Relenting, the ferocious jungle cat reared back from the ransacked corpse of its victim. Nosdyn was, in that moment alone, defeated. Drops of demon blood fell from the shapeshifter's black whiskers, his yellowing canines were coloured pink by the rampage. Red, a violent colour, sullied the cavern's lively green fungus. Where they had fought, the earth was disturbed. Gum looked down at the earth, he sighed for its gory corruption. N'Jal's champion, before the Xangu shapeshifters eyes, had endured his own disturbing ordeal. Do Mugu, in reflection, was failing a sacred obligation to remain equanimous. Like the earth, like the vibrant fungus, like the dying demon... the victorious shaman felt utterly disturbed, it was a total breakdown in his training.

In the bowels of Dheathain, a miserable drama had played out its cruel crescendo.

And, while his laconic indifference gradually decayed, the shaman experienced passing, but tender, thoughts for his fallen foe, Nosdyn. After all, it seemed as though—with his final words—the demonic intruder had ruefully conceded his imperfection. From there, the journey to tranquility could have blossomed. Perhaps the demon didn't have to die, Do Mugu thought. But, nevertheless, the spirits and the gods demanded the demon's removal. The very world itself demanded it.

With a lurching cough, the brutal feline fell to the ground.

He began the painful return: shifting from big cat, back to his natural human form.

"Gum do Mugu, who do you have for me..."

The shaman's teeth clenched as the death god's words crept through the psychosphere and into his mind. A distant trickle, the nearby stream continued to flow in spite of their sorry melodrama; its dogged insistence nagged Gum, a servant burdened by the living and the dead. A thousand souls had passed through the shaman's rigid fingers; Gum knew the waterways from the Overworld to the Underworld well enough. Yet, this time, the notion of his ritual emerged like a dreaded spectre. With his training in tatters and his mind warped by the experience, Do Mugu felt unprepared to resist the powerful spell of his Underworld masters.

"Bring him to me," Oxxad whispered in the dark.

The stream trickled over subterranean pebbles and cobbles.

"Bring him to me," Oxxad insisted in the damp.

Moisture dripped down the cold cavern walls.

"Bring him to me," Oxxad hissed!

Do Mugu rested his hand on his broken shoulder. He finally replied. "I need time," he explained, "I am injured."

Hours went by before expert shaman was ready.


Dragged into the sunlight, dappled by the Dheathain canopy, Nosdyn's remains seemed hardly dead. Ringed in totems, the ritual began with a chant. Then, silence prevailed. In tune with Gum's trance, the entire rainforest dimmed its din. Foreigner or native, all tremble before death. And so, the shaman understood, all souls must be shepherded with compassion from the Overworld to the Underworld.

Through meditation, the shaman lost consciousness and the river of the honoured dead flowed out before the two enemies...

Gum's sticky eyes resisted opening, wise to the awaiting vision. Death itself, the god of all endings, stood tall before him. Do Mugu had awoken in the Underworld's proudest castle, the rock and shadow of Atataratzu and Oxxad's dreadful seat of power. Oxxad's wretched form—hideous in every sense—leered over the shaman's prone body. Oxxad's narrow ribs gripped his seeping torso from the outside. The Xangu god's organs dangled uncomfortably from his unnaturally open abdomen; those organs were bountiful and unrecognisable to those learned in human anatomy. Between the legs of Oxxad were the slashed remnants of both male and female genitalia, the mutilation had been carried out in a definite pattern; it appeared ritualistic. Each hand carried digits numbering in the twenties, and each finger crept and bent in the manner of a spider leg. Beneath the dripping guts were the spindly legs holding Oxxad at his lofty height. He was the tallest creature in the Underworld. Looking up at Oxxad's face, Do Mugu saw his god's peeled lips and jagged teeth, the skin of Oxxad's face was pulled tight over a deformed skull. In place of eyes, the death god had obsidian lumps, shoved awkwardly into the sockets. A flock of doves, innocent and white, circled over him for all eternity. Beside Oxxad stood his grim totem of rotting corpses, the freshly dead were stacked at the top and the old bones were slowly turning to dust at the bottom.

"Ah, Master Shaman, my dear friend," Oxxad's voice was hissed through hell and into the nightmares of children. "You are always welcome in our domain."

"Lord Oxxad," the shaman responded with reverence, "I have a very special soul for you."

"I see that," rasped Oxxad with delight. "A demon's soul—we must make preparations!"

Do Mugu struggled to his feet, adjusting to his new hellacious soundings. "Demon," he said, speaking to Nosdyn's lingering soul, "Oxxad will take care of everything..."

Oxxad's laughter sliced into the shaman's statement. "Demon," the death god began, "your options... are... paradise, rebirth, or perhaps I can send you back to your own gods?" He fingered his own guts while he waited for Nosdyn to choose. Then, lastly, he made another offer. "Maybe," he grinned, "we can fix your old body and send you right back into the service of N'Jal? Hahahaha!!!"