Familiar Faces, Worn out Places

[Shang Tsung]

The Tangled Green was behind them, and after a few more days of marching through jungle and forest, the twosome returned to the Pale Moors. After days of high, fluctuating temperatures and humidity, the pair was happy to find themselves staring out across the cloud-covered moors, where the temperatures barely reached anything one may consider ‘hot.’

Out ahead of them, the drab landscape stretched on for a few miles until it was broken up by the walls of Darkshire and the few lofty buildings that made up the townscape. In silence, the two men started back toward the place where they’d spent so much of their time in the Omniverse.

***

“Who goes there?” The voice from the guardhouse seemed halfhearted, prompting a scowl from Shang.

“Shang Tsung and Atelos.”

“…Who?” The man inquired.

The question made the pair of primes scowl. Neither man was in the mood to be asked stupid questions by recruits manning the gates. Before Shang could ask in a more politely worded manner, Atelos stepped forward and bashed his shield against the gate. “Open the gate before I rip it down! We have defended this town since our arrival in this verse. Our names should be known to your militia.”

Surprisingly coherent and sensible. Shang thought as the portcullis slowly started to rise in front of them. When it was high enough for both men to dip under it, they did so without a moment’s delay. As it dropped back down behind them, they found themselves ringed by a group of soldiers wearing battered armor and appearing as if they hadn’t slept in several hours. Although all of their weapons were sheathed, none of the men confronting the pair seemed relaxed.

“We don’t take too kindly to people threatening to assault the town,” a sergeant spoke as he stepped forward.

“We are Shang Tsung and Atelos,” Shang repeated. “We left with the paladin Argento on a journey to Silent Hill a few months ago. Certainly you know that much?”

The sergeant nodded, and after a moment, his eyes went wide. “You have been into the fog and returned?” Shang and Atelos nodded their heads in unison. “Where is Sir Camarinos?”

At that, the sorcerer frowned. He reached back behind his head and tugged the hammer free from the sheath. “Argento fell in combat before we could make our escape from Silent Hill.” Shang held out the paladin’s hammer and let the sergeant look it over to try and confirm its authenticity. After a few moments, the soldier’s shoulders sagged and he took a step back to address another solider.

“Go to town hall and relay this information to Brevet Commander Skendor immediately.”

“But, Sir, wh—”

“Now!” The noncom shouted as he spun the recruit around and shoved him in the direction of the town’s central offices. As the pubescent soldier scampered away to locate Dobson, the sergeant turned back to Shang and Atelos. “If what you say is true, I’ll get you both an audience with the acting commander of the guard.”

Something seemed off about the behavior of all the soldiers, but Shang wasn’t about to start asking those questions out in the open. He simply watched and took note as the group led Atelos and him through the surprisingly empty streets of the town. When they reached the town hall, a man in nice clothes walked outside and had a hushed conversation with the sergeant. When the councilman returned into the building, the noncom turned around and struggled to maintain his composure.

“Brevet Commander Skendor is… indisposed and will be so until the conclusion of business hours. You are asked to return then for an audience with him.”

“Fine,” Shang replied as the sergeant walked off to bark orders at his men. Turning to the Spartan, the sorcerer scowled. “You’ve noticed it right?”

“What?”

“The atmosphere here… it’s different. Things are tenser than they’ve ever been, and I’ve yet to see a rank-and-file soldier who looks like he’s served more than three weeks on the job.”

“I noticed that there are more skeletons serving up there as well,” Atelos added, something that Shang had failed to pick up on during their standoff with the gate crew. “You think they’re on some sort of campaign? Perhaps they fielded an army?”

The sorcerer shook his head. Darkshire was many things, but he doubted they had the manpower or resources to fielded any sort of army, especially with the threats the town suffered on an almost daily basis. “Let’s head home.”

“Home?” Atelos asked as Shang started to walk down a side street.

Reaching behind his back, the sorcerer patted the handle of the hammer. “It’s our house now,” he said, suppressing a sneer. “I’m sure it’s what our friend would have wanted.”

[Shang Tsung]

The residence of Argento Camarinos was just as Shang Tsung remembered it—plain, unimpressive, and utterly mundane. Leading the way, the sorcerer tried the knob and found that the door was unlocked, if it even had a lock in the first place. Passing over the threshold, Shang frowned as he surveyed the bare furniture. Aside from the map of the Pale Moors on the wall, there were no real decorations, except for some arms and armor left behind by the paladin. A trunk in the corner served the purpose of holding provisions, and some smaller boxes were filled with religious knickknacks.

Despite the deep frown on Shang’s face, his companion didn’t seem so perturbed. “Not a terrible place,” Atelos remarked as he walked over and put a foot on the wooden pallets that had previously served as the ‘dead’ warrior’s bed.

At that, Shang let out a soft laugh and glanced over at his associate. “You come from a city-state where people are trained to enjoy nothing but grunting and stabbing things with metal phalluses.”

“At least I’m not soft,” Atelos shot back with a grin as he smacked a fist against his very solid chest.

“And I am?” Shang retaliated as he drew the paladin’s hammer and swung it lazily through the air. The hammer left behind a soft glowing trail that lasted for a few moments before fading into nothingness.

