Compromising the Castigars (Open)

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This is an open thread until the very end, but I'm probably going to post along as though it's a solo. So, on the off chance anybody wants to jump in, you're always welcome. No need to contact me first, but you can if you want. It's all good.

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Do Mugu felt the blood ooze from low-hooked nose. The old shaman had just been thumped by a jangle of armour with a brutish underbite. His back was aching more than usual; being chained to a post played its part in the pain. Oh, the pain. Gum closed his eyes, and focused his resolve to cast off the dizziness and resist the next inquiry.

“Why were you skulking around town and asking about the Executors?”

Gum’s eyes stayed closed, but his bloodied lips opened. “I am a foreign holy man, curious about my hosts,” he said, lying convincingly. The shaman’s necklace of shrunken heads and outlandish garments heaped credence on his claim. “So many things have happened,” he elaborated, “you must forgive me my curiosity regarding your leaders.”

“Hmphfpphshhshs,” the rotten soldier said. “Well, curiosity killed the cat,” he sneered, with the wit of a cabbage, before swinging his boot at Do Mugu’s sunken abdomen. “Don’t be so fucking curious, will ya?” Little did Private Underbite know, but the cat would kill him before the sun would rise.

The ache was, of course, intense. But, the shaman’s trance allowed him to endure with tranquility. After all, he could escape at any time. Remaining captive was core to the plan.

Nevertheless, the sound of his assailant squelching away in the muck provided fleeting relief. Gum took the opportunity to finally open his eyes. They were stinging from the descent of his brow’s crusty salt and sticky blood. Despite the approach of overwhelming desiccation, he knew he had to get his bearings if the plan was going to work.

Thunderheads loomed over the Castigar outrider’s camp. With a wincing smile, Gum welcomed the clouds as an affirmation from the gods; they proved to be a reflection of the divine’s furious opposition to the proud and powerful’s abuse of the land.

And the land was going to be Gum do Mugu’s partner. The woods to the west, they were his escape route. The sinking mud, that was going to pull back his enemies. The roaring river, that was where he would shed his scent and leave the hounds hopeless on the bank.

Gum mapped out the plan in his head, and closed his eyes again—he was waiting for nightfall to take him.

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Three years prior to Gum’s capture.

Things were hotting up in Corone, politics-wise. That meant something for the lumberjacks of Underwood: big business. Whenever the powerful fancied themselves a new dominion, first the trees fell and the animals bled.

Concordia’s arborescent races long resented the axe-wielders of Underwood, the premier logging town at the center of the forest. But, a balance meant peace: if the year's saplings outnumbered the cutters' cull, then nature could tentatively abide.

It transpired, though, that the re-establishment of Whitevale as a Castigar stronghold set forth a series of events that would antagonise the world’s Arboreal Guardians into action.

The ensuing militant activities of the Castigar’s infamous marching brotherhood triggered an arms race. The Imperials went toe-to-toe with the Castigars by turning beloved oaks into siege weapons, watch towers, barracks, and barricades. Oak was preferred for its renowned attributes, but the rest were chopped anyway and put to the flame to fuel the drive to bloodshed.

Nature’s balance was lost and Concordia suffered.

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Six months prior to Gum’s capture, on the other side of the world...

The Council of the Arboreal Guard met for the first time in ten thousand years.

Steam steeped jungles swept across the Dheathainian landscape like a coat of living armour. It was from this tropical forest that the council grew. Floating over the tops of the tallest trees was a pinnacle of clouds, this was their grand meeting hall.

The intangible palace of clouds housed ten old spirits—women, men, animals, and arborescent beings of a scientifically disprovable nature. Their meeting was ordained by the Dheathain Pantheon and necessitated by the assault on the natural world. In short, the Council of the Arboreal Guard was tasked with fighting back.

“The leaders of the humans, elves, drakari, and the rest of those men-like races—they’re raising armies and fighting wars and our woods are paying the price. Whether it’s the grand old mahogany in the Xangu Basin or the ancient oaks of Concordia… We’re paying the price for their wars.”

