Finals: Gum

[Max Dirks]

The finals will begin Monday April 24, 2017 at 3 PM EST. They will last 2 weeks. You may post at any pace, including a last minute post dump.

In Akashima, Fordstein’s ploy was successful. Corone’s united army overwhelmed Akashima’s inferior force, and the former Senator was named Baron. In Gisela, Gum and Phyr failed in their mission to deliver the artifact, colloquially known as the ‘Thunderbox’, to Terrence Edim. The Thunderbox was lost to an agent of Fordstein, the assassin Cherub, and Gum and Phyr were captured by Fordstein following the betrayal of Ceidon Lore’s former shipmate, Saieda. With knowledge of a new world teeming with magic courtesy of Saieda and the ‘Thunderbox’ in tow thanks to the Cherub, Baron Fordstein took command of Corone’s navy and sailed on the new world with an invading force.

You must write a solo, concluding your character’s role in the epoch. Somewhere in the body of your quest, you must:

1) Name the new land and its people. Additional descriptions, such as city names, flora and fauna will become canon should you win, but only the first two are required.
2) Baron Fordstein must die. The method is up to you.
3) Decide the fate of the Tribe and the resistance (both of which can be renamed).

Keep in mind, as indicated in the opening narrative, magic does not work like normal in the new land. Your ability to reflect this creatively will impact your score. Any NPCs adopted into the story may be used in your threads. Please avoid using other PCs.

[Gum]

A splash of cool saltwater on his battered brow brought the shaman around. His eyes struggled to adjust, but his ears took in the cry of seagulls overhead and the slosh of ocean water below. There were whispers in his head, the spirits were speaking to him. "Four," it said. Gum groaned, trying to stand, but he bumped his head on something low. They were bars. He felt them with his hands, they were above, they were to the left, they were to the right.

I am in a cage.

"The senator gave me command of my own fucking ship! Isn't that just grand?!" While his eyes were still of little use, Gum's ears once again filled in the gaps; the foul language and to-the-point statement made the speaker's identity clear. He was loath to accept it, but it was Saieda again.

Still hazy, the Xangu native ran the tips of his fingers across his head, searching for the wound that had caused him to lose consciousness back at Tosu's house. Tosu. He found the wound, and while it was serious, his concern for it faded beneath the shadow of the child's death.

"We're heading back to Radasanth," she explained. "Old Fordstein wants to make a real stink about you; you're gonna stand trial for treason!"

The pupils in his squinting eyes had almost adjusted to the clear day's light. Gum could make out a second cage next to his, they were both on the deck of the ship.

Phyr must be in that cage. I hope he is unharmed.

"I'm sorry it had to be this way, Xenga," she said unconvincingly as she watched Corone's ragged coastline.

Gum continued to ignore her; instead, he waited patiently for his eyes to finish adjusting. Phyr's condition was foremost in his mind.

Finally, his sight returned and he saw that the other cage was empty.

[Gum]

Two months later...






Corone’s navy was attacking. At the head of the party was a frigate carrying a new flag. The red of Akashima’s eagle was surrounded by Fordstein’s black snake. A new baron had been named.



Fire flapped through the flag in the wicked winds of Eihavum's bay. Lightning had sparked that blaze. More cracking bolts battered the Coronian Navy; yet, they surged into the harbour on the dreadful gusts of the this new world's deadly gales. While the eagle and snake of the armada's lead ship burned, the rest of the fleet started catching lightning strikes of their own. Creaking hulls contested the churn of the ocean, pushing defiantly towards the rigid stone of the port city's docklands.

C L A N G ! ! !

The alarm bell continued to sound.

C L A N G ! ! !

"Silence that!!!"

C L A N G ! ! !

"Aye aye!!!"

C L A N—B-B-B-BOOOOMM!!!

A round from the fleet's cannons crumbled the port city's bell tower. The tumble of the structure's blocks rumbled a warning louder than the bell itself. Roused by the surprise attack, the defence of Eihavum—the land's vital port city—began with ease and earnest; after all, the natives had been readying an assault of their own.

