Finals: Gum

[Gum]

With the depths of Grettfut at his back, Gum carefully stalked the gentle undergrowth of the forest's periphery. Such positioning allowed him chance to review the city's moat and wall. After examining the defensive structure extensively and learning the guard rotation, he was able to identify a point of weakness.

There was a series of small windows in the upper limits of the stonework. While each window was only slender and intended for firing upon on the enemy, it was an opening he believed he could take advantage of while in cat form. Furthermore, one window in particular benefited from a tree's branch, it had grown close enough for him to use a jumping off point. No human could make the jump, but as an agile jungle cat, Gum would be able to pull it off.

Gum looked at the white-ringed moon overhead and made the decision to transform. He paused for a moment, remembering the fate of the mages at the dock. "Mine is not magic," he whispered, trying to convince himself of the endeavour's safety. "It is a gift from the pantheon and won't be affected by whatever is corrupting this land." The shaman viewed the elemental manipulation of Coronian wizards to be arcane, while his own abilities were organic.

He felt the familiar ripple in his flesh, the transformation was beginning. The skin on his body cracked a little, but so did the lightning in the sky above. Gum began to panic. It was too late to stop the process. The bones in his body began to morph into their feline counterparts. The sky grew angrier and angrier, rumbling down at the shaman's arrogance. His dull brown eyes grew alive, turning yellow. Then he felt it. It cracked down on him, jolting him with a bolt of lightning. It felt like being slammed in the back of the head with a rock. Gum's whole body locked up and he was flung back. He stumbled, toppled and fell into the water of the moat encircling the city. As he sank, his head buzzed from the strike. The shaman passed out seconds later.

[Gum]

Gum's waterlogged eyes struggled to open. His first instinct was to swim, but then he noticed that the water had all gone. Barefooted, he could feel the rough warmth of red dirt below.

I am dead.

The shaman had descended into the Underworld upon death. His corpse, he knew, would be floating in Krettnakt's stagnant moat, but his spirit had been summoned to Oxxad's most dreadful hold. The usual clarity of the afterlife was missing, he knew something was wrong. Gum was familiar with the realm of the dead, part of his duties as a shaman was to deliver the souls of the newly dead to his people's death god.

"Oxxad," he asked into the shadows. "Where are you?"

The death god's frightful form leered from the black haze and stood over Gum, his minion in the Overworld. Oxxad's ribs gripped his torso from the outside while his organs dangled from his inexplicably open gut. Gum felt Oxxad's bony digits wrap around his shoulder.

"Welcome, Gum, student of Do U." As he spoke, Oxxad scratched at his crotch; between the death god's legs were the shredded remnants of both male and female genitalia. "I had not expected to see you so soon."

I am glad it is over.

"No," whispered the broken spirits, the same chorus of voices that had laboured to reach him since Fordstein captured him in Gisela.

A hand plunged into the cold waters of Krettnacht's moat. A grip and a tug and Gum felt himself jerked awake, somebody was pulling him from the water. He coughed, green water came spraying from his mouth and he gasped for air. He blinked away the water from his eyes. When the blurring cleared, he saw A'lia's fur-covered face.

"You're alive? What?" When A'lia spoke, Gum knew right away that something was wrong. "How is that possible?!" She had watched Gum fall into the waters the night before, it had taken until dawn—and the light of day—for her to be able to find his body. "You were in the water for hours. How didn't you drown?"

"I had a vision," Gum answered, all the severity of the world's fate drove the words from his lungs and out of his broad lips. "Oxxad and Am’eleh sent me back."

"Then human gods are truly powerful." A crash of lightning reminded A'lia of the newest god to arrive in Reijhaam. "Follow me! Look at this!" Her soft paw pulled at his leathery fingers, she'd grown fond of the old human. Gum lumbered to his feet, dripping wet, and rushed after the nimble resistance fighter.

Together, they rounded the edge of the city's defences and came into view of the north gate. That was the source of the thunderous sound. To Gum's amazement, Baron Fordstein had found courage in power, and he was leading their army's assault in person. Bold and skillful, with the Thunderbox pulsing in his chest, Baron Fordstein crashed into the heat of battle.

