Slowly the rope tugged and the small wooden dragons carved upon the bows of small boats lurked toward the mist that covered the shore.
Liu Kang looked above the mist to find the peaks of mountains, the moss that grew on monolithic stones that surrounded like numbers on a clock around the island. Some were connected by strands of foliage, and some peaks of structures could be seen, but the mist was great, and its obstruction too deep to truly take in the sight before them.
Many boats slowly lurked toward the shore, tugged by the ropes tied to the necks of the dragons. Sonya and Jax stood on the boat most immediate to the left of Liu Kang, whilst Stryker and Raiden sat in the boat to the right. Several behind Cage watched as the mist swallowed boat after boat, but his eyes remained on Sonya.
Those of Earth Realm were welcome to leave the ship first. Those of Outworld would not need the boats.
The white fog swallowed each whole until black figures, druids or monks Liu Kang guessed had dragged the ships close enough to shore that they'd have to jump out and wade the rest of the way.
He could see their figures vaguely tug on the ropes. Once one boat stopped, the robed figure would move to the next until each of them had landed. Once empty, two would push it back out to sea toward the great ship.
Raiden waited for Liu Kang on the shore. Dry, and his conical hat down turned. He reached out to touch Liu's shoulder to welcome him to the island and guide him from the waters. Then the same for Sonya Blade and Kung Lao who had taken the boat behind them. His hat tipped up, and is eyes met across the fog at the ship he knew Cage had taken, but before it peered through the fog, he turned to join the Earth Realm fighters he had gathered.
"What happens now?" Sonya turned toward Raiden, which caused Jax and Stryker to do so as well.
"Now you find a place to rest." Raiden tucked his hands into his old robes and moved ahead to meet with Liu Kang and Kung Lao. "Follow me."
He guided them in the direction of large stone spires that jutted out from around the island. One such carved out of the mountain and carved from that, a near infinite number of steps.
"You expect us to go up those?" Stryker protested.
"Exactly." Raiden pushed forward, and added, "I'll meet you there."
Between Kung Lao and Liu Kang a burst of electric energy flashed and near blinded the group until it faded. Raiden had vanished and only the journey forward remained.
Beyond the beach a near infinite steps awaited them and as the life had been sucked from their tired breath once the last step up had been taken, robed figures were there, tall and imposing, to guide them through the inner chambers of the first spire.
Liu noted the sheer size of these figures, and as one gestured for him to take a left turn down a long tunnel hewn from the stone, he caught a glimpse of four arms on the robed figure.
"Naknada." Kung Lao whispered to him and click and clack from the figure angrily toward the two kept them moving.
"Do not hold up the line, Earthrealmers!" It hissed.
"Still your tongue, demon." A voice broke from the crowd that flooded in like slow moving slaves linked by chains to their prison homes
Liu Kang and Kung Lao turned their shoulders to the crowd, the great opening in the spire just before them and the impatient figures within beckoned them with torches and hisses.
A man, tall, dark in skin and red like the vengeful heat of the sun broke through the swamp of men and women to stand against the robed figure that pushed and hissed others into the tunnels.
Liu Kang recognized him as a Native American, though his ignorance of the western culture could not tell him from which tribe. Kung Lao knew that the Native American would have no choice but to announce to everyone what tribe they were from, lest the white man forget.
"Know your place, Earthrealmer." The Naknada pulled the hood from its head and glared down with bared fangs at the Native that stared as cold and deep into its eyes.
"I am exactly where I need to be." He spat and pushed beyond Liu, Kung, and the others ahead of him.
He stopped several paces before Liu Kang and turned. The two met eyes, but somehow the native's bore deep into him with a wonder he couldn't understand, as though some ancient secret had been buried within the cogs of Liu's mind. He shook it off and tried to appear as though he were just about to wander down as the Naknada forced them, but the Native stopped him.
Hand on shoulder and breath on his flesh, cold and distant, he whispered to Liu Kang, "why are you here?"
Like a flash of light, he pulled away and shook it off much as Liu had. The Native began to distance himself from the two, but Liu Kang followed. Kung Lao, disappointed, followed after them.
"Stop!" Liu Kang called out, but he couldn't quite reach the Native. "Why did he say that?" Kung Lao did not have the answer, so they followed.
After what seemed like an hour as the crowd grew around them and their steps became smaller and harder to take toward the Native, Liu Kang felt head on that cold shoulder and then suddenly the cold jagged surface of near splintered wood.
"In there!" A voice growled.
He took a quick look after a hard stumble into the dark ten by ten room to find a bunk bed and nothing more. This would be their quarters.
Kung Lao reached behind him for the door as Liu Kang looked out the small hole that peered back out into the bleak expanse of grey sea.
"Not what I expected." Kung Lao leaned back to close the door, but the door would not budge.
He turned to find the Native's blackened eyes stared through him, motionless, distant. He entered the room and the door finally shut on its own, torn from Kung Lao's fingers.
"Who are you?" Liu asked, but he really wanted to ask what he was.
"I am vengeance. Pure. What are you?" The Native asked, but his eyes scanned the small room, ignorant of the two adult men near him and the minuscule bunk.
"He is Liu Kang, deserter of the White Lotus Clan." Kung Lao answered for him.
"I did not ask you, and I did not ask that question."
Liu did not know how to answer this. Be literal and insult him, or try to find some deeper answer in a pool of knowledge he had no way of reaching?
"Fighter for Earthrealm." Kung Lao interrupted. "Come to fight in the great tournament of Mortal Kombat. A great honor."
Liu Kang and the Native turned toward Kung Lao.
"You don't get it, do you?" Liu spat, "if all of this is real, the tournament, the generations of combat to defend the realms, the lives it took to do so," he looked back at the Native, who only met him with a cold stare, "if this is all real, then people are going to die."
"Then why are you here?" The Native asked again, but the answer wasn't there.
Not yet.