Leaping from the decks of their transport ships, a small selection of Fordstein's forces felt their feet fall on the stone slabs of the dockside. Thick ropes were wrapped hurriedly around the moorings. Then gangplanks fell and rattled.

Troops, with hearts still drunk on the victory in Akashima, rushed into the fray. The Tribal Guard, the defending city's peacekeepers, ran from their posts to meet their invaders with the fervour of patriots. One side's confidence, coming as a wave, frothed and crashed on the stout shields of the other side's resolute pride.

Using the docklands as a choking point, the comparatively small number of peacekeepers were able to hold back the invading force; they were buying time for the island nation's military forces to enter the battle.


~ ~ ~

"They've saved us the journey soldiers! Isn't that nice of them?!" The words of General Festerslash growled over the tinny percussion of armour and weapons; each warrior picked up a blade as he or she left the security of their barracks behind.

"Go to the docks!" His tail swished with the anger in his words. "We're under cannon fire, do not let that shake your resolve. We must relieve our brothers and sisters in the Tribal Guard!" Not a single soldier stood taller than the general, he stared down his grizzled snout as the last of the regiment left the dormitory and headed out into the field.

Brushing back his thick mane with his broad paw, Festerslash offered the soldiers some hope, "We've sent out the call for the navy to return to port to help in the defence of the city."


~ ~ ~

Meanwhile, at the docks, the Tribal Guard had fallen back and conceded the docklands to the invaders. Fordstein's forces were spilling into the city with the same dominance they had experienced in Akashima. The combined military of Radasanth, Gisela, Serenti, and now Akashima, was by far the largest fighting force in the known world. The few defenders that were left had taken up positions in homes and businesses along Eihavum's cultured promenade.

Families fled, stumbling away and dragging their children with them. They daren't look back at the bloodshed behind them. One man, sweating and blinded by the glare of the sun, bumped into something large and metallic while he was trying to escape. "Don't run too far," boomed a gravely voice. It was General Festerslash's armoured torso he had bumped into. "Find cover for you and your children, but be sure we won't be handing over Reijhaam to these monkey invaders!" The general dragged the commoner to his feet and eased him along the way.

Festerslash, the focal point of his army's attack formation, powered into the invaders. He swung his thick arms, claws out, in broad swings; each swipe opened several throats and clattered several skulls. Reijhaam's warrior caste were sandy coloured cats, twice the size of their normal folk, they were faster, more powerful and the males wore thick manes that stretched from their brows around their faces and along their backs.

"Don't ease up," came the snarling command from Festerslash. His troops obliged, killing at a ratio of two to one versus the united armies of Corone. Coupling size with a home advantage, the defenders were turning the tide. Festerslash waded into the enemy line again, knocking back the grunts and heading for the opposition's commanding officer. With a breakaway team joining to flank him, the general was able to reach his counterpart. He picked the human off the ground with one hand, before tugging the man's helmet off. "No, please," whimpered the human commander while his legs flailed. Festerslash opened his jaws and brought them to a crunching close, munching the commander's skull between his molars.



~ ~ ~

Fire was rampant out in the bay. Almost every sailor in Fordstein's fleet was tossing buckets of seawater on fires. Each ship's captain was struggling to stop their crew from jumping overboard, scores of sailors had already been struck by lightning.

It was in this chaos that the blue sails of Reijhaam's navy could be seen rounding Horror's Cape, the western tip enclosing the bay. Quickly, the defending navy had boxed in the burning remnants of the opposing armada.

The native's crafts didn't suffer from the lightning in the same way the invader's ships did. As well as a conventional wooden mast, every Reijhaaman ship was equipped with an even taller metal prong. The prong ran through the ship and direcly into the water below. These lightning rods allowed their ships to travel through the dreadful storms surrounding their homeland mostly unscathed.


~ ~ ~

"Force them back!"

Festerslash smashed back an assailant.

"Bring me the remaining officers!"

The general stepped over the corpses.

"I want to find somebody whose surrender I can accept!"

Without warning, Festerslash felt a sudden rip at the back of his thigh. In that moment of triumph, pain was the last thing he expected. He looked back, puzzled at how a human could have gotten so close to him when they were in the ascendancy.