Gum and A'lia hid from sight, utilising the fringes of Grettfut Forest as cover. Being to the rear of the human forces made it easy for them to avoid attention.

The humans had come prepared; their bridges slammed down across the moat and ladders rattled against the city walls. Coronians washed against the great feline city like a flood. In a repeat of what happened at Eihavum, the defending cat people took full advantage of their being on home ground. They battled back against every human who made it to the ramparts, slaughtering the men and women without hesitation.

"Fordstein is losing," A'lia remarked with a hesitant smile.

"While it would appear so at the moment, I doubt that the outcome will not favour the baron." His bitter experience with the power-hungry warmonger had taught him, more than anything else, to be pessimistic.

Baron Fordstein raised his arms, and from the tips of his fingers grew raging tornadoes. He sent the whirling windstorms at the ramparts, tearing one cat warrior after another from its post and sending it sailing into the charcoal sky. Lightning began to strike from the dark clouds, each bolt incapacitated a Reijhaaman soldier. Rain poured, but it only did so inside the city walls.

The baron's supernatural intervention left the Reijhaam forces all but defeated. Still, though, the gates to their walls remained closed. "We'll see about that," remarked Fordstein, fancying himself as more of a god than a man. Gales shook the north gate, hailstones pelted the thick lumber and then a horrendous volley of lighting strikes finally caused the great doorway to splitter and break open.

"We have breached their defences!" His voice rumbled in the air, amplified by the wind and thunder he commanded. The baron laughed with glee as he watched his forces clamber over the broken gate and spill into the city. "Show them no mercy." That rang out as his final command to the Coronian Army.

"I have somewhere else to be," he muttered with a sly grin.

[Gum]

"Let's get out of here," the resistance fighter said to Gum. "It's over. He's too powerful." Gum sighed dejectedly and nodded, he knew there was nothing left to fight for, Krettnakt had fallen. All that was left was to escape. Maybe they could get off the island continent alive and go into hiding. So they turned and fled.

Something nicked the shaman's shoulder. "Ah," he rasped, wincing and touching the slice in his arm. Blood was dripping. Gum jumped back and the flash of his assailant's serrated dagger blinded him. Gum was tackled to the ground. "Die you fucking Xenga Xinga savage!" It was Saieda, just as Fordstein had planned.

"Forgiveness..."

It was the whisper in Gum's head again. This time though, it was different. A hint of a spectre appeared before Saieda's eyes. "What the fuck!?!" The pirate-turned-Fordstein operative was surprised and leapt back, where A'lia quickly grabbed her. The two wrestled for a moment while Gum got to his feet. Saieda regained the advantage and shoved the Reijhaaman cat fighter out of the fight.

Gum drew his axe and swung at Saieda. Saieda ducked, span and grabbed the shaman from behind. With her hands wrapped around the Xangu native's neck, she began to choke the life out of him. He fell to the ground, she mounted him, he clawed at her grip.

Again, the voice of his ancestors came back. This time it said something different. "Transform." He was fearful though, he remembered what happened last time he tried to become a jaguar.

"Transform!!!"

He did it. He began a tentative transformation while kicking at his aggressor to knock her back. As he expected, a bolt of lightning came down, but instead of frying the shaman, it struck the pirate on top of him. Frazzled, Saieda fell to the floor.

Gum abandoned his transformation and reverted to human form.

A'lia came rushing back to see Saieda unconscious on the floor. "That was really clever," she purred. "She's still breathing. What should we do with her?"

"I will kill her." Gum took the pirate's own blade and ran its jagged edge across her neck.

[Gum]

As Gum stood up over Saieda's dead body his shifting eyes caught a glimpse of Baron Fordstein leaving the city. It was a conspicuous action for a man who bathed in glory so eagerly. "What is in that direction?" he asked as he watched the pseudo-god float away from Krettnakt's inner walls and fly off towards something in the south.

A'lia gasped, pulling back her feline ears in distress. "It's the Magic Tower," she said nervously. "No," she whimpered, "this is terrible!"

"The Magic Tower?" Gum ran his forefinger across the worry lines of his brow, he was beginning to understand why Fordstein wanted to take Reijhaam. It wasn't just a preemptive strike.

