- Adofo, the Sepow Executioner
- Djallon, Ram Warrior
- Mulweri, Tinyeleti Warrior
- Nwa Wa, Zombie Warrior General
Adofo sharpened his sepow knife against a large stone. He squatted in his golden armor without the arm and leg plates attached, knees bent, his forearms resting on his thighs as he held the knife steady with two hands while he moved the knife from side to side, back and forth. It made a soothing sound that Adofo used to induce a trance state that allowed him to sharpen for hours in that awkward position without needing to stretch his legs. He’d learned it from the other executioners who raised him from the time he was born from the statue of the Greatest Warrior that grew long ago in the Golden Basilica of the High Court of Fierce Justice, where proceedings involving serious capital offenses took place and death sentences were carried out. The executioners of the High Court are created to protect the court and the High Judges who preside over cases, and they are generated from the Greatest Warrior as executioners die to maintain a steady population of 80,000 Golden Greatest Warriors (replicas of the Greatest Warrior golden statue are created in terracotta at the High Court of Common Dispute, and in ivory at the High Court of Material Management and executioners created from them are maintained at populations of 40,000 each). Golden executioners start with adolescent bodies that undergo grueling training as they mature into adults. Older executioners are responsible for the training of new ones and resting like a statue is a virtue of the executioners. Standing, kneeling, crouching in place without movement is meditative to them.
“I was told I would find you here,” a stern, tenor voice sounded as a man approached Adofo from behind.
“Who are you?” Adofo asked without changing his position.
“I should ask you the same, unless it’s true that all executioners are the same, then I won’t bother because I came to know the executioner who sent me here well enough and can’t bare to have to listen to another of you ramble on about duty and justice, or duty to justice. I am Mulweri, brightest of the Tinyeleti and star child on a quest. I was told you could help me and that I would find you here in a contemplative trance that I risked my wellbeing to disturb you from. But regardless the risk to my wellbeing, I need the help of a golden executioner. The terracotta executioner I attempted to recruit in your place was shattered to pieces.”
Adofo stopped sharpening his knife and stood as he turned to look at the talkative man. He hadn’t listened to much the man had said until he heard mention of the terracotta executioner. The sepow in his hand gleamed in the golden light of the village that was connected to the Golden Basilica by walkways that obstructed billowing clouds of Divine Essence. Adofo was in a field of short, neatly cut yellow-green grass and there was little activity around him.
“Are you admitting to the murder of a terracotta executioner?” He eyed the man in his mostly white armor that seemed fragile compared to the heavy golden plates of his own. Even without the arm and leg plates–his skinny limbs noodling out of the remaining armor–Adofo’s armor was more impressive than the unassuming armor of this man.
“Is that the assumption you jump to? I murdered terracotta so I must be able to do the same to gold? You’ve got me wrong, executioner. I paid terracotta a lot of rhasd to accompany me, despite the objections of others who knew my goal and the weaknesses of the terracotta executioner. I thought all executioners of this disc were equally formidable so I tried to save some money, but the Golden executioner is worth their weight in rhasd, I hear. I should say that even with his fragility, terracotta was brave to the end.”
As the man laughed, Adofo’s face twisted with repulsion.
“Who are you? What Disc are you from?”
“Mulweri,” the man said with a bow from his waist and held his hands up at his side. “The suit of armor doesn’t give it away? It was designed to be readily recognizable.”
“To me? No, the maker of your armor failed in more ways than one.”
“Is it always a contest with the executioners? You all are programmed to spar over superficialities like who is stronger and whose armor reflects light more prismatically? Terracotta was sure that I was the weak link in our partnership and now he is just pieces. I am Mulweri of the Tinyeleti, and I was told that you could help me obtain a scale from the belly of an inkanyamba.”
“The Tinyeleti?” Adofo asked with quiet awe. He’d heard of the Tinyeleti before, but he’d never seen one in person, no one had. The Tinyeleti were mythical on all Discs of the Fonlands as stealth fighters and assassins who could move at the speed of light and dispatch a target before the target even knew what happened. The average Fonlander believed the Tinyeleti to just be stories to inspire Warriors to train harder, but the Tinyeleti were real, born of the space of Jo’s Disc and more formidable even than they are known in legend.
