Compromising the Castigars (Open)

[Gum do Mugu]

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.

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.”

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

[Gum do Mugu]

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.