Daylight has recently left the sky as I approach the unguarded gates of the once great city, the place where an empire was born thousands of years ago. There’s no empire found here now, only cutthroats and thieves, rapists and murderers. Statues and temples stand in ruin. Steel is the one God who holds sway here—his last refuge from the Godly brethren who spurned him millennia ago. I walk through the splintered gates, haphazard on their hinges, and up a shallow rise, keeping to the side of the street to avoid the stream of sewage flowing down the middle. A child with half an arm missing sits against a wall and glares at me as I pass; an unfamiliar feeling twinges in my chest as I wonder how much older the boy will be allowed to grow in such a place. I push it aside, thinking instead about killing the man named Khirro. A shout and the sound of splintering wood; I’m surprised there’s still anything left here to be broken. I amend my path toward the sounds because I know I’ll find people there, and with people come tests.