Adofo knew that Mulweri didn’t lie when he spoke of his origin and he dropped to one knee.
“You are mighty indeed,” Adofo said with wonder, averting his eyes to convey respect. “I apologize for my rudeness, I didn’t mean to insult your armor. I have studied the maneuvers of the Tinyeleti and I have immense respect for you all. The armor is lost to legend, there are no descriptions of it and I imagined something…better. Like executioner armor but…better. I’m not saying that executioner armor is better than yours…”
“Yes you did,” Mulweri said with a smirk. “But no matter, the legend of the Tinyeleti is not so fearsome that an inkanyamba would roll over and offer up a scale. With all the legends of our speed and strength, I am still in need of an executioner. If I could obtain a scale on my own, terracotta would still be alive and I wouldn’t be here. So, what do I have to offer you to lend your assistance? And stand up, please. It is much easier to talk when you’re not prostrate.”
Adofo stood. “If the Tinyeleti are even a fraction of the stories I’ve heard, then you don’t need help to defeat an inkanyamba.”
“I am amazing,” Mulweri said, “but the powers of the inkanyamba are specifically suited to be pests to Tinyeleti. They can control the weather in their immediate vicinity and the Tinyeleti are sensitive to changes in temperature. I risk my life to get too close to an inkanyamba without backup. And who better to have my back than an executioner who is well-versed in subduing inkanyambas. You are well versed in subduing inkanyambas aren’t you? Because Terracotta was very confident in his skills before he shattered.”
“Everyone underestimates the inkanyamba,”Adofo explained deliberately. “They are generally friendly unless provoked, and taking a scale from their belly is sure to provoke rage, even if the inkanyamba is friendly. Maybe have a sorcerer find you a belly scale that has already been removed from the inkanyamba.”
Mulweri shook his head slowly. “If these things were easy, then everyone would have access to unbelievable magic. I need it taken from the belly of an inkanyamba and then we need to bind it.”
“Do you mean to trap an inkanyamba in its belly scale?” Adofo asked with disbelief. “Is that real, too? I was sure that was nonsense.”
“It is practically nonsense because obtaining the belly scale from a live Inkanyamba is so difficult, but us warriors together, we can get it done.”
“But why bind an inkanyamba in one of its belly scales?” Adofo asked.
“To make transporting it much easier,” Mulweri said with a smile and he started to walk away from the spot where he’d met Adofo, and the golden executioner followed him dutifully. “Stick with me, Adofo was it? Stick with me and survive, and you will receive the blessings of the Vodun.”
Adofo was skeptical, but his curiosity dwarfed any apprehensions as he followed the Tinyeleti Warrior.
The dead, Tecan (her dead name, she had long since forgotten her name in life), was fearful of the black queen. When she came to Deads’ Town, Tecan would hide away in the stables behind the home she shared with her husband until the horses calmed long enough that she was sure the black queen had passed her by. The black queen was known to have a mercurial attitude and if her temper flared, she could turn her considerable power on any dead of her choosing, whomever happened to be in her line of sight in a given moment, and she could make them do her bidding because not only was she the black queen, but she was a general of the dead.
Once, Tecan witnessed the black queen in an argument with the benevolent Owuo in the center of town, and even though she was not bold enough to attack him in anger, she directed her power on a hapless dead who had been gawking as a bystander. The dead changed his body into the form of a fish and flipped around in the dirt until it eventually stopped moving. Tecan was horrified as the black queen screamed at Owuo, “I will make them all limp fishes, unless you give me what I ask for!” Tecan had no idea what she demanded from Owuo, but she knew that she didn’t want to end up as a limp fish, so she fled the scene and hid in her home until the black queen was gone.
When the armored warrior approached Tecan as she cleaned the stoop of her home and asked about the black queen, Tecan was understandably suspicious of the warrior whose head was covered in a large helmet, and no part of their body was exposed.