Then he saw the source of the injury. "A'lia!" A'lia was a prominent figure in the resistance.

"Festerslash," she snapped back. She was wearing the same armour as his own team.

"I find your fatalism disgusting!" Festerslash gripped A'lia by the neck after falling to his knees.

"It's over Festerslash," she smirked. "There won't be any more destruction because of the Tribal Government."

The wounded general spat in her face. "So you want to leave our homeland to these invaders?"

Without wiping the saliva from her cheek she answered confidently. "What would anybody want with this wasteland?"

[Gum]

Gum was languishing aboard one of the ships in the Eihavum's bay. The old shaman had been brought to this new world against his will, he was a prisoner on a boat. He watched, incapable of anything else, while the naval battle developed around him. The sight of Eihavum shocked him, they were born from cats and humans were born from monkeys, but their cities looked remarkably similar. The buildings, the businesses, the people, the streets; Corone and Reijhaam were different sides of the same coin.


In a cage again...

From the moment Tosu died, he had remained a captive of the newly united Corone. He was branded an enemy of Fordstein's government, vilified with propaganda and portrayed as a famous terrorist. While its conclusion was foregone at the moment of conception, the trial's theatrics had proved the only break from the monotony of incarceration.

With that excitement behind him, the wayward shaman was back to basking in saltwater splashes and whispering to his companions the seagulls.

Weeks out on the open ocean gave him an opportunity for reflection; his stomach and his thoughts rose and sank with the waters. Nobody in the crew spoke to him, the order to ignore him came from on high. He surmised it was the vastness of the ocean to blame, but even the spirits of his ancestors became distorted. Quiet thought had always brought them to him in the past, but since the death of the boy, Gum had only heard broken whispers in his head. In truth, he believed they abandoned him because of the damage he had done his people. He felt responsible for everything: Tosu, Akashima, Phyr, and most of all, the fate of his own people.

"A grateful benefactor of my bountiful mercy!" It was the slippery charm of the newly crowned Baron of Akashima. Grinning, he winked at the caged shaman. The elaborately dressed man stood on the open deck of the ship, showing no fear of the storms all around them. Fordstein, after all, held the Thunderbox in his hands; it was protecting him from the brutal weather. "Gentlemen, please oblige me and load this cage into the catapult, won't you?"

Burly sailors, four in number, surrounded the wooden cage Gum was inside of. They lifted it and loaded it onto a catapult positioned near the bow of the ship.

Fordstein followed behind them, smiling. "As per our agreement, old friend, it's time you joined the battle!" Fordstein reached into the cage and handed the shaman his primitive weapon. Tentatively, Gum retrieved his obsidian bladed axe from his corrupt adversary.

"Release!"

And with the command, Gum's cage was launched into the air and flew awkwardly towards the docklands, towards the heart of the battle.

A'lia leapt back, the makeshift projectile landed directly on the kneeling body of General Festerslash. The box shattered on the ground and Gum rolled onto his back.

[Gum]

A bald-headed woman climbed the ladder from the hold below and took her place next to Fordstein. "Listen," she said, jutting her jagged elbow into the aging man's ribs. "You must be fucking stupid if you think that's a death sentence for the fucking Xenga Xinga witch doctor. Ya know?" It was the jewelry-laden Saieda.

Fordstein twirled the tips of his moustache. "The situation is hardly pellucid." His bitter eyes resisted a wink. "I'm counting on that fact for my entertainment. Especially since our victory in the battle itself is all but guaranteed." The baron shooed Saieda out of his personal space and finished his thought. "If he survives," he said while rubbing the leather elbow patches on his jacket, "I want you to take care of him."

She huffed, failing to stifle her trepidation. "I can do that, I can take him out."

"Quite." The baron favoured the shaman versus the pirate all things being equal, but the scales were far from balanced. He knew Gum was battered and beaten, starved and dehydrated; after all, he had insisted on that treatment while the shaman was in his custody. "I wonder," he mused, "how will our own cat man with fare against a whole country of cat people?"

