Game

Since the Church's declaration, silence came from the Empire. No information came out and no one traveled to and from the empire. It was an eerie silence that felt wrong.

To find out why there was such silence, Alex sent Anders to Salazar to figure out what was going on.

...

It was night, and Anders scaled the walls of Salazar using specialized tools. He didn't want to go through the front entrance because then his presence would be known. On top of the walls, he looked down to see a silent city.

'It's been a while,' he thought.

Anders saw no lights or illumination of any sort other than the street lamps. No one could be seen walking the streets, and the moonlight spread its reflection on the cobbled roads. He dropped from the wall using rope and reached the bottom.

As Anders descended the city walls under the moonlight, an unnatural stillness gripped the city. Shutters sealed the windows of looming buildings.

No candlelights flickered behind glass panes. The cobblestone streets lay bare, devoid of the usual nighttime wanderers that gave Salazar its restless spirit.

When he hit the ground, Anders took a few minutes looking around before just walking the streets like a normal civilian.

The eeriness only grew when he passed bars that were closed and other such buildings that should still be open. His heart pounded more and more as he heard his footsteps echo through the empty streets.

This empty, alien Salazar felt familiar yet foreign to Anders. The echoes of his footsteps on once-bustling streets conjured memories of his life years ago. Now they seemed like the corpse of a city long dead, its soul extracted. What had transpired to transform the thriving capital into this hollow shell?

Finally, he spotted someone else. They were walking opposite of him and were wearing a dark coat with a top hat. Anders couldn't make out his face but he was a man from what he could tell. He crossed the street and neared him from behind.

"Excuse me, do you know about the recent happenings in the city?" Anders spoke but the man kept his slow brisk pace, so he then decided to tap on their shoulder and repeated himself.

"Excuse me, do you know about the recent happenings in Salazar City?"

The man turned around as Anders heard an audible gurgled growl. The man took off his hat as he turned, upon facing Anders his face was shown to Anders.

A vertical mouth split the man's entire head as his eyes remained where they should be but features like the nose and ears were gone.

"Sa-l-ar c-t-i?" A horrid noise escaped its through, it sounded wrong and chilling.

Terror gripped Anders as he stood frozen. The monster looked at him confused as he repeated his question.

"Sa-lz-ar ci-t?"

"Sal-ar C-t-y?"

The monster became angered at Anders's silence and a wretched scream came out its vertical mouth as it opened, the mouth far wider than the man's shoulders, and tendons and flesh broke as its razored mouth stretched out.

A sickening smell entered his nose as the creature howled again, it then pounced on him as its jaws clamped, attempting to take a bite. Ander's easily dodged the attack, he was a swordsman after all.

The creature's jaws unhinged, stretching open to reveal rows of razor-like teeth dripping with viscous drool. It lunged at Anders, who rolled to evade the attack. His blade slashed across mottled flesh, emitting a frenzied shriek from the monster.

Realizing his strikes barely slowed its advances, Anders turned and sprinted towards the alleyway, the pounding footsteps and howls of more creatures reverberating behind him. He had lingered too long.

He looked behind him to see the horde of jarring creatures. They were similar but different from the one with a large gaping maw that was on the head.

Each monster was different but they all had those giant jaws that appeared on some stomachs, their sides, and even lower regions! It was a circus of monsters in all grotesque shapes and sizes.

This is when he finally realized why no news came from the Empire, something happened and these creatures were a part of it.

The stench of rotting flesh choked the air. Slime coated the cobblestones. Howls and shrieks of the damned reverberated through the heavy mist. The distant snarls echoed all around him, growing steadily closer.

He quickly jumped up to higher ground, climbing the brick walls as he reached the top of a building. He looked below him to see that thankfully, the monsters didn't know how to climb.

Anders then traveled the city going roof to roof, heading for the governor's office.

...

Unlike other cities, Salazar didn't have a major and instead a governor who was not only in charge of this city but all of the other cities in the Empire.

The governor was the top brass when it came to city management and held a high position, usually taken by someone with the Salazar name.

Anders reached the office and headed inside, like the outside, it was also quiet. His weight creaked the floorboards as he headed for the stairs, he thought the governor's office might hold a lead, if not he would go to the Church.

On the second floor, the lamps on the walls were lit leading to the office. At this point Ander's understood his presence has been noticed.

He walked to the door and opened it as his eyes met with someone sitting in a seat behind the desk.

"Who knew I would be visited by the shunned apprentice, welcome Anders, the Silver Swordsman."

"It seems I've become famous in the Church, who may you be?"

"I am just a simple priest doing the Lord's work, what else?"

Anders pulled his Estoc from his hilt and pointed it at the Priest.

"Enough small talk, what did you do to all those people?"

"Some might call it divine retribution. The non-believers purged by instruments of God's will," the priest said, his voice composed yet chilling.

"Instruments...you mean the monsters?" Anders replied.

The priest's mouth twisted into a faint grin. "They are but remnants of discarded experiments to show God's wrath. But even as failures, we found a greater purpose for them."

Out the window, Anders could hear multiple horns blaring all over the city.

"The Games have started banished apprentice. The city is filled with the damned and time ticks. Will you save those trapped like you from the monsters that roam free or will you try to leave and fight off Lord's servants, who have been trained by his prized pupil!"

"Prized Pupil? I see he had another one after me then. I will play your game priest."

"Good! Even I don't know where the survivors have hidden themselves. Every hour we will release more of our mutated failures into the streets, if you haven't saved them and made it to the Church by then, the servants of the Lord will exterminate everything alive."

As Anders fled the governor's mansion through the window, unearthly shrieks and howls erupted from all corners of the city.

He witnessed swarms of misshapen creatures spill out from alleyways, crawling over buildings, claws raking stone. Their soulless black eyes glinted with predatory hunger as they descended onto the streets to feed.

As he ran he could hear the priest yelling behind him.

"Let the Game Begin!"