"The tower was built on top of a natural magic source." A'lia rushed to explain, letting the information gush from her narrow feline lips. "The Tribe abused it and that's what caused all the problems with using magic here. That's what brought the storms."

"I think I understand," the shaman conceded gravely. "He is going there to absorb the power and channel it into the Thunderbox."

"There's no way we can get there before him," admitted A'lia. "But, resistance fighters like me know all the shortcuts. We'll be there not long after he gets there."

"Right." Gum wondered what hope they had against him, but regardless, trying to stop him was their only option.

~~~

Before Gum saw Fordstein, he saw the tower. The regal structure emerged from the crest of a rocky hill. Its curved walls were made from purple stones, quarried and polished by skilled masons. Willows wept on the hillside upon which the tower was built, that sight brought back memories of the willow in the Palace Gardens of Gisela, and of Tosu's death. The vegetation, while it hadn't overrun the setting, grew with a rare lushness he had not seen since his homeland, the fertile Xangu Basin.

"It's too late, Gum!" The baron's words cut through the grand vision of the Magic Tower. "I am to become a true god!" Rocks floated out of the ground, lightning broke and gusts of wind whipped back and forth.

"Fordstein," the shaman yelled over the windy din, "you rule already. There is nothing left for you to take!"

"That's where you're wrong, old bean!" The baron wrapped Gum and A'lia and in little twisters, suspending them before him. "There's never enough power! Alerar! Raiaera! Salvar! They will all be mine soon enough!"

Purple mist began to seep from the ground, the vapours were sucked into every one of Fordstein's orifices. "I want you two to be here! My ascension requires witnesses!!!"

After everything he had been through, Gum's consciousness began to float away. His eyes blinked with increasing frequency.

What a failure I have been...

The voice of his ancestors came to comfort him in his moment of utter duress. "Don't be afraid," said the whispers in his head. "It's me..." The shaman heard, for the first time, a single voice more than a chorus. "Gum, don't you remember me? The sound of my voice?"

I do not know you...

"Of course you know me!" The spirit in his head spoke with calm assuredness. "But, you're not listening..." The shaman was broken, he could at last accept his guilt. He understood that the spirits of the dead had not abandoned him as punishment, as he had at first assumed. Rather, it was his own regret that had shattered his focus. With the power of the Magic Tower so close by, his weakened ability to commune with the dead was amplified.

That's it...

The faltering voice in his head was never one of his ancestors...

"Yes!" exclaimed that lonesome voice. "You're doing it, Gum."

Tosu...

"Yes, it's me! You saved me, Gum." The Xangu native gasped, gripping the hair on his own head; pulling on it was the only way to rein back the emotion. "Don't feel bad about what happened to me, your ancestors came for my soul and showed me the peace of the Underworld." Gum wept with happiness, smiling through the rushing winds. "When I saw what was happening to you," said Tosu, "I had to come back to help you!"

A'lia's own convictions had left her, she was convinced of her own demise and that of her people. Then Gum screamed—"TOSU!!!"—and she lifted her head up, squinting through the storm swirling around her. "Gum?!" Her own voice, buoyed by his sudden vocal strength, came through the chaos like a signal fire.

"Gum, you must focus," said the eternal spirit of Tosu. "Use your power to channel me into the rocks and trees.

Then, a shower of stone, earth and timber broke free of Fordstein's winds and began to batter the burgeoning god. "What is this?!" The baron shook his head in disbelief. "How is this possible?!" His anger manifested with increasingly brutal weather. "You can't stop me, shaman!" The winds swept away the debris Tosu was flinging at their enemy. "Nothing can stop me!"

"Tosu!" Gum yelled. "Is it not working, he is too powerful!"

"Shaman," whispered the boy from Akashima, "you know what to do..."

[Gum]

Gum's eyes turned up in their sockets, leaving only the veined white of his eyeballs to be seen. The rich brown of his complexion faded to a muted grey. "Yes, that's it," encouraged the voice in his head. A sudden host of howling ghosts and contorted ghouls began to circle the shaman within the prison vortex. A'lia watched on in horror, screaming aloud at the frightening sight.

"I will use its power." Tosu's voice entered the world of the living, all present at the Magic Tower heard the dead boy speak.

"Argh!!!" Fordstein locked his jaws closed, gritting his teeth. Blood oozed from his gums and dribbled out at the corner of his lips. "You can't stop me!!!" The Thunderbox buried in the baron's chest turned black as Gum forced the essence of Tosu's spirit into the dreadful artifact.

The vortexes holding Gum and A'lia in place relented and the duo fell to the ground.

"What's happening?!" A'lia asked desperately.

Fordstein's skin quickly went from a pasty white to a rich crimson as the blood vessels in his flesh ruptured under the pressure. His eyes bulged out of their sockets, letting blood squirt out from behind them.