The Spartan’s response was to grunt and walked over to the map that hung on the wall. “We traveled a great distance with the paladin,” he muttered as he traced a line from Darkshire to Silent Hill. After that, he traced a second path from the town to a location on the map marked by a castle. “Castle Dracula…”

“He’s their boogeyman,” Shang mumbled as he picked up one of Argento’s spare chest plates and started to theorize how much he could make selling the piece of junk. After a moment, he dropped it to the ground and turned to look at the Spartan. “He was some sort of lieutenant or follower of Diablo who took advantage of the power vacuum. He calls the shots in the interior of the verse.”

“That makes him our enemy.”

The sorcerer nodded his head. “We’ll get to him soon enough, but for now, we need to deal with enemies closer to home.”

The Spartan nodded. “Something is wrong with the town. The people seemed even more scared than normal.”

“Do you blame them? They’re a hardy bunch, but if you find yourself unsupported, your resolve will eventually waver. How do you think they’ll react when they learn that their noble, valiant Argento has been lost in Silent Hill?”

“He was a fool,” Atelos shot back as he opened a chest and pulled out a glass container of water, much like the ones they had been offered on their first visit.

“A fool who left a vacuum that needs to be filled…” Shang replied as he set the hammer down in the corner of the room. “Filled by two powerful, sturdy champions like ourselves.” At that, the Spartan turned around and lifted an eye, which caused even the sorcerer to let out a soft laugh. “It’s always been the plan, Atelos. These people need a champion… we are those champions. We’re not naïve or guided by silly, moronic principles.”

“This town is falling apart.” Atelos replied as he drank some of the water. “They put that boy in charge, and he can’t even get out of the asshole of politicians to speak with two ‘returning heroes.’ That tells me that something is broken.”

“It’s a serious situation, but it’s not beyond salvaging. I’ll go speak with the Lieutenant…I’m certain I can get the information I need out of him. Once we have that, we can make a plan.”

The Spartan shook his head. “We do too much for this place.”

[Shang Tsung]

A few hours later, Shang Tsung was alone except for the attendant ushering him through a back corridor in the town hall structure. The solider, yet another recruit who looked as if he had just been hired, got turned around a few times before he found the plain door that apparently housed the ‘Brevet Garrison Commander.’ After a short conversation on the other side of the door, the aide told Shang he could enter and proceeded to excuse himself to other business.

Stepping through the doorway and shutting it behind him, the sorcerer found Dobson on the other side of the room. The officer turned around and gazed upon Shang with eyes that had gone old before their time. Although he still had hints of his youthfulness, it was clear that events had taken a toll on someone who had once been the resident ‘younger brother’ of the more experienced officers in town.

“It’s nice to see you,” Shang said genially as he looked around the small little room. Most of the walls were covered with bookshelves and display cases, and a few tiny windows allowed enough sunlight to spill into the secluded room to ensure it wouldn’t need any candles for another hour or so.

“It’s nice to see someone who I can trust.” Dobson replied, walked across the room and extending a hand for the sorcerer. Shang shook hands with the soldier and suppressed a much wider smile. “I remember your heroics during your time in the garrison. I would kill for a few dozen soldiers just like you at my side. Please, I ask that you have a seat,” he requested as he gestured to a small table with a chair on each side. Shang took a seat, but Dobson continued to walk around the room, apparently unable to calm himself quite enough.

“You need to tell me everything,” Shang rasped as Dobson paced in front of him. The younger man had the appearance of someone who hadn’t slept in days, and the frantic manner in which he moved spoke volumes about his mental state. “I know that I’ve been gone for a few months, but the situation wasn’t this worse. It wasn’t this worse by a long shot.”

“Things have gotten bad,” the interim Guard Commander muttered as he stopped to look at the sorcerer. “You were last here months ago… you are aware of this?”

While it had only felt like a few days since they had entered Silent Hill after marching across the Moors, Shang knew that time was a fluid and dynamic thing in the Omniverse. For all he knew, Atelos and he had spent days or even weeks talking with Omni up in the Oververse. “Yes, I know. I’m sure you’re well aware that primes experience time in weird ways.”

“Be happy you were able to take the short way,” Dobson grumbled as he started to settle down a little. The young man walked over a cabinet and grabbed two glasses and an unlabeled bottle. Without speaking, he dropped the glasses onto the table next to them and wrenched the cork from the bottle. Shang’s nose told him the liquid was scotch, and once Dobson had filled up both glasses with a few fingers worth of the liquor, he set the bottle down and handed the sorcerer a drink. “It helps to take the edge off,” he muttered as he pantomimed a toast and threw the liquid down his throat in one short swig.

Whatever’s happening here has broken this man. Shang tipped back his glass and let the liquor flush over his tongue and down his esophagus. As he would have expected, the vintage that Dobson had was ‘the good stuff.’ Once both men had their glasses refilled, the military leader gestured at a seat next to Shang. The sorcerer took the hint and dropped into the leather chair and eyed Dobson as he slid into one on the other side of the small table.

“Did you ever meet Abraham?” Dobson asked after downing half of his drink. When Shang shook his head in response, the younger of the two men frowned. “Abraham van Helsing?”