The council’s chief spoke like thunder in the sky, rumbling with anger.

“Call up those indebted to our gods and task them with the destruction of any malevolent, destructive, murderous institutions. Kill their leaders and put an end to our suffering.”

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Gum do Mugu, a shaman and an operative for the Xangu Nation, had dutifully accepted his mission against the Castigars.

A burnt horizon brought sunset to Gum’s tired eyes; those narrow eyes, telling of a wily shaman, widened with the onward roll of his lethal agenda. Night and the changing of the guard came, hand-in-hand, satisfying Do Mugu’s innate appreciation for cosmic synchronicity (i.e. he just loved it when a plan came together).

Tough guy “Private Underbite” was gone. He’d slipped under a tent’s canvas; there were only four such shelters making up the entire outrider’s camp. In Underbite’s place wobbled a scarer’s dream: a nervous fellow, more skin than bones, with a shaky hand on a tinny rattler of a sword.

Do Mugu welcomed his keeper for the night with a serene smile. “I am Gum do Mugu, Master Shaman of the Xangu Nation.” Outsiders might perceive Gum’s moderately grand self-introduction as pride, but it was not. “Are you free to tell me your name?”

The nervous guard, weakened by the dimming sunlight and the early sparkle of the evening’s brightest stars, answered. “Doesn’t fucking matter,” he snapped, fronting with a personality he clearly did not possess. “You’re Dheathain scum and we know what you’re up to.”

Actually, Gum was cock sure they had no idea what he was up to. If they knew, it’d be more than one guard watching him. Especially, not a guard with a withering constitution like Private Wobbles. In fact, so brutal were the shaman’s intentions, that nobody in the camp would be sleeping sound if they could read his cool mind.

“Your opinion of me is your entitlement and I respect the dream that is your perception,” the shaman said, shifting his bony buttocks in the mud in search of comfort. “Coronians doubt me when I say that,” he continued. “But,” he said, still smiling for the Castigar soldier, “it’s more than respect and acceptance—it’s love.”

“You love me?” scoffed the guard. “You know, your fucking types just aren’t welcome here!”

Wobbles whipped out his sword unsteadily and smashed Do Mugu’s brow with the hilt.

The old shaman blacked out from the bruising blow, just for a moment. A flutter of blinks and he was back.

But, the soldier noticed, something was wrong with his prisoner… Gum’s eyes had taken on the glassy blackness of obsidian. A feeling—a black feeling—haunted the inept Castigar’s weak soul. The night, too, had suddenly arrived, killing twilight before its time.

“What the fuck is going on?” Private Wobbles screamed into Gum’s face. “Don’t try this spooky shit with me you foreign fucker!”

CAW!!!

It sounded like a crow, another black omen. Private Wobbles looked all around, trying to see where the sound was coming from.

CAW!!!

Then he looked up. And there, leering atop the post Do Mugu was chained to, was a freakish bird with a third leg clutching a silver necklace. The soldier shuddered. He recognised the jewelry—it was his sister’s.

“Don’t you fucking touch her!” he rasped in the night, dropping his sword hopelessly into the field’s sodden earth.

The frightened guard could feel the heartless crow pulling the memories from his mind. Meanwhile, Gum do Mugu remained a living statue, unburdened by the chaos around him.

And chaos was coming; sleepy heads were beginning to rise. The camp of no more than a dozen Castigar outriders came to life: fingers found gloves, gloves found gauntlets, and eyes found the bleak night outside those four tents.

Private Wobbles turned his back on Gum, for just a moment, in desperate search of support from the Brotherhood.