"He is dy-" the shaman began hesitantly, stuttering with relief. "He is dying."

Baron Fordstein fell onto the steps of the Magic Tower, where he breathed his last.

Even though the tyrant was dead, the harsh weather continued around them.

"Can it really be over?" Gum's voice came out above the storm. Wondering if what he saw was reality, the shaman approached the corpse of his longstanding tormentor.

The cat fighter joined her shaman friend and look down on Fordstein. "Well, he's dead alright," she said as she kicked at his body to make sure.

Then the ground began to rumble.

"But I don't think the drama is over yet," A'lia sighed. "The magic beneath this tower is too volatile... using it like that to destroy him was too dangerous."

[Gum]

An apocalyptic crack raced along the earth and continued towards the horizon. Ash and rock erupted from the chasms in the land. Lava poured up onto the surface and flowed over both nature and civilisation without prejudice.

"What should we do?" aksed Gum, wondering if A'lia knew where to seek shelter from the incoming disaster.

"There's no where to hide from this," she said, stifling her distress.

Unusually, the lava was glowing purple instead the usual shades of red and orange. Neither of them had ever seen anything like it before.

A thick purple mist spread around their ankles, the thick gas was emanating from the Magic Tower.

"But," she began with a hint of hope in her voice, "pull the Thunderbox out of his chest and hold onto it."

Gum buried his fingers in Fordstein's smoldering chest cavity. With a little pressure he was able to remove the steaming curio from the torso of the deceased madman. Once he was holding the bloody Thunderbox in his hands, he dragged his Reijhaaman ally into his arms.

"Hold on..."

All around, the land rose and fell, and it was all wrapped in the energy of Reijhaam's own magic tap. Jagged rocks shot into the sky before falling immediately into the rushing waters of the ocean. The entire island continent was sinking away. A monstrous storm, purple in hue, began to rotate around the magic tower; rain, wind and lightning stronger than anything Fordstein had mustered was battering what was left of the land.

The land of Reijhaam was falling into the sea.

"I do not think this will be enough." With the use of the Thunderbox, Gum had been able to keep the magic storm from destroying them and the tower. However, stopping the weather from assaulting them wasn't going to be enough to save them, the volcanic activity below would eventually claim them if something didn't change.

Gum looked into the charred Thunderbox, it was black and ugly. His hands had been burned by the device, it was still hot. Yet, in spite of the pain, he held onto the magical device for dear life.

"Tosu..."

Without warning, the artifact cooled and soothed his hands.

"Tosu?"

It turned from black to white, and threads of ivory-coloured energy began to materialise from the grooves in its detail. Weaving in and out, the threads of energy combined to build a sphere around Gum, A'lia, and the Magic Tower.

"Tosu," begged Gum, "can you save the others too?"

"I'll try," whispered the faint voice of the little dead boy from Akashima.

Everything went dark...

[Gum]

The sun came up on Reijhaam again, but it was unrecognisable.

Within the shadowy confines of the Magic Tower, Gum poured over the corpse of Baron Fordstein. "Your soul will find no peace in the afterlife," the shaman remarked. Throughout their relationship, the arrogant politician had always mocked the shaman's primitive beliefs. In death, Fordstein had lost everything, including his favourable power dynamic with Gum. "Now you will do my bidding," the significance of the moment was not lost on Gum.

He took his basic axe and began hacking at the neck of Fordstein's corpse, severing the head entirely. Gum then used the sharpest edge of one of the obsidian blades on his axe to create an incision on the back of the neck. From that opening, the shaman proceeded to remove the skull. To keep the shape of the eyelids, Gum placed small pebbles under each eyelid and then sewed them shut. The mouth received similar treatment, being tightly sealed. A wooden carving, resembling a human skull, but smaller, was slipped inside the skin. Gum then dropped the creation into a boiling pot of water.

"Ahm," remarked A'lia as she opened the door and witnessed the shaman and his gruesome ritual. "What are you doing?" she pondered.

"I am trapping this man's evil soul inside the remains of his face. Such a dangerous spirit must not be allowed to enter the Underworld. Nor should it be allowed to be born again."

"Hmphf," she said, considering whether or not her interruption had somehow hindered the power of the ritual. "Should I leave?"

"No," he said evenly. "The skin must boil in the pot until it has toughened and absorbed the tannins."

"I see!" A'lia sat down next to Gum and shoved him in the shoulder. "So, I've met with what remains of our resistance and what's left of the Tribal Government."

"Progress." At that point Gum ruminated over the peace he wished for his own people.

"It seems that the spirit of your friend, Tosu, is holding four new islands together and sealing the magic beneath the tower." The gratitude in her eyes was undeniable.

"That is good," the shaman said with palpable relief. Gum pulled the pot off the flames and set it down on the stone floor, giving it time to cool. "He is a compassionate spirit. We can deduce that from his actions; the boy saved Eihavum, Krettnakt, this tower and the forest."