“The name is familiar to me,” the sorcerer replied truthfully. He had heard mention of a man with a Dutch name who mixed healing the wounded with hunting monsters. In his time in Darkshire, Shang had never had the chance to meet up with the good doctor who seemed to be just a peg or two above Argento when it came to being beloved by the citizenry. “He was one of those people who went out of their way to try and improve the Pale Moors.”

Dobson nodded. “He was also a good friend of my father and I.”

“Was?” Shang inquired, his brow furrowing as he took a sip of the scotch and leaned a little closer to Dobson.

“I found him dead…” Dobson muttered as he refilled his drink. “His head had been left in a gibbet for the town to discover in the morning.”

“I’ve heard rumors, but no one confirmed anything.”

“I found it on my patrol just after midnight,” Dobson explained. “I removed it before anyone could catch a glimpse of it… Do you imagine the pandemonium that would have occurred if I hadn’t taken that extra shift?”

“Isn’t he a prime? Shouldn’t he have been reborn at the Fountain?” Shang asked as Dobson shifted uncomfortably.

“You would think so,” the soldier replied as he shuffled uncomfortably in his chair. “But there’s been nothing, and I don’t think he has been banished. Banished primes tend to not leave behind corpses.”

“That’s disheartening,” Shang muttered, recalling how Argento’s body had crumbled into ash. “Do you have any leads? This sounds like something deliberate, rather than just the good doctor making the wrong turn.”

Dobson glanced around the room before leaning closer to Shang. At this point, the two men were within a foot of one another. “I found makeup on Helsing’s neck.” When the sorcerer raised an eyebrow, the soldier continued. “Mayor Boone has a degenerative skin condition. It requires he apply some very heavy makeup to make him look like he isn’t going to collapse. If you worked with him long enough, you’d be able to recognize the stuff. It always gets smeared on his papers and clothes. I found the same makeup smears on my friend’s severed neck… that I can swear to you.”

On the inside, Shang smiled, realizing that the situation here in Darkshire was a little more complicated than bickering bureaucrats. “You think the mayor murdered one of this town’s champions?” The sorcerer whispered.

“He may not have murdered him with his own bare hands, but he certainly played a key role in setting up what was intended to be a most gruesome tableau.”

“What would the mayor have to gain from pandemonium?” Shang pressed.

Dobson shrugged his shoulders once more. “Two weeks before this event, the town council failed to approve a budget that the mayor supported. Since then, the entire town’s budget has been trapped in a virtual deadlock, with neither the mayor nor the council willing to budge.”

“What do you have to do with any of this?” Shang asked, knowing how many days Dobson had spent in the giant, dilapidated structure.

The officer smiled. “The militia is one of the highest drains on the town’s budget. If what you are led to believe is true, any warm body in one of those terrible little towers is somehow making two people homeless.”

With a frown, Shang tried to do a little math in his mind. “Is there any validity to those claims?”

Dobson scowled. “Without the militia, there would be no fucking homes for people not to live in!” He said, slamming his glass down on the desk. Leaning back, he let out a sigh and seemed to immediately deflate as he reached for the bottle. “The entire town is a mess, Shang. Most of the council is rich, and their interests lay predominately with the merchants. Darkshire is filled with disease, death, and hunger, yet you have some people who have clearly managed to make the most out of the situation.”

Not surprising. The sorcerer mused as he refilled his own cup. Shang had spent most of the 19th century in Europe, and there was no shortage of rich aristocrats, bureaucrats, and oligarchs profiting off peasant. “What does the mayor propose to end the stalemate?”

With a snicker, Dobson drained another two fingers of scotch. “He wants to disband the guard and replace the remaining human troops with skeletal golems. He wants to entrust our welfare with a necromancer! And worse than that… a necromancer that’s one of his lackeys. He also wants to confiscate all the arms and armor in the city to outfit his new personal police force.”

“And… there is a discussion about this?”

“Part of the Council is in the mayor’s sphere of influence.”

“And the other part?” Shang asked.

Dobson scowled. “They are… sympathetic to the militia.”

The ambiguity in that statement and what it implied gave Shang a little more respect for Dobson, who up until this point seemed like someone who walked a little too close to the line. “So it’s just been political gridlock?”

“There are rumblings that the mayor may dissolve the council.”

“Is that within his legal rights?”

“Yes, there are provisions within the town’s charter that grant the mayor the power to dissolve the council in the event of an emergency.”

“Certainly there are some requirements?” Shang asked as he thought back to a handful of parliamentary governments.

“For the council to be disbanded, they have to fail to find a quorum or fail to pass essential legislature, like a balance budget. While quorum has been maintained, the mayor has the right to dissolve the council at the end of the week if they fail to properly balance the budget,” Dobson explained as he set the empty bottle aside and leaned back in his chair. “It was intended to check corruption.”

“What happens if the council is dissolved?”

“The mayor has thirty days in which to hold new elections. In the interim, he is vested with the authority to pass ‘emergency’ legislation until such time that a new council can be voted into office.”

Shang chuckled. “He becomes dictator for a month? Whose bright idea was that?” The red-faced Dobson shook his head and pointed to a busted shield on a shelf nearby. On the tarnished surface was an emblem that took Shang a few moments to recognize. “Camelot?”