[Gum]

Gum's gaunt body stirred in the wreckage of the cage. Before getting to his feet, he looked amongst the broken lumber for his own piece of wood. "Hm," he grunted with satisfaction as he pulled the handle of his axe from the rest of the wood; it stood out from the rest as it hadn't been milled or treated. It couldn't be clearer he thought, there was the contrast before him: his wild wood studded with rocks for blades, a primitive, but artful weapon, and a cage made from trees cut and shaped beyond recognition.

They can keep their civilisation.

The shaman, breathless and exhausted, squared up to A'lia with his axe in hand. A'lia squinted at him, wondering why this human was so different to the rest of them. The never-ending storm soaked them both.

"I just want the general," she begged, pointing at the ailing Lion Warrior that Gum's cage had crashed into. She grabbed the hulking warrior by the paw and attempted to drag him. Gum helped her, and together they pulled General Festerslash off the battlefield and into the open door of a recently relinquished abode. The warrior's injury had left a pink trail in the puddles, and when Gum looked at the colour he once again heard the faint voice of ghosts in his mind. "Give," said the voice.

Give what?

"You're different to the rest of them," A'lia said, bluntly.

The Xangu native's thoughts were interrupted. "Yes." Gum was just as blunt, and twice as sullen. "You just want this general," he said bowing his head at the weakened warrior. "And I just want Baron Fordstein."

"That's the second time I've heard that name," she said, remembering her recent encounter with Ceidon Lore.

"His death is the key to ending this carnage." The Xangu shaman's narrow eyes swelled with regret. "He is behind this invasion of your lands." Speaking of the invasion around them, he couldn't help but dwell on the sorrow of his own people. On the other side of the world, they too were being ruined by the burden of greed's consequence.

"Reijhaam isn't our homeland anymore." A'lia whipped her furry finger out to point at Festerslash. "Them. The Tribal Council and their awful Lion Warriors... everything about the Tribal authority." She grunted. "They destroyed it with their lust for power." The general, awake but woozy, snorted his discontent.

"I implore you, Baron Fordstein is worse than anything you have experienced." The shaman wore the dread of Fordstein's rule in the sorrowful lines in his face. "He came here seeking this land's power. He is in possession of an item, one that your people were in search of, that can be used to restrict and redirect the power of this place."

"I..." A'lia's convictions wavered as she couldn't hide from the truth, the truth that foreigners could be just as corrupt as her oppressors at home. "M-m-maybe," she stuttered. "Maybe I was wrong." She turned away from the fading form of General Festerslash.

"You were wrong." The grit in the Lion Warrior's voice had weakened to a rasp. "Sabotaging our invasion of Corone is something I can forgive." He propped his broad shoulders against the wall of the room. "But, handing our home over to this villain Fordstein I cannot forgive." His yellow eyes bore a rage his broken body could not act upon.

[Gum]

Something fizzed outside. "The storms..." Festerslash's voice faded, he was losing consciousness. A'lia jumped up to peak out of the window of the home they were using for cover. "The atmosphere is flaring up," she explained. Gum positioned himself next to her to observe what was happening outside for himself.

Another proud Lion Warrior had taken command of the Tribe's forces in the absence of Festerslash. The new leader corralled the last of the Lion Warriors to face off against a grouped of robed humans, their light attire on the field of battle betrayed their discipline: mages.

"No..." A'lia's fright was palpable, the sight of magic uses filled her with dread.

The squad of mages muttered in unison, whispering the kind of incantations that had long since been banned in Reijhaam. They engaged in synchronised gestures, sweeping their arms aesthetically, while bending their fingers unnaturally. The mages were casting a powerful spell collectively.

"Stop them!"

Reijhaam's Lion Warriors charged the conjurers, their voices roared and their armour rattled.

Sparks of fire began to form on the tips of human fingers. Thunder cracked overhead.

A blade hacked the leading mage in two. Another human fell to a cat's might hammer blow. The wizards and witches were falling fast, the prowess of the Lion Warriors was a stark mismatch.

"Get down!" A'lia dragged Gum to the floor nevertheless.

The decision was wise.

A fireball was cast to completion by a lone mage at the rear of the action.

The island continent's revenge was instantaneous; a thunderous explosion shot down from the sky. Brick and stone flew into the air and bodies were tossed across the docklands. The sea rushed into the freshly made hole in the ground.