"I know he saved the cities to save the lives of the people, but why Grettfut Forest?"

"I am uncertain. But according to Xangu beliefs, our souls are reborn in trees and animals. Perhaps that is why Tosu saved the forest?" As he finished his sentence, the shaman dipped his hand in the still steaming water. It had just about cooled enough.

A'lia winced at the sight of the shriveled head, the skin had contracted over the wood carving inside. "We're going to keep meeting—us and what's left of the Tribal government, I mean."

"I hope you are able to make peace with your enemies and share what is left." Gum rubbed sand against the shrunken head's skin to toughen it further.

A'lia looked out of a window in the Magic Tower and mused on Gum's words.

[Gum]

Six months later...

All the remaining humans, bar one, had been sent back to Corone. The entire Coronian armada had succumb to the thunder storms encircling the island continent. The Reijhaamans were kind enough to provide the humans with two ships, it was enough for them to sail home.

Negotiations between the Tribe and the Resistance hadn't taken as long as both parties initially expected. As the last remaining outsider, Gum was invited by the two factions to mediate. It was decided that since the remaining islands were separated by open stretches of seawater it made sense to divide them into separate nations; the Resistance were to govern Eihavum, while the Tribe would maintain dominion over Krettnakt. Both cities sat precariously on the rocky remains of Reijhaam. Feeding their populations without the surrounding lands for agriculture was going to prove difficult, as was managing other scarce resources. As such, the governments of Eihavum and Krettnakt agreed to cooperate and share knowledge of how to survive in their drastically transformed environments.

They had to cooperate on two other matters, the forested island of Grettfut and the island that was home to the Magic Tower.

Following Gum's suggestion, the Magic Tower's island was given the named Tosu's Kindness. The island of Tosu's Kindness would be used as a neutral meeting place for all negotiations between the two new nations going forward. Care and protection of Tosu's Kindness was entrusted to Gum, he would receive the assistance of one representative each from Krettnakt and Eihavum. A'lia had been quick to volunteer as the Eihavum representative for assisting Gum with his duties. General Festerslash was rescued from the Coronians and made a full recovery; he gave up his post with the Lion Warriors and volunteered to be Krettnakt's envoy to Tosu's Kindness.

Tosu's spirit, forever bound to the Thunderbox, was stored at the top of the Magic Tower. The spirit of the murdered boy watched over the splintered islands of Reijhaam.

The decision over what to do with the forest remained, and went unanswered in the discussions.

[Gum]

Festerslash winked at A'lia. The two had become friends. Gum's scowl broke into a smile more often when in the presence of the two former enemies. Were the shaman a betting man, he'd wager on a shared future for the pair. "Am I looking at the first international marriage between a citizen of Eihavum and a citizen of Krettnakt?"

"Back to business," snapped Festerslash, the command of his voice had lost none of its military clout.

"I second that motion!" Without a Tribe to fight, A'lia had relaxed into a less intense individual.

Gum leaned back in his seat. The trio were gathered in one of the rooms in the Magic Tower for their monthly meeting. "Let us continue with the discussions." Being his usual dour self, the pensive shaman was ready to broach the topics on the agenda.

Festerslash began, "We're experimenting with building structures taller and taller." He glanced over at A'lia to see if she was impressed. "Our architects learned a lot on their recent visit to Corone."

A'lia nodded politely. "That's great," she enthused, mouthing the words silently. There was a hint of mocking in her cheeky reaction.

"Some talented engineers of ours have come with ways to garden vertically." The old general pulled some corresponding papers from beneath their meeting table. "We're producing more crops." He handed the papers to A'lia. "Here are the blueprints."

Not to be outdone, A'lia shot back. "We have a surplus of fish this month. I'm having a ship drop off our excess at your docks!"

"Sounds good!" Gum put a stop to the seeds of competition by quickly interjecting. "So what else needs to be discussed this month?"

A'lia smiled, barely able to contain her glee. "Grettfut Forest."

Gum answered matter-of-factly. "Reports say that the forest is doing well. I remain opposed to proposals for extracting lumber, no matter how limited the extraction may be."

Festerslash laughed from the bottom of his recently growing belly.

"No, no, no," chastised the ex-freedom fighter. "You old grumpy so and so. Listen to me."

In his frustration, the shaman became monosyllabic. "Well?"

"The Krettnakt and the Eihavum governments have decided to offer Grettfut Island to your people. The Xangu people. We know their homeland is being overrun by the Drakari in Dheathain and, well, it is yours if you wish..."

Gum placed his stiff old fingers over his mouth, hiding the extent of his reaction.

"I..."