The man seated across from him shook his head. “The town charter is the same one we had when we were founded seven years ago. We had an opportunity a few years ago to revise the charter when the Kingdom formally withdrew from the region, but Boone thought the external position was too tenuous to risk it. Now it appears that he may have a chance to do so, regardless of the external or internal situation.”

While he had more than a few answers, there were still countless other questions in the sorcerer’s head. He kept a few to himself for the time being and threw the very obvious question at Dobson. “So what’s your next step?”

The man sighed. “I’ve been trying for days to find common ground, but no one seems willing to yield. It doesn’t help matters that I do not trust Mayor Boone any longer. He’s done nothing over the last fortnight to change my opinion that he’s attempting to manipulate things to turn out in his favor.”

“And that’s not forgetting about Van Helsing,” Shang added, eliciting a nod from his associate. “With Van Helsing and Argento both out of the picture, Darkshire has a dearth of champions who might otherwise shift the tide.”

“There are still too many questions, Shang,” Dobson muttered. “I still find myself wondering what would motivate Boone to pursue such a dramatic course of actions, if he is indeed complicit in manipulating the situation.”

Before Shang could reply, the pair of men heard a sturdy knock on the door of Dobson’s office. When the leader of the guard called out for the identity of their visitor, they received a tepid response. “Brevet Commander Dobson… it’s about your father, Sir.”

In a flash, the young man was out of his seat and at the door. If he was drunk, Dobson showed no signs of inebriation as he threw open the door and glared at the young runner who stood before him. “What is it, Soldier?”

“Commander Skendor was found dead in his apartment, Sir. They sent me to call for y—”

Dobson shoved passed the recruit and was out in the hallway before the kid could finish his sentence, and right behind him, Shang followed in his wake.

[Shang Tsung]

The scene at the residence of Dobson’s father was gruesome, even by the sorcerer’s standards. He’d never met the former Commander Skendor, but Shang doubted the man had accumulated enemies who would deliver such a terrible fate upon him. Parts of the late commander could be found throughout all three rooms of his living space. Two maids who attended to the deceased, who apparently suffered from a disability acquired on the field, had been found torn half apart and left to bleed out in a closet. A bodyguard, decked out in full plate armor, had been decapitated and nailed to the wall. His head was in the toilet bowl.

Shang Tsung followed Dobson into the crime scene and watched immediately as the other man’s youth got the best of him. With something close to a wail, the acting commander of Darkshire’s military dropped to his knees next to a chunk of his father’s corpse and started to sob. The sorcerer found himself trying to recall memories of his own father. All he remembered was an angry-looking man who had never achieved a think in his life with a passion for rice booze and hitting his wife. Shang had never looked back when he opted to run away to the monastery.

Turning away from the younger man, who would need some time to properly grieve, Shang confronted the soldier who had guided them to this location. “Who did this?”

The soldier walked over to the shattered window pane and picked up a scrap of fabric. It took the sorcerer a brief moment to realize that Darkshire wasn’t going to have a forensics unit. “Drow, Sir.” The soldier handed over the shredded piece of clothing, which appeared to be a cloak bearing part of a foreign insignia sporting a spider motif. “We also found one of their curved swords in the other room, and a few crossbow quarrels that match some we’ve collected in the field.”

Something didn’t sit well with the sorcerer. While he wasn’t acquainted with any drow, he doubted anyone planning to murder an important, albeit handicapped, official wouldn’t leave behind all this evidence. “How fresh is all of this?”

“Very.” The soldier shuffled uncomfortably after glancing back at the nightmarish tableau.

“Give us some time,” Shang replied. For a moment, it appeared that the soldier was going to second-guess the grounds with which the man could order him around, but before the words could leave his mouth, he nodded his head. Once the soldier was gone, the sorcerer walked over to his associate and crouched down next to him. “I need you to give me some time in here by myself.”

The remark—a statement more so than any sort of soft question—broke the young commander’s sobs. Turning to glance at Shang, Dobson furrowed his brow and brushed the tears that stained his face. “What?”

“I’m a sorcerer,” Shang Tsung explained as he lifted up a hand and summoned a ball of fire. He let the other man watched it slowly rotate for a few moments before willing it back out of existence. “If you’ll give me a few moments, I can see what happened here. After that, you can sob all over the broken bits of your father for as long as you please.”

Although the comment clearly rankled Dobson, he maintained enough clarity to see that Shang was speaking the truth. After a final glimpse at the piece of his father’s corpse, he rose to his feet, brushed himself off, and went outside to go issue instructions to the men who waited outside.

Once Dobson was out of the room, Shang walked over and drew the cloth curtains over the front-facing windows. With some privacy ensured, he returned to Commander Skendor’s bloody chunks and focused on all the corpses that filled the apartment. In the ‘normal’ world, it would have been impossible, but these sorts of rules in the Omniverse weren’t the same. As he focused his thoughts, Shang reached his mind out to all the bodies that lay in the apartment.

It took longer than he would have liked, but eventually, the sorcerer felt that familiar sensation in the air around him. His eyes popped open to watch as the corpses around him shuddered with an array of lights. In a flash, the colors of the rainbow flared out from the bodies before the green clouds slipped free from the slain individuals in the apartment. As Shang grinned, the clouds sunk into his body, warming him as the essence—the ominilium—from the recently deceased became one with him.

