Preparations and Rules

Today was an adventure.

We were woken at crack of dawn with the buzzing alarms ringing through all of our heads. This seemed to be more effective then the physical alarms that were placed around the shack. Hesitantly we bagged our belongings, which weren’t much for most of us, found our counterparts and met outside the shack.

The field was soaked with the previous night’s rain. I found myself protecting April more then anything at this point. Last thing I needed was her to get caught up in the midst of the chaos, she was already terrified as it was.

We were moved through the field ahead of us and upon arriving to at our final destination, we found ourselves looking upon a grand red door. Doors, the entrances to the Empty City. We were bring taken, to the empty city. I knew something terrible was afoot.  

We entered though the grand door to find ourselves walking up a set of large ancient stairs that seemed to lead to the top of a plaza. April was held on to my arm tight. How she ever managed to get into this line of work was beyond me. We found ourselves at the top in a matter of minutes. Our group met up with another grouping of cultists and servants to. Everyone was here. Two of each call servant and cultist alike. I didn’t have a very good feeling.

I had never seen the city before. It was the grandest thing I’ve ever seen. April seemed to think so too, her eyes were cartoons style wide and filled with curiosity. Atop the city, where I assume the sky line would normally rest, exists a large, circular board of judges. Who were these judges? You can probably guess it. The fears themselves, these gods of fear and almighty power, all sat around talking to one another watching everything we did. Some form of currency seemed to be passed around as well. I couldn’t see much though as high up as they were.

While the grouping of servants discussed their confusions amongst each other, we heard an ominous voice call out throughout the streets of the city, echoing off the walls themselves.

     “welcome to our fair city children. While the lot of you are concerned for the purpose of this gathering let me re assure you that it is quite necessary indeed. Many of you are new to your respective fields of expertise however, some of you are seasoned veterans.  Today marks the beginning of a centuries old grand quest to determine which of you are worthy of calling yourselves expert and which of you are to be disposed of. “

Throughout the speech the dying one was giving, nervous panic and break down ensued throughout the gathering. There was that splitting headache again as well as Aprils clinging on to me. This wasn’t going to be easy.

I missed a lot of the speech through my own thoughts racing however I managed to catch the last part “the games will begin tomorrow. The city will be yours. Anything goes. Only three rules. No leaving the city. No killing your own counterparts and no asking help from your master, mistress or worshipped one. Only a handful of you will be left standing at the end of this tournament. Tonight, you will rest but the crack of dawn sounds the alarm.”

Panic. Servants were running about manically. I didn’t see much of the commotion but it took several nightlanders to apprehend the crowd and detain the chaos. We found ourselves in our own apartments within the city hotels. If Im going to make any more sense out of this, Im going to need to break the first rule and get some help. Its funny really, this reminds me of one of my favorite books.

April is asleep already. My bags are at the foot of my bed as I write this. Im going to need some help, not for myself but for her.