~~~

It wasn't long before the first boatloads of Xangu Basin refugees began to arrive in their new home. Gum made it his business to be present for every new arrival. Surrendering their ancestral homeland was something he could never have imagined. Watching the happy faces of his people as they arrived in their new home softened his stance. He was beginning to see why it was right to leave that old place behind.

His struggle was over, his suffering had come to an end.

Their struggle was over, their suffering had come to an end.

Fordstein was dead.

The Xangu people were finally free.

[Max Dirks]

Gum

Story – 5/10 (You had a strong start to the thread. I liked how Gum was literally thrown into the action. I was also overjoyed when the Xangu people were finally freed. That said, the rising action and climax of the thread were too much. It was like reading an episode of Naruto. You employed a deus ex machina in the form of a character we have no relationship with in the four corners of the story to defeat mecha Fordstein. It was too over the top in the short amount of time it was developed.
Pacing- 7/10 (This was one of your strongest categories. This was an easy read. The story flowed well).
Setting – 5/10 (Of all the threads, you probably spent the least amount of time describing the setting. Where you did touch on Reijhaam, you did well, but it was clear you emphasized pacing and action over story)
Action – 7/10 (Mecha Fordstein winging weather; ancient spirits tearing apart islands. Go big or go home, I suppose).
Dialogue – 7/10 (I didn’t add commentary to the other dialogue categories because they were all on the same page. You, on the other hand, heavily relied on dialogue to drive the action of the story. Except for some ridiculous puns, this was done well).
Persona – 5/10 (Gum’s relationship with A’lia was written well. It wasn’t as personal as Phry’s relationship, but I appreciated how you had the characters come together to achieve their mutual goals. Their meeting seemed entirely realistic. Fordstein randomly deciding to insert the Thunderbox into his chest cavity made him a powerful, but not interesting villain. Similarly, Festerslash’s reprieve was unnecessary. I did not get the impression there was a budding relationship between the two.
Mechanics – 8/10 (Strong mechanics. I forgave your British spelling even though you’ve been American for years now. I didn’t give you a perfect score because I caught a few spelling errors. I also note you have a rhythmic approach to sentence structure when excluding dialogue. You should mix this up to impact the flow of the writing.
Technique – 5/10 (The deus ex machina was a bit over the top, but I did see some decent foreshadowing and metaphor usage)
Clarity- 8/10
Wildcard – 10/10 (All factors met)

Total- 67/100

Rewards will be added at a later date.