There was a silent lull, and then the sensation flooded over the sorcerer like a wave crashing against a beach. Images flashed through his mind: Fragments of memories, emotions, and knowledge from the recently deceased. The late Commander Skendor had been privy to hidden information… knowledge that could have been used against Mayor Boone to unravel the status quo in Darkshire. As the images settled into the background of his mind, Shang turned and walked toward one of the broken windows.

One of the soldiers had stood here just a few hours earlier when someone had knocked at the door. The man had turned to make his way across the room when the window broke open and was flooded by figures in cloaks.

But they weren’t drow assassins. No… a glancing blow had knocked away the attempted disguise to reveal an all-too human visage beneath the cowl.

From a few feet away, Shang heard the door open and turned to see Dobson slip into the apartment before shutting the door. “Discover anything?”

The sorcerer beckoned Dobson to follow him into the small area where the dead commander once took his meals. Once the younger man had joined him, Shang cleared his throat. “This was an inside job. They were murdered by normal men who planted the evidence to try and make it look like a drow assassination.”

Dobson glared at the sorcerer and spoke with a venom in his voice that his associate didn’t appreciate. “How can you tell?”

“I am a sorcerer,” Shang barked. “I’m good for more than just shooting fireballs.”

“Then tell me who killed my father,” Dobson growled, but this time his anger wasn’t directed at the other man in the room. “I will wring their neck with my bare hands.” In his fury, the younger man’s age showed through with far more clarity than normal, but he softened when Shang shook his head.

“I’m not certain… at least not yet.” It was partially true. Shang needed more time to mull through what the dead had to offer him, but right now, he knew that Dobson’s father had been killed for his closeness to the mayor. The fact that the dead Commander Skendor knew that Mortimor Boone was a slowly decaying necromancer made the soldier a loose end. What better way to preface removing the city council than to upset the entire population with the death of one of its folk heroes to outside attackers? On some level, Shang respected how brilliant a maneuver it would have been. “We can’t let this get out.”

“What do you mean?”

“We need to control how this information goes public… otherwise it’ll be used against us.”

Dobson’s features twisted up into a scowl. “You speak of my dead father like he’s some sort of chess piece!”

“He is!” Shang shouted back into the other man’s face. “Why do you think they killed him? Your father was one of the mayor’s closest confidants. He died because he knew information. What do you think would happen if people really believed that drow slipped over the walls and murdered the Commander of the Guard? Tell me, Dobson.”

Although he was flustered and possibly still reeling from his earlier drinking bender, Dobson had enough clarity to stop and process what he’d heard before addressing the sorcerer. “It would shatter any belief the public may have that the Guard can protect them from the Moors…”

“Especially if reports show that those trusty skeletons killed a few drow last night.” Shang added. “Who’s to say they didn’t stash some fresher corpses for just this occasion?”

The soon-to-be official head of the Guard let out a groan as he dropped his head into his palms. When he spoke next, his voice was partially muffled. “We’re being outplayed.” He muttered before looking up at Shang. “We need to make sure we control how this story reaches the public or none of our earlier conversations will matter, because we’ll have lost already.”

Shang Tsung grinned, realizing that Dobson was starting to catch on to the situation. “We turn it against them.

“How?”

“We find someone to confess to stealing that equipment from the armory and killing the Commander.”

Dobson shook his head. “Who is going to agree to that? They’d be hung in the public square.”

A predatory grin spread across the sorcerer’s visage. “I’ll find someone… just give me an hour and the name of a councilman who is publicly in the mayor’s camp. I’ll do the rest.”

[Shang Tsung]

Mister Geoffrey Hamilton had been a member of the Darkshire City Council for the last two years. As an avid supporter of the mayor, he had stood with the rest of the councilmen who sought to decrease the budget for the military. The last four years had been rough for the city, with shrinking revenue and trade income juxtaposed by a decline in production and population. Although the people of Darkshire were hardy and tough to break, it was reaching a tipping point.

Councilman Hamilton knew that. Mayor Boone knew that. Hell, most of the Council knew as much.

Unfortunately for Hamilton and those who shared his beliefs, the garrison that once stalwartly defended the city against the Moors had become little more than a cancerous sore. It absorbed so many able-bodied men through conscription, and to do what? Send them out on murderous campaigns out in the interior of the Pale Moors? Or even worse, they just sucked up money and food sitting in their towers and barracks. The whole situation was deplorable and in desperate need of an overhaul.

After a day of meetings that lead to nothing, Geoffrey had retired to his private quarters, nestled on the far side of town. He enjoyed having his home here, far from the shadows of the town’s center. It was here that he could escape from some of the more frustrating aspects of Darkshire. With the day behind him, he could change into more relaxing clothes, brew up a nice cup of tea, and relax with a book. The town would still be broken in the morning, so he didn’t feel bad about enjoying his evenings while he had the chance.

As the man made for his steaming cup in the kitchen, he heard a sharp succession of raps at his front door. With a scowl, he made his way toward the other side of his home and glanced through the peephole. Through the tiny glass, he spotted his page—a young man named Albert.

“Albert, what are you doing out here at this hour?”

“I’ve got some terrible news, Sir… It appears that a band of ruffians has occupied the town hall, and they’re threatening to start executing people if the council doesn’t hear their demands.”

“Goodness, that’s horrible,” Geoffrey stammered as he started to undo the locks on the door. Once he had them all out of the way, he pulled open the door and ushered his assistant into his home. “Have they stated these demands yet?”

“Yes, Sir,” Alfred replied as he stepped inside and waited for the door to click shut. “They demand your death.”

Geoffrey’s eyes went wide as he stared at the now grinning face of his assistant. “What heinous words are those?”

With a roll of his eyes, Alfred drew a letter opener from the inside of his vest and rammed it through the councilman’s heart. Geoffrey let out a grunt and stumbled backwards, his hands grabbed fistfuls of his now bloodstained garments. Before the man could find the words, he was already crumbling into a gently twitching heap on the floor.

While the councilman finished bleeding out, Alfred stepped over the corpse. When his foot landed on the other side of the corpse, the page’s cheap shoes had been replaced by the expensive boots of Shang Tsung, who hummed faintly as he slung a bag off his shoulders. Inside of the large haversack was enough evidence from the crime scene to implicate Councilman Hamilton in the conspiracy. After planting a variety of drow artifacts and a few nicely forged documents in his desk, Shang turned his attention back to the corpse bleeding on the floor.

“Man, I can’t believe that Councilman Hamilton cut town after the success of his plan. I’m sure he’ll melt into the Omniverse and never be seen again… what a shame.”

With a grin on his face and a glint in his eye, Shang set about clearing out the last piece of the puzzle.

[Shang Tsung]

Atelos slept well until the commotion shook him from his slumber.

With a groan, the Spartan sat and slung his legs over the side of the hay-covered pallets. The windows were all open, so there was no masking the sound of the crowd on the streets outside. Although he was clad only in the loose-fitting garments he wore to sleep, the Spartan knew that something was happening that he couldn’t ignore.

Retaining his clothes, he slipped into a pair of boots. After stashing knives into the slots in his footwear, the man made his way out of the Camarinos’ residence and into the streets of Darkshire. Despite some distance from either town hall or the main thoroughfares, there were plenty of people around when the Spartan started out from the quaint home. With a scowl, Atelos walked over to the nearest pedestrian and garnered their attention by stepping out in front of them.

“What is all this commotion?” The Spartan demanded at the tiny little man before him.

After a moment of staring wide-eyed at the muscled warrior before him, the citizen of Darkshire stammered a response. “M-murder… Commander Skendor was assassinated last night.”

“Dobson?” Atelos asked, grasping his large hands around the tiny shoulders of the bald-faced person before him.

“His father,” the man replied. “The rumor is that an elder councilman conspired with some drow. No one knows for certain, but people think this might erupt into bloodshed between the politicians and the military.”

Atelos released his grip on the man and scowled. “What foul person would willingly let in murderous outsiders?”

“Geoffrey Hamilton,” the townsman replied. “The story is that he slipped out of town just before dawn after killing a pair of soldiers at one of the minor gatehouses.”

The Spartan’s scowl deepened as he turned away from the man and glanced in the direction of Darkshire’s town hall.

***

A few hours away from Darkshire, a man in a heavy coat strode toward the gate that led into Camelot. With no one in sight, Geoffrey Hamilton glanced over his shoulder and flashed a predatory grin back in the direction of Darkshire. The man’s eyes—unnaturally sinister given his history of being a somewhat gentle person—glowed briefly with green flames before he turned and entered in Camelot.

[Shang Tsung]

Since the murder of the commander, the city had become an even more uncomfortable place, if such a thing was even possible.

In her old world, Abigail Reckner had been a sergeant, so it was only with a soft chuckle that she had accepted a role as a noncommissioned officer in the Darkshire garrison. Part of her knew that the reason behind the decision was solely because she had survived the drow attack. In fact, she was one of only a handful of people in Darkshire who knew how the skeletal guardians had tuned against the city they had vowed to protect. If she hadn’t been a half-competent soldier and had the experience needed to lead a squad, she knew she would have been assigned to one of the ‘scouting parties’ like the other survivors from her garrison.

So she became, for the second time in her life, ‘Sergeant Abigail Reckner,’ although the outfit and insignia she wore were a radical departure from her modern home. After a few days, she realized she kind of missed all the chevrons.’

On the afternoon after the murder of Commander Skendor, Abigail found herself standing in a barricade outside Town Hall. While she had escaped assignment to a scouting squad, that didn’t mean she had any of the easy jobs. Her superior—a smug lieutenant who’d been around for years—plucked her from garrison duty to have her handle ‘riot control.’ Vis a vie, her and the fifteen men and women under her command were the only defense for the central hub of Darkshire’s government. If the disgruntled citizens turned into rioters, her soldiers and she would be crushed against the walls of the building at their backs.