“I am not looking for trouble,” the warrior said as gently as they could, but the echo of their voice inside the armor made it intimidating and Tecan would have fled inside if she wasn’t so frightened that she froze. “I was told that Nwa Wa would be here and I can’t dwell here for long. I need to find her so that I can get out of this town as soon as possible.”
Tecan didn’t move, she couldn’t.
“Great,” the heavily armored warrior said with exasperation. “I guess I will never find her.”
Tecan was paralyzed with fear and then she saw the source of all of her dread. Tecan fainted, completely collapsed into herself like all of the air or whatever material filled out her dead form was suddenly gone and her shell crumpled into a pile.
“How dare you murder a dead!” A voice shouted and the heavily armored warrior turned to see Nwa Wa in her pale mask and black skeleton armor.
“I didn’t murder a dead! I came here to find you. Mulweri sent me to find you. He needs your help on the disc of Xêvioso and I need to get out of this town before this armor fails and I become a dead myself.”
“Who are you? The warriors who connected me to Mulweri are no more and there hasn’t been a 4Warriors collective since.”
“I am Djallon, and he said that you would say that. But if you come with me you will see that a new collective has formed, though, if I don’t leave soon, you will be recruiting another fourth for your collective.”
Djallon couldn’t see it because of the pale mask, but Nwa Wa was delighted. She used her exposed hand to cast a spell that instantly transported the armored warriors from Deads’ Town and to the overlap between Lêgba and Xêvioso’s Discs. They stood on the rainbow that encircled Xêvioso’s Disc, but because they were on the overlap with Lêgba’s, the rainbow wasn’t a smooth, flat plane, but a series of platforms in the various colors of the rainbow to coincide with the spectrum where it was located. The walls of the Celestial Library were also visible from a distance in the overlap. The space of Lêgba’s and Xêvioso’s Discs that was contained inside of the overlap was full of billowing clouds of Divine Essence, but instead of being tinted golden yellow like the environment of Xêvioso’s Disc because of the abundance of Divine Essence clouds, there was a grayish tint to the blue clouds and the sky was black without any view of stars.
“Mulweri is not at the rainbow yet,” Djallon said as her helmet opened and retracted into her armor.
“I can’t believe a real live Fonlander survived a visit to Deads’ Town, no matter how brief it was,” Nwa Wa said behind her pale mask.
“Can you take us to where Mulweri is currently?” Djallon said, ignoring Nwa Wa’s observation. “I’m sure he could use our help…”
“Do you know what Deads’ Town is?” Nwa Wa asked incredulously. “How were you able to dwell there? This is some shit, after all this time I don’t hear from Mulweri and I assume that there must be a new set of 4Warriors of the Fonlands because I haven’t been summoned to do anything for a long time, and then I get a summons to meet you in Deads Town. I don’t live there by the way, you had no reason to enter Deads’ Town, I was pretty close to Xêvioso’s Disc when you came calling on me to the one place living things can’t go. Why did you summon me to Deads’ Town?”
“I was told it was where to find you,” Djallon said firmly and she stood close to Nwa Wa, staring down at her pale mask.
“So quick to violence,” Nwa Wa said. “Warriors from Gu’s Disc aren’t usually chosen as 4Warriors, you must be exceptional. If you are what you say you are, of course.”
Djallon frowned at Nwa Wa, then turned away from her, toward the gray-blue clouds of Divine Essence.
“We’re wasting time,” she said finally. “I am a friend of Mulweri and I was sent to bring you to help him. We thought you’d be in Deads’ Town because we couldn’t detect you anywhere else in the Fonlands. I’m not trying to trick you or waste your time, I’m just trying to get to my friend, who I thought was your friend. Can you take us to him?”
“We have legs to walk, and plenty of time for you to convince me you are trustworthy and really the friend of my friend.”
“You’re risking our friend’s life.”
“Mulweri is formidable, he will survive. Now, tell me more about yourself, Warrior of the Disc of Gu.”
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