and slipped into the abandoned pub. With a flick of the latch, he sealed the door and sauntered over to a chair in the corner of the room. As he walked across the decaying interior of the pub, his appearance shifted from that of the knight to a disheveled and sickly homeless man. The pauper had been an easy victim for Shang a week or so ago, and since then, he’d used his appearance whenever he needed to melt away into the poor quarter.
Outside of the pub, Shang listened to the thudding of boots on the cobblestone. He couldn’t hear exactly what they were talking about, but judging from the volume, there weren’t any happy people out there.
“Too easy,” the sorcerer whispered as he started to rock back and forth in the old chair.
Re: The Hunger Games - Shang Tsung - 10-23-2014
In the darkness of the abandoned building, Shang was left to his thoughts. There was far too much activity outside for him to risk leaving until the light of day caused the cutthroats and would-be gangsters to disperse back to their own crumbling hideouts. With all the time in the world to himself, Shang fondly reflected upon his previous lives. While part of him would never accept the fact that Shao Kahn had been his overlord, it had been over a millennium since he’d last been able to do whatever he wanted whenever it pleased him.
For the moment, he was enjoying the status quo. He had to do more work here than when he had a Shokan prince and a private army to serve him, but much like the founders of the New World, he found some amusement in being a self-made man. The last time he got his hands this dirty was six hundred some years ago… before that damned monk had ruined everything. Maybe it would be time for Shang to ingratiate himself a little deeper into his current trappings. If life here was so miserable that even the dead had to defend the place, the sorcerer figured it wouldn’t be too hard to ease his way into a more comfortable position.
I’ll have to meet the mayor. Or maybe the captain of the guards… Another thought that crossed his mind was tracking down the source of the town’s undead presence. If anything, a necromancer would probably be far more tolerable than a bunch of provincial politicians. If he played his cards correctly, he could make his position in this realm far more comfortable.
And let us not forget the souls. A grin crept across hobo-Shang’s visage as he closed his eyes and tried to find some sleep.