The trio of Gum, Alia, and General Festerslash had been a safe distance from the explosion. The resistance fighter, A'lia, looked down at the unconscious body of her lifelong foe. "Is it too late now?" she whispered.

"No." The shaman wasn't prone to lying, but the conviction in his tone was intended to comfort and mislead. While they did have a chance of getting to Fordstein, he knew that, should he fail, Reijhaam would be the third nation to fall because of his heinous decisions. First Akashima, now Reijhaam, and his own nation was sure to end.

A'lia looked at Gum, paused for a moment and then spoke. "What now?"

Gum watched out the window while the victorious Coronians set about the remnants of the docklands, securing one position after another. "If you want to save your people then we must kill Fordstein."

"I'm a known resistance fighter," she explained. "I have not killed any humans yet," she mused, her plan blossomed in her mind ahead of her mouth. "I can use that to my advantage. I can feed them information. They will surely want to know how to reach Krettnakt, the capital."

The Xangu native's notions dovetailed with hers. "I am in a complicated position," he said, his rough baritone came across as unaffected. "But, I was brought here to fight along side Fordstein's forces." It was true, Gum was supposed to help the baron's conquest, but whether the shaman had any remaining sway with the former senator was unlikely.

"Let's get out of here," said the resistance fighter. "We'll use the general as proof of our alignment."

Dragging Festerslash behind them, they stepped back onto the streets of Eihavum. They were out in the rain again, the fallen Tribe commander lay on the ground between them. Gum looked ahead, he was waiting contently for an officer in the Coronian invasion force to notice them. A'lia, contrastingly, pressed her hands into her hips and groaned impatiently.

"What do we have here?" The speaker's uniform marked him as more than a private, but less than important.

"This is..." Gum realised he did not know the resistance fighter's name.

"A'lia," she said, intervening to rescue her new friend from his ignorance.

"You have A'lia to thank for incapacitating the opposition's general." Gum pressed his wrinkled digits on the unconscious head of General Festerslash.

"I'm a member of the resistance, we fight against Tribal tyranny and destruction of our homeland." When she spoke, she swept the silver tuft of fur on her head back, smiling with pride.

"Hmm," the soldier attending to them took his helmet off and wiped the sweat and rain from his face with frustration. "Well, let me get my..."

"Perhaps you should take us to Baron Fordstein?" The shaman took advantage of the battlefield middleman's incompetence to guide the situation in his own favour.

"Right," the soldier conceded.

[Gum]

Once again, Gum found himself back in a cell waiting on Fordstein's decree. The Coronians wasted little time in requisitioning the Tribal Guard's city jail. He was unsure what had become of A'lia. An army officer was smart enough to separate them so as to prevent any further collusion. She was probably in a nearby cell, but out of sight, he thought.

Anxiety set in, the Xangu native wondered if his captivity was going to stretch from minutes into hours, hours into days and days into weeks–just as it had every time before.

"The baron is ready to see you." It was only his second night behind bars. In a rare show of emotion, he smiled at the guard bringing him the good news. The shaman gripped the solid bars of the cell and pulled himself up from the concrete. That sound, a key turning in a lock, brought him great joy.

Gum was hurried into a room where his attention was first drawn to General Festerslash. The general was alive, his leg wound must have been stitched and dressed. The hulking Lion Warrior was strapped into a chair and gasping. Next to take the Xangu native's attention was A'lia. She had tears in her eyes.

A human man with an ugly array of hand tools set out on a tray in front of him stood next to the distressed general. Festerslash's paws were missing some claws, his ears were ripped and he was bleeding from a plethora of tiny cuts. They'd tended to one wound, only to inflict him with many others.

There were soldiers guarding the door Gum had just come through, and soldiers guarding a second door to the room.

"Haven't I told you enough?" demanded A'lia angrily, hoping to save her compatriot further suffering.

"It's always good to corroborate intelligence," sneered the handyman.

Gum cut them both off. "Where is Baron Fordstein?"

The soldiers blocking the second door parted, and the former senator entered the room. Gum's narrow eyes widened with shock when he saw the baron. "Fordstein...?"