There was a discerning uneasiness in the air tonight, a chill burned your cheeks and the distant sounds of Crows made the hairs on your neck stand on end. Hayate and the others in his small four-man cell held tight to the shadows as they edged closer to the outrider’s camp. A week had passed since he and the others first got word of this small encampment a day's walk from Folirande. They had visited it once before under the cover of night, observing their cruel treatment of their captives and confirming the nasty rumors they heard about em. It was a hard decision being a of the Castiagrs himself, but these men would not be allowed to continue. Though the the looming dawn of war was close upon them the Brotherhood would never command the respect of the citizens if men like these were free to plunder and institute their own brand of justice.

“Hold,” he whispered with one hand up. Ahead he could see through the tree line as their captive received a swift hilt to the face. Hayate fought the urge to flick a shuriken from the shadows to aid the poor man, but patience was the key. It didn't really matter what he had done to wind up in his situation, rumors stated that they killed and tortured for fun, this foreigner had no chance. “Petra in the trees, Ioder on me, Damien watch our flank.”

Just then something most strange happened as the face of private wobbled grew pale. An apparition appeared atop the captive’s post, presumably stunning him with fear and causing him to wake the rest of the small group of rouges. The Shinobi watched as the crow dangled as a charming necklace in front of the boy soldier, it was the cause of his terror, a trinket of his or something he assumed. Still bathed in shadow Hayate moved closer and closer, knowing that if he was going to strike and deal with these embarrassments he would need to capitalize on this moment. Patiently he saw the others emerge from their tents, clad in armor with swords in hand, looking around frantically for the source of the disturbance.

Caw!

Hayate readied his metallic arm up, aiming it like a marksmen rifle at Private Wabbles’ head. With a quick clench of his titanium fist, three shurikens shot forth from his forearm spiraling through the brush before embedding themselves into the boy soldier’s neck. Ioder and Petra were quick to act as well, launching both dark magic and a volley of arrows into the encampment striking one or two more Castigars with their initial assault. It couldn't have been any more perfect as everyone took cover, hiding from an enemy they cannot see, and leaving Gum more or less free to act impeded. It didn't take long for Hayate and the others to reposition for another covert assault.

"Don't know whats going on, but dont let them lay a finger on that guy. This is our chance to redeem our name, and it starts with making sure this man can tell this tale."

Foosh. Squelch.

Foosh. Squelch.

Foosh. Squelch.

It was the sound of Hayate Amatsumaki’s shining stars slicing air and flesh alike. In a sudden flash, subdued by darkness, the private’s jugular was carved wide, like a fucking clam shell!

Prior to instant death, the victim’s raised voice had been enough to rouse the rabble; a modest portion of the dozen Castigars came slotting through their canvas tent doors and out into the fray. But, as quickly as they tasted the night’s moonlit troubles, they pounded the mud. It was the striking dark magic of Ioder and Petra, they had followed Hayate’s lead and mirrored his lethal impact.

“SNIPERS!!!”

Soldiers knew snipers. Soldiers dreaded snipers. Few pains were as profound as the jolt of a comrade’s blood splattering your face without warning.

“STAY IN THE TENTS OR TAKE COVER!”

And so, the remaining outriders sucked their lungs full of air and slammed the deck. Unlike their deceased counterparts, they kept breathing after hitting the earth. Rolling behind cover, they did everything they could to hide from the long range assault.

Unfortunately, Underbite was among the living. His big jaw, slack and ugly, wagged from behind a grain barrel—he was talking to Lil’ Yens, another surviving Castigar outrider. “What the fuck!!!” was all he could manage.

Lil’ Yens, however, was blessed with a more expansive mind. “We’re being ambushed by the Imperials most likely.” It was a fair guess. Gum do Mugu didn’t know it, but the Castigars were moving against Radasanth. “Or,” Yens continued, “they could be a rescue party for the foreign fucker.”

Underbite wanted to validate the latter of the two theories, so he snooped out from behind his cover to check on the haggard shaman.

“He’s gone.”

Silence.

“What do you mean he’s gone?!”

Silence.

“I mean, the foreign fucker is gone.”

Silence.

“How does an old shit like that break out of leg irons, wrist irons, and belly chains?”