CHAPTER 2

You walk clapped in chains alongside a score of men.

One of them has a tigers head and arms. His pelt is matted and blood caked.

There are two orcs. And one huge one, an ogre?

You can barely make out the sillhoute of one of them. One of those shadowed men?

Another one looks like a normal man, but you see that he is a satyr.

A swampman walks in front of you. He is completely shaven, except for his face which is painted black and draped in fanged necklaces

One of those demi-men, neanderthals, walks in front of the others.

The path is grim: a cyan hall of crying soapstone, paved with bone pavement and circled with burning torches. Led by a leash you are forced into a cage where you are lifted along with the others. It is after some time ascending upon this shaft of alternating light that you find yourself face to face with a grim man.

His helmed skull gives no face but he greets you all the same: "What a miserable host of cretins..." he takes a raggedy whispy breath "You all have commited terrible crimes! And must repent!" his voice is like a dusty wound. "And from what I've been told, Death is your only way out now...Death! Or exile!"

He produces a parchment from out of his pocket. "I have been given, aye and I have been given! Aye, you miserable lot, I know what you have done for I have been given! And you must know, that I, the Master of Games, will be your very merciful judge now going forwards...For this is the Giant's Game, and each and every one of your curskin, mangy scoundrels will play a part in it! For it is in Tempest's bountiful heart and will that all must repent, and for that they must suffer penance! Enjoy this, as an act of penance from your God!"

The satyr spits at his feet.

"Pagan...you wish to die?"

Like an arrow shot from a bow the satyr springs up from the ground and barrels toward the Master! But you hear a loud bang, and almost like an illusion, his cloven hooves are now broken and sliced up on the ground! You see now that the satyr's chest is wide agape with a terrible gaping wound; and from the hand of the master, from his iron fist, are two smoking holes where his foremost knuckles should be!