"You don't recognise me?" the baron asked, mockingly. He had a bloody wound in his chest, into which the Thunderbox had been artificially inserted. "I've elevated myself," he said with a whimsical giggle, glancing down at his feet. The baron wasn't walking, instead he was floating on discs of whirling air.

Gum's heartbeat quickened. A feeling of dread overcame him, that emotion had become an easy friend. In recent months, Gum had become accustomed to the swift descent of his hopes and dreams. Surely, Fordstein's latest atrocity would provide the ultimate answer to the shaman's suffering.

Lightning coursed and crackled along his electrified limbs. "You'll have a cracking time with the new me." The baron's lungs billowed with laughter.

It was all Gum could do to resist calling the baron an abomination, but a slither of hope curbed his desire. Rather than lashing out, he kowtowed and engaged in Fordstein's odious theatre. "A'lia and I were able to remove their commander from the field of battle."

Fordstein nodded. "Yes, I've heard of your heroics from my new best friend here." He pointed at A'lia. "But this one," he placed a hand on Festerslash's shoulder, jolting him with his newfound powers, "has been less forthcoming." Festerslash grunted, slumped and bit his lip, but he did not cry out.

"Have we earned your trust?" Gum was still exhausted, had he not been then maybe the question would have been better disguised. "I will not play games with you, Fordstein." His sorrowful eyes looked away from the baron. "I know my only way to succeed in saving my people is to support you."

"I'll get to that in a moment, Gum. Let me just deal with this." He waved his crackling hands at the guards. "He won't give us any information. Just send him back to Corone."

"Yessir!"

"Put him in the Radasanth Zoo with the rest of the lions." The guards unshackled the Lion Warrior. They tossed him out of the torture chair and watched him slump onto the floor. Even when they dragged him out by the fur of his mane, the proud general remained silent. He kept his aura of strength and dignity.

"Anyway, so where were we?" asked the baron as the handyman followed the guards out of the room.

"What is to become of us?" Again, Gum focused the conversation. His patience for all of life was hanging by a thread.

"Ah, yes," said Baron Fordstein, rubbing his electrified hands together. "A'lia here has given us some information on the location of the capital and how best to compromise it."

A'lia shuffled on the spot, she held the long whiskers of her face as steady as she could. Twitching them, she thought, might be a tell for their deception.

"We have scouts out confirming the location as we speak." Fordstein stroked the Thunderbox in his chest while he spoke. "So, I suppose I'll use the pair of you for the assault."

Gum glanced at A'lia, she was beating back a smile.

"We march at dawn, we'll reach Krettnakt by dusk!"

[Gum]

The journey there took them through the shade of Grettfut Forest, a soulful and reflective place. With her mood shaped by her surroundings, A'lia felt the time was right to find out a little more about what was going on with Gum. "So, what's so complicated about your connection with that Fordstein guy?" Krettnakt was at least another four hour's march away when she began the conversation, the feline fighter knew there was time for conversation.

"I once believed his lies." The shaman's expression was glum, he looked away from his travel partner and at the old trees lining the road. "I believed he could help save my people." He wondered how many trees had been cleared by the Drakari back home.

Puzzled, the resistance member pressed further. "Why are you still working with him if you don't believe that any more?"

"I made mistakes on top of mistakes." He gave her a short answer, a simple sentence with its meaning obscured was all he could muster. Though he refused to speak of the past, he couldn't help but think of it. The sun was dipping ahead, the tangerine haze encouraged a thick rush of sentiment.

Gum remembered it all very well...



It was a week after the events in Gisela. Tosu's death was still fresh in Gum's mind; and the shaman was locked up in a Radasanth jail cell. Just moment's earlier, the judge presiding over his trial had flippantly passed his sentence. The Xangu native was to be put to death.

Through devoted eavesdropping, Gum had learned from the guards that it was likely he would be hanged at noon the next day. A big crowd was expected, many were excited to watch a foreign terrorist die. Radasanth had seen a rash of political assassinations. Most of the killings had been perpetrated by Storm Veritas and his resurgent Castigars. Pinning them on Gum was a nice bookend to that revolutionary subterfuge.