“Clear a path!” The strong, booming voice tore clear through the rabble of conversation. As Abigail watched, the disorganized group of citizens before her gradually parted down the middle to grant a clear path for a heavily muscled man dressed in body armor and carrying a spear in his right hand. The bearded man wore a breastplate pulled straight from a mythology book, and instead of pants, he wore what seemed to be stripes of lacquered leather as some sort of loose armor. Although she couldn’t see exactly, it was obvious that he had a large shield strapped onto his back.

When he was within five feet, Abigail held out a hand. “I apologize, Citizen, but Town Hall is off limits.”

***

Atelos sneered at the female soldier before him. If not for the circumstances, he would have probably found her an interesting specimen. She was tall and curvy, and a quick glance showed the physique of someone who spent a little time at the gym. While she had some roughness to her features and the haircut of a boy, there was still something there that made her appealing.

“On whose orders?” Atelos demanded. After yelling the question, he glanced around to see that most eyes were on his exchange with the sergeant.

“Town Guard.”

“Lies!” Atelos shouted. “I am Atelos, Champion of Darkshire, Conqueror of Silent Hill, and Slayer of the Tarrasque. I come straight from the home of the grieving Dobson Skendor to reveal this fraud to the citizens of Darkshire.” At that, the people began to murmur around the Spartan—word spread quickly among the loose horde of confused men and women. “He knows that even as we speak, the supposed law makers of Darkshire are giving shelter to the people responsible for killing the good and honest Commander Skendor.”

“I need you to step down right now,” the woman barked, her hand falling to the hilt of her sword. Atelos caught the subtle motion and smiled. He was never a brilliant strategist, but he was amused at how readily everyone was to serve their part in the play that Dobson and Shang had devised.

“Enough is enough!” Atelos roared, projecting his voice across the square that lay before Town Hall. “It’s time we take back our city from these murderers!” With a swift motion, the Spartan drove his fist into the woman’s jaw, actually lifting her up off her feet and splaying her backwards into her soldiers. The guards, nervous as they were, drew their weapons, but before they could do anything, the mob behind Atelos surged forward, crashing against them in a giant wave of humanity.

[Shang Tsung]

The Spartan shook his head as the mob tore into the building in front of him. A small assortment prior to the attack, the guards placed outside town hall melted like snow in summer before the wave of rioters. A few of them even went so far as to throw away their weapons, but those who did not were bludgeoned and beaten into unconsciousness as the angry, confused men and women of Darkshire flooded into their town’s nucleus.

Even as he heard the smashing of glass and wood inside the structure, Atelos knew that his part in these machinations wasn’t yet concluded. Stepping over the groaning, half-conscious form of the female soldier, he retrieved his shield and moved through the shattered frame of the town hall. As he made his way down the main arterial hallway, the rioters were disemboweling the offices that lined both sides of the corridor. He heard screams and the sound of dull impacts, but glances showed that no one was being murdered. The people who had stormed the building were letting out their anger without giving into their bloodlust.

Try as he might, Atelos couldn’t suppress a faint smirk as Dobson’s words from earlier sounded in his head.

”They’ll get angry and break things, but the people of Darkshire aren’t savages. They’ve endured this long in the Moors because they’re not the same as the creatures that prowl the night.”

Making his way down the main hallway, Atelos continued on the path planned out for him. He had a specific ‘time table’ (the sorcerer had such frivolous words sometimes) to follow. Picking up his pace, the Spartan jogged across the large central room that served as the meeting hall and entered the network of back hallways that would eventually connect him to the mayor’s private quarters. While they figured that a number of the councilmen would be able to slip away during the fracas, Boone had to been captured.

Trudging up the stairs, Atelos rammed through the locked door at its apex and entered the next hall. How long had it been since he’d traversed this path just a few short days after returning from the Frozen Fields? With each thud of his boots against the wood, he wondered just how many people found themselves in such a situation as this.

When he came to the large oak door at the end of the hallway, Atelos smacked his armored forearm against it a few times in short succession. On the last blow, the unlocked door sighed as it swung open, revealing a partially light apartment.

“Mayor Boone?” The Spartan shouted in a tone somewhere between a demand and an honest question. “Are you in here?”

From the unlit kitchen, Atelos heard a cough and turned to see the man running Darkshire. Since their last meeting, the mayor’s condition—whatever it was—seemed to have worsened to the point that even the heavy makeup he wore made it hard not to see how gaunt and skeletal he looked. Despite a decrepit-looking body, the man’s eyes burned hot as he stared at the small medal that adorned the Spartan’s breastplate. “Hello, Defender Atelos. Are you here to defend your city?”

Even with the thunder of several boots in the hallway outside his apartment, Mayor Boone still managed to find a few morsels of sarcasm to throw at the scowling man standing before him.

In response to the question, Atelos only gave the truth as he moved forward to ensure the man did not escape:

“Yes.”
***

Just a few steps behind Atelos, Dobson Skendor’s youth had all but vanished from his stern features as he marched toward the mayor’s office. Even now, the majority of the town council would be apprehended and off toward holding cells within garrisons proven loyal to his faction. Once the mayor was removed from the equation, they could wash away the whole edifice of corruption that had laid Darkshire low for the last several months.

With any luck, the transition would be smooth and involve only limited violence.

The people deserved as much.

[Shang Tsung]

The sorcerer made the march back to Darkshire in silence. While he felt a great deal of pleasure at having slain his lessers, the day of nearly constant bloodshed had taken its toll on him, regardless of his status as a ‘prime.’ With the heavy, golden-buckled belt resting over his shoulder, he walked in silence, his mind already moving to Darkshire. A message on his phone told him that the mayor had been overthrown following the assassination of Dobson’s father.

After a few hours of silent walking, Shang found himself back at the gates of the walled city he called ‘home.’ At the sight of a figure approaching the city, the men in the guard house settled crossbows into their firing slots and gazed down at the robed monk.

“Identify yourself!” One of them barked, prompting the sorcerer to sneer as he glanced up to the space above the portcullis.

“Shang Tsung. I should be known around these parts, so you’d be best served to open this gate. I need to speak with Dobson.”

There were no words thrown back at the once-monk. He stood for only a few more moments before the gate started to creak up in front of him. Once it had locked into place, he strode forward and found himself greeted by a group of armed men. One of them, a sergeant based on his insignia, walked forward and gave the sorcerer a salute. “Follow me, Sir.”

For a place with such recent upheaval, the streets of Darkshire seemed relatively… calm, if such a thing was possible in the town. When they came to the town hall structure, Shang was surprised to see that it was patrolled by just a few soldiers, and the stroll through the back hallways as uneventful. After walking the sorcerer to a simple-looking door, the sergeant saluted and dismissed himself back to other duties.

With a grin, Shang stepped through the door and found himself looking into the eyes of Dobson, Atelos, and a mixture of military men and bureaucrats.

“Looks like you had a ripe old time in Camelot,” Atelos remarked upon seeing the gilded belt draped over his associate’s shoulder.

“You could say that,” the sorcerer replied as he walked over to join the group that sat around a small, nondescript table.

[Shang Tsung]

A few weeks had transpired since the overthrow of Darkshire’s central government.

The mayor was gone. He wouldn’t be back.

Despite the fact that it was mostly a show trial in a kangaroo court, Mortimer’s support had eroded long before he entered the room to be held accountable for the decline of Darkshire over the recent year. In his defense, the mayor probably wasn’t actively consorting with the drow, but the fact remained that he had been playing dirty politics and overlooking his duties. On top of that, the murder of Dobson’s father had certainly been done with the consent of the late Commander’s old friend.

With the mayor’s ouster, the legislature for Darkshire had been dissolved as well. With the recent goings-on, it was determined that there needed to be a new edifice of power in the city.

In the new system, Darkshire would be governed by two trios of individuals—a junior triumvirate and a senior triumvirate. The senior triumvirs were comprised of Dobson, Demetri (who had served as makeshift guard commander the last few months), and Nathanial Holden, the senior-most councilman who had supported the Skendors. Amongst the junior triumvirs, Shang Tsung was the most vocal and visible individual, but he was joined by a military man—Captain Jacob Halifax—and a businesswoman named Valeria Windsor.

Unlike the previous system, the town guard would be folded into the political and bureaucratic system. With the junta, comprised as it was of former militia elements, there would be no separation of the military and the civil service. The two institutions would be fused at their heads and live or die together. The undead creatures that once stood watch over the walls were removed, although some accounts say that they just toppled to pieces on the same afternoon that the mayor was ‘exiled’ from town.

With the old role of Commander folded into the duties of the triumvirates, the real power of execution within the military would rest with its highest-ranking officer, Lieutenant Atelos. The Spartan, born and raised in a militaristic society, seemed the natural fit for the job. That he was loyal to the new government and a darling of the people served as icing on the metaphorical cake.

Even after the pieces had fallen into place, the individuals involved knew this wasn’t going to be easy. Despite having flushed away the mayor and the ineffective government, they still had to contend with an ailing economy and a very vocal minority of former power-holders. Darkshire teetered on the brink of a full-scale civil war—something that the mayor and his opponents had both attempted to avoid in their maneuverings to secure greater power.

As Shang sat in THE Pub late at night, he took another flagon of ale from Cheyenne. Even though he wore a fancier costume, he still took his drinks at the same watering hole, if only to keep up appearances.

“How’s everything ‘downtown’?” Cheyenne asked as she leaned forward across the counter and smiled at one of her favorite patrons.

The sorcerer snickered. Referring to the Town Hall district as anything like a legitimate downtown would be akin to calling a shack a palatial estate. “It endures,” he muttered as he shot a glance around the bar. Before he could finish his sweep, the southern belle ran a hand down his forearm to get his attention.

“Over there,” she whispered as she pointed to a booth in the corner of the building. “Showed up on time… unlike you, Sunshine.”

“Some of us have real jobs,” Shang shot back with a wink as he slid the woman a few golden coins and headed over to the booth. He slid down across from the cloaked man, who offered no words to break the momentary silence. “How was your workday?”

“I took my new friend for a walk by the lake,” the man replied in a tone that lacked any sort of tone or cadence. “He decided to camp for the night.”

Shang grinned and slipped the man a satchel of coins beneath the table. “Always a pleasure, Ravik.”

The cloaked man snickered, breaking the robotic façade for just a brief moment. “Let me know when you find a new friend for me.”

“I always do,” the sorcerer whispered.