On the morning before his trial, Gum received a special visitor.

"Ahh, my honoured guest!"

Gum recogised the voice immediately, it was serpentine Senator Fordstein.

"I trust you've been well catered to, old bean?"

The shaman flared his nostrils, inhaling audibly but without responding.

"I appreciate your acute anguish, Gum. I truly do."

The senator's sarcasm failed to rile the stoic prisoner. Again, the shaman sat silent in his cell.

"Forgive me," smirked the senator. "But, you and that elf did plot to assassinate me. I think under the circumstances my coming here to visit you is quite generous."

Gum still didn't respond.

"Hmm. Quite. Well, fortunately for you, my generosity is as abundant as my wealth and power! I have an opportunity for you. One that might keep you out of the gallows."

"I am prepared to enter the Underworld." When Gum finally spoke, he did so with moribund gravity.

"Oh, don't be so macabre," flapped the flamboyant politician. "We're going to war again. Instead of letting these cat people and their Lion Warriors come to us, we're going to go to them!"

"You are going to invade and conquer another nation?" Gum turned his back to the senator, facing the blank wall of his jail cell. "Does your greed know no limit?" he asked while looking away.

"They started it!!!" The senator rattled his knuckles on the iron bars of the cell. "Nevertheless, the fleet sails tomorrow. Why don't you fight for your freedom? I'll give you another chance to prove your loyalty to me. And if you do prove yourself loyal, maybe there's still a chance we can take this grand army of ours to the Xangu Basin and liberate your people from those dreadful Dheathain dragon people?"

Gum sighed.



"I understand why you did it." A'lia had made her own mistakes, she had made the wrong decisions for her people the same way Gum had for his. "Maybe we've still got time to fix it?"

"It is my only hope." Gum squinted in the glare of a sun about to set. "I cannot be the shame of my ancestors, the bane of my own people."

"Shh," A'lia said, eyeballing an approaching officer; the duo had been matched with one of Fordstein's regiments for the journey to Krettnakt.

Grettfut Forest faded behind them and their destination grew out of the horizon ahead. Krettnakt was a capital wrapped old stone walls, they were steep, thick, and possessed guard towers at regular intervals. A moat supplemented the defences.

"The walls haven't been used in centuries," said A'lia with a furrowed brow. "It looks like they've actually closed the old gates and manned the towers though." She strained her eyes as she looked over the distance. "It's hard to see from this distance."

"A siege is cruelest on the citizens," remarked Gum sadly, he was already mourning the suffering afoot.

With night fast approaching, all that was left to do was to make camp.

[Gum]

By the time the sun came up the next morning, Fordstein's forces had surrounded the city with their numbers focused on the north and south entrance gates. The humans hadn't opened fire, nor had the cats.

The day played out with a series of offers and counteroffers; Baron Fordstein himself met with representatives of the Tribe's chiefs before the northern gate.

No surrender could be reached.


~~~

In the familiar glow of early evening, Gum received a note delivered by one of Fordstein's closest soldiers. He had been invited to the baron's private command tent.

"Leave us," commanded the conquering dictator. After strategising with his officers, Fordstein had come to the realisation that their victory wasn't as assured as he had assumed when they first arrived in the port city of Eihavum.

Gum's wrought brow betrayed his concern as he watched the military men and women exit the tent. "What do you want with me?" The shaman continued to favour melancholic candour.

"How would you like to end this war with as little bloodshed as possible?"

Looking away, the shaman knew what Fordstein was going to ask of him.

"Cat got your tongue?"

"Very clever," answered the shapeshifting shaman. "You want me to become a jaguar and sneak into the city at night?"

"Now who's the clever one?" Fordstein winked at the subject of his torment gleefully. "This is what I want you to do," he said, beckoning Gum to join him at a table housing a map of the city's defences. "Firstly, if you can, of course, assassinate anybody important looking!" Gum nodded and Fordstein continued talking. "But, more importantly than that, I want you to set fire to place. They'll have no choice other than to come running out. We have the advantage out here. They'd be fools not to surrender."

[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.

[Rayleigh]

2090 EXP and 241 GP

Rewards